The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [102]
Claire searched through the contents of each drawer then slid her fingertips underneath the wooden frames. On the shelf there was a stack of thumbed-over volumes of the Journal of Garden History. She picked up a thick book, its pages stuffed with neatly written notes. She read the title, Architecture de Jardins. Nothing more than the normal everyday sort of clutter a cultured landscape architect might have in his library.
Claire padded to an oversized table near the window. Large sheets of vellum paper half the size of the tabletop were stacked on the hardwood surface. Ink pens stuck out from the top of a silver cup. Straight and arced rulers were shoved against the back corner. The bright moonlight illuminated garden layouts that had been painstakingly hand drawn with black ink. Large swoops and swirls, long straight lines, Claire imagined the gardens dreamed on these pages were beautiful but she couldn’t make any sense of them. She needed her dreams to be flesh and blood, leaf and stone.
She walked through the door separating his study from his bedroom. His wardrobe was sparse with worn work clothes and a few conservative wool suits. Muddy work boots slumped on the wardrobe floor.
A large four-poster bed. She pictured him in it, with her in his arms. It would feel so luxurious after their stolen moments on the farm, soft sheets pulled up over them. She sat on the bed, ran her hand over the blankets.
“Tell me your secrets, Grey,” she whispered and willed her mind to clear. Facing the room, she dropped to her knees, candle in hand. The small flame next to her face, she searched an inch at a time across the bedroom to the study.
She found the box an hour later. It was under loose bricks in the floor of the fireplace, beneath a coating of cinders. She blew ashes from the top and cracked open the lid as she settled back on the wood floor.
Sitting on top was a thin paper with three columns. Holding it close to the flame, Claire saw it was names of officers, ranks, the date they got to Paris, where they worked, and where they stayed. Most were in hotels, some had street addresses. Her eyes skimmed the page to the bottom. Von Richter—Sturmbannführer—SD—13.02.43—84, avenue Foch/Paris Ritz.
Her stomach churned as she realized the near misses she must have had with von Richter in the Ritz. Rolling the paper into a tube, Claire held it over the candle until it caught, tossed it in the fireplace and watched it burn.
The rest were snapshots. Claire riffled through, examining each in the candlelight. A worn photo of Laurent and Grey in graduation robes. They had serious, reserved mouths, but their young faces beamed. A later photo of Grey with a grin, his arm slung over a woman’s shoulder, her face turned away from the camera. Claire felt a stab of jealousy, then recognized Odette’s profile. Jacques, Odette and a dark-haired boy sat on a fountain’s low limestone wall.
These were photos taken before the war. Too dangerous to expose but too precious for Grey to lose. She sat back and held the photos to her chest. These were a part of who Grey really was. The same as this house and the couple sleeping below.
She dropped the photos back in the container and, box gripped in her hands, sat heavily in his desk chair. What if Grey was gone forever? Her eyes were drawn out the window. The dark outlines in the landscape showed up against the moonlit sky like paper cutouts. Her gaze followed a line of hedges to a small open garden room with vine-covered stone walls. The glint of light marble revealed a statue of a woman against one wall. In the corner, an apple tree filled the sky.
Claire froze.
The garden from the photo. She would know it anywhere. Box in hand, Claire hurried down the stairs and slipped out of the house. She traced her way through the hedge maze until it opened up to a tall stone wall. She stepped through the opening.
Her eyes flicked around