Page 85 of The Librarian Spy

“I was the one who recommended you work for Marcel.”

“You did?” Elaine glanced at him. “Why?”

“I knew you would be in the Resistance regardless.” His expression was hidden in the shadow of his fedora. “I thought it might at least be safer. I promised Joseph I would always look out for you.”

Suddenly it made sense that Marcel had taken Elaine on simply based on her experience with the Roneo. Many people knew how to operate the small duplicating machines. Etienne had pull within the Resistance; she was aware of that, even if she wasn’t entirely sure of what he did.

“Being arrested was my fault,” Elaine confessed. “I would have been fine in the warehouse, but I volunteered to drop off a delivery. That’s when I was caught.”

The tension in his shoulders relaxed somewhat. A comfortable silence settled between them.

“You do know that Joseph only wanted your safety,” Etienne said. “It was why he urged you not to help.”

A group of German officers strode by with women at their sides garbed in slinky dresses and fur stoles. The men didn’t even notice Elaine and Etienne, too riveted by their garish dates. Etienne and Elaine fell quiet until they passed, the women’s noxious floral perfume trailing in their wake.

“Not long after the Nazis occupied Lyon, Joseph and I had to travel to Grenoble,” Etienne said in a gravelly, distant voice. “We went through the forest on the way back as we had rubber for the stamps Joseph needed for the identity cards. The Germans were searching everyone boarding the trains, and we could not afford to have them see our cargo.”

As far as Elaine knew in her life before the Resistance, Joseph had always been in Lyon for his job. Since then, she learned not only of his heroic efforts, but also how very mobile he had been around France.

“When we were coming through the forest, we came upon a body,” Etienne continued in his flat tone. “It was just a foot at first, lightly covered by the leaves. We could not leave it there and decided to bury it. In doing so, we discovered the corpse to be that of a young woman. Forgive me for saying such things, but she was nude and there was evidence of torture...”

Elaine winced in horror, and her mind immediately went to the chair in the middle of Werner’s office. The gleam of those metal tools, the damp seat leaving a cold, wet impression on her bottom and the backs of her legs, the heart-pounding anticipation of pain...

A shiver rippled over Elaine’s skin.

“Joseph saw the woman and thought of you.” Etienne avoided a lamppost as they walked, keeping to the anonymity of darkness. “He knew your fierce determination to liberate France, to help others, no matter the cost. And while the toll was one he realized you would gladly pay, it was not one he could allow you to make.”

The abrupt change in Joseph suddenly made sense, the way he had so vehemently insisted she abandon all the efforts of fighting Nazis and instead give herself over to being a good wife.

An ache burgeoned within her. “He could have told me,” she said raggedly.

“Would you have listened?”

Elaine sniffed and gave a mirthless laugh. “No.”

Etienne lifted a palm up, as though to say “and there you have it.”

“Joseph loved you,” Etienne said with vehemence. “I’ve never seen a man so besotted with his wife.”

The agony in her chest splintered with the pain of her grief. She had been too stubborn in not sending a note to him while he was in prison, thinking more could be said in person. It was a regret that would haunt her for the rest of her life. For the thousandth time since she’d received word of his death, she wondered at the little pinch of folded paper that Etienne promised to try to deliver to him.

“Joseph knew you loved him too,” Etienne said.

“Did he?” Elaine asked, her voice catching. “There was too much left unsaid.” Her words choked off with contrition.

“Even if he never received the note, he knew.”

While Elaine prayed he was correct, she could not stop the sliver of doubt in her mind.

“I should have written to him earlier.” The admission pulled a deep, wounded chasm within her, one of her own making. One that she had unjustly placed on Etienne’s shoulders. “I’m angry with myself. Not you. Forgive me for being so unfair to you.”

“I let Joseph down,” he said.

“No.” Elaine shook her head. “If it had been possible to save him, you would have.”

He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and said nothing.

The clack of approaching shoes drew Elaine’s eyes toward the shadow of a slender woman rushing toward them. A flicker of light whisked over her face from a streetlamp, revealing Nicole, her expression stricken.