CITY OF LIGHTS

Chapter 5

The glittering Hôtel Ritz Paris, the grandest and most decadent hotel in the world, pleasure palace of the rich, the royal, the famous. Once the king of England had found himself stuck stark naked in a too-narrow gilt bathtub with one of his mistresses – or so the tittering maids in the hallway had told her, once in a previous life.

Now it was the French home of the German Luftwaffe – balls and lover's trysts had been firmly put out of mind, especially since the elite's exodus to the southern Vichy state.

But not tonight.

Tonight, the chandeliers had been lit, the wine was free-flowing, the band was playing, and what was left of the elite had come out to play.

It was just like the old days, or so one imagined.

The young Millicent Collins had charmed many a man in her youth, in this very ballroom. Now, in the autumn of her life – and she was certain it was not the winter – she was throwing all of her well-worn charm into dancing with the Lieutenant-General, laughing almost giddily as her diamonds flashed and burned under the glittering lights.

Anna Darkhölme, standing unbeknownst by a little niche in a corner, couldn't help but smile at it all as she watched the ball and its denizens whirl past her.

Everyone was so elegant, so happy! So full of life.

How handsome these soldiers and Luftwaffe officers were in their uniforms, how proud they looked to be hosting a grand Christmas party for this old war hero!

And how beautiful and fine the women all looked, in their silks and satins and velvets, their jewels all a-shimmer, their red, red smiles tasting wine and canapes, and stolen kisses.

Anna sighed a helpless, world-weary sigh, and gave a perfunctory sip at her drink. She wasn't here to cavort, of course – she was here to do what she was doing right now, and that was scan the room and everyone in it. It was better, she knew, not to be seen; and she had chosen this spot deliberately, by a conveniently hanging piece of drapery that matched the colour of her evening gown, a deep, blood red.

She was here to be invisible, and she was fine with that, of course – particularly when she knew exactly what most of the people in the room thought of her.

Her mouth twisted a little with bitterness at that – but she pushed it aside. Time had taught her not to take such things personally.

Instead her attention was drawn to a familiar laugh – a laugh like whiskey and molasses, in a voice she knew well.

Remy LeBeau was dancing with Frau Gruber again, chuckling heartily at something she was saying. He'd danced with almost every woman in the room – she'd been watching closely enough for it not to escape her notice – but now he was back with the pretty redhead for the third time. It was biological, a man had once condescendingly told her, for beautiful women to hate one another. Did she hate Frau Gruber? No – she thought her petty and airheaded and frightfully shallow – but at that very moment in time, she felt she could have hated her, for being the source of such pain to her. To see that she made him laugh, like she herself could not.

It wasn't until today, until this very moment, that Rogue realised that she had never heard a genuine laugh fall from Remy LeBeau's lips until that night.

The band had finished playing its song, and the dancing couples began to break up, Remy and Frau Gruber still laughing at some joke – or perhaps, simply, the exhilaration of the moment. Officer Gruber, Anna noticed, was at the other end of the ballroom, engrossed in talk with another clutch of officers, as was usual, utterly uninterested in anything his wife was doing or saying.

And General Wagner was leading Madame Collins off the floor and to the refreshments table, talking animatedly to her. Anna smiled. It was rare to see the general so happy, and it gladdened her heart to see that, for a change, he was enjoying himself, and in such amiable company.

"Mademoiselle?"

The voice, so warm and familiar, startled her out of her reverie, and she turned to see him standing there, his hand proffered gallantly towards her.

"A dance?" he said, as the band began to strike up a sultry tune.

Her eyes fixed his – chicory brown eyes, eyes that were not his own and that still unnerved her, because she knew exactly how they should be, how they had once looked at her. For all the hostility he had radiated the last time they had met, there was none of that in him now; but neither was there warmth. A smile curled the corner of his mouth when he saw the suspicion in her.

"Sil vous plait?" he persisted.

God, he was still so beautiful. Older, yes – but time seemed to have carved that beauty all the deeper into his face. She longed to touch what she had missed… longed to bridge a gap she had allowed, willed him to make between the two of them, thinking that this moment would never come to make her regret.

"Why would you want to dance with me?" she murmured, remembering how it had been when they had parted in Mesopotamia, all those years ago.

"Why not?" he answered simply. "Why not want to dance with the most beautiful woman in the room? I saved her till last." His smile was slow, somehow sardonic. "Will you dance with me, chere?"

