Page 65 of Daughters of Paris

Fleur couldn’t deny it; she’d been guilty of misjudging Colette too. She consoled herself with the thought that if her friends did kiss it would be a fire that quickly burned out. Perhaps it was best to let it rather than trying to stop it igniting at all. She smiled back.

‘Well, when we speak to him on Wednesday, he won’t be able to say that any longer.’

Chapter Eighteen

Wednesday felt a long time coming. Fleur left a note at the Café Morlaix asking Sébastien to meet her in the apartment above the bookshop later that afternoon. As the time drew near Colette paced the room, unable to settle. She straightened bookshelves and ornaments, washed and dried every piece of crockery and cutlery, and rearranged the furniture so that the comfy chairs were in front of the window. Fleur sat at the dining table, working her way through a bag of darning and mending she had brought.

‘I don’t know how you can be so calm,’ Colette told her, more than once.

‘I’m not,’ Fleur replied. ‘I’m just tense sitting still.’

‘Will we hear the doorbell from up here?’

Fleur bit off a length of thread between her teeth. ‘Sébastien has his own key. He can let himself in.’

‘Oh.’ Colette felt a tightening in her ribs. ‘What does he need that for?’

‘A cousin of his stayed here a couple of nights ago on her way through the city.’ Fleur wrinkled her nose. ‘At least, he said she was his cousin.’

‘Don’t you believe him?’ Colette asked sharply. ‘He isn’t using it to conduct an affair, is he?’ Although she had assured Fleur she was not serious about Sébastien, she didn’t intend to share him with another woman. Her affairs might be fleeting but she intended to be the only object of her lover’s attention.

‘I teased him about that.’ Fleur twisted a half-darned stocking around her fingers. ‘I actually wonder now if she was someone using the methods we are hoping to make use of.’

‘I wonder.’ During the conversation over the unpaid book bills Sébastien had mentioned people risking themselves. Did he have first-hand knowledge of the process?

He arrived ten minutes later and greeted Fleur with a kiss to each cheek. After a brief hesitation he did the same to Colette, holding onto her shoulders slightly longer than was necessary. Fleur had prepared a pot of what passed for coffee and they sat around the table.

‘How did your cousin find her stay? Frances, wasn’t it?’ Fleur asked.

Sébastien paused for slightly longer than he should have needed to before replying,

‘Francine. Yes, I think she was comfortable. She didn’t leave a mess, did she?’

Fleur didn’t answer. She laced her fingers together on top of the table and caught Colette’s eye. She raised her brows questioningly. Colette nodded. Now there was no going back.

‘I need to know if I can trust you with a life-or-death secret,’ she said.

‘You already did,’ Sébastien replied. His eyes flickered to Colette and back to Fleur, including them both in his answer. ‘Of course you can. When have I ever proven untrustworthy?’

‘You haven’t.’ Fleur drummed her fingers on the table.

Colette leaned forwards, watching carefully. She was not a part of their secret life though she longed to be included, not only because it would draw her closer to Sébastien. While she had been fooling around with accessories and pretending that dancing was bravery, they had been defying the German authorities. They had courage that she lacked. She wanted to be fearless but still, she felt a sense of terror at what Fleur was about to say.

‘If I wanted to help a person leave the city, how would I go about it?’

Sébastien leaned back in his chair. He removed his glasses and rubbed the lenses on his shirt, peering at Fleur. ‘This person cannot leave by their own devices?’

‘Sadly not,’ Fleur said. ‘If we knew of somebody living in a location who could not leave and must not be discovered, do you think it would be possible for them to be helped?’

Colette suppressed a sigh. This careful dancing around the subject could go on all afternoon.

‘We are looking after the man who was the concierge from my family’s apartment building. He is a Jew. He needs to get out of the city. Do you know how we can contact someone who can help him?’

‘You are sheltering a Jew?’ Sébastien’s eyes widened and he put his glasses back on to stare at Colette closely. ‘Are you insane? Do you realise how dangerous that is for you both?’

‘Of course we know it is dangerous. That’s why we’re asking for help in confidence,’ Fleur answered.

‘We have known him all our lives,’ Colette said defensively. ‘It is all my doing. Fleur didn’t know anything about it. If anyone should get into trouble, it should be me.’

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