FiftyThe anticipated “later” occurred the next day, as Elizabeth knew it had to. If Hector de Vile set his mind to something, he was not easily deflected. She had pleaded fatigue after the funeral, but agreed to meet him in the City of Paris department store’s popular café, rather than in her home. She wanted to maintain strong emotional barricades against de Vile’s interrogation.
For more than twenty years she had dreaded the prospect of this day arriving, and finally, here it was.
She glanced around at the modish merchants’ wives and lawyers’ daughters, chattering like tropical birds over their afternoon engagements. The tinkle of bone-china coffee cups punctuated the high notes of female voices. She breathed in a delicious blend of chocolate, coffee and cinnamon and the tension betwee
