Page 97 of Under Her Protection

Leo put her hand on the back of Vivienne's head.

They did not move.

Leo's chest rose and fell under Vivienne's cheek at a pace that was slower than Vivienne's own, by some margin, and Vivienne, who had been a woman of the measurable pulse for thirty years, let her own pulse slow to Leo's.

"Leo."

"Yes."

"Do not say anything."

"I was not going to."

"Good."

"Mm."

They breathed.

For a moment, a single shared one, Vivienne's breath and Leo's breath found the same line, and the one sensory detail Vivienne permitted the room was the warm cedar at the hollow of Leo's collarbone under her nose, unmistakable, the one note that had been in every room Leo had walked into for six weeks, and was now in this bed, and Vivienne, with her forehead against that collarbone, felt something powerful between herself and Leo.

She had no doubt Leo felt it too.

Leo's hand, on the back of Vivienne's head, kept the small steady pressure it had kept since they had come up the stairs, and Vivienne, against her shoulder, closed her eyes, and was, for the first time in nine hours, held.

Outside, somewhere in Paris, a woman named Lara Kossek was moving.

Inside, Vivienne slept.

She slept in a way she had not slept maybe ever, which was with her full weight against another body, and she did not know, until the morning, that Leo had not closed her eyes once through the whole of it.

She knew only the warm cedar at Leo's collarbone and the pace of Leo's breath, and she slept.

18

The first Maison Noire night after the gala came up the following week.

Leo had, in the five days since the the library, slept really not that much and it wasn’t doing her any good. Avery had come off the sofa in the library on Sunday morning only to go to HQ for forty minutes, and had come back. Avery had taken the guest room on the first floor on Sunday night. Avery was, this evening, at Maison Noire with them, in a flat black jacket and a chair one seat over from Vivienne, introduced to the Circle as Blackthorn analyst with Vivienne's endorsement, which meant Colette had taken her coat with the small nod Colette took coats with, which meant Avery, too, was now a discretion-bound body in this house.

They were in the red lounge.

Vivienne on the banquette with a half glass of Armagnac she had not drunk. Isabella to her right. Sienna to Isabella's right. Charlotte Langford opposite, in grey Chanel, which was what she was always in, and Helena at the far end of the banquette with her legs crossed and her hands loose and her attention moved, once, to the door, and back. Avery at Vivienne's left, one chair removed, laptop closed on the low table, not drinking. Leo by the wall, three paces from Vivienne's shoulder, in the black suit.

Isabella was telling a story about a photograph in a Spanish magazine.

It was, Leo registered, not about Vivienne.

Vivienne laughed.

It was a short laugh, the laugh of a woman who was running fourteen hours a day and who was not, this week, sleeping much, but it was a laugh. Isabella laughed with her. Sienna, the football club owner, laughed. Charlotte Langford, who did not laugh until she had decided, decided tonight and permitted her mouth a small amused thing, and Helena, at the far end, smiled at the room and did not look at Leo.

Leo’s mind was running on overdrive.

"Avery."

"Yes."

"Three minutes."