Belle - Lesley Pearse [92]
‘Can I come in, honey?’ she asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ Belle said, feeling awkward at being caught out. ‘I was just going to come downstairs again. I’m sorry.’
‘Pay no mind to that,’ Martha said, sitting herself down on the narrow bed. ‘You needed to gather yourself, I understand.’
Belle had noticed the older woman seemed to understand almost everything people did. She hadn’t heard her raise her voice in anger once.
‘I dare say what you saw tonight was a little surprising?’ Martha went on.
Belle would’ve expected her to use the word shocking rather than surprising, yet in fact her word was exactly how it was.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Belle whispered, dropping her eyes.
‘You didn’t expect the girls to have so much fun, or the gentleman to be so pleased?’
Belle nodded.
Martha sighed deeply. ‘Respectable, church-going folks don’t tend to see that we were made to enjoy sex. It ain’t just about gettin’ babies, honey. Lovin’ one another in the physical way is good for all of us, it’s the glue that can hold a marriage together and make it a happy one. If the wives of the men we service here were to let themselves go and learn to love fuckin’, there’d be no need for places like mine.’
Belle blushed. Martha and all her girls used that word a great deal, and she found it disconcerting.
Martha tilted up Belle’s chin with one finger. ‘Look at you blushing! That’s what it is, honey chile, might as well learn to say the word and be done with being bashful. Once you knows how good it can feel to be loved by a man, you’ll see things clearer. I reckon I ought to have suggested that Etienne stayed the first night with you here. He’s the kind to awaken any woman.’
‘He was married,’ Belle said indignantly.
Martha laughed. ‘Now, honey, do you think I worry about married men coming in this house?’
Belle smirked, for she guessed that more than half the men who came here were married. ‘No, I suppose not.’
‘Etienne had, how shall I say?’ Martha paused to choose the right word. ‘Charisma! I doubt he’s ever paid for a woman.’
‘He was very proper with me,’ Belle retorted.
‘And that makes a woman even more inclined to be improper,’ Martha chuckled. ‘But honey, I think it’s time I got you awakened.’
Belle had the most vivid, disturbing dream that night. She was naked, lying on a big bed surrounded by men who were all reaching out to touch her. They weren’t grabbing at her roughly, just gentle strokes that made her feel like she was on fire. She woke from it to find she was dripping with sweat, her nightdress up around her armpits, and she was fairly certain she had been stroking her private parts in just the way she’d seen Anna-Maria do earlier in the evening.
Chapter Seventeen
Jimmy dodged behind a pile of flower boxes in the market as the man stopped to speak to someone. He waited a second, then peeped out round the edge of the boxes to see what they were doing.
He was absolutely certain the man was Kent. He’d spent hours over the last few weeks watching his office building, at all different times of the day, gradually eliminating the men who worked in the printer’s on the ground and first floor as they went in or out. There was never a light up in Kent’s office, and Jimmy had begun to think he’d given up using the place, when suddenly today he appeared.
There was something about the way the well-dressed man walked up Long Acre, purposeful, self-assured, which made Jimmy stiffen even before the man got close enough for him to see that he had the prominent nose, the thick, military-style moustache, and the wide, muscular shoulders which fitted the description he’d been given of Kent.
When he went into the building, this confirmed it was him, but it also put Jimmy in a quandary. It was just after ten in the morning, he’d already been out for over an hour, and he knew he must get back to the pub. But his need to know more about this man was greater than his fear of his uncle. He decided to wait for another hour and see if he came out again and where he went. To his delight, Kent reappeared after only ten minutes.
Jimmy followed