about all this? “He left right after you did, if you insist on knowing. Don’t give me that look of innocence. I tire of turning a blind eye to your indiscretions and flighty whims.”
“You were always jealous of the attention the boys showed me.”
“Hounds panting at your feet is more like it, leaving me to shoo them away when you tired.”
“Don’t blame me because you can’t say no when asked to do something. Learn to please yourself for once instead of always doing what’s right.”
“Kissing Barrett wasn’t right enough for you?”
Ellie’s focus dropped to her bright-red nails. Paired with her mint-green dress they made her look like a Christmas candy. A hypocritical Christmas candy. “I’ve always been the one caught in the corner with a boy while you’re always the picture of purity. It’s too late for me, but knowing you’re all right . . . Well, it was nice to think that some things never changed.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or not.”
Ellie looked up and smiled. “It is.”
The bluster that had so filled her with indignation slowly diffused. Who would’ve considered truth as a balm to latent hurts? Kat hooked an arm around Ellie’s shoulders as she slipped her arm around Kat’s waist. Together again.
They turned to the entrance of the great hall where the other guests had disappeared. “Come on, let’s see what they’ve got for us next. I hear Herr Hitler has a masterful ear for music.”
“Ugh. It’s probably something with a polka band. Everyone here sits enraptured by him, too afraid to tell him that his tastes are as dry as week-old milk.”
“Do you want to tell him or should I?”
Ellie shivered. “The sooner we get away from him the better. Do you really want to go to Switzerland?”
For the first time that day, excitement threatened to overtake Kat’s constant fear. Hope stirred in the pile of discarded ashes. “Yes.”
Ellie nodded slowly but didn’t say anything more as they entered the great hall. A large group clustered in the center of the room with Eric’s shiny head in the middle. Scanning the room, Kat found Barrett next to the fireplace, leaning one arm on the mantel. The flames danced indecipherable shadows across his face as he watched the group.
The crowd shifted to reveal a tall, solidly built woman with chestnut hair and a square face. A feathered hat perched atop her head, and despite the sweltering heat, she had a fox shawl draped across her angular shoulders. She nodded and smiled coolly while Eric hovered at her elbow. When she looked up her smile froze as she saw Kat and Ellie in the doorway. Her chin notched up as she slipped a gloved hand under Eric’s arm.
Kat turned as Ellie’s suddenly cold fingers dug into her ribs. “Who is that woman?”
“His wife.”
Chapter 15
“She yelled, then I yelled. She yelled, and I yelled some more. It was ugly.” Kat swirled her glass of ginger ale around. The fizz had long since gone since she’d stormed into Barrett’s office over two hours ago. A long walk down the Seine hadn’t been enough to cool her off, and the ease of railing at someone else was too good to pass up. How he’d come by that honor he had no idea. Possibly because she was still angry at him for discovering her plot to flee to Switzerland with Ellie in tow. As if she stood a chance under Eric’s unblinking eye. From the moment he’d spotted those train tickets in Kat’s hotel room he hadn’t let Ellie out of his sight. The fiasco also known as dinner with Hitler two nights ago had been the perfect excuse to whisk them all back to Paris the following morning. He had more control in the city.
“She couldn’t understand why I was so angry. Hmm, not sure, but probably something to do with my baby sister having an affair with a married man. And not just any man, but a Nazi. Are you even listening?”
Barrett looked up from the Resistance flyer, Défense de la France, he had spread in front of him. It was the only true source of information being printed since the Nazis had seized the national papers for their own bloated propaganda. “Yes. Contrary to popular belief, I can do more than one thing at a time. I need to see what the other cells are up to since we’ve been gone.”
That and if he looked at her for too long he’d be forced to remember the