Belle by Lesley Pearse Page B

Tad, and he’d taken Kent’s coat and hung it up with his own on the back of the door in the way people did in their own house. He also had a bit of a country burr to his voice. Apart from his greatcoat, which was shabby and smelled musty, all his other clothes were good and well-fitting, in fact his boots, though mud-splattered, were the kind she’d seen stylish gentlemen in Regent Street wearing. She thought he must be a bachelor for it was plain by the dirty kitchen that there was no mistress in this house. She wondered if he was a kinder man than Kent, and if it would be possible to get him on her side.
    ‘Take her up, Sly,’ Kent said brusquely as Belle pushed the bowl away unfinished.
    The name ‘Sly’ frightened Belle even more, and she shrank away from him as he came over to her. But he ignored that, lit a new candle, caught hold of her wrist and led her out of the kitchen.
    It took some time to get up the stairs because of the way her ankles were hobbled, but Sly was patient with her, which was encouraging. Scared as she was, she felt she had to say something to him.
    ‘Are you a bad man like Mr Kent?’ she blurted out as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘You don’t look as if you are.’
    She was speaking the truth in this respect, for he had a pleasant face, with many little laughter lines around his soft brown eyes. She found it difficult to judge men’s ages but she thought he was a few years older than Kent.
    ‘Being bad means different things to different folk,’ he replied, and she thought she heard a hint of laughter in his voice.
    ‘Killing people is bad to everyone,’ she said.
    ‘Well, I haven’t killed anyone,’ he said, and sounded a little surprised. ‘Nor do I intend to.’
    ‘So what are you going to do with me?’ she asked.
    He opened a door and led her in, putting the candle down on a wide window seat. The room was empty of furniture except for an iron bedstead with a thin, somewhat stained mattress and a chamberpot beneath it. On top of it was a small pile of blankets and a pillow.
    ‘You can make it up yourself,’ he said. ‘I won’t tie your hands again because you can’t get out of here. The window is boarded up on the outside and I shall be locking you in.’
    ‘How long for?’ she asked. ‘And what are you going to do with me?’ she repeated.
    ‘That will be decided tonight,’ he said.
    ‘If this is your house and you helped him to bring me here and then he kills me, you’ll be as bad as he is,’ she said, looking at him intently with the look Mog had always called her ‘begging eyes’.
    ‘You, little girl, are smart beyond your tender years,’ he said with a half smile. ‘I expect that’s all part of growing up in a brothel. Your mother failed you, she should’ve sent you away. But perhaps she was intending to train you.’
    Belle frowned, not understanding what he was getting at.
    ‘Get some sleep,’ he said. ‘Goodnight!’
    When the door slammed shut and was locked outside, Belle broke down in tears. She was cold right through to her bones, with no idea where she was, and even if her captors hadn’t raped her or hurt her tonight as she’d expected, they certainly weren’t going to let her go home unscathed tomorrow.
    But if they were going to kill her, why hadn’t they done it as soon as they got here?
    Belle wanted so much to believe that wasn’t their plan and that maybe they were going to demand a ransom for her release. But it was far more likely that they needed daylight to take her to wherever they were going to kill her, some forest or marsh where her body would never be found.
    She had never before spent a night away from her mother and Mog. She had often felt a bit lonely and cut off being down in the kitchen while they were upstairs, but she’d never been frightened, because she always knew Mog checked on her from time to time.
    But there was no Mog now to help her make up the bed, to tuck her into it and blow out her candle.