The Lavender Keeper (28 page)

She hurriedly dried off and dressed, and left her apartment before eight a.m. Sylvie was ready for her, opening her door as she passed. Lisette did not speak.

‘You know?’ the Frenchwoman said.

Her gaze narrowed. ‘That you are spying on me?’

‘I have been watching over you … for a friend.’

Lisette looked at her neighbour. She was attractive, and somewhere in Lisette’s mind this knowledge rankled. ‘It would have been easier to just tell me.’

Sylvie shook her head. ‘I would have compromised your situation. I, better than most, understand your need to operate alone.’

‘Then why is it different now?’ Lisette wasn’t successfully keeping the sharpness from her tone.

‘Because Luc has shown himself to you. He has his reasons – and for telling you about me.’

Lisette swallowed. Was there a warning there? And what right did she have to be feeling proprietorial?

‘Lisette …’

‘I have to go. I’m running late for work.’ She skipped down the stairs and forced herself to put Luc – and the company he kept – from her mind.

She would walk to the Champs Elysées and work off her jealousy and frustration. It took longer than she’d anticipated, and she’d been stopped as she’d entered the first arrondissement.

‘Papers,’ a German soldier demanded in a bored tone.

‘Yes, of course,’ she said in flawless German.

He blinked. ‘Where are you headed?’

‘For a treat at my usual café.’

‘Where do you work?’

She told him the name of the bank. ‘I work with its president, Walter Eichel.’ It worked. He barely looked at her ID card. But he didn’t hand it back.

‘We don’t meet many German girls.’

She smiled. ‘I hope you get home soon,’ she replied kindly, reaching for the card.

He pulled it out of her reach. ‘How about meeting me this evening?’

‘I can’t,’ she said, feigning disappointment. ‘I’m meeting Colonel Kilian – perhaps you know him?’

The soldier looked astonished. ‘Colonel Kilian,’ he repeated, not quite stammering.

She grinned. ‘Walter Eichel is my godfather. Colonel Kilian is a very good friend of his.’

‘Forgive me.’

She looked at him, quizzical. ‘Nothing to forgive. I’m flattered.’

Whatever confidence his uniform gave him had suddenly fled and now he just looked shy and awkward.

She beamed him another bright smile and took her ID back, feeling relieved that he hadn’t studied it. ‘
Danke. Guten Morgen
.’ She had always felt confident of her papers, but even so didn’t want any soldiers checking them too closely.

Lisette hurried up the famous boulevard to the café, quickly catching the attention of the café owner. She ordered and added casually, ‘Is there a spare newspaper behind the counter?’ She noticed he was wearing a green tea towel over his shoulder.

‘
Oui, mademoiselle
,’ he replied, without even glancing at her as he dried a cup. He put the paper on the counter and turned away to talk to another customer.

The café wasn’t crowded this morning, but then it was still very early. Most people were standing at the bar and drinking a quick
café
to start their day. There was only one German patron, marked by his uniform, and he had his back to her, but even so, Lisette was cautious. The Gestapo were certainly no strangers here. She settled herself at the back of the room and started reading the front page, until her drink was delivered.

Lisette sipped, and although her eyes were on the paper, she was surreptitiously gauging who might be watching her. No one seemed interested. She rummaged in her bag and pulled out a spectacles case. The glasses were a helpful prop as she could carry the cigarette paper in the case. She didn’t need to re-read her note; she knew it by heart, alerting London to her suspicion of conspiracy and her desire to see if Kilian could be turned.

Placing the note on a page, she checked it was stuck fast and turned the page to continue reading, looking for the note from Playboy. She found it on page five:
Contact Spiritualist urgently
.

What was happening? It couldn’t be from London, or Playboy would have specified. And if it wasn’t a specific order for her, then it would have to wait a bit longer; she was at too delicate a stage of her mission, too deep undercover, to risk contact with the Resistance group. After another five minutes she looked at her watch and made a show of packing up her things, retying her scarf, checking her hair in a small compact.

‘
Merci, monsieur
,’ she called to the café owner as she handed back the newspaper and sauntered out. She took a different, circuitous route to avoid the ID checks at either end of the boulevard and deliberately avoided the Hotel Raphaël, whose proximity she was all too aware of.

