Chapter One

Yvette

Paris, February 1947

Paris was freezing. Even colder than New York. Yvette waited while the young lawyer’s clerk who had met her at the Gare Saint-Lazare patted his pockets and muttered to himself. Monsieur LeBrun was small, neat, and brilliantined, with round black spectacles like bicycle tires framing his dark eyes.

For mercy’s sake, stop fussing and let’s get somewhere warm, she begged him silently. But with such men, one must be patient.

“Ah!” He fished out a paper from an inner coat pocket with an expression of mild triumph. “You will be staying at . . .” He frowned at his itinerary as if it confused him. “The Ritz.”

Yvette nearly dropped her suitcase. “Vraiment?” She peered over LeBrun’s shoulder to check, but there it was in black and white. Louise Dulac had hauled her all the way across the Atlantic to testify at her trial. Knowing the film star, Yvette had not expected simple gratitude, much less accommodation fit for a king.

Perhaps Louise was sending her a message: You were complicit. You were there, too.

“If you will follow me, mademoiselle.” LeBrun took Yvette’s suitcase and they stepped into the thin light of a wintry Parisian afternoon.

Yvette’s last memories of Paris were of sweltering heat and evening thunderstorms. For a moment, the sight of this brittle, frigid metropolis disoriented her. Then she looked up and saw the delicate strength of the Eiffel Tower standing tall above the tree-lined boulevards, caught the faint strains of an accordion from a café down the street, and the city swept her up in its embrace.

Half-laughing, Yvette closed her eyes, lifted her shoulders, and inhaled deeply. The air was so cold it burned her lungs, but it was ripe with those old, familiar smells. As in any city, there was exhaust mixed with the whiff of wet rubbish and urine, the chemical tang of printer’s ink from a nearby newspaper stand. But she caught the phantom scent of baking bread, the earthy sweetness of Gauloise cigarettes, and the faint, complex notes of French perfume.

“How I have missed you,” she whispered. New York, for all its excitement and challenges, had not been Paris.

A sharp crack-ack-ack made her jump and duck her head, her heart beating wildly. It was only the clatter of the metal grille being pulled shut in front of a jeweler’s shop—-she saw that almost at once—-but she couldn’t stop the images that flooded her mind. It all came back in a rush of constant vigilance, of hunger and fear. In New York, she had tried so hard to forget . . .

“Mademoiselle?”

She started, blinking, then her heart gradually slowed. The war was over and she was safe. The lawyer’s clerk was waiting. “Sorry, monsieur. It is being back again, you understand.” She fastened the top button of her heavy coat, pulled her gloves out of her pocket and tugged them on, then followed Monsieur LeBrun to a waiting Renault.

If only she had her bicycle! She longed to reacquaint herself with her delivery routes, her old friends and haunts. First, she ought to visit Gabby and Maman . . . But LeBrun shepherded her into the car, settled himself beside her, and ordered the driver to go.

When Louise Dulac’s summons had come, Yvette’s first instinct had been to refuse. Reliving her wartime experiences, particularly the treatment she’d suffered at the movie star’s hands, was something she’d wished never to do. But the chance to return home to Paris, all expenses paid, was so very tempting, and when she’d discovered that by leaving a week earlier than planned she could arrive in time for Monsieur Dior’s first-ever fashion show, that clinched the matter.

She had obtained some catalog work as a mannequin in New York but the American designers had wanted a strong, wholesome, sporty look. Yvette’s high cheekbones and masses of curling, honey-brown hair could not compensate for her ethereal thinness, the pale translucency of her skin, or the disconcertingly catlike shape of her hazel eyes. Besides, everyone knew the true home of haute couture was Paris. If she could be part of Monsieur Dior’s first show, even in some small way, or, even better, if she could talk Monsieur Dior into giving her a job as a mannequin at his new fashion house, testifying for Louise Dulac would be worth it.

