“I’m not anxious,” he sneered. “Nor am I frightened or intimidated or worried or whatever else you’re feeling and projecting onto me right now. I am a soldier, and soldiers do not fear anything.”

Sophie sighed. “That’s not at all—”

“Good afternoon.” The greeting came from a harried-looking middle-aged woman. She had a tailor’s tape around her neck, spectacles perched on top of her greying hair, and a pencil stub impaled in the bun at the back of her head.

“Good afternoon,” Sophie replied.

“Merde,” the woman said as she stared at Sophie, her fingers sliding on the tape as if itching to start taking measurements. “The best couture houses in Paris would have fought over dressing you.”

Sophie bit her lip. “You are too kind.”

“I’m not. Not at all. Kindness does not build a label. Only appearance does that. Careful maintenance of a mirage that can convince people they can be something they’re not if they possess the right things. All the best houses in Paris know this too.”

“You’ve worked in these houses,” Sophie said. When she had lived in Paris, she had often walked by the couture houses along the Place Vendôme. And she had seen the women who shopped there.

“In another life. It’s what makes me good at this now, no? Dressing people who are something they’re not.” The woman gave a very Gallic shrug. “I am Marie. Major Reed, he says you need to be dressed, yes? Socks, coats, luggage, shoes?”

“Yes. Everything down to our knickers.”

“Bonne. Follow me, s’il vous plaît.” Marie led them to what had probably been the study or the library before the war.

Now the space looked like a haphazard department store, full of coats and suits and dresses hanging on wheeled racks and draped over chairs and tables. Boxes of what Sophie could only imagine were shoes and accessories were stacked along one wall, and nearby, two women bent industriously over sewing machines.

“Is it really necessary I be here?” Gerard asked, looking around. “Surely my…associate can pick out something for me. She is supposed to be my wife, after all, and this is most certainly women’s work.”

Sophie kept her expression impassive.

Marie’s lips thinned. “All agents must personally get fitted. No exceptions.”

Gerard sighed loudly. “I’d rather just pick up my papers and go for a pint while we wait.”

Wouldn’t we all, Sophie wanted to say. She refrained.

“Clothes here first,” Marie intoned, her annoyance clear. “Papers, money, weapons at the airfield. You will be searched there too. No part of England can go to France, yes? That is how agents do not come back.”

“Fine.” Gerard sighed loudly again as if to underscore his displeasure at the inconvenience.