She then went to the bank and left a handwritten message at reception, excusing herself from work due to sickness. She feigned weakness as she handed it over and then rushed to the bathroom. She was out of the building within minutes, and finally arrived back at her apartment. She hoped Sylvie had left for the day. And it was surely still too early for Luc to have returned.

Once inside she couldn’t sleep. She was unsure what to do with herself, feeling unsettled – nervous, even – so she killed time putting away her frock, folding up the stole, hiding all the Chanel boxes and any reminders of her evening. She set to with some menial tasks; sewing on a button, tidying her few cupboards. Realising that she had nothing to offer a guest, she gathered up her ration coupons and hurried to the grocer’s to buy a little wedge of cheese and a stick of bread. She knew she could rustle up a mug of hideous pretend coffee but wasn’t sure Luc would drink it, and she had no honey to sweeten it. At the last moment she ducked into a café and grabbed a
half-bottle
of wine. Only a few hours ago she had been sipping
a calvados whose single-shot price could have provided a slap-up meal for her tonight.

She ran back to the apartment, clutching her few provisions, and found Luc waiting at her door.

‘Luc,’ she said, nervously. ‘Have you been here long?’ It was uncanny how much like Kilian he looked, now that she faced him in daylight. His straw-coloured hair was longer than she remembered but the colour was almost identical to Markus’s. Luc had a fuller jawline, but she wondered if that was because he was younger. They were of similar height, Luc undoubtedly broader, more muscled, but it was in the eyes where the real difference was. Luc’s eyes were luminescent when the sun lit them, like cornflowers … no, like the lapis lazuli gemstone Lisette’s grandmother wore set in a beautiful brooch. There was a fire glinting within the blue – just like the gemstone – and it warmed her. But Markus’s eyes were the opposite. His were every bit as haunting, but they were pale, his gaze sharp enough to cut through her. She was yet to see them by day but she suspected they would sparkle in their glacial way.

Luc shook his head in response to her question. ‘You said any time was fine.’

‘I did.’ Again she found herself fumbling for her key. ‘Here, come in.’

‘Let me help you.’ He reached for her groceries.

She went inside first. ‘You can put those down over there,’ she suggested, pointing at her tiny table.

‘This is a nice place,’ he said as he walked over to the window, then turned. His gaze swept over the meagre furniture, the tiny sink, the equally tiny stove. He seemed to avoid looking at her bed, despite its bright bedspread of patchwork.

‘No different to Sylvie’s, I suspect,’ Lisette said, her tone tart. Then she felt embarrassed. ‘I mean, they share the same layout.’

Either he hadn’t noticed or he chose to ignore the barb. ‘But you have so much light coming in here,’ he said, turning back to the tall double windows. ‘It’s good for the soul.’

She nodded, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. He hadn’t lost that dreamer quality. ‘I suppose it is.’ She could sense the underlying pain he carried with him still, as though permanently bruised. ‘How are you?’

‘As you see,’ he replied, irritatingly calm.

What she saw was the man who’d stolen her heart and her peace of mind. She could almost hate him for it.

Lisette cleared her throat. ‘Well, you’re safe and in one piece, and I’m glad to see you.’ She turned to the table to put away the items she’d bought.

‘Are you?’

Lisette picked up her bottle of cheap wine. ‘It’s very early for wine, I know, but I have coffee substitute to offer you.’

‘I’ll bet there was real coffee last night,’ Luc remarked quietly.

She turned. ‘Stop it,’ she warned, and was surprised to see only injury in his expression. ‘I didn’t choose my mission.’

‘Are you enjoying it?’ His eyes glittered with sorrow. He said nothing further but took the corkscrew from her and reached for the bottle, and she moved to stand by the window.

She was angry, hated not being in control of herself. ‘Colonel Kilian is a surprise,’ she admitted, glad that her voice was steady.

‘As a Nazi or as your lover?’

She shook her head and closed her eyes with resignation. ‘Simply as a man, Luc. How well do you know him?’

‘Not as well as you,’ he retorted, putting down the wine and corkscrew.

Her first realisation that she’d slapped him was the terrible echo, sharp and angry as it bounced off the walls, followed by the sting of her hand. His head had snapped to the side but he made no sound, and didn’t reach for his cheek but simply turned to regard her, his face ablaze with rage. Or was it triumph?