Inevitably, thinking of the couturier brought memories of his sister. Catherine. Guilt uncoiled inside Yvette, spreading its tentacles, enfolding her in its grip. If not for her impulsiveness, if not for the foolish mistakes she’d made—-

Monsieur LeBrun’s pedantic, clipped speech interrupted her thoughts. “The charges against Louise Dulac are very grave, mademoiselle.” He described them and her stomach clenched.

“Treason?” She had expected they would prosecute Louise for collaboration only. Collaboration horizontale, they called it. Sleeping with the enemy. The authorities must have discovered more about Louise’s activities than Yvette had anticipated. Suddenly, her own position turned precarious.

She caught the edge of LeBrun’s query: “Does that suit?”

He was waiting for her answer. “I beg your pardon, monsieur. I was not listening.”

LeBrun frowned. “The trial begins in less than two weeks, mademoiselle. I will let you get settled tomorrow, but the next day, we must meet to begin preparing your statement. Shall we say, one o’clock?”

Yvette tried to pay attention as he outlined the judicial process, but his voice soon slipped from her mind’s grasp, became mere background noise. She gazed out of the window, drinking Paris in, its tree-lined boulevards and sidewalk cafés, its grand stone terraces with their blue tiled roofs. Plenty of military vehicles and troops still about, but friendly ones. And not a swastika in sight.

As they headed toward La Madeleine church, her heart gave a sudden, hard thump, but the driver turned left, then right, zigzagging toward the Place Vendôme. Her shoulders relaxed.

Before anything else, she must see Gabby and Maman. But if merely driving in the direction of their tiny apartment on the rue Royale made her sick and dizzy, how would she bring herself to face her sister? She had not opened a single one of Gabby’s letters, much less answered them.

It had been enough to know they were alive, Catherine and Gabby and Maman. She’d needed very badly to put the war behind her, to move on. If she’d allowed even one of those memories to seep in through the wall she’d built around herself, it would have become a flood. She would have drowned in them.

Now, because of the trial, she would be forced to relive it all. Had it been a mistake to return? But what else could she have done?

Forcing her thoughts elsewhere, Yvette said to LeBrun, “I hear rationing is still in force.” There was no masking tape on the shop windows or sandbags stacked against the walls anymore, but the effects of war were still apparent from the queue outside the butchery they passed, the small pâtisserie whose display window stood empty, the scant vegetables for sale at the grocer’s stall.

“You will not have to worry about rationing at the Ritz,” said LeBrun dryly as the Renault swung into the Place Vendôme and pulled up outside the hotel entrance.

Guiltily, she acknowledged that of course, this was true. Ah, but what memories this hotel brought back! She had been there many times before, but she felt even more out of place as a guest than as a shabbily dressed delivery girl from the House of Lelong.

The foyer, with its high ornate ceilings dripping chandeliers, its elegant Louis XVI furniture, marble columns, and potted palms, had been a home away from home for royalty and movie stars for decades. The reception desk was tucked beneath a circular window, almost out of sight of the foyer, adding to the illusion of a private residence. While Monsieur LeBrun conducted a low-voiced conversation with the superior-looking individual at the counter, Yvette approached the concierge. “Good day, monsieur. I was hoping you could help me. I hear that Christian Dior has opened a new atelier. Could you please tell me where it is?”

The concierge smiled. “Yes, indeed, mademoiselle. It is on the avenue Montaigne, number thirty. In fact, monsieur’s premiere is tomorrow.”

Excitement fizzed inside her. “Isn’t it marvelous? I can’t wait.”

The concierge looked apologetic, no doubt inwardly shaking his head at this strange creature who thought she could waltz into a couturier’s first-ever fashion show. “I’m afraid it’s invitation only, mademoiselle.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Yvette replied. “I didn’t mean I expected to go.” And of course she could never command an invitation. She’d only been the delivery girl when Monsieur Dior worked as a designer at the House of Lelong, after all. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t slip in behind the scenes. She would manage somehow.

