Page 67 of The Resistance Book Club

‘There’s— there’s someone else in the tunnels,’ she whispered, her eyes wide as she scanned the faces of everyone in the room. ‘I could hear them. Footsteps. It’s not just one person, it sounded like loads of them – like an SS patrol.’

Margot tensed, holding tight to Isabelle. If it was a patrol coming through the tunnels, how could all the book club escape without being seen when the SS were carousing in the street outside? They were trapped.

No one in the cellar said a word, or even dared to breathe.

Margot glanced over at Theo. What would happen to themif— she couldn’t allow herself to think about it. She closed her eyes, listening. She could hear them…quiet, creeping footsteps. They were moving so softly that they barely left an echo, but there was no mistaking it. There were people in the tunnel, lots of them, it seemed. Had the SS decided to fool them all and party drunkenly in the street so that no one would expect an ambush through the tunnels?

They were coming nearer and nearer.

They were outside the door.

Everyone in the cellar backed away, but Margot stood there, rooted to the spot with fear. This was it. This was the end.

FORTY-FIVE

LUCY

2025

Lucy and Andrew sat on opposite sides of a table outside the bar. Even though the sun was shining on them, she felt cold and stiff; he was like a stranger from another world.

‘I wasn’t expecting you to come to Cordeval,’ Lucy told him, as she tapped the edge of a cardboard beer mat against the table.

‘Somebody had to make the first move,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t expect to find you drooling over Monsieur Matinee Idol when I did. I suppose I deserve it, though; I can’t really complain.’

‘No, you can’t,’ Lucy snapped. ‘You broke my heart, Andrew. I just don’t know what possessed you to behave like that.’

He fell silent as Anouk approached the table, two coffee cups on her tray. She put the first down carefully in front of Lucy, before slamming Andrew’s cup onto the glass tabletop so hard that Lucy almost expected it to shatter. Without a word she put down the milk and sugar, before shooting Lucy a supportive smile and going back into the bar.

‘It was a moment of madness,’ Andrew explained. ‘She’sreally persuasive. It just happened, Lulu, and I’m so, so sorry. But you didn’t need to tell all our friends and make a show of me like that. They’d burn me at the bloody stake if they could!’

‘She just happened topersuadeyou out of your clothes and into our bed?’ Lucy said, exasperatedly. ‘What were you even doing bringing a client to our home anyway? And as for our friends – you’re suggesting I should’ve married a cheat just so you could save face!’

Andrew let out a long sigh. ‘So you’re going to throw away years for this?’ He shook his head, then reached out and took Lucy’s hand. Anouk came out of the bar again, carrying a tray laden with food for the couple at the next table. The rich fragrances drifted on the breeze as Anouk unloaded the dishes and plates, chatting cheerfully to the diners all the time.

Andrew said imploringly, ‘I love you, Lulu. You know I’ll never do anything to hurt you ever again; it was a fling, a mad moment. Come home.’

She couldn’t move her hand away; her mind churned with memories. The first time they’d met at university, and how they’d got on immediately. She remembered their dates at pubs and trips to the cinema. Then, as they established themselves in their careers, there were meals at fancy restaurants and invitations to champagne receptions overlooking the Thames.

Then there was the last-minute weekend trip to New York and his proposal. She saw each room of his house, where they’d been so happy, planning the rest of their lives together. The beautiful diamond engagement ring he’d given her was still buried in the bottom of her suitcase.

If she went back to London, everyone would be happy – her father would be so relieved to see her back behind her desk atGlitzmagazine, she could go back and accept Polly’s promotion, and the wedding that had been thrown in the bin would be back on. Andrew could save face and everything could go back to how it was.

But Lucy wouldn’t be happy at all.

‘I’m not asking you to give up France,’ Andrew went on. He nodded towards the little shop over the road. ‘Think of what we could do with that place. It could be the start of your property portfolio, couldn’t it? Maybe a holiday home? A little boutique hotel? A restaurant serving something that isn’t pure cholesterol?’ He shot a brief glance towards the meals that their neighbours were tucking into. ‘This place is a bit one-horse at the moment and it’s hard to look at a grotty little dump like that shop and see what it could be, but you know I can work magic. Imagine it in a few years, if you and I combine our talents. Team LuDrew?’ Andrew lifted Lucy’s hand and kissed it. ‘We’d be unstoppable.’

Lucy snatched her hand away. ‘A grotty little dump? How dare you! That’s my grandmother’s shop you’re insulting, and my great-grandmother’s before her. Do you have any idea what they went through to keep it open, and you have the bloody nerve to call it agrotty little dump? They made so many sacrifices when the Germans tried to take everything away from them, and they would’ve walked miles if it meant they could’ve had adeliciousmeal like that at the end of it.’ Her mouth watered at the sight of the melting Camembert at the next table, studded with rosemary sprigs from Sébastien’s garden.

‘Cordeval needs its bookshop – I’mnotturning it into a boutique hotel!’ Lucy went on spiritedly. It was as if, somewhere, Margot and the Resistance Book Club were cheering her on. ‘Or a restaurant serving quinoa and spiralised carrots! Maybe…maybe back when I was atGlitzI’d have loved the thought of owning a boutique hotel here – I’d have done so many shoots in it, with spoiled starlets complaining about the oat milk in their decaf and bored models tripping over their own feet. But no, I’ve already made up my mind – I’m going to run the bookshop,anda café. Serving buttery croissants and sugary plum tarts!’

Andrew sat back, blinking theatrically. ‘Wow,’ he breathed. Then he glanced back through the plate-glass window of the bar, his gaze a glare that was directed at Sébastien.

‘I won’t wait for you,’ he said, as though there was any world in which Lucy would want him to. ‘When I leave today, we’re done.’

Lucy folded her arms defiantly. Just up the road from where they were sitting was a plaque on a wall marking the place where people had been murdered for standing up to tyranny. She thought of Theo, and Margot. They refused to be cowed, to toe the line and do what they were told. They refused to take the easy route.

Andrew was hardly Felix Lauterborn, but Lucy wasn’t going to let the man who had broken her heart and who she could never trust again dictate the rest of her life. She had to stand up for what she wanted.