What happened next shocked her even more. Luc grabbed her by her shoulders. She thought in a heartbeat of panic that he was going to fling her across the room. Instead he pulled her angrily towards him; she was like a trapped bird, small and fragile in the strong cage of his arms. Luc kissed her. It was nothing at all like the first time. Now his lips were hungry, urgent, and his arms wrapped even more tightly around her, until she was no longer sure whether she was breathless from his lust or his strength. And she responded, helplessly, furiously.

He suddenly twisted away, wiping the back of his hand against his mouth. He was breathing hard as he leant against the table. She saw the storm in his expression.

‘Luc …’ she stammered. This shouldn’t happen – not now. He knew it too.

He raised a hand to stop her talking, poured a slug of the wine and swallowed it in two gulps. He filled both tumblers again and handed her one. They both drank silently, Lisette sinking into one of the two chairs she owned and Luc leaning an arm against the wall and staring out of the window.

They stayed like that, both silent, both angry with themselves and each other, and both very aware how dangerous their situation had just become.

Before he arrived, Luc had promised himself that he wouldn’t touch Lisette. He just had to get her out of Kilian’s clutches and to safety. But all he could envisage was Kilian kissing her neck in the
back of the car, chuckling softly with her hair draped across his face while he whispered in her ear. And now he’d failed spectacularly in his promise. If he were truthful, he’d admit that to be in love was to be in pain. In ordinary circumstances that pain would be exquisite and welcome. But in wartime it became something dark and fearful. To love someone so wholly, and to know you could lose them in a blink, was akin to a sort of madness.

Did she have any idea what seeing her with Kilian was doing to him? Keeping his rage silent while he watched Kilian touch her, knowing what the filthy Boche had been doing with her in his hotel, had been torturous. Why did he ever leave her? Why had he deserted her when least he could afford to?

‘The fault is mine,’ he said. His cheek stung but it was the emotion driving her slap that hurt far more. ‘I should go.’

‘No, Luc. Wait!’ she whispered. ‘Tell me how you come to be here. Talk to me.’

She was right. If his intention was to keep her safe, then she deserved the explanation. They needed to work out how best to proceed, now that the Allies were coming. He watched her shoulders drop with relief when he turned and leant back against the wall and finally raised his gaze.

‘Here.’ She stood nervously to hand him his refreshed glass. ‘
Santé
,’ she added softly. ‘Let’s begin again with me saying that I’m so relieved you’re safe.’

‘
Santé
. I’m alive, not safe. Neither are you.’

Lisette gave a rueful smile. ‘That’s because I don’t have a pouch of magical seeds around my neck.’

He gave her a sad smile back.

‘I’ve thought about you every day,’ she admitted. ‘You’re my first thought as I wake, and my last thought as I sleep.’ Her eyes glistened; she was holding back tears.

Before he allowed himself to think it through, he’d reached for her again; she didn’t resist. At first it was an embrace, close and heartfelt. They simply held one another. Instinctively he lifted her higher and she responded by pulling him closer still. It was all the encouragement he needed; within a blink he had lifted her body to him, her legs wrapped around him and they’d lost themselves in the kiss he had been dreaming of sharing.

How he loved her. On first sight he’d known he was in trouble. He hadn’t been prepared to meet anyone … not with this war raging and life so fragile. His saba had once counselled that love chose you – you could never control it, never harness it, never hope to outwit it or imprison it. ‘It is a free spirit, my boy,’ she’d warned. ‘With sharp teeth.’

Luc had found it difficult to envisage love with fangs, but he’d grown to understand what his grandmother had been teaching. His love for Lisette had not been kind and gentle; it had hounded him by day and growled at him by night.

He deepened his kiss, pulled her even closer and blotted out visions of Markus Kilian doing the same. But she suddenly pulled away; strands of her hair had come loose from the combs that held them back, her eyes were full of longing, but while her dishevellment spoke of ardour, her voice was filled with remorse.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

‘For what?’ He nibbled her already soft, swollen lips.

‘For my mission.’ She groaned softly as he moved his attention to her neck. ‘Can you ignore it?’