Belle - Lesley Pearse [98]
‘Shall I run round to his place and leave a message for him?’ Jimmy asked.
Mog sighed. ‘I think we’d better talk it over with your uncle first. But let’s have another look at that list of girls. Some of them live close by here – I could make a few enquiries about them myself.’
Later that morning, with her chores completed and a steak and kidney pudding simmering in a pan on the stove, Mog went round to Endell Street to the first address on the list.
Endell Street was a mixed area. Some of the buildings and houses were in a bad state and poor people lived in them in overcrowded and insanitary conditions, but the rest of the houses were neat and tidy, homes to decent, hard-working people – cab drivers, carpenters and the like. Mog was very surprised to find that number eighty was one of the tidy ones, with snowy-white lace curtains at the window and a well-scrubbed doorstep.
She knocked at the door, uncertain about what she was even going to say, and when the door was opened by a plump woman around the same age as her, wearing a spotless white apron over her print dress, Mog was tongue-tied for a moment.
‘I’m sorry to call on you, but does Amy Stewart live here?’ she asked once the woman had enquired what she wanted and forced her to say something.
‘She did,’ the woman replied, but all at once her lips began to quiver and her eyes filled with tears.
‘Oh, please don’t take on,’ Mog begged her in alarm, assuming the girl had done something to upset her mother.
‘Why are you asking?’ the woman said, and there was a kind of plea in her eyes that Mog could identify with. ‘My Amy disappeared two years ago. She went to the shop for me and she never came back. She was only thirteen, too young to go anywhere on her own.’
Chapter Eighteen
‘I’m charmed to meet you, Belle. You must know your name means beautiful in French? You were well named for you are truly beautiful.’
Belle felt she was blushing from her hair to the tips of her toes, for this handsome man paying her such an extravagant compliment had a French accent like Etienne, with a deep, velvety tone that made her tingle inside.
‘Well, thank you, Mr Laurent, you are very kind,’ she said breathlessly.
‘You must call me Serge. Will you come for a little walk with me?’ he asked. ‘We could go to Jackson Square and get an ice cream.’
Belle realized as soon as Martha called her downstairs to introduce her to this man that he had to be the one Martha hoped would teach her to like lovemaking. She had come downstairs in trepidation, expecting him to be old and ugly. When she was confronted by a slim, tall man, beautifully dressed in a pale grey suit, with a captivating face, her heart lurched. His hair was black, his eyes like pools of melted chocolate, and his full mouth that turned up at the edges made him look as if he was smiling even when he wasn’t. She had never seen such a perfect-looking man; he even had a dimple in his chin and his teeth were flawless.
For a moment she could only stare at him. She might be scared stiff at the prospect of making love, but surely no woman in the world would be able to resist Serge Laurent. Even his name made her heart flutter.
‘I’d love to go for a walk with you,’ she said breathlessly. As they walked to Jackson Square, Serge told her many little stories about people who had lived in the houses they passed in the French Quarter. He introduced her to pirates, gamblers, Voodoo queens, madams and villains, along with a smattering of famous writers and poets. He made it all so colourful she felt sure he was making some of it up, or at least exaggerating, but that didn’t matter – she was enjoying his company and it was a lovely warm day.
Martha had said earlier today that soon it would turn very hot, and that was when people got too lazy to work, tempers flared, and sometimes people went mad because the heat got to them. Belle couldn’t imagine heat like that; back home the hottest days she remembered was when the milk turned sour and the butter melted in a dish. But hot weather in England