If he was surprised by her sudden declaration, Barrett didn’t show it. “My service is at your feet, ladies. For now, I need to stop off and get a few things to take care of the rats down in my cellar. Don’t want them busting up the wine bottles and causing problems upstairs.”
Without another word, Eric climbed into the back of the waiting car and pulled Ellie in behind him.
Kat rolled her eyes to Barrett. “Guess we’ll see you tonight. Maybe Sam can play something to celebrate our brief but very much needed liberation for the evening.”
“Consider it done.”
Kat climbed into the back of the waiting car and squished in next to Ellie and Eric. Barrett reached down and tucked a hanging corner of Kat’s dress up on the seat before shutting the door. She rolled down the smudged window. “Good luck with your rats.”
He grinned. “Always.”
* * *
Barrett crushed the coded message in his fist as he watched the taxi drive off. He should’ve told her, but he’d barely had time to sort it himself after a carrier agent pressed it into his hand on the way to meet her at the museum.
We know about the deal with A. W. and now the rules have changed.
Yanking the wadded paper from his pocket, he smoothed it against his knee and rolled it into a cigarette. With a flick of his lighter, he held it to his lips and pretended to take a long drag as the fire ate its way down the incriminating note. So the SIS had known all along about the deal with Sir Alfred. Good on them for sniffing it out and holding back until Kat was in Paris to turn the situation to their advantage. Whitford wasn’t going to like it, but he could take it up with his mates calling the shots now. Resistance-fight trainer, pub owner, babysitter. Why not throw in spy to round him out properly?
The ashes crumbled from his fingers to the sidewalk. He ground them beneath his shoe. Now all he had to do was tell Kat they weren’t leaving Paris as quickly as they’d hoped, all while keeping her father’s involvement a secret. Another secret, another placement of his little pawn. Didn’t she deserve to make her own choices for once?
Guilt wriggled deep inside. He had his own purposes in keeping her close for this little charade the SIS had cooked up. Without her clout he had no way of gaining access to otherwise denied circles, and without those circles of information he might as well kiss his dream of America goodbye.
He scrubbed a hand over his face in hopes of wiping clean the memory of the note. But the ashes still piled near his foot. Best to get on and be done with the whole sorry mess, because those Germans wouldn’t forfeit secrets on their own.
Chapter 6
“Sure you know where you’re going?”
Kat hooked an arm around a sagging Ellie and stepped back up onto the footpath. The eerie silence broke with each clack of their heels. “Of course. I’m not the one who drank my sorrows into the bottom of a champagne glass tonight.”
A belch rumbled out of Ellie’s mouth. “The pain relief was worth it.”
“Not for the one who has to drag you around in the middle of the night.”
“If you’d joined me like I told you to, you wouldn’t complain so much.”
“If I’d joined you, we’d both be passed out under a table.”
“At least we’d be together.”
Propping her sister against the front of a building, Kat hurried to the corner and stretched up on tiptoe to squint at the street sign. What she wouldn’t give for a torch to see what she was staring at, but the mandatory blackout was an hour into full swing. Hate to give those Allied bombers a target.
Like the inhabitants of the surrounding buildings who had boarded themselves up for curfew, the stars and moon refused to come out and break the inky night. She twisted her head left and right. Slick with fog, the deserted streets left no remnants of the day’s props of flower sellers, café menus, and newspaper stands to give any indication of the way home. A chill sprang over her exposed arms. Why hadn’t she paid more attention on the taxi ride over?
“Are we lost?” Ellie’s hiccups bounced off the thousand water droplets hanging in the air and shattered the stillness like a cymbal crash.
When they’d arrived the sun was hanging over her left shoulder, which