Chapter 20: The Long Table

Léon buckled the collar around my neck in the back of the car.

It was the black leather one from his garden, with the steel ring at the throat.

"Look at me," he said. "Does it sit right?"

"It sits right."

"Then breathe."

I breathed.

Dominique sat across from me with his hand on my knee.

Armand and Auguste took the front.

Nobody spoke all the way to Sainte-Foy.

The house stood behind a high wall, with lit windows all down one side.

A man in a dinner jacket opened the door before we knocked.

"Mademoiselle Rochefort," he said. "We have been waiting."

I walked in between my four men with my coat belted over nothing.

The hall was stone and mirror and lamplight. A staircase curved up into the dark.

From a room beyond came the sound of men's voices, low and easy, and the clink of crystal.

"Leave the coat," said the host.

He stood in the doorway of the dining room.

He was tall, with silver hair brushed straight back and a face that had never been refused.

His eyes passed over my four men once, politely, and settled on me.

"Gentlemen," he said, without turning round. "She is here."

I undid the belt myself.

I slid the coat from my shoulders, and Léon caught it before it fell.

In the lamp I stood naked except for the collar.

The host looked at me for a long moment.

"Auguste tells me you asked for this," he said.

"I did, sir."

"Come and be shown."

The dining room held a table long enough for twenty.

A dozen men sat down both sides of it with their jackets on and their napkins folded.

Not one of them looked under sixty.

They looked at me slowly, and they were in no hurry.

There was a white cloth on the table, and nothing on it but a row of candles.

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