Night Train to Paris by Fliss Chester (best romantic novels to read txt) 📗

down on us now and perhaps flick some ash from her cigarette at us…’ he paused, gauging Fen’s smile perhaps. ‘Well, I think she would tell you to come.’

Fen looked up at the ceiling and considered the idea. The thought of a party was indeed rather exciting and if nothing else it would give her another chance to double-check with Henri that he really did intend for her and Simone to destroy the list Rose had made. She sighed and then smiled at Henri.

‘Until tonight then.’

‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ Henri clapped her on the back as Fen took her leave and left the gallery. She decided that it would do her pocketbook no good at all to linger in the arcade, plus she was in no mood now for shopping, real or of the window variety. Instead she was still running the question of Henri and the list over and over in her mind. Was he really going to give up so easily on his and Rose’s mission? If the cipher is so important, she thought, I really must try to find it.

Fen was just leaving the colonnade when a flash of colour caught her eye on the other side of the courtyard. She paused and looked, waiting for the chance to see it again. It might have been the speed at which the person was moving, or perhaps Fen was just on edge after the events of the last few days, but something told her to wait and see what it was that had captured her attention.

She moved slowly along the colonnade until she was hidden behind one of the columns, and was almost instantly rewarded by seeing the colourful fabric again. This time she could make out what it was: a boating blazer. Paired with summery cream slacks, as if the wearer was dressed for a regatta on a riviera rather than an autumnal day in the city. Fen had seen that jacket before, its old-school stripes giving the game away immediately. This man, darting between the columns the other side of the courtyard was the same man she’d seen Rose arguing with just before she was killed.

‘Lazard…’ Fen whispered to herself, holding onto the rough stone of the column, letting its width conceal her in case he turned around. Watching from her spot, she tracked him as he half ran, half walked along the street until he slipped inside one of the galleries and out of sight.

Fen emerged from behind her hiding place and nodded a confirmation to herself. The gallery she had just seen him enter was none other than Galerie Renaud.

Twenty-Nine

‘Well, that is as it should be,’ Simone replied to Fen as she helped herself to a glass of wine from a bottle in the kitchen. She had just come in from the atelier and Fen had told her about Henri Renaud’s kind offer to let her stay on. ‘Henri Renaud doesn’t need this apartment anyway.’

‘Well, no, I don’t suppose he does, not straight away at any rate, but it’s very generous of him. We could have been out on the street tomorrow if he wanted.’

‘Oh, I don’t think it would ever have come to that.’

Well no, not with your eye on James’s two houses, Fen thought, then chastised herself for thinking so cruelly about Simone’s intentions.

‘And I am really quite at home here,’ Simone leaned against the kitchen countertop. ‘Despite the horrors of what happened, of course,’ she added, although it sounded rather like an afterthought.

Fen just nodded and took a glass of wine into the studio. She had an hour or two to spare before she needed to be back at the Louvre. She’d laid out three potential outfits that she’d found in Rose’s wardrobe, her own being completely deficient in anything fancy enough. Fen had felt terrible going through Rose’s clothes, but Henri had given her permission to, nay, even asked if she could start clearing out the clothing, and she thought Rose would have given her blessing, too. Now she just hoped that Simone wouldn’t be too preoccupied getting her own outfit perfected for her evening in with James and would be able to help her decide what to wear and add a few stitches here and there if need be.

‘I just love this silk,’ Simone exclaimed as she unwound one of the orange silk turbans. ‘I’m sure with a stitch here and there we can turn this into a super off-the-shoulder top to go with one of those flouncy skirts.’

‘You might have to sew me into it,’ Fen glanced down at her watch, ‘I’m not sure we have time to do a proper fitting.’

‘Don’t you worry! I have more skill than you’d think at working up a costume like this. Let’s just say I made a lot of my own clothes during the war out of a lot less than this, and each one the perfect disguise!’

‘Disguise?’

Simone laughed. ‘Disguise, costume, uniform… whatever the Resistance needed from me, I could make for them and you know how I feel about fashion? It just changes you from one person into quite the other,’ she clicked her fingers. ‘See, turn around… Ooh la la, you are now a patroness of the arts in your silk blouse and chinoiserie skirt. Bellissimo!’

Fen had to laugh too, Simone’s own joy at her work was so infectious.

‘Can I see in a mirror? Do you have one in your room?’ Fen made towards Simone’s bedroom door when the younger woman clasped her arm.

‘I think Rose has the best long glass. Let’s go to her room.’

Fen followed her in and stood in front of the mirror. She barely recognised herself. Without her land girl overalls or sensible woollen skirts and blouses, she was, as Simone said, quite a different person. Simone had taken in one of Rose’s skirts, this one in a pattern that resembled the wallpapers of smart country houses decorated in the chinoiserie style. A burnt orange colour in the skirt was picked up by the silk of the top