She didn't really know what he was playing at, except that this had to all be a game to him. Whether that game was for business or pleasure, she wasn't yet certain. She knew enough to know that he hated her. It had been eight years, but some nights she still felt the sting of his palm on her cheeks, the squeeze of his grip round her neck.

"I shouldn't," she said, thinking of work. "But all right."

She set aside her glass and took his hand, not thinking what it meant. She was, after all, the kind of woman who prided herself on taking on every challenge that presented itself, and this was a challenge after all… Or there was the fact that she didn't trust him, that his presence here, of all places, was suspicious. But if she had been honest with herself, she would've said it was because she longed for closeness – to him, to what had been.

But she didn't dare ask herself why she had accepted him, let alone attempt an answer. She let him lead her to the dancefloor, where the newly formed couples were already swaying in time to the music.

It was just as it had been before, once upon a time – almost, at least. The first time they had danced, at Arnott's – that first night they had met – it had been a game then too. Each had taken the measure of the other; each had begun to play the most dangerous con in the world – seduction. What had started out as a match of wits and wiles between them had ended in a beautiful and catastrophic collision. And it had all begun there – on a dancefloor, with a stolen kiss.

And here?

This was a game of a different kind, all the suspicion of that catastrophic collision brought to bear. Each knew the power the other wielded, the lies they told, the masks they wore. Neither trusted the other to be anything but masquerading right now.

He pulled her to him, as close as he had the first time, catching their bodies in a memory… a sensuous one she could never forget. Did he remember too, she wondered, as she felt the crush of his chest against hers, the sway of his hips, the insinuating pressure of his hand on her waist? What she had thought then at Arnott's had sent a rush of desire to the deepest, darkest, liquid depths of her – the titillating knowledge that dancing with him was more pleasurable than sex with any previous mark she'd had. It was a promise he hadn't denied her then, and now—

"What are you doing here?" she asked him, ignoring the insidious creep of her thoughts.

"What am I doin'?" He leaned back a little, looking down into her eyes, quirking that same old half-smile. "Only dancin' wit' the most beautiful woman in the room."

"You know what I mean," she countered in an accusatory tone, piqued only because the proximity of their moving bodies was so viscerally close to home. The pitch of her words wiped the smile from his face, at least.

"So maybe I do. I was gonna ask you the same thing m'self. Only I didn't bother, 'cos I happen to know you ain't never gonna give me a straight answer, chere. Besides," he added, the lopsided smile returning to his face, "dancin' wit' you means I can keep a better eye on you, neh?"

She stiffened at the barb; but he simply pulled her closer to him, forcing her to meld her curves back to the muscled angles of his body – angles she knew only too well.

"Surely there are more agreeable women for you to dance with here," she murmured.

"Ah, chere." His tone was light, jovial. "Is it wrong for me to have fond memories of the first time we tangoed? Till that moment I don't think I'd ever found a dance so… stimulatin'."

And as if to punctuate the moment, his hand slipped from her waist to her backside, his hips brushing against her in a manner that was almost obscene. Anna felt her cheeks redden and her breath hitch. The man was teasing her! And it was infuriating and titillating all at once!

"The room is watchin'!" she shot at him, but he merely grinned down at her, enjoying her chagrin.

"Didn't care then," he quipped, "don't now neither. The people here, they know what we both are, neh? Playthings, for the pleasure of others. Why not play with one another?"

Her cheeks were blazing now, aroused as she was to both desire and ire. It was a truth he had spoken, but a truth she despised. More than anything, she hated the idea that he saw her as nothing more than a simple whore.

"Is that all you want, Monsieur Marceaux?" she uttered coldly. "To play, and be played?"

The playful insolence dropped from his face then, his eyes regarding her with a frosty intensity.

"Been there, done that," he replied in a cutting undertone. His palm slid from her backside to her hip, leaving a warm and aching imprint. "These days I make sure to cut out the 'be played' part. Which is a shame for you, no doubt."

Anna pursed her lips tight, miserable, furious… yet still desperately clinging to this last vestige of closeness.

"Don't be like dat, Fraulein Darkhölme," he began again, all the previous insouciance returned to his voice. He lowered his head, twisted his face to her ear, whispered: "I still find you sexy as all sin. If you're still inclined to play, I won't say no."

