“You n-never asked!”
“Is your stammer even real? Or do you fake it to make people think you simpleminded? That would be very clever of you.”
“Of c-course it’s real! You think I like speaking this way?” Eve cried. “I’m n-not a spy! Did you find anything suspicious in m-my room?”
“This.” Tapping the Luger’s barrel against the carved arm of his chair. “Why didn’t you turn this weapon in when the Germans forbade civilians to own weapons?”
“I c-couldn’t part with it, it was my f-f-f—”
“Stop stuttering!” he roared so suddenly her flinch was entirely real. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
There was his real fear, Eve thought. That he had been made a fool of. Was he remembering all the pillow talk, all the gossip he had dropped in her ear? Or wondering what would happen to his favored status if the Germans found out his mistress had been feeding secrets to England?
The former, Eve thought, more than the latter. It wasn’t German trust and German favors he most feared losing, but his pride. René Bordelon had to be the cleverest man in the room, always. What an unbearable thought, the possibility that a know-nothing girl half his age could have been so much cleverer.
Too bad Eve didn’t feel clever at the moment. All she felt was terrified.
You can get out of this, she thought, because thinking the alternative was unbearable. But what then? Even if she convinced René she was innocent, her time at Le Lethe would be over. She was finished in Lille, regardless of any orders from Allenton, and that failure stabbed—but if she could just get away, perhaps she could be stationed somewhere else.
And a sweeter thought yet drifted through her head: I will never have to share a bed with René Bordelon again.
Perhaps her eyes sparked, because he sat forward sharply. “What are you thinking? Why are you—”
He was just close enough. Eve hadn’t planned it, but she snapped her foot out like a whip, catching the Luger’s barrel. Just a glancing blow, but it spun the pistol out of René’s hand toward the fireplace. No time to grab for it; Eve lunged the other way, toward the door. If she could get through while he scrabbled for the pistol, get to the stairs, then she had a chance to escape into the streets of Lille. She wouldn’t risk the trains; she’d walk across the border to Belgium. All of that went through her mind like a splinter of ice as she lunged across the sumptuous carpet. She got one hand on the doorknob, silver polished diamond bright, and thought, I can make it.
But René didn’t scramble for the gun. He came straight after her, and as Eve’s fingers tightened on the study’s doorknob, his arm descended in a short, brutal arc. The miniature bust of Baudelaire smashed down on Eve’s hand.
The impact lanced up her right arm in a bolt of white-hot pain. She heard a distinct crunch as three knuckles in her first two fingers shattered, crushed between the bust and the doorknob. She found herself on her knees before the door, gasping as wave after wave of agony coursed through her. She saw René’s shining shoes approach, saw the small marble bust swinging rather casually from his hand as he came to stand, breathing hard, between her and the door.
“Well,” she managed to say through pain-clenched teeth, clutching her trembling hand. “Goddammit.”
She said it unthinkingly in English, not French, and she heard René’s sharp intake of breath. He squatted down beside her so their eyes could meet at the same level, and his gaze was alight with—what? Fear, doubt. Above all, fury. “You are a spy,” he breathed, and there was no more doubt in his voice.
There it was. Eve had given herself away. After fearing such a moment for so long, it fell curiously flat. Perhaps because she knew there was nothing she could have said to convince him she was innocent. Why not admit guilt?
He wrapped his free hand around her throat, those extraordinarily long fingers pressing almost to the back of her neck. He never released the bust in his other hand, and she knew how easily he could bring it around to crush her temple. “Who are you?”
Her hand hurt so badly, Eve could barely breathe. She sank her teeth into the scream rising in her throat until it died unborn. She managed a crooked little smile, not pulling against his grip, just nailing her eyes to his. Giving him her own gaze for once, and not his demure little pet’s.
She might very well die here in this warm, luxurious room. But just once, she wanted to throw it in his face how badly he had been duped. She could curse herself for such a rash, prideful impulse, but she had no power to resist it.
“My name is Eve,” she breathed, every word smooth as silk. “Eve, not fucking Marguerite. And yes: I am a spy.”
He stared, transfixed. Eve switched to German.
“I speak perfect German, you profiteering coward, and I’ve been eavesdropping on your precious customers for months.”
She watched the horror, the disbelief, the rage crowd his eyes. She managed another smile and added one more thing in French, just for good measure.
“I will not tell you one single solitary fact about my work, my friends, or the woman I was arrested with. But I will tell you this, René Bordelon. You’re a gullible fool. You’re a terrible lover. And I hate Baudelaire.”
CHAPTER 29
CHARLIE
May 1947
Go back to the hotel, Charlie. Get some sleep.” Finn sat half buried in the car’s shadows, buttoning his shirt. Avoiding my eyes. My whole body still thrummed from what had just happened, and I sat for a moment trying to find the words to tell him how different this had been from anything else I’d ever had. But Finn looked at me, and I could see him back behind his walls again, impossible to reach. “Get to bed, lass.”
“I’m not leaving you here to brood,” I answered quietly. I wasn’t ever doing it again—leaving someone I cared for to fight their demons alone.
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m going next door, back to the café. I have some apologies to make.”
It sounded like a start, something to make him feel more himself again, so I nodded. We slid out of the car on opposite sides, stood for a moment looking at each other over the Lagonda’s roof. I thought for a moment Finn was going to say something, and then his eyes dropped to my bruised mouth and he flinched. “Good night.”