Eve turned to ice again, all the way to the core. He had refused to even consider employing any girl fluent in German. The promise of Le Lethe as an oasis of privacy for German patrons probably guaranteed the best part of its profits. His eyes bored sharp as scalpels, devouring all of her: every movement, every twitch of muscle, every flick of expression.
Lie, Eve, she thought harshly. The best lie of your life.
She looked directly into her employer’s eyes, straight and guileless, and said without a single hitch, “No, monsieur. My father hated them. He would not allow their language to be spoken in his house.”
Another long moment of silence, the gilt clock ticking, and it nearly killed Eve. But she held his gaze steady.
“Do you hate them?” he asked. “The Germans?”
She didn’t dare risk another lie so close to the last. She hedged instead, looking down at her lap and letting her lips tremble. “When they send half their b-b-boeuf en croûte back uneaten,” she said tiredly, “yes—I f-find it hard not to hate them. B-but I am too tired for much hatred, monsieur. I have to get along in this world, or I w-w-won’t live to see the end of this war.”
He laughed softly. “Not a popular view to have, is it? I view matters in much the same way, mademoiselle. Only I do not just aspire to get along.” He spread his elegant hands at the beautiful study. “I will prosper.”
Eve had no doubt at all that he would. Put profit above all else—country, family, God—and there wasn’t much left to stop you getting it.
“Tell me, Marguerite Le François.” René Bordelon sounded almost playful. Eve didn’t relax for a second. “Don’t you wish to prosper? To do more than merely survive?”
“I’m just a g-girl, monsieur. My ambitions are very modest.” She lifted her eyes to his, wide and desperate. “Please—will you tell anyone I am from N-N-Nancy? If it’s found out I come from that region—”
“I can imagine. People in Lille are”—his eyes narrowed, complicit—“passionate in their patriotism. They might be unkind. Your secret is safe with me.”
He was a man who liked secrets, Eve sensed. When he was their keeper.
“T-t-thank you, monsieur.” Eve seized his hands and gave them a brief clumsy squeeze, bending her head low and biting the inside of her cheek until tears sprang to her eyes. This was a man who appreciated abject gratitude as much as secrets. “Thank you.”
She dropped his hands before he could be exasperated at being touched by an employee, then stepped back and smoothed her skirts. His remark came suddenly and in German.
“How graceful you are, even in fear.”
She straightened, meeting his eyes, and he devoured her expression, looking for the slightest twinge of understanding. She gave a slow, uncomprehending blink. “Monsieur?”
“Nothing.” He smiled at last, and somehow Eve had the impression of a finger being eased off a trigger. “You may go.”
Her nails had carved deep crescents in her palms by the time she made it down to the restaurant floor, but she consciously uncurled her fists before drawing blood. Because René Bordelon would notice. Oh, yes, he would.
You dodged a bullet, she thought as her shift began, and expected to feel sick now that the danger was past. But her insides stayed stone-cold. Because the danger wasn’t past—as long as she had to work, and spy, under the gaze of her observant employer, she would be in danger. Eve had always been such a good liar; for the first time in her life she wondered if she was good enough.
There is no time for fear, she told herself. It is an indulgence. Turn your ears on and your mind off.
And she went to work.
CHAPTER 11
CHARLIE
May 1947
Well, well.” Eve raised her eyebrows as I climbed into the backseat of the Lagonda rather than the front beside Finn. “Don’t want to share the air with the convict all of a sudden?”
“Don’t want you sitting behind me,” I retorted. “You did try to shoot me last night.”
Eve squinted, her eyes bloodshot in the early morning light. “Clearly, I missed. Let’s get the hell out of this city and on to bloody Roubaix.”
Finn was right in his prediction: Eve was haggard and gray, moving stiffly as an old woman when she climbed into the car, but she said nothing about last night’s episode with the Luger. Finn did some tinkering under the hood, murmuring in a Scots burr that got thicker and croonier the