His hand, which had been firmly on her hip one second, was now suddenly at her thigh, feeling through the crimson velvet of her dress and brushing against the Derringer tucked neatly into her garter.

"Hm." She could clearly hear the triumph in his voice. "Seems you're packin' heat t'night, chere."

He had so thoroughly out-manoeuvred her that all she could think of was to reclaim some of the ground she'd lost.

"Why?" she shot back at him. "Ain't you?"

And she reached down between them, fondling him intimately through his trousers.

She was rewarded by the choked sound he made in her ear, and to say it was satisfying would've been an understatement… in more ways than one.

"Time was," she lilted playfully, letting her hand wander back up his chest towards his shoulder, taking her sweet time as she did so, "I woulda had you hard just by dancin' with ya. Seems the past 8 years have taught you some restraint, boy."

There it was – the low slide of his chuckle, his breath on her neck, sending warm shivers down her spine.

"You wanna test me on that, chere," he said, drawing back so he could look at her, "I'm sure we could find some quiet place to go figure it out."

They were at the fringes of the dancefloor now, and so saying he turned his back to the room, took her hand from his shoulder, and pressed it back down against him, letting her feel exactly what she did to him. His beautiful eyes, now suppressed by the nullifying bracelet he wore, would've been burning liquid fire at her right now – and even though they weren't at that precise moment, she could feel them boring into her, taking her breath away, lighting her up in a way she hadn't been lit up since—

Since him.

The music had stopped; the couples were drifting apart.

She came to herself but a moment later, ripping her hand from his grasp, stepping away from him, suddenly confused, afraid.

This is dangerous…

He's doing this on purpose…

And suddenly he was grinning at her, as if he saw that she understood.

"It's like I said, Fraulein," he finished in that infuriatingly blasé tone. "I ain't gonna be played again. But if you figure we're gonna play for pleasure and not business... well then," and he gave a mock bow, "Etienne Marceaux is at your service."

And he swung away from her, lighting a cigarette and heading for the gardens, whistling as he went.

-oOo-

There was silence in the car on the way back to the Rue de la Rochefoucauld, Anna's senses tingling with the shape and the feel of him, reawakened to passions only he could ignite. Yet he had tricked her… mocked her! And the pain of knowing that he still despised her undercut her newly-stirred desire with bitterness.

"What a pleasant evening!" the general declared beside her, and she could only answer with a perfunctory, "Yes," where once she would have been pleased to know that he had enjoyed the social niceties that she knew came so unnaturally to him.

He seemed to sense the reticence in her tone, looking over to her with a small smile, saying:

"Come, you must agree with me, Anna. I saw you dancing with that young man. What a handsome couple you made! You cannot deny it."

Her throat constricted; a breath burned in her throat.

"He is an insolent young man, and I—"

"Anna," he interrupted her with an indulgent, fatherly tone of good humour, "I know you say such things for my benefit. Do not think I am unaware of the sacrifices you have made for me." She dropped her head, and he continued, the words now serious; "You must be happy, Anna. Do not deny yourself pleasure on my account."

She dared not look at him. The idea of pleasure, with Remy LeBeau, was something she had put away many years ago. To open that now…

A year or so after she had left him in Mesopotamia, when she'd been at her lowest ebb, she had gone back to the shade of him that lived in her mind, the shadow she had absorbed on that last fateful day of their acquaintance. She had reached out to him because she had had no one else, nothing else to keep her in this world. It had been a mistake. All Remy's anger, all his rage had been poured into his psyche. He had not wanted to see her. If there had been tenderness in him, it had made him all the angrier, more violent. The entire experience had been so traumatic that she had never gone back.

Instead she had abandoned him in that place. Frozen it over. Left him, them, to rot. She had been too afraid to reach out again, when all it had given her was more pain, more trauma. Death had come close, more than once, in the following months. She had welcomed it.

And then they had come. Given her a purpose, a meaning, a reason to go on. A chance to leave behind the sins of her past, and all that had come with them. And of course, in time, his memory had been buried with all the horrors she had inflicted and now sought redemption for. They had given her that. A shot at redemption. Until she had it, there could be no laughter, no joy.

Anna looked out the window, fumbled for the cigarettes in her purse. Denying herself pleasure was part of who she was. Always had been, always would be. She'd had it, once. It'd burned and scarred her terribly.

Never again.

-oOo-