With a sense of living in a dream, Yvette followed Monsieur LeBrun up to her suite. Moving through the sumptuous hotel room, she tried to glance about casually, as if she was accustomed to residing in such a place. A far cry from the dingy Brooklyn apartment she shared with two other girls from the modeling agency.

As LeBrun oversaw the disposal of her suitcase and dealt with the tip, Yvette wandered around, running her hand along a cream silk sofa, inspecting the painting above the marble mantelpiece—-a portrait of a lady from the Belle Epoque. The sitting room window overlooked the Place Vendôme. Yvette paused in the embrasure, staring vacantly at the activity below. She felt overwhelmed and wary, off balance in a way that she could not explain.

The door clicked behind the porter and she turned to Monsieur LeBrun.

“You must be hungry, mademoiselle.” He indicated the ivory and gold telephone by the sofa. “You are to order whatever you wish.”

Yvette closed her eyes, imagining a piping-hot meal delivered by two waiters, silver domes whipped away with a flourish. Gleaming lumps of caviar, a steak grillé sur planche. To finish, crêpes Suzette, which the chef would prepare before her eyes, flaming the orange sauce with all the dazzle and drama of a Broadway show.

It was far, far too much for someone who had subsisted mainly on soup from a can for the past two years and on wartime rations before that.

“Perhaps later. Thank you.” She paused, then indicated the suite with a wave of her hand. “I did not expect such generosity. Despite her arrest, Louise Dulac still has deep pockets, it seems.”

LeBrun shifted slightly, as if to disagree. Yvette raised her eyebrows. “Or perhaps it is not mademoiselle who has the deep pockets.”

He pressed his lips together and did not reply.

Regardless of who was footing the bill, even the wealthiest person would not pay for Yvette to cross the Atlantic and stay at the Ritz without good cause. Louise must be desperate.

Yvette’s head jerked up. “Tell me, monsieur, am I Mademoiselle Dulac’s only witness?”

The clerk fixed her with his worried, earnest gaze. “Mademoiselle Foucher,” he said, “you are her only hope.”

Gabby

Paris, February 1947

Gabrielle Foucher hurried along the rue Royale, the wooden soles of her shoes clipping the pavement, her breath puffs of vapor in the freezing air. If she never accomplished anything else in her life, she must reach the House of Dior in time for the fashion show. It was a twenty-minute walk to avenue Montaigne. She needed to be there in ten.

She sped past old Abelard, who was sweeping the sidewalk under the red awning of Maxim’s, cap pulled low over his forehead, a cigarette attached to his lower lip. Answering his good-morning wheeze with “Sorry! I’m so late,” she did not stop for their usual banter.

Even now, at nearly ten in the morning, delicious scents from the famous restaurant filled the air, following her up the street. They were baking something sweet—-pastries, perhaps, or brioche? Her stomach murmured. She hadn’t even drunk her morning tisane. There’d been no time for that.

She’d crammed a full day’s work into a few hours, rising well before dawn. Gabby’s duties as concierge of the apartment building at number 10 rue Royale did not stop for a fashion show, of course—-not even the premiere of Christian Dior’s first-ever collection. But her mother could take over for the couple of hours she was away. All that was left to be done was to peer out the window of their little ground-floor apartment, see who desired admittance, and press the button that released the street door to the building. Maman could manage that much. She’d been concierge there for many years until Gabby took up the reins.

The tall, pointed obelisk at the Place de la Concorde loomed ahead, spearing into the sky. Gabby turned the corner. She would cut through the gardens to the Champs-Élysées to save time.

Then she spied one of her tenants, Madame Vasseur, leading her apricot poodle out of the gardens and turning toward her. Ah, no! Madame would be certain to delay her with endless complaints, from the state of the plumbing in her apartment to the state of the nation under de Gaulle. Gabby put her head down and veered left, taking the long way around. The long way would be quicker than an encounter with madame.

The Champs-Élysées stretched before her, stripped and bleak, its leafless trees reaching skeletal fingers toward the dirty white blanket of cloud overhead. Far in the distance, at the end of the avenue, stood the Arc de Triomphe. Gabby’s chest gave that familiar clutch of panic and her stomach began to churn.

