Belle - Lesley Pearse [120]
‘You are good at your job,’ he chuckled softly. ‘For a moment I almost believed you meant it!’
Belle sat up sharply and looked down at him. ‘But I did. Truly!’
He smiled and moved closer to kiss her nipple. Just that light touch sent a shiver of pleasure down her spine and she pulled him closer to her.
‘I have to go,’ he said reluctantly after a minute or two. ‘Could you get me my clothes?’
Some ten minutes later he was dressed in his dry, pressed clothes. Cissie had even polished his shoes for him. He put his hands on Belle’s waist, smiling down at her red satin and lace negligee. ‘Can we do this again, sugar?’ he asked.
‘I would be cross if you didn’t want to,’ she replied, tilting her face up so she could kiss him. ‘But I feel bad that you had to pay Madam all that money.’
He leaned down to kiss her. ‘You’re worth it, sugar,’ he said with a smile. ‘But now I must hit the road!’
Belle went back to bed after she’d shown him out. She wasn’t sure exactly what she felt. She was pleased that she’d got closer to Faldo, maybe he would want her for his mistress now, and she was fairly certain he could afford to pay whatever Martha asked to release her. But she also felt sad that she was planning to cheat such a good man.
‘You can’t think about that,’ she told herself sharply. ‘Your duty is to look after yourself and get back to England. Faldo will get what he wants too.’
‘What was it like with him all night?’ Hatty asked later that same day. All the girls were in the kitchen dunking beignets in their coffee. ‘He sure must be loaded to pay so much.’
Hatty was a big, voluptuous girl with mid-brown hair, green eyes and a very kind heart. She was the one Belle confided in and sought out for company. She’d been brought up in an orphanage in San Francisco and had run away when one of the male governors tried to have his way with her. She had been forced into prostitution by a couple who pretended to befriend her, and it was these people who sold her on to Martha, along with Suzanne.
‘Or he’s in love with Belle?’ Betty said with a wide smile.
‘I think it was more because he didn’t want to put his wet clothes back on,’ Belle giggled.
She had noticed Anna-Maria was scowling and so she thought she’d better keep her real thoughts about Faldo to herself for now. ‘I thought morning would never come,’ she added for good measure.
There was a little more conversation between the girls about men who asked to stay all night. It seemed to Belle that most men backed off when they heard how much it was. From what she could gather, without seeming too interested, Hatty was the only other of them to have had an all-nighter.
‘You’d better share your tricks with us, honey,’ Anna-Maria said to Belle. The girl was smiling, her voice sugar-sweet, but Belle sensed the underlying venom. ‘Did you pick them up in Paris? Do tell!’
‘No tricks. Like I said, he just didn’t want to put his wet clothes back on,’ Belle repeated. ‘I wouldn’t mind betting that when he looks at his empty pocketbook he’ll never come back again.’
In the week that followed Faldo was never far from Belle’s mind. It wasn’t so much daydreaming about him as the possibility of the ticket out of here and a few steps nearer to getting home to England. But meanwhile, along with the undercurrent with Martha, there was one with Anna-Maria too. She gave Belle dark looks, and often broke off conversations when Belle came into the room.
Belle knew Anna-Maria had been the house favourite when she arrived, and within weeks Belle had taken her place. Belle could imagine how galling that was; she knew even she would be jealous if Martha bought in a new girl and her position was usurped.
Anna-Maria’s beauty was of the tempestuous, dramatic kind: olive skin, nearly black eyes and black curly hair, and the fiery nature to go with it. She was not only angry about Belle’s popularity with the gentlemen,