Read Online A War of Flowers (2014) by Jane Thynne - Free Book Online Page A

the studios, who would meet up
at one of the popular restaurants in town, the Einstein Café or Borchardt’s or Lutter und Wegner’s, but a dinner date, with a single man, who did not want to dissect his own film
career or fret about his future in the Reich Chamber of Culture, was a rarity. Yet now was not the time and besides . . . there was something about Brandt that felt not quite right. Clara had a
sixth sense that there was more to him than met the eye. Chanel’s salon was full of Nazi agents and she feared a trap.
    ‘I’d like to, Herr Brandt. Believe me, I would. But I leave at six in the morning and I don’t want to miss my train.’
    ‘It wouldn’t do to be stuck here in Paris, you mean?’
    ‘I mean I do genuinely need to get some sleep.’
    ‘Perhaps we’ll meet again in Berlin then.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Could I not tempt you to stay? Just a day? We could see the Mona Lisa, the only woman in Paris more inscrutable than you.’
    She smiled.
    ‘The Tour d’Eiffel? Montmartre?’
    She shook her head. ‘Maybe another time.’
    ‘What about the artistic ape in the zoo? The one who makes beautiful drawings?’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Auf wiedersehen, then.’
    Taking her hand, he raised it to his lips and kissed each knuckle in turn. The gesture caused a soft, melting sensation deep inside her, so that for a moment she longed to raise her own lips to
his mouth in response, but instead she steeled herself to keep her face down as Brandt lifted his hat to her and turned away.
    Clara took the long way back to the Hotel Bellevue, almost losing track of time as she wandered the streets, deep in thought. Partly, she wanted to savour the last vestiges of
her time in Paris and partly, after the encounter with Max Brandt, she was too full of nervous energy to sleep. The moon hung over Paris like one of Chanel’s own pearls, its soft brilliance
blackening the sky around it. As she walked, Chanel’s remark sounded in her mind.
I think you, Mademoiselle Vine, are like me.
Was Chanel suggesting that Clara, like her, was cynical
and accustomed to using men for her own advantage? If so, then the accusation resonated uncomfortably. She had rejected an offer from the only man she had ever considered marrying, Leo Quinn, in
order to commit herself to her life as an agent in Berlin. The last man she felt anything for had advised her to forget him. Was she destined to become one of those single women who rattled from
affair to affair, finding nothing profound or lasting, searching for love the way an ageing actress searches for parts, sleeping with whichever handsome Nazi diplomat came her way? Or did Chanel
think a ‘realist’ meant forgetting your country and your loyalties and siding with whoever might be a winner?
    And yet, she thought, perhaps you should take pleasure wherever you found it, in case it never came again. Sometimes you passed love like a blossoming tree, without properly noticing it,
hurrying on to a future where you imagined that it would be in endless supply, not realizing that you had already bypassed your entire chance of happiness.
    Clara stopped, and gave herself a mental shake. Chanel was right about one thing. She was growing cynical about her chances of finding enduring love. But that didn’t mean she was not
prepared to defend everything else that she held dear.
    When she got back there was a bouquet waiting for her at the reception desk. It was a lavish bunch of roses, papery white petals with a soft blush at their hearts. Clara closed
the door of her room behind her and removed the note that was tucked in the tissue paper.
    Dinner in Berlin
.
    That was all. She rested the petals for a moment against her cheek and inhaled their sharp fragrance. It was intense and delicate, with an edge of dew-drenched gardens and freshly cut grass.
Then she took the flowers over to the basin and stripped the petals methodically one by one, until a heap of bruised shapes littered the porcelain