The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [47]
It was Sylvie. Claire froze. The officer’s roving gaze flicked over Claire. She slid around the desk, bending down behind the flowers as his eyes followed her. He lit a cigarette as Sylvie spoke into his ear and adjusted her mink. They walked by; he glanced over at Claire. She turned her head, pretending to read the papers on the desk.
“Gerolf, I want to go in,” Sylvie whined, her voice like a razor scraping over tender flesh.
The warmth Claire felt now coalesced into a cold lump in her stomach. That was who the party was for. Not for aristocrats and their stylish mistresses. Not self-made socialites on the run from the States. All this cultured beauty was for Nazi officers and collaborators. People like Sylvie.
It was past time to go. Claire ducked her head as she walked from the lobby. Running her hand down the molding of the long hallway as she walked, her eyes grazed the marble floor under her feet. You will see better days, she promised. She wasn’t sure if she was talking to the Ritz or Paris or herself.
Claire stepped out the double doors onto rue Cambon and welcomed the bite of the cold night air. Bison was long gone. Wrapping her coat tight around her, she scurried down the dark, empty sidewalk, plotting her course east then south, toward the shop.
The Ritz exuded the glamour Claire sought when she boarded the Yankee Clipper. Her timing was plain bad luck. But, damn, tonight she ached for this fallen city.
She shook her head to stop the thoughts. Her feet picked up speed as she cut onto the avenue that ran east, just out of sight of the Seine. Life was hard enough without worrying about the other guy. Without thinking about the big picture. She knew better.
She wrote and rewrote her report the next morning. In the end, the note was short and sweet. Sylvie and the officer, the Comte, the guards stationed by the door. Signed Evelyn. She addressed the envelope for Danielle and dropped it in the dentist’s box on her way to the Ritz. After she helped Bison reload the truck, she celebrated a day of rare sunshine with a stroll along the river.
The Seine was unlike any other river Claire had ever seen. Like every bit of nature she’d seen in Paris, it had been so molded by human hands it became a civilized thing, more formal than any structure, a living monument to the elemental. With her coat bundled tight against the cold, Claire skirted patches of snow along the brick quai and gazed up at the Eiffel Tower, looming over the boats that chugged down the Seine.
Her day stretched before her like a promise. As long as she could keep warm, she would work upstream along the quai, passing the tower then the Grand and Petit Palais. At Place de la Concorde, she would leave the river and cut through jardin des Tuileries. She was contemplating the splurge of a hot drink along the way when a man stepped out from the shadows of the pont d’léna and caught her stride.
“Grey.” Claire said it like an unpleasant but unavoidable fact.
“Claire.” His gaze rested on her a moment before he turned to scan the riverbank.
“Where’s Laurent?” Claire said.
“I am your contact. Not him.”
“That’s a shame.”
Grey closed his mouth on a reply.
They both were quiet as they looked up at the line of soldiers in front of the Eiffel Tower, their gazes on the banner draped across the tower’s façade, Deutschland Siegt an Allen Fronten. Germany victorious on all fronts. They walked steadily until they passed the tower and the last guards.
Claire looked up to find Grey staring at her, forehead wrinkled in thought.
“What? Don’t tell me a woman shouldn’t be walking alone with all these soldiers about.” She’d already heard that exact warning from Madame twice this morning.
A grin tugged at his lips. “I wouldn’t dream of telling you not to do anything.”
“Really?”
“You are too obstinate. You would do it just to be difficult.” His slate eyes flashed.
Claire laughed outright, delighting in the smile that lit his rugged face. Surprisingly handsome, she