Chapter Five
“Ma belle, ma petite,” Pierre murmured hoarsely.
Then he was kissing Vada again, kissing her until everything whirled about her and she could no longer think.
The sound of horses’ hoofs on the cobblestones and the wheels of a voiture rattling past them seemed like an intrusion from another world.
Pierre released her.
“Come,” he said, ‘let’s go somewhere quiet.”
He put his hand under her arm as he had done before and they walked away from the Seine through a narrow winding street.
They moved without speaking and somehow there were no words that seemed adequate or possible at the moment.
Pierre stopped.
He pushed open the door of a tall narrow house and drew Vada into a small square hall.
There was a steep staircase ascending into the darkness above, which was barely r
