Page 117 of Daughters of Paris

‘It isn’t your fault,’ Laurent said. ‘You don’t know that is the case. Besides, if he really wanted to cause me harm, he would not have said anything about themarché noirbut would have accuse me of being asaboteuror aresisteur, wouldn’t he?’

Fleur’s mind went back to the bitter words Pierre had flung at her. ‘I don’t know. He made an empty threat about that to me, but I told him he would be the first person I implicated.’

Laurent’s hand tightened on hers, bordering on painful. She had rarely seen him truly angry but now he looked incandescent. ‘You should have told me. I would have beaten the living shit out of him for that and saved us both a lot of trouble. As soon as I am well, perhaps I might anyway.’

A hand tightened around Fleur’s throat. Her skin felt clammy. ‘I’ll do that myself when I catch up with him.’

‘No, you won’t.’

She had only shifted slightly on the edge of the bed, but Laurent’s hand moved to her wrist. Not painfully but firm enough that she would not be able to break free and was left with no uncertainty about his opinion.

‘If it was him then why let him know his plan worked? If it wasn’t him then why give him ideas or accuse him of something so base and cowardly?’

She dropped her head. Laurent did not release her.

‘Fleur, I have only ever asked of you things you are happy to do. Now I must order you to let this matter lie. The consequences could be dire for more than just us. Our whole network relies on discretion. It is bad enough that I have caught the eye of the authorities. I don’t know what Elouard or his superiors will say, but they won’t be happy. Anything else will make matters worse.’

‘I don’t like it,’ Fleur murmured.

‘Neither do I,’ Laurent answered. ‘But right now all I care about is that I am alive and you are safe. We have greater work to do than to settle petty scores. Promise me you will leave it.’

‘I promise.’ One day, however, she would get revenge, she told herself.

Thankfully, her answer seemed to satisfy Laurent for now because he released her hand and lay back. He winced as his back touched the pillow and gasped between closed teeth.

‘Does it hurt a great deal?’ Fleur asked.

‘It’s starting to now. At first the pain was agonising, but after a while it became so hard to distinguish one ache from another that everything blurred.’ Laurent motioned to the bottle of wine. Fleur topped up his glass and he took a deeper swig. ‘I think I might have cracked a rib or two.’

Fleur tentatively reached out a hand and ran her fingers lightly over his ribcage. He winced and sucked his teeth but gave her a weak smile.

‘Mmm, that is definitely helping me feel better.’

‘Behave yourself,’ she told him. She smiled back though, relieved that he was able to make light of his injuries. ‘You’re so brave.’

He shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. ‘The lack of sleep was the worst thing. That and the hunger. Not that I could have kept food down in any case.’

‘Oh, I brought you a pear,’ Fleur said. She reached for it. ‘I can cut it up if you want.’

Laurent smiled and she took it as a yes. She sliced the quarter into three and offered him a slice. He tried to raise his hand but it trembled and he lowered it, giving a grunt of frustration. She couldn’t bear seeing the arms that had held her so securely in such a weakened state.

‘Let me help.’

She held the slice to his lips and fed it to him. He sucked it into his mouth and chewed. She held out a second piece. Syrup dribbled down her fingers. This time Laurent gave her a suggestive look and darted his tongue out to lick at them. She almost dropped the slice in astonishment. A craving to be touched flooded her senses. She held up another slice, slipping it into his waiting mouth and running her thumb over his lips. He closed his eyes and gave a small sigh.

‘I should allow myself to get arrested more often if this is the result.’

Fleur pulled her hand back. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Don’t joke about it. You might have died.’

His lips twitched. ‘I know. I expected at any moment to get a bullet to the back of the head. Whenever I close my eyes, I can see their faces as they kept repeating the same questions over and over. The lack of expression as they hurt me. The stench of the room floods back.’ His voice was little more than a whisper and all signs of joking melted from his face as his eyes took on a faraway look. Then he shuddered violently.

‘Fleur, will you do something for me? Go to the dressing table and bring me the shaving brush.’

She obeyed the odd request. His face was rough with three days’ worth of stubble but it hardly seemed a priority.

‘It’s stiff, but if you push the handle down towards the bristles, it unscrews. Can you manage it? Then you’ll have to use a fingernail to prise out the bung.’

Mystified, Fleur obeyed again. Sure enough, the wooden handle unscrewed in an anti-clockwise direction and the two parts separated. She dug her thumbnail around the hair-thin ridge inside the thread. Something dropped onto her knee and rolled under the bed. She knelt and retrieved it then held it out in her palm. It was a thin piece of wood identical to the one the handle was made from. She smiled in delight. The handle of the brush was hollow and there was something inside it. A small paper package. She unfolded it and revealed five small pills. Three round and white, two elongated and pink. She looked at Laurent with a question on her lips. He answered it before she spoke.

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