Chapter Twenty-Four #2
Marcel’s gaze flew to hers. “Not good news.”
“No.”
“What do you want me to do?” He read through the page even as he asked.
“Do you remember what Anne told us about the place when Gabriel was held there? About how she was finally able to communicate with him?”
“Of course.” He lowered the page to his lap and looked up at her again. “The laundry.”
The guards allowed—or rather, required—the family of the prisoners to do their laundry, otherwise it didn’t get done.
They searched it all, both coming and going, but Anne had managed to sneak a few notes through, and Gabriel had done the same.
It was how they’d gotten the final message from him, which Marcel had included in the report of his execution.
Tell M not to blame himself. In here, I’ve come to know the great Composer. I die with a clear conscience, as a true Frenchman. Vive la France!
“Find a way to get messages to and from Lucien using the same means, if you can. If he has any idea why they’ve moved him to Paris, I’d like to know. And if there’s anything we can do for him.”
Marcel nodded. “Consider it done. Anything else I can do while I’m away?”
“Not that I can think of yet.” After checking to make sure no one else was in sight, she leaned her chair onto its back legs so she could reach out and rest a hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said softly. “And sorry you’re leaving again so soon.”
He lifted her hand, placed a lingering kiss on her knuckles, and gave her that dimpled grin that crowded her thoughts even when it shouldn’t. “You sound like you need some Vivaldi.”
Laughter filled her throat. “I wouldn’t complain.”
Marcel moved to the piano, and though she should get back to work, she watched him for a moment instead.
Years ago, she’d listened to her friends titter over the handsome face on his posters.
When she’d met him nearly a year and a half ago, she’d seen the charm those posters could never capture.
But it was watching him play old, battered pianos that had won her heart.
He played for the joy she wanted to live with again. He played to bring that joy to others. He played to acknowledge the gift God had given him and to share it.
Love for him ached, pulsed, shone.
His fingers settled on the keys, and soon the familiar, cheerful tune of the “Spring” section of The Four Seasons sang its way into the room.
How could one’s heart do anything but lift in response to the quick, happy notes?
She turned back to her reports, sighing when she got to one of the recent updates from London.
More and more chatter was being intercepted from the Germans that included her agents’ call signs.
She grinned a bit to read that the Nazis were apparently quite frustrated by this “Noah’s Ark of a network of traitors,” but it didn’t last long.
MI6 wasn’t certain if the Nazis’ information was coming from captured agents, their own interception technology, or if it indicated a leak “in the hull of the ark like before.”
Her lips pressed together. Emile’s betrayal continued to haunt them.
By the time she got through her reports, Marcel was finishing up a piece she recognized as being one of his original compositions.
He only ever played those sandwiched between exceptionally challenging and famous pieces by other composers, so that by the time he stood up, no one even remembered to ask about what that other song had been.
Humble Marcel. She stood and moved over to the piano, catching his gaze as he struck the last sweet note. His gaze was part warning, part challenge, asking if she meant to call him out.
She smiled and pasted innocence on her face as she propped her elbow on the upright’s lid. “Do you take requests, monsieur?” she asked in a bright voice.
His dimple appeared. “Of course. What do you fancy, madame? Chopin? Rachmaninoff? Mozart?”
She pursed her lips as she considered the songs he’d be least likely to know. She went for a new one by Marie-José. So far as she knew, he never listened to sappy modern ballads. “Do you know ‘le Bar de l’escadrille’?”
Oh, that glint in his eye made her want to lean down and kiss him. Challenge accepted, it said, right before he tickled out the melody of the refrain with his right hand. “This one?”
She laughed. Really, she ought to have known better. “That’s the one.”
His brows rose. “Am I accompanying you, madame?” Challenge issued.
She grinned. “All right.”
He launched into the mournful introduction, setting her up perfectly to begin the lyrics that had resonated with so many people around France.
The words told of the innocent boys who had marched to defend their homeland, laughing and singing in their squadron bar the night before battle .
. . only to meet fire and death that silenced the song.
Sorrowful, to be sure . . . but it ended with hope. Faith that someday, the squadron bar would once more ring with joy and music, that peace would find them again.
Zelie sang as she often did, eyes either closed or focused only on the piano, on Marcel. So when applause and whistles exploded after Marcel’s final, victorious major chords after the minor song, she spun around in shock.
Every agent at the hotel had gathered, smiles on all their faces—even the ones who’d been creased with worry earlier that day.
“Encore!” Marguerite shouted, and the rest took up the demand.
She sang two more songs before their cook came in to say dinner was ready. While the others filed out, she continued to lean on the piano. “How do you remember so many songs? Even ones you’ve surely never seen the sheet music for?”
Marcel stood and pushed the bench back underneath the keyboard. “How do you remember every contact in Alliance, even the ones you’ve never met before?”
“Touché.” Since they were the only ones left in the room, she let the tips of her fingers brush over his wrist as she turned toward the exit.
He let her get nearly to the door before snagging her by the waist, spinning her around, and pressing her to the wall—out of sight of anyone in the hallway—with a spark of mischief in his eyes and a matching grin on his lips.
“I love you,” he murmured a moment before his mouth claimed hers.
Her head swam as she kissed him, like it had every other time.
A reminder that there was still joy, even in a world of sorrow.
Still light, even in a world of darkness.
Still music, even in a world of silence.
It didn’t last long, that kiss, but it would buoy her up until he came back from Rouen.
“You know,” she whispered when he’d put a breath of space between them, “I love the notes you leave me. But I do believe I like hearing it even more from your lips.”
Those lips kissed her again. “I love you.” Again. “I love you.” Again. “I love you.”
She’d honestly believed she’d never say those words to a man again. But for him, they tasted like music on her tongue. “I love you.” She couldn’t resist one more kiss.
And couldn’t regret it, even when a familiar throat clearing had Marcel easing back a step. Zelie looked over to find Marguerite half in the door, grinning like an absolute imp.
Her friend lifted a finger. “I’ll say it once, then my lips are sealed. I told you so.”
Zelie didn’t mind at all.