Her Beguiling Bride (2 page)

“Granny thinks you ought to find a man, doesn’t she?” Alice asked pointedly.

Without looking up, Belle said, “Yes.”

An uncomfortable silence ensued. Alice finally took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Do you think that’s what you need to do?”

Belle twisted around. “Of course not!” The goat protested with a rumbling bleat but never raised her head from the trough.

Something flashed in Alice’s eyes.

“Of course not,” Belle said softer this time. “I…I don’t know what to do.”

Alice scuffed one booted foot on the hay-strewn floor. “Belle, if you need to—”

“I don’t want to hear any talk of me letting a man solve my problems. I’d rather lose this whole farm than let someone come between us.” Dampness rimmed Belle’s eyes, and she blinked to keep the tears from spilling down her cheeks. She stood and this time allowed Alice to crush her in an embrace.

“I’ll take care of you, love,” Alice promised, searching her eyes. “I’ll do anything I have to so you can keep your home.”

Belle swallowed against the painful lump in her throat. “Our home.”

Alice tenderly brushed her thumb across Belle’s bottom lip before possessing her mouth. Belle melted, opening for the tongue that teased and tasted—that claimed. Everything inside her body fired, heating her blood in spite of the February chill. Her pulse accelerated. Blood pounded in her ears, and lower, between her legs. What was this hypnotic power Alice’s touch held over her?

Everything about this relationship went against all Belle had been taught. But there was nothing she could do to stop it. There was nothing she wanted to do to stop it.

Desperately she wound her arms around Alice’s shoulders and held tight. Alice palmed her through the multitude of her skirts, and Belle ached for the crinoline and cotton to disappear so flesh could find flesh.

Tongue flicking with wicked promise, Alice’s mouth devoured hers. Belle writhed, unable to get close enough. Heat raced up the back of her neck, confusing her, rendering her awash with physical need only this woman could sate.

She drew away and dragged in a faltering breath. Clinging to the lapels of Alice’s coat, she murmured, “I have to get the milking done. I—”

Frustration welled. After milking, there would be supper, and Uncle Hewlett would insist on reading some dry passage from Shakespeare. Belle’s head swam. “I can’t wait,” she said reconsidering, even as she lifted the front of her day dress. “Touch me now.”

A lopsided grin claimed Alice’s full lips as she discarded her other glove and dipped to reach up and under the layers of fabric. A strangled cry choked in Belle’s throat when fingers found their intended target. She gripped the sides of one of the stalls and spread her thighs as Alice braced one hand on the small of her back, holding her still for the sensual assault between her legs.

Belle’s knees trembled as expert fingers explored her already dampened folds. One finger wriggled into her channel, and as inch by welcome inch of the digit found and stroked the hidden places inside her, she sighed her pleasure.

“God, your cunny’s wet,” Alice said, her lips brushing Belle’s.

But Belle couldn’t concentrate enough to return a kiss. And as if sensing she was close to the edge, Alice tightened the arm around her waist and pistoned the finger in and out of her slippery channel, faster and faster. “That’s it, love,” Alice coaxed. “Yes, that’s it.”

“Oh!” Belle cried as sudden ecstasy rolled over her with the intensity of raging thunder. Her head fell back, and she fought to keep breathing. “Oh, sweet mercy. Yes.”

Alice continued pumping the digit into Belle until the spasms in her channel subsided. The finger slipped out, and then Alice thrust it into Belle’s mouth.

“Taste that?” Alice asked.

Belle closed her lips around the intrusion and rolled her tongue around it, soaking up her own sweet, tangy flavor.

“Taste that?” Alice asked again, this time more forcibly.

“Mmm-hmm.”

Alice’s free hand seized Belle by the back of the neck, and she pulled her close. “Only I will ever do that to you. No one else. Do you understand me?” Alice demanded in her ear.

“Only you.” Belle breathed the words.

Alice released her and donned her gloves once more. “You tell Granny to keep her notions of you marrying some man to herself.” And then she stormed out of the barn.

Belle sagged against the stall wall, still shaking from the experience. A smile crept across her face. Every time she doubted herself—every time she doubted this thing with Alice—Alice did something to remind her where she belonged.

