Page 31 of Under Her Protection

She had the driver drop her at the gate. Beaumont nodded at her from the lodge. She crossed the courtyard in the thin Friday light and let herself in through the service entrance, because the service entrance was closer to the kitchen, and she had seen Vivienne go into the kitchen at ten fifty-five every morning of this week to make tea she did not drink, which was the one small habit Leo had identified in the house that Vivienne did not know Leo had identified.

Vivienne was in the kitchen.

She was at the counter, in grey, with the kettle on. She did not turn when Leo came in. That, Leo had learned, was not rudeness. It was information. Vivienne had known she was coming, and had not turned. Leo had stopped needing a reason by Tuesday.

"Mademoiselle Cole."

"Madame."

"Tea?”

"Thank you. Yes."

Vivienne did not look surprised. Vivienne made the tea. She set a cup on the counter at the corner nearest to where Leo would stand, without sugar, because Vivienne had registered on day one that Leo took sugar in coffee and not in tea, and she had not forgotten. Small domestic attentions, paid for by a woman who, by her own account, did not want Leo in her house.

Leo picked up the cup.

"I have been with Avery this morning," Leo said.

"Mm."

"We have some names."

"Names."

"Three in your organization I want to move on in the next forty-eight hours. One of them has a tie to a firm outside your building. That tie is the part I want to talk about."

Vivienne's hand, which had been holding her own cup, did not move.

"Go on," she said.

"YLV Advisory. Corporate intelligence. London, Zurich. Advisory board of three. One of those three is a Dr. Lara Kossek."

Vivienne did not turn.

Her hand did not move.

Her jaw did not tighten. Her eyelid did not flinch. She was very, very still, the way a principal in Leo's experience was still when she had been waiting for a sentence for several days, and the sentence had now arrived.

"I see," Vivienne said.

"That is all you are going to say?”

"Mademoiselle Cole. What would you like me to say?”

“You have history with Lara Kossek?”

"I do not discuss my personal history with staff."

"I am not staff."

"You are not my friend either.”

Leo set her cup down.

"Madame," she said. "If the person behind this is personal to you, you need to tell me. Tonight. Not next week. Not when she does something we cannot pull back from. Tonight. I will do my work either way. I work better when I am not working blind."

Vivienne looked at the kettle.