Eyes wide, Zelie opened her mouth, not sure exactlyhowto chide her friend for such audacity... and then didn’t bother, when Léon laughed.
Amusement twinkled behind his glasses as the laughter died down to a smile. “You may be onto something there, Chamois.” Marguerite’s handle was for the goat-antelopes she’d watched frolic in the Alps at her summer home as a child.
Zelie relaxed. And looked at Navarre’s old friend with new eyes. “I can forgive you. And I trust that you’ll represent us well in London.” She splayed a hand over the closed folder. “Though I still don’t know how they honestly expect us to help them take North Africa. It seems as ambitious now as it did when Navarre told me of your original plan.”
Léon granted that with a tilt of his head. “There are still so many assets there we could put into play—but the Brits and Americans aren’t going to be relying on seizing a few key government positions. They’re thinking numbers, if I guess aright. Force. A whole campaign, not a conspiracy.”
What would Navarre have thought of it? He certainly had believed North Africa was pivotal to the Allies’ plan... and to an eventual retaking of France. Perhaps he’d been right in that part, even if he’d chosen the wrong way to go about it.
But perhaps this was therightway. Perhaps if Alliance could give the Allies what they needed, they could do this. Notjustas a tribute to their founder... but it could still be one. She nodded. “Tell them we’ll do whatever they need us to. I trust you’ll have the insight they need into who should rally what French troops remain.”
Though he shrugged, Léon didn’t look as though he doubtedhimself. “I’ll offer whatever I know.” Standing, he said, “I’ll check in when I get back. The hotel?”
“The hotel. Go with God, Kestrel.”
He gave a grinning salute and left the room, briefcase in hand.
They waited for him to leave and then followed a few minutes later. Dusk was falling, casting the brick alleyway in shadows that were more atmospheric than deep. She cast her eyes heavenward, willing a few stars to be visible, though she knew it was far too early.
Just a glimpse.That was all she needed. A glimpse to remind her of her children. The belief that they were waiting for a glimpse too, in Geneva.
She jumped when a figure straightened from a slouch on the wall beside the window she’d staked out earlier. Her heart thudded. Leapt. Wept. “Marcel?” True to his word in January, he had never sought her out. Not once.
Which meant something must be wrong.
Twenty-Three
The news bulletin weighed like lead in his pocket as Marcel tromped through the night, flashlight in hand but not switched on. He could just make out the darker shadows of the rest of the ground crew ahead of him, and he followed them carefully, as he knew his young pianist, René Faye, was followinghim.
He knew, vaguely, which fields Alliance used for the Lysander landings. But he’d never been one of the people to greet the plane before. It had never been his job, not in his purview.
His purview was likely to change soon. So it was either learn something new... or become obsolete.
Maybe that would be for the best. Maybe he should leave a message for Zelie saying he was joining his brother in Pau and then do exactly that. Maybe that would be wiser than finding ways to remind her of his love.
Maybe he would, if she stopped showing up outside the Alliance-owned bistro every Wednesday night to listen to him play from the alleyway. Or if, every time shedidsee him, she didn’t somehow end up in his arms, even though she always fled again.Or if his heart didn’t break into a million scattered notes at the mere thought.
It was one thing not to see her. Another altogether to remove the possibility.
She cared for him. Maybe it wasn’t love, only attraction or affection. He didn’t dare ascribe to her anything more. But what if it wasn’thimholding her back—his background, his inability to provide the life she was used to, his relative unimportance in this work? What if it was fear?
He only knew of one remedy for fear: perfect love.
Well, he was far from perfect... but he couldn’t help but try. Her parting words in January kept echoing in his mind like a musical phrase cut off too quickly. Unresolved. Dissonant.
But I’m still like me.
He ducked under a branch before it could smack him in the head. He hated that she thought being herself was an argument against lasting love. And wanted to show her thatmewas exactly who she was meant to be. That he didn’t love herdespitewho she was, butforit.
For every strength. Every ounce of courage. Every hard choice, every risk, every sacrifice. For every doubt, every prayer, every song in her heart.
“Are we almost there?” René’s voice came in a low murmur from behind him, along with the rustling of the leaves the young man shoved aside.
“I think so.” Usually, it would have been Rivière and a few of his most trusted deputies making this nighttime trek through the countryside, but the man had come into the bistro tonight and whispered to Marcel as he played that there was an emergency he had to attend, along with those two deputies, and someone else needed to take their place in tonight’s reception committee.
Marcel hadn’t asked what the emergency was—that was one of the new rules of Alliance. You didn’t ask for details, you didn’t askfor names. You did only what you were assigned, with the information you were given.
Smart, yes. But it was too easy now to feel isolated in what had once been a community, and for that, he mourned.