* * * *

Alice shoved her hands in her pockets as she stalked back toward the big house. Her knees quaked, not from what she’d done with Belle, but from just how close she thought she was to losing the one woman she’d ever truly loved in her life.

She blinked her eyes against the images of Belle with her head thrown back, her lips parted in the throes of ecstasy as Alice had felt the inner muscles inside her wet velvet sheath gripping and releasing. Alice’s channel clenched in response.

Remorse swamped her that she’d spoken to Belle as she had, but it frightened Alice that her only connection to Belle was their own unspoken one. None of their friends or neighbors really knew of their relationship as lovers. Alice didn’t doubt they speculated. She wasn’t exactly the most feminine woman in Georgia, and people did love to gossip, despite the fact Alice had been instrumental in ridding Jonesboro of a band of nasty bushwhackers.

Her gaze swept over the barren cotton field, stark reality eradicating any residual sexual thoughts. Who was she fooling? She didn’t know a damn thing about growing cotton. The scant crop they’d produced last year had only taught her that she wasn’t suited to be a farmer.

Uncle Hewlett knew even less, and Alice gathered that Chester tended to be the braggadocios type whose words far outweighed his actions. A former Rattle and Snap field hand, Chester had planted and picked plenty of cotton in his day, but he had never been privy to the information of where and how much to plant. He’d returned to the plantation looking to get on as a hired hand after he couldn’t find work in Atlanta.

Only once had Alice broached the subject of selling Rattle and Snap. She shook her head at the memory. She’d never seen Belle so mad. And yet, when Belle had explained how her grandfather had built this place from the ground up and had turned it into one of the most successful cotton plantations in Georgia, Alice had shut her mouth. All her life, she’d only wished for a family legacy like Belle’s.

A sick feeling roiled in Alice’s gut.

Perhaps the best thing for Belle to do would be to marry that rich planter. It pained Alice to imagine it, but how else would they be able to keep this place? Alice knew full well how difficult it was for a woman to make her way in this man’s world.

The only time she’d ever experienced true freedom had been when she’d donned a uniform and fought for the Union Army. It was too bad saving Rattle and Snap wouldn’t be as easy as passing herself off as a male.

She’d fooled them all! And not only that, she’d held her own in the army. She’d never forget how she’d saved the life of Phineas Ryan just outside Decatur, Georgia. On the front lines, he’d been wounded so severely, Alice knew there was no way to get him back to the field surgeons. Risking capture, she’d made a surrender flag by stabbing a piece of Ryan’s shirt to the point of her bayonet, and then she’d dragged him across enemy lines, seeking help. The Rebels had been so surprised by the both foolish and courageous action they’d taken Ryan and allowed Alice to return to her troops.

It was too bad she couldn’t pull off the masquerade now. It was also too bad she didn’t own Rattle and Snap. As a Union veteran and Northerner, she’d get preferential treatment.

Alice just wished there was something she could do to help Belle—and to prevent her from having to marry. She clenched her fists until her short nails bit into her palms. She’d have to think of something.

* * * *

Belle wiped her feet on the cast-iron boot scrape before she stepped into the house to hang her bonnet on the peg behind the door. Excited voices drifted into the spacious foyer from her father’s old office. Listening, she crept down the hallway, carefully stepping over the stubborn bloodstain that refused to come out of the heart of pine floor where she’d shot a bushwhacker dead four years prior.

“Ah, here it is,” Uncle Hewlett’s sonorous voice rang out. “Robert Billings.”

“Billings? That’s the man I need to see?” Alice inquired.

“Yes. He was Mr. Holloway’s cotton agent in Savannah. He’d certainly be the man with whom to start,” Uncle Hewlett offered. “I would imagine the demand for cotton is quite high in Europe right now. Billings would get you the best price, but only if you can guarantee to produce a goodly amount of cotton.”

Alice blew out a heavyhearted sigh. “Surely we could produce enough if we get everyone involved.”

Belle stopped outside the door and leaned against the wall as Alice continued.

“Rather than everyone being in competition, I think if I convince them to all work together, then we’ll have a respectable crop,” Alice stated. She chuckled. “Maybe I’ll enlist Granny’s help to get everyone to cooperate. Even after I routed that gang of thieves, there are still those who are suspicious of me.”

Uncle Hewlett cleared his throat. “Alas, outsiders have never been much welcomed here.”

