Page 39 of Under Her Protection

Leo had spent Monday evening not sleeping with her, which had been easy because Vivienne had been at her office until eleven and the house had been empty but for Guérin and the night rotation.

Tonight Vivienne had come home at seven. She had eaten alone. She had not spoken to Leo across the table or in the corridor or on the stairs, and she had gone to the living room at eight and had stayed there, and at nine Leo had made the decision that was about to make the rest of the decisions.

Leo had watched her read a message at the red lounge table and put a phone face-down on the walnut without moving, and she had been paid by Blackthorn and by her own training to register exactly what that had been, and she had registered it, and she had given Vivienne a week.

Tonight was the end of the week.

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At nine she came up from the lodge. Vivienne was in the main living room on the first floor, a room Leo had walked twice in the first week, tall ceiling, two silk sofas in dove grey, a carpet Vivienne had told Guérin was to be replaced in the spring, a fireplace that was actually lit tonight, which it had not been on any of the four nights Leo had passed the door.

Vivienne was on one of the sofas. Slate-coloured trousers, cream silk shirt, bare feet. Her hair was still up. A glass of something clear on the low table in front of her. A book open on the cushion beside her that she was not reading.

Leo came in. She did not close the door. The door did not need to be closed yet.

"Madame."

"Mademoiselle Cole."

"We need to talk."

"Do we?” Vivienne’s voice was not impressed.

"We do."

Vivienne did not look up from the book she was not reading. "I am listening."

"Put the book down,” Leo said firmly.

Vivienne's eyes, at that, came up.

Leo had not quite meant to give a command. It had come out in her voice the way the commands she was trained to give came out, and it had come out a degree lower than she had intended, and it had arrived in the room as what it was, which was a tell.

Vivienne closed the book.

She set it on the cushion.

She looked at Leo the way she had looked at her in the library on Tuesday of the first week, and then, a beat later, a degree past that.

"I am listening," she said again.

"Seven nights ago at Maison Noire you read a message at the table. You did not react. You put the phone down. You went home. You did not tell me. I have given you a week to decide when to tell me, and you have not."

"Correct."

"It is Lara Kossek."

Vivienne did not look surprised. Vivienne had stopped looking surprised at this house about a week ago.

"Yes," she said, in the tone of a woman confirming an accounting entry.

"You knew that night?” Leo asked.

"I suspected it was her, yes. And then when that message came through at Maison Noire, I knew.” Vivienne did not look at her.

"You have not told me."

"No." Vivienne still did not look at her.