Belle - Lesley Pearse [168]
Belle felt like cheering. He wouldn’t take her anywhere if he wasn’t half-way interested in her. He’d just usher her to the door and tell her to leave or he’d call the gendarmes. ‘That’s fine with me,’ she said.
Some twenty minutes later Belle was walking back to her hotel. She thought Pascal would make a good poker player as he hadn’t revealed anything about himself, or even compromised his position at the hotel. He had taken her to a small room along the long corridor which looked as though it was used by guests for business meetings, furnished with a large table and eight chairs. He asked her to sit down, then sat down opposite her and asked point blank what it was that she wanted. She said she wished to be put in touch with gentlemen who wanted a partner for the evening when they were alone in Paris. He responded by asking her why she thought he or anyone else in this hotel would wish to get involved with such arrangements.
‘To make your guests happy,’ she said, trying to look as if she’d done this before.
He made no response to that, which puzzled Belle even more. He had no real reason to bring her to this room; he could have put these questions to her in the foyer where there were so many people milling around that they wouldn’t have been overheard. She hadn’t even vaguely alluded to sex, nor had she said anything about a fee for her services. If she had been more naive she might have thought he didn’t understand what she meant.
But experience told Belle he not only knew exactly what she was offering, but he also wanted her for himself. His dark eyes might have no expression, and his manner was starchy, but he had very fleshy lips, something she had often observed meant a passionate nature.
‘I believe a concierge can earn more than his regular weekly wage just by helping a guest out with something special,’ she said with a smile. ‘Isn’t that enough reason to get involved?’
‘So you think you are special?’ he sneered.
‘Of course, that’s why I came here, to the place where all the most special people stay.’
He looked at her without speaking for what seemed at least five minutes, though it was probably only seconds. When he finally spoke his tone was very curt. ‘Give me your address. If I have anything for you I will send a message to you.’
Belle had a moment of fear as she handed over a slip of paper with the address of the Mirabeau, realizing he could merely pass it on to the police and get her arrested. But her instinct said that was not his intention; he was interested in making some money but he just wasn’t prepared to admit it yet.
It was a cold night and she shivered as she walked home, wishing she’d worn her coat. But however cold she was, walking up Rue de la Paix towards Boulevard des Capucines, she was seeing the Paris she had always imagined, with its wide, tree-lined boulevards. She thought of all those women in the hotel foyer in their fur coats and glittering jewels and how much she’d like to live their kind of life, and she felt utterly certain that Monsieur Pascal was going to contact her and make it happen for her.
‘Un message pour vous, mademoiselle,’ a young boy’s voice trilled out.
It was three in the afternoon the following day, and very cold. Belle was lying under the eiderdown on her bed, reading an English novel she’d found on a shelf in the dining room. She was almost asleep, but at the boy’s call she was wide awake and leaping to her feet.
The dark-haired boy was Gabrielle’s thirteen-year-old son, Henri. Belle had seen him briefly at breakfast that morning.
‘Merci,’ she said, almost snatching the envelope out of his hand. But then, remembering her manners, she beckoned for him to wait and got her purse. She gave him a centime, and thanked him again.
The note was short but to the point. ‘Monsieur Garcia would like your company tonight at six-thirty for supper, followed by the theatre. Be at the hotel restaurant at six-fifteen pm and say you are meeting Monsieur Garcia. I shall come in to speak to you before he arrives.’ The note was signed Edouard Pascal.
Although Belle was