Belle - Lesley Pearse [74]
‘Maybe I will once I get over the hurdle of selling myself,’ she said tartly.
He gave her a wry little smile. ‘You know something, Belle, I’ve got a feeling that you are just smart enough to persuade the people who’ve bought you that you’d be more beneficial to them in a different role.’
‘What sort of role?’ she asked.
Etienne sucked in his cheeks thoughtfully. ‘Dancing, singing, front of house, hat-check girl. I don’t know, but you think on it and see what you can come up with. Did your mother have anyone working in her house who didn’t go with the men?’
‘Well, there was Mog, who I’ve already told you about,’ Belle said. ‘My mother called her the maid, but she was housekeeper and cook too. In the evenings she worked upstairs. I think she showed the men in and poured them drinks – she never talked to me about what she did.’
‘A maid in a brothel usually looks after the money and minds the girls,’ Etienne explained. ‘It’s a crucial role, for she has to be diplomatic and sensitive, but tough too if necessary. Why do you suppose she didn’t go with any of the men?’ he asked, one eyebrow raised.
‘Well, she wasn’t very pretty,’ Belle said, and instantly felt disloyal to Mog.
Etienne laughed and reached out to smooth a stray curl from her cheek. ‘No one will ever be able to say that of you! But you are definitely sharp-witted, Belle, and that could well be a bonus in a town that has hundreds of pretty, but lazy, greedy and rather stupid girls.’
Belle had already worked out that whoever owned her now must have paid a very high price for her. The travelling expenses alone would be more money than she could ever imagine earning. She was puzzled, because it didn’t make any sense to buy an English girl they didn’t even know, when there had to be countless prettier and more amenable girls already there in the Southern States of America.
But it did mean she must be seen as some kind of prize. So if she put that with what Etienne had said about offering herself as something else, maybe it would work.
But what could she offer herself as? She could sing in tune, but she wasn’t brilliant; the only dance she knew was the polka, and she couldn’t play a musical instrument either. She couldn’t think of anything she could do which would make anyone sit up and take notice.
Mog had said just after Millie was killed that she’d been the favourite of the house, and Belle had always been aware that Mog and Annie had given her more praise, affection and little treats than any of the other girls. She knew now that this meant Millie brought them in more money, but what was the difference in how Millie treated her clients to how the other girls did it? Belle certainly didn’t want to be a whore, but if she had no choice, then she’d rather be a great one that men paid far more for.
How on earth could she find out what made a great one? She had a feeling Etienne would know, but she was far too bashful to ask him such a thing.
Two days before they were due to disembark in New York, Etienne took Belle for an afternoon stroll around the deck. It was cold and windy, but the sun was shining, and it felt good to be out in the fresh air, watching seagulls swoop and swirl around the ship.
‘We’ve got two days in New York before we have to board the ship for New Orleans,’ he said as they leaned on a rail up by the bow, watching the sea curl away as the ship ploughed its way through. ‘I’m going to give you a choice. Either stay locked in the boarding-house room with me. Or, if you promise me you won’t run off, I’ll take you to see the sights.’
Belle had already learned that Etienne was a man of his word, and she liked that he was prepared to take her on trust too.
‘I’ll promise I won’t run off as long as you let me send a letter home to tell them I’m alive,’ she replied.
He turned, leaning his back against the ship’s rail. The wind was ruffling his fair hair and it made him look boyish and totally unthreatening. He stared at her without replying for what seemed an eternity.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ she asked cheekily.
He smiled.