Free Satin Doll by Maggie; Davis Page B

you will let me take you to dinner?”  
    Sam hesitated. The Cockney Englishman was Solange Doumer’s friend? As in S. Doumer, directrice, Maison Louvel?  
    “He’s the what ?” she said.  
    Alain des Baux shrugged. “He is the good friend of the director, Solange Doumer. As to whether he is here at night, I don’t think so. Solange lives in Passy.”  
    Sam stared at him, wanting to make sure she knew what he was saying—if “good friend” meant the same thing on this side of the Atlantic as it did in New York.  
    She didn’t have time to ask. The footsteps descending the stairs into the crypt were louder. Alain took his arms from the stone sarcophagus and straightened up, bumping his head against the low arch of the ceiling as he did so.  
    The footsteps stopped. High heels, legs and the hem of a beige dress could be seen under electric lights as a woman paused on the stairs. Chip straightened up and moved away from the wall.  
    “ Mais, que faites-vous là en bas? ” a clear, high-pitched female voice wanted to know.  
    “If I’m not mistaken,” Alain des Baux said, wincing and rubbing the back of his head, “here she is now.”
     

 
    Le Plan  
    The Design  
     

 
    Chapter Five
     
    Sam woke up on Sunday morning knowing she had to call New York.  
    She couldn’t call Jack, not on Sunday, because Jack spent his weekends at his house in Connecticut with Marianna and their daughters. Being involved with a married man was something she condemned in others; it was even worse when you faced it first thing in the morning, Sam told herself, rolling over in bed to look at her wristwatch on the night table.  
    It was nine o’clock in Paris, which meant it was much too early to call New York. But she needed to talk to Mindy Ferragamo, to touch base with somebody before she met with the directrice of the Maison Louvel Monday morning. Reporting back to Jackson Storm headquarters on what she’d found in Paris wasn’t going to be as simple as they’d first thought. Well, she’d have to wait a few hours to call, but in the meantime she could at least think of what she wanted to say.  
    Sam rolled over on her back and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the slightly musty smell of the bed covered in unbelievable black satin sheets while she organized her thoughts. She wasn’t particularly good at the executive skill of verbal reports, and she was still a little groggy with jet lag, but she wanted to do this job right. A frantic call from Paris wouldn’t enhance her position with Jackson Storm, Inc.; she wanted to be sure of what she intended to say.  
    Okay, what did she want to say? she thought with a sigh.  
    How about: “The Maison Louvel is in an old building in the rue des Bénédictines not far from the rue de la Paix. There’s a lot of unused workspace, especially on the office floor, and a diminished personnel force in the atelier, with one of the seamstresses doubling as the fitter.” Not good, but at least she was reporting it.  
    Funeral clothes seem to be the current work project? Better leave that out until you can look into it. A crypt with knights’ tombs in the cellar? Inwardly she groaned. A directrice, Madame Solange Doumer, who says she doesn’t speak English and whose daughter is the house model?  
    At least the mystery of why gorgeous Sophie was still a model at a house like the old Maison Louvel had been solved the moment Madame Doumer had appeared. Sam hadn’t needed Alain des Baux’s whispered explanation that Solange Doumer was Sophie’s mother. The resemblance was there in the willowy, high-breasted figure in the tailored beige silk dress, the whipped-cream complexion and the mahogany-colored hair. Madame Doumer had not been exactly overwhelmed with enthusiasm at the sight of one rather rumpled Sam Laredo in tank top, boots and jeans from Jackson Storm in New York.  
    With Alain des Baux translating, Madame Doumer regretted that Mademoiselle Laredo had arrived at