Read Chapter 17: Dance with the Enemy

The colonel’s name was von Hartmann, and he was boring her to death.

Élise kept her smile fixed as he monologued about the logistics of railway artillery, his champagne glass waving dangerously close to her borrowed silk sleeve. She had nodded through three minutes of nonsense about gauge widths while her eyes tracked Gaspard’s retreating back across the marble floor of the Ritz’s grand salon.

“—and of course, the Seine bridges present their own difficulties,” von Hartmann said, leaning in. His breath smelled of cognac and arrogance. “But a woman of your refinement wouldn’t concern herself with such matters.”

“On the contrary,” Élise said, letting her gaze drift back to him with what she hoped read as fascination rather than murder. “I find the movement of supplies absolutely riveting. The papers alone must be a nightmare.”

Von Hartmann’s eyes lit up. A bureaucrat. Worse—a proud one.

Behind him, through the crowd of Wehrmacht officers and French collaborators in their finest, she caught a glimpse of a door swinging shut. Gaspard had gone through it. Where, exactly, was the waiter going that required such haste?

“If you’ll excuse me, Colonel,” she said, touching his arm with two fingers. “The ladies’ room. You understand.”

He didn’t, clearly, but he bowed anyway and she slipped away before he could offer to escort her.

The corridor beyond the salon was paneled in dark walnut, lit by sconces that threw amber pools onto Persian runners. Élise’s heels made almost no sound. She’d chosen them for that purpose—a small mercy of the evening.

At the end of the corridor, a door stood ajar. Waste-paper fire, she could smell it, and beyond that, a voice. Low. Urgent. Speaking German.

She pressed herself against the wall and edged closer until she could see through the gap.

Gaspard—no longer in his waiter’s jacket, now in a plain gray suit—stood with his back to her, speaking to a man she couldn’t see. The other man’s hands were visible though, resting on the back of a chair, and one of them wore an SS ring.

“—impossible,” Gaspard was saying. “The delivery window is too tight. I told you Fournier was compromised, and I was right. The raid bore fruit. But this new list—if it falls into the wrong hands, the Gestapo will have nothing left to raid.”

The SS man said something too low to catch.

Gaspard made a sound of frustration. “No. I’ve handled Dubois. She believes I’m merely a forger with a gambling habit. Her brother is the leverage that keeps her compliant. She’ll deliver the papers on time, and then we close the net around Jean’s contacts.”

Élise’s blood went cold.

She knew about Jean’s arrival at the shop. Only she and Jean knew. And yet Gaspard spoke of it as fact—which meant he had informants watching the shop, or worse, he had guessed and was fishing. But he’d said it with such certainty.

The SS man shifted. “And the translator?”

“Antoine Laurent is Brandt’s problem. If he’s loyal, Brandt will keep using him. If he isn’t, Brandt will deal with him. Either way, not my concern.”

A chair scraped. They were moving. Élise stepped back, heart pounding, and darted into the first open door she found.

It was an office. Small, dim, smelling of leather and stale pipe smoke. A desk sat against the far wall, and on it—

A folder. New, unmarked, sitting at an angle that suggested it had been set down in haste.

The SS man’s office. Maybe.

Élise’s hand moved before her mind finished the calculation. She crossed the room, flipped open the folder.

Inside, a single sheet of paper.

Blank.

She turned it over. Blank.

Her stomach dropped. A trap? A test? Had they known she would come searching, leaving a decoy in a folder to snare whoever they suspected of being the Resistance mole?

Footsteps in the corridor.

She slid the paper back into the folder, closed it, and straightened—but there was nowhere to go. The door was the only exit, and the hallway was occupied.

“Élise.”

The voice was quiet, familiar. Antoine stood in the doorway, his black dinner jacket immaculate, his expression unreadable. Behind him, the corridor was empty.

“What are you—?”

He crossed the room in three strides and took her hand, pulling her toward him with a practiced ease that made her breath catch.

