The Designer(72)

‘How is she?’ he asked.

‘She’s improving. She was very weak when she arrived, but she’s started to recover.’

‘They say you’re working miracles with her. Has she – has she mentioned me?’

‘I don’t know. You haven’t introduced yourself yet.’

‘My name is Hervé des Charbonneries.’

‘I believe she has mentioned your name,’ Copper replied gravely. ‘Once or twice.’

‘I don’t understand why she didn’t come to me directly,’ he said, getting up restlessly and pacing around the room. ‘How could she come back to Paris and not tell me? It’s so cruel.’

‘She has suffered a great deal,’ Copper replied. ‘Perhaps more than you realise. It hasn’t been easy for her. I don’t suppose coming back from the dead is ever easy.’

‘I thought she was dead. I never expected to see her again. And she has let me continue thinking that. While she was here, alive!’

‘Catherine has suffered things that nobody should suffer. She’s been in places that you and I can’t even imagine, and seen things that would strike us dumb. Nobody can go through that and remain undamaged. But she can be healed. Especially by love. And especially if you can learn to stop thinking of yourself and start thinking of her.’

He was silent for a while. ‘I apologise,’ he said at last, stiffly. ‘But this is hard for me, too.’

‘She sacrificed a great deal for your sake. She saved your life.’ Copper studied him critically. ‘You’re what – fifteen years older than she is? And a married man with three children.’

‘Well?’

‘You got her running errands for the Resistance and you got her into your bed. Which came first?’

The colour was mounting to his angular cheekbones again. ‘Madame, you have never known what it is to have an enemy occupying your country. France called for a sacrifice from all of us. But of us all, only a few answered the call. Catherine was one. France will remember that forever.’

‘You have quite the gift of the gab.’

‘It seems you have appointed yourself Catherine’s guardian,’ he said shortly. ‘But you are not her family. You are not even French.’

‘You’re right, I’m neither. But I see myself as her friend, not her guardian. She’s frail, and if I didn’t try to protect her, I wouldn’t be much of a friend, would I?’

Copper thought she heard a sound from Catherine’s bedroom. ‘I’ll go and check on her.’

She found Catherine awake and sitting on the edge of her bed. She sat beside her and took a fragile hand in both her own. ‘He’s here,’ she said quietly.

‘I know. I heard his voice.’ She was trembling.

‘Do you want me to go out?’

‘No. Please stay in the apartment. But send him in here.’

Copper went to call Hervé. ‘She’ll see you now.’

Hervé went into Catherine’s bedroom, still holding his hat. Copper closed the door on them and went to work at the dining room table. For almost an hour, she heard nothing from Catherine’s room except the occasional murmur of voices. At length, Hervé emerged. He said goodbye to Copper curtly, and let himself out. She heard his rapid steps descending the stairs outside.

She went into Catherine’s room in some trepidation. Catherine was standing at the window, looking out. To Copper’s alarm, she looked feverish, her eyes unnaturally bright and her face flushed.

‘There, my dear Copper. He has come and he has gone.’

‘What happened between you?’ Copper asked.

Catherine’s fingers tightened around hers. ‘He still loves me. Nothing has changed.’

Copper searched Catherine’s face. ‘Are you happy?’

‘Nothing has changed,’ Catherine repeated. ‘We had an arrangement before I was arrested, and that arrangement will remain the same – if I choose to accept it.’

‘What’s the arrangement?’

‘He will never divorce his wife. He is a Baron des Charbonneries, and he is a Catholic. Neither circumstance allows him to consider a divorce. It’s simply not done. I can be with him. But I can’t be his wife. I can’t take his name, and I can’t have his children.’

‘That’s hard.’

‘But I can have him.’ Catherine wore her crooked smile. ‘What else matters, Copper? So long as I can have him, what more can I ask for?’



‘She’s going to be a Catherine and a Catherinette,’ Dior said sadly, when Copper told him of this conversation.

‘What’s a Catherinette?’

‘It’s what we call a woman of twenty-five who is still unmarried. After St Catherine who was martyred for refusing to marry a pagan. On her feast day, the Paris spinsters all wear colourful hats. I could have wished a happier fate for her.’

‘She has love,’ Copper pointed out. ‘As she says, she doesn’t want anything else.’

‘They’re two strong people,’ Dior agreed. ‘They will arrange their lives the way they want to. He says you gave him the third degree. Asked him if his intentions were honourable.’

‘I suppose it was none of my business. I just wanted to protect Catherine.’