Page 110 of Daughters of Paris

Colette pursed her lips. ‘You’re a dove. Not a pigeon. Delicate and beautiful. But if you can’t see that Laurent is completely desperate to tear your clothes off whenever he looks at you, then you have got the intelligence of a pigeon. I’ve seen enough men to know what lust looks like.’

Fleur twisted her hands. ‘Oh yes, I know that. I don’t want to though. Not if it only means something special to me.’

‘You think too much.’ Colette sighed. ‘Just go to bed with him. It will be fun.’

‘He won’t, even though he’s said he wants to.’ Fleur picked at a hole in her skirt. ‘He’s probably right not to because I think that if I discovered we were compatible in that way and it still didn’t mean anything to him it would destroy me. I’d rather not find out.’

Colette sagged back against the pillow. Perhaps Fleur was right. After all, what had going to bed with Sébastien achieved? Far better that she had continued to view him as someone who despised her silliness than realise too late that they cared for each other.

‘I wish you could be happy, Fleur. I wish all the happiness in the world for you.’

‘I know you do. And I am happy most of the time.’ She leaned up the bed and stroked the baby’s cheek. ‘I’m very happy now this little one has come into the world safely. Are you going to tell your parents?’

Colette’s throat constricted. Her euphoria ebbed slightly. ‘Why? My mother has disowned me and now I am going to keep her there will be no chance of reconciling, even if I wanted to.’

‘Your father hasn’t though. Don’t you think he would like to know he has a granddaughter?’

Colette gazed at the baby. Louis would have been overjoyed if his grandchild had been the product of a respectable, successful marriage. An illegitimate wartime baby sired by a waiter was a different matter.

Fleur stood. ‘I have to go out soon. I have work tonight. I could visit the house and tell them?’

‘No, don’t do that. If I decide to tell them I will do it myself. But not for a few days at least. Apart from anything else, I don’t think I could walk that far. What do you have to do tonight?’ she asked innocently. Fleur always referred to what she did as ‘work’ but never spoke of specifics. Colette had tried to get her to drop hints, but she always refused, as she did now with a smile.

‘I’m not going to tell you that, as you know. The fewer people who know, the safer everyone will be.’

‘But what if something goes wrong?’ Colette was gripped by an intense fear. Panic made her want to climb from the bed and hold Fleur but the baby settled against her breast, preventing her from moving.

‘That is precisely why I am not telling you. It is dangerous enough that you know I am involved at all. If something goes wrong, you are safer being able to honestly deny all knowledge, just like when the men came looking for Sébastien. I’ll get you the water.’

She kissed Colette’s head, bundled up the used towels and left.

Colette drifted in and out of sleep and woke again when Fleur knocked at the door. She held a carafe of water and a plate containing two biscuits. She was dressed in black trousers and a dark grey sweater. Her hair was swept back and caught under a blue headscarf.

‘I won’t tell your parents if you don’t want me to, but someone needs to know you are here and that the baby has arrived in case anything happens. I will tell Mademoiselle Dufroy in the apartment next door so she can check on you in the evening. I’ll leave the door on the latch.’

She walked to the bed and kissed Colette’s cheek, then stroked the baby’s downy cheek. ‘I am so pleased for you, my dear.’

She left, and Colette tried to go back to sleep. Drifting in and out of wakefulness, Colette wasn’t sure how happy she was. She awoke to the smell of soup. The old woman from the apartment next door was standing over her bed.

‘The best thing for after a labour,’ she said as she took the baby from Colette’s arms and replaced it with a tray holding a bowl of onion soup. The soup was thin and the onions were sparse and it lacked the beefy brandyish depth of the soup that Delphine would make for the girls when they were ill as children, but it had the same comforting associations.

No not Delphine.TanteAgnes had made it, of course. Delphine had never actually mothered Colette. When Mademoiselle Dufroy exchanged the bowl for the baby once more, Colette kissed the bridge of her nose just between her downy eyebrows.

‘I am going to be the best mother in France to you, my little one,’ she swore.

She slept again and awoke in darkness when the baby began to whimper and sniffle.

‘More milk? Surely not,’ she exclaimed wearily. She had just changed the baby from the left breast to the right one when the front door clicked open and shut. Shortly afterwards, Fleur tiptoed past the doorway, her shoes in her hand. Colette called her in.

‘I’m sorry, did I wake you? I was trying to be so quiet.’ Fleur put her shoes down and perched on the end of the bed.

‘You didn’t,’ Colette assured her. ‘This little mademoiselle appears to have an empty belly again. Did everything go to plan?’

‘Mostly. Eventually.’ Fleur rubbed the soles of her feet.

Colette studied her closely. Her hair was still neatly tied beneath the headscarf, but there were damp patches on her elbows and knees. ‘What happened? Can you tell me anything?’

‘I was escorting someone and we almost walked straight into a German patrol. He escaped from a camp somewhere and is trying to reach Switzerland. The conditions he described sounded awful.’

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