“Stop it!” she muttered. It was 1947. They were free. Yet, every time she glimpsed the monument, a vision would fill her mind’s eye: the spiderlike swastika flying from Napoléon’s triumphal arch, mocking France’s celebrated military power.

She clutched her purse tighter and squared her shoulders. This morning was about beauty and glamor, not past ugliness. At the House of Dior, she would revel in the shining promise of the future, even if her own reality would never match those silken dreams.

An ordinary woman like her would never wear Dior. But she was alive. She had a job and a roof over her head. She hadn’t suffered in any significant way during the war—not like countless others who had been rounded up, sent away, some never to be seen again. Not like Catherine Dior.

Had it not been for Catherine, Gabby never would have been invited to witness the first showing of her brother Christian’s premiere collection.

Had it not been for Catherine, Gabby might now be content. Mademoiselle Dior had tossed a challenge into Gabby’s existence like a resistance fighter lobbing a hand grenade. For that brief period in 1944, Gabby’s world had exploded into danger. But when the dust had settled, she’d found herself completely alone.

As she hurried down the avenue, weaving in and out of other pedestrians, Gabby glanced again at her watch. Ten o’clock already! She was supposed to be there now. Lungs burning from the cold air and exertion, she put on an extra burst of speed.

At last, she reached avenue Montaigne and her shoulders sagged with relief. The pavement outside the House of Dior teemed with people still waiting to get in. She need not have worried she’d be turned away at the door for being late.

Slowing as she approached, Gabby looked up, scanning the impressive structure as she tried to catch her breath. Monsieur Dior had chosen a most elegant building for his atelier, constructed of that buttery limestone peculiar to Paris. The tiny foothold balconies outside its long windows were girded with iron railings so delicately wrought they looked like black lace.

As she came closer, she saw the pale grey awning over the entrance with the name “Christian Dior” printed in white. Vicarious pride flooded her chest with warmth. He had done it! Of course he had. And there was monsieur’s name again, carved into the stone walls either side of the door, speaking of quiet confidence in its permanency.

Unable to stop the stupid grin that spread over her face, Gabby joined the waiting crowd. Guests were being admitted in an orderly fashion, in groups of three.

She knew a little about what happened at shows like these. They would all be packed together like sardines in a tin. She did not expect to be given a good vantage point. Those were reserved for far more important people than she.

Today, everyone who was anyone would be there. And she was there. She, who was no one at all.

Covertly, Gabby studied what the other women were wearing under their sleek fur coats. Mostly black suits like hers. Although, not like hers, really. Even she could tell the other women’s clothes were of a superior cut, their hats infinitely more fashionable than her simple beret. Their hair was cropped or pinned up, not worn long down the back and rolled up at the front as she’d styled her thick black tresses today.

She lifted her hand to her lapel, rubbed the pad of her thumb over the pin that nestled there. It was a bird made of platinum, with a diamond-dappled breast and a small, round sapphire for an eye.

With a nervous half-smile, Gabby showed her invitation and was waved through. The salons of number 30 avenue Montaigne were filled to bursting, and by the time Gabby entered, every one of the chairs provided for guests had been filled.

It was like stepping into an expensive cloud, she thought, peering around her. Monsieur Dior had outfitted his domain as elegantly as any of his beautiful mannequins. The walls were the most exquisite shade of pearl grey, the moldings picked out in white, like piped icing on a cake. Swathes of grey satin at the windows whispered of luxury; crystal chandeliers and brass light fittings shimmered and gleamed. Everywhere, there were flowers—-white lily of the valley (monsieur’s favorite), sweet peas, roses, blue delphiniums. The beauty was almost overwhelming and somehow utterly right.

And through it all, the salons breathed a new fragrance, a most exquisite scent, fresh and floral. The one Christian had named after Catherine. He had called it “Miss Dior.”