Belle - Lesley Pearse [147]
‘I want you out of my shop immediately.’ Miss Frank’s voice was shrill and cold. ‘Go on now, you little strumpet.’
Belle knew she had to leave; nothing she could say was going to overcome this woman’s prejudices.
‘Fine, I’ll go,’ she said, darting forward and snatching up a small pile of her designs from the work bench. ‘But you can’t keep these, and I’ll just slip down to Angelique’s to inform them their latest order was designed and made up by a whore. They’ll probably want to return the lot if they are anything like you!’
She saw Miss Frank’s small face crumple and for a split second she was tempted to say she didn’t mean that. But she was too hurt to back down; she’d truly believed the affection she had felt for this woman was reciprocated.
‘I’m just seventeen. I’ve been through hell since I was snatched from my home a year and a half ago, and I’m over four thousand miles away from there, without any idea of how to get back,’ she spat out, waving the sheaf of designs she held in her hand. ‘What little security I had died yesterday with Mr Reiss, but I thought I had one true friend who would listen and advise me what to do without judging me. What a fool I was!’
She took some small satisfaction in seeing shame flood across the small woman’s face, but turned and walked out of the shop.
Almost blinded by tears, Belle returned home. She had no alternative now but to leave New Orleans. This was, by anyone’s measure, a very juicy story and she knew Miss Frank would not be able to keep it to herself. It would get back to Martha in no time and then she’d be after Belle.
Then there was the police. They were bound to come back and ask her more questions, especially if anything odd came up at Faldo’s post mortem. Once they found out about her past they might even blame her for his death. Yet even more alarming now was that the people who had been behind buying and selling her might want to silence her permanently.
She was terrified. If she went to the train station one of Martha’s spies might tip her off and they’d come after her. A ship was probably the best plan, but she didn’t have the first idea how to fix that up.
As she packed her suitcase, she tried to tell herself that she’d always known this day would come, because she’d bought the suitcase for this very eventuality. But still she sobbed, for she had never expected that it would be under these circumstances. She had selected things for her home with such care, and it hurt to have to leave them all behind. The blue fan decorated with gold cherubs that she’d fixed above her bed could go with her as it folded away to nothing, but she couldn’t take the picture of an exotic beach because it was too big. She had idled away so many hours imagining staying in a little straw-roofed hut on such a beach, with swaying palm trees, white sand and turquoise sea. She’d dreamed too of a man like Etienne taking care of her. But the picture and the lovely red hearth rug in the living room and all the other pretty things she’d bought would have to stay here.
She had more clothes now than she’d arrived with, four dresses, various petticoats, chemises, stockings, drawers and shoes, but she no longer had a warm coat, for the old fur one she was given in France had been left on the ship when she arrived in New Orleans. The weather here might still be mild, but she knew that once she got nearer to New York it would turn very cold.
An hour later Belle was in Canal Street, her arm aching from carrying the heavy suitcase the short distance. She had pushed the keys of the house back through the letter box as she left, assuming the landlord would call once he’d been notified that Faldo had died.
Waving down a cab, she asked him to take her to Alderson’s and wait while she shopped, then to take her down to the docks.
Belle felt a slight pang of conscience as she charged the expensive grey coat