“Smile,” he murmured. “Someone saw you come this way. Two guards, turning the corner as I passed them. If they find you here, you’re dead. If they find us like this, you’re merely indiscreet.”

She had no choice. He drew her into the dance position—hand on her back, his other hand holding hers—and swept her out of the office and into the corridor just as two uniformed soldiers appeared at the far end.

Antoine laughed, a warm, easy sound, and spun her in a circle that made her skirt flare. “You always did get lost in big hotels, darling. I told you the main salon was that way.”

The soldiers slowed, watching. One of them grinned.

Antoine didn’t stop moving. He guided her down the corridor with the casual authority of a man who belonged there, past the soldiers, past the door to the main salon, and into a smaller side room where a gramophone was playing a slow song. French. “La Mer.” Ironic.

The door clicked shut behind them.

Élise pulled back, but Antoine’s hand tightened on her waist.

“Don’t,” he said softly. “The guards might double back. We need at least ninety seconds of plausibility.”

She stood stiffly in his arms, hating the comfort of his warmth, hating more that she needed it.

“The office,” she said. “There was a folder. Just a blank page.”

Antoine’s jaw tightened. “That was the decoy. The real document is—” He hesitated. Then, with a quick glance at the door, he reached into his own jacket and withdrew a folded sheet of paper. Thick. Official. Gestapo letterhead visible at the top edge.

Élise stared. “Where did you get that?”

“The colonel you were charming? Von Hartmann left his coat with the concierge during dinner. He had this in the inner pocket. He’s too senior to know he’s being watched, but not senior enough to be immune to a good pickpocket.” Antoine’s mouth curved, rueful. “I’ve had practice.”

She took the paper from him, fingers brushing his. Unfolded it.

A list. Dates, addresses, times. Handwritten in the spidery script of a Gestapo clerk.

Raids. Scheduled. Three nights from now, a safe house on the Rue des Archives. Six names beside it. She recognized two of them.

“Gaspard knew,” she breathed. “At the party. He was speaking to an SS officer. He told him you were Brandt’s problem, and that ‘if he’s loyal, Brandt will keep using him.’ He knew about Jean. He knew about the safe house raid. He’s the leak.”

Antoine’s face went very still. “Jean is at your shop.”

“Yes.”

“And Gaspard knows.”

She nodded, dread curling in her stomach.

Antoine’s hand moved to her jaw, tilting her face up to meet his gaze. The gesture was intimate, startling. His voice, when he spoke, was barely a whisper.

“Then you need to decide what you believe about me. Because if Gaspard is the leak, then I didn’t betray your people. Marcel’s raid was real, but the men arrested were already burned. I gave him names to protect the network, not destroy it. You can ask Jean—if he’s willing to trust a man he’s never met.”

“Why would he trust you?”

“Because I just stole a list of Gestapo raids from a colonel’s coat at a party full of Germans. If I were working for them, I’d have handed you to the guards ten minutes ago.”

He had a point. She hated that he had a point.

The music on the gramophone wound down. Antoine stepped back, releasing her. The loss of his warmth was abrupt, unsettling.

“We need to leave,” he said. “Before the colonel notices his coat is lighter.”

She folded the list and tucked it into her small beaded purse, her hands steady despite the tremor in her chest. “And then?”

“And then we warn whoever we can. Three nights is not long. But it’s enough.”

“And Gaspard?”

Antoine’s expression darkened. “Gaspard,” he said, “is no longer just your problem. He made a mistake tonight. He told the SS you could be used.”

He opened the door, and the noise of the party washed over them again. Élise stepped into the glittering crowd, the list burning against her side in its silk pocket, and for the first time all evening, she let herself entertain a dangerous thought:

Maybe Antoine Laurent was not the devil she’d feared. Maybe he was something far more useful—and far more dangerous to their enemies.

The thought terrified her more than the Gestapo ever had.