“I don’t care,” Alice said. “This land is important to Belle, and I’ll do anything to see that she keeps it.”

Belle’s heart turned over. Hard.

“And if that fails,” Alice added, her voice dropping to a whisper, “I’ll just have to step aside and let her marry that rich planter.”

That was it. Belle stepped into the study. She ignored the memory-provoking scent of Pa’s pipe tobacco that still lingered in this room. Her hands found her hips. “I’m not marrying anyone.”

Alice looked up from the elegantly carved desk that had somehow miraculously managed to survive General Sherman’s troops who’d burned scores of their other furnishings. Her tousled, short auburn hair wildly framed her face. Uncle Hewlett straightened from where he’d been leaning over her while they pored over the plantation log books. The pair of them looked strangely incongruous with Alice seated in her homespun breeches, suspenders, and white shirt and Uncle Hewlett turned out impeccably in a dark sack suit, vest, and creased trousers.

“I do think asking everyone to combine their resources to sell the cotton as one crop is a brilliant idea,” Belle said, avoiding looking at the portrait of her father, which hung over the marble mantel. Grief for him still riddled her. “And you’re right. The locals might respond better to Granny, who has a knack for making everyone around her do as she says.” She couldn’t quell the grin that claimed her lips.

Alice’s grayish blue eyes flashed with mirth. She rested her elbow on the desk and supported her chin in one palm.

Never relinquishing Alice’s gaze, Belle circled the desk.

Alice’s chair groaned as she leaned back and folded her hands over her stomach.

Belle arched an eyebrow in warning. “I don’t want to hear any more talk about me marrying that man.”

“‘If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak,’” Uncle Hewlett quoted resoundingly.

“Macbeth!” Alice chimed in, excitement evident in her voice.

Belle waved her hand in dismissal as she eyed Alice and Uncle Hewlett. “Let me know what you need me to do.”

If Uncle Hewlett felt chagrined at not being praised for his quotation, his expression did not show it. “First of all,” he said, tugging on the lapels of his immaculate black frock coat, “you need to go to Savannah and let Robert Billings know that Rattle and Snap is still very much in the cotton business.”

Chapter Two

Belle stepped off the train at the depot in Savannah, Georgia, which teemed with soldiers decked out in uniforms of all kinds, both Confederate and Union. She’d never seen such a sight in her life. Accents of all kinds filled her ears. Northern. Southern. Foreign. Jaunty Irish music filled the station, and Belle noticed two men sawing away at fiddles for a toe-tapping crowd. An upturned hat lay on the floor before them, and listeners dropped in coins. Green bunting draped overhead, reminding Belle that it was nearly St. Patrick’s Day.

Even though the train ride from Jonesboro had only lasted seven hours, the coastal weather proved drastically different than the climate they’d left. Belle shrugged off her blue crocheted shawl and folded it over her arm. She’d left Rattle and Snap in a coat, and here, in balmy Savannah, she didn’t even need a light cape.

She twisted, trying to catch sight of Alice, who’d disappeared just as the train rolled into the station after telling Belle she was off to collect their luggage.

A loud hiss emanated from the stack at the front of the train, obliterating the boisterous clamor around her. Belle winced at the noise as panic rose in her breast. It was foolish of them to travel to Savannah without a male escort. What if she and Alice were separated?

“All aboard!” the conductor yelled.

Belle whirled, looking everywhere for Alice. She leaned and stretched trying to see over and around the throng pushing their way through the depot. “Alice!” she called, but her voice faded into the cacophony.

She stumbled as a man swept past her in a rush to board the train. Stepping out of the way was nearly impossible, but Belle gathered her skirts and threaded her way to the side. She never should have agreed to let Alice get the bags by herself.

The crowd thinned, and with a puff of smoke, the great locomotive lurched forward and churned out of the station. Belle stepped back toward the middle of the platform to search for Alice.

A man clad in an elegant sack suit and black bell crown topper hat strode toward her. He sported a decorative cane in one hand and under the arm he carried two bags—one of which Belle recognized as her own.

She squinted, and her lips parted as realization sank in. The man was
Alice!
Belle gaped as Alice made a show of depositing the bags on the ground and removing the hat before making a sweeping low bow.