“It’s Navarre. His trial is over and... and he’s been sentenced to death.” She covered her face with her hands, but hiding her tears didn’t conceal the shaking of her shoulders.
Marcel wasn’t given to cursing, but a few choice words filled his mind at that. He checked traffic and pulled away from the curb. Breath escaped him. Thought escaped him. He could only drive through the familiar neighborhood with its white stone and cheerful paint and try to wrap his mind around it. “Not... not a camp?”
Horrible things, yes, but they left a chance of survival.
“Not a camp. He’s to be executed next month. On the thirteenth.” Her shoulders curled forward.
His building was already in sight. Marcel parked and then rested a hand on her arm. “I’m so sorry, Zelie. I know he was a friend.”
“He saw something in me no one else did, at a time when I was so desperate formore.” Her voice hesitated, then rushed.Rubato, no set beat.
He ran his thumb over her wrist. “Is there any chance of helping him escape?”
Zelie shrugged and wiped at her cheeks. “What do we know of such things? We’re not some kind of special military group, we’re just...people.”
“MI6?”
She snorted. “All they care about is whether he met anyone in Algiers that can be of use to them.Find someone on the ground in North Africa,they keep saying.North Africa is key.Even Blanchet keeps asking about it, every time he comes by.”
He wanted to say they’d fix it. He wanted to be able tohelp, not just to listen. He wanted to plot out a daring escape, be the hero.
All he could do was give her arm a squeeze. “Give me five minutes. I’ll be right back. And I’m happy to drive to Cannes if you want me to.”
She nodded but didn’t so much as look at him, just stared at the dashboard.
He let himself out and jogged into his building, up the stairs, and down the corridor to 3B. It should be a comfort that she considered him a friend—enough of one that she let herselffeelin his presence, let herself cry, let herself break. When she’d gotten the news at the villa, she’d have stood strong before the others, because that was what they needed.
He was glad she could be vulnerable with him, even if he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d won that honor. The music, most likely. Music was about emotion as much as skill, and he’d seen her heart in it that first morning in Grigoryan’s mansion. No doubt she had seen his in all the little impromptu recitals she’d caught him in at the various places they’d met around Marseille.
Last week, she’d beaten him there, andshewas the one holdingthe patrons enthralled with her heartfelt rendition of Beethoven’s “Pathétique” Sonata.
It was the music that had bound them together from the start. Helped them get to know each other quickly.
If only he could blame the music for the way his heart galloped every time she came into a room, the anticipation that flooded his veins every Wednesday when he knew he’d see her. The way his chest squeezed every morning, every night when he prayed for her, like he’d promised he would.
He let himself into his flat and tossed necessities into his bag. Given that he traveled every weekend, he had the process down to a science, quickly executed. A few changes of clothes, the personal hygiene items he would never again take for granted after life in a POW camp, a book, some sheet music he needed to review.
Before flying back out the door, though, he paused to survey the space. Lodging was hard to come by in Marseille, given all the refugees stuck here. He’d been lucky to find this place. A single room that doubled as bedroom and living room, with a tiny table shoved against a wall. A miniature kitchen, a cramped bath. And he paid dearly for it.
His hand tightened on the knob. He’d been making a living with his music for years, but not the kind of living Zelie would be used to. Both she and Colonel Bellerose came from families with money. Her mother still owned the family property in Marseille, as well as the estate outside of Cannes. Sure, Zelie lived with the bare necessities now—she’d chosen a tiny closet of a room for her own at the villa and routinely gave her rations to agents traveling through, claiming they needed it more than she did.
But the war wouldn’t last forever. No matter the outcome, she’d get to go back to the life she was used to. Automobiles and estates, travel and adventure, fancy schools for her children and a box at the Opera.
And Marcel... what were his options? Continue with theyouth orchestra or something similar, or rejoin one as a pianist. Exactly what he wanted from life, yes. But not the sort of existence that a woman like Zelie would want. What she deserved.
She was, in every way, out of his league, both as a woman and as his boss. He needed to get his pulse under control and be what she needed him to be.
A friend. A lieutenant. Nothing more.
Pep talk given, he locked up and hurried back down to her Citroën. Zelie still sat where he’d left her, staring vacantly. He stowed his suitcase in the back seat and took the wheel again. “I’ll be able to get us to Cannes, but after that you’ll have to give me directions.”
She nodded, proving she wasn’t completely locked inside her own mind.
“Who all was at the villa when you got the news?” Some of the standards, like Lucien, he could assume were present. But had anyone been there who’d have offered support instead of needing it from her?
“The usual crew, and Blanchet was passing through.”
Hence, he supposed, the comment about his interest in Algiers. “He never even met Navarre,” he mused.
