Her Beguiling Bride (3 page)

If Belle hadn’t been so taken aback, she would have laughed outright. Instead, she stared, stunned. Alice was downright
handsome
in her male finery. On closer inspection, Belle identified the embroidered gray silk vest and black gabardine frock coat as her deceased husband’s.

A sideways grin claimed Alice’s full lips—the only girlish feature she possessed while dressed in these clothes. “Granny retailored them to fit me. I hope you don’t mind. I thought I might be taken more seriously as a
man
.” She whispered the last word.

Belle couldn’t speak. She could only take in the sight of her lover looking every bit a southern country squire. Knowing the very feminine secret that lay beneath the male clothing caused a stirring in her pantalets. She gulped. “I agree,” she managed.

Obviously pleased with herself, Alice rocked back on the heels of her black leather brogans. “Shall we see how convincing I can be?” she asked and turned, her gaze scanning the crowd. “Porter!” she called, waving her cane in the air.

“Alice,” Belle hissed under her breath. Alice could be fined, jailed, or worse. Perhaps it’d be best not to attract too much attention. But Belle had no such luck. A porter already scurried their way.

“Yessuh, can I get your bags?” he offered.

“Yes, please. And could you also hail us a hansom cab?” Alice asked with all the aplomb of a gentleman.

“Of course, suh,” the porter said. “Where will you and the missus be going?”

Belle’s stomach flipped.
The missus?

“We have business with Robert Billings, the cotton agent,” Alice said, lifting the bags and passing them to the porter.

“Yessuh,” he said. “This way.”

Belle tried not to gawk as Alice offered her an arm. They followed the porter out of the depot to where several horse-drawn cabs waited. Alice stepped up next to the hansom and presented her hand to Belle who, still in a state of amused shock, climbed in. She couldn’t resist glancing around the side of the cab as Alice tipped the porter, gave the address to the driver, and stepped into the vehicle.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Belle asked as Alice sprawled in a very unladylike manner on the seat next to her and leaned back against the squabs.

“I think it’s safer this way,” Alice muttered under her breath. “Besides, both Granny and Uncle Hewlett thought as a man, I’d get a better price for our cotton.”

Alice eyed her, and Belle knew better than to question both Granny and Uncle Hewlett’s advice. She released a breath. “Suppose you’re caught?”

Alice shrugged. “I could have fooled you.”

“You did for a second,” Belle said, unable to stop the smile that played on her lips.

Alice’s gaze brushed Belle’s lips and lifted to her eyes once more, kindling the desire already simmering between her legs.

“No one knows me here,” Alice whispered. “No one knows I shouldn’t be doing this either…”

Belle did not resist when Alice’s mouth found hers. The kiss was gentle at first. Soft. Lips grazed lips for a steep moment before Alice curled her fingers around Belle’s neck and pulled her close to kiss her with possessive intent.

Belle’s lips parted as she accepted the tongue teasing through her lips. The kiss left her breathless. Defenseless. Alice let out a soft moan as she scooted even closer on the bench. Her fingers flexed and pressed into Belle’s thigh.

Belle’s head swam. It was wildly erotic to be kissing another woman, virtually in public. Her body heated, making her skin itch to be free of the layers and layers of clothing she wore.

Warm fingers entwined with hers, the heat radiating through her lace gloves. Belle’s clitoris pulsed, and all thoughts of cotton bargains fled as she anticipated arriving at the hotel later.

When Alice finally released her, Belle sagged against the back of the seat, the sights and sounds of Savannah a blur.

Alice laced her fingers with Belle’s. “Smell that!” Alice inhaled deeply. “I’d forgotten how good the salt air smells.” Her blue eyes lit up with wonder as she drank in the charming pastel-colored houses with their lacy woodwork adorning the gallery porches. Tendrils of Spanish moss swayed like unkempt beards from the thick limbs of live oaks. Saw palmetto trees lined the sandy streets, and gulls crooned as they wheeled overhead.

Belle couldn’t suppress her delight either, but hers was bittersweet. A twinge of sadness passed through her at the memory of coming to Savannah in years past with Grayson and Pa. She took solace in the fact that the city looked remarkably different, presumably since the war. New construction rose on every block. Competing with the noise of horses and street mongers were the echoing taps of hammers and the grating of saws on lumber skeletons that would soon be buildings and houses.

Even more workers stretched bright green banners across the streets in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. Funny, she thought, how the world ground on in spite of war and death and everything else.

She’d heard Sherman had laid waste to Savannah on his infamous march to the sea. As hard as those war years had been, Belle could not regret them entirely. For that had been when a badly wounded Yankee soldier had been found out to be a woman and had been left to die of an awful leg wound at Rattle and Snap. A shudder raced up Belle’s spine at the fleeting memory of the other soldier who’d been left. That one
had
died. At the man’s delirious request, Alice had mercifully fired a bullet in his head to put him out of his misery.

A sense of gratitude flitted in Belle’s stomach like a butterfly. Alice’s strength had gotten them all through hard times.

The hansom drew up to a wood-planked sidewalk. Alice hopped out and offered her hand to help Belle down. She watched, amused, as Alice extracted some coins from her vest pocket. “Can you wait for us, good sir?”

“Yessuh,” the hansom driver said with a vigorous nod.

Alice had fooled everyone with whom she came in contact. Belle bit her bottom lip to keep from giggling at just how easily it was done. Her nerves settled somewhat at the prospect of deceiving the cotton agent.

“Darling,” Alice said with a conspiratorial wink as she offered Belle her arm. The pair ascended the three steps leading up to the gallery. Coastal homes were designed with tiered porches that ran the sideways length of the house. The actual front entrance was more often than not situated in the center of the lower gallery. A bell rang out when Alice opened the door to the cotton agent’s office.

Belle’s nerves bunched as she walked into the foyer. The office was in the first room on the right. A sultry breeze set the long white curtains in motion, enveloping Robert Billings in a billowy haze for seconds before he materialized in the flesh. Upon seeing him, Belle vaguely remembered coming here with Pa before the war. The years had not been kind to Billings.

Hunched at the shoulders, he walked with a cane, but the thing didn’t look as if it would do him much good, it trembled so in his gnarled hand. A shock of snow-white hair fell across his wrinkled and age-spotted forehead as he shuffled toward them.

The shadowy office reeked of a mixture of lemon oil and Billings’s pomade.

“Why, if little Miss Belle hasn’t grown up entirely!” he chirped.

Belle dipped into a polite curtsy. “It’s been a long time, Mr. Billings.”

“So sorry to hear about your father and of course, your brother,” he warbled, peering up at them from clouded blue eyes.

“Thank you,” Belle told him. “Mr. Billings, this is…this is…”

“O’Malley,” Alice said, stepping forward to shake the man’s hand. “Al O’Malley.”

“Irish are you?” Billings said, turning to shuffle back to his desk.

“Aye,” Alice said proudly. “My folks settled in Boston.”

“A Yankee too? I’ll swear.” Billings waved his hand at a couple of chairs across from his desk. “Sit, sit.”

Belle sat as Billings dropped heavily into his chair, which squeaked in violent protest. “Well, that won’t matter a bit at the St. Patrick’s Day celebration. You are attending the parade, I hope?” You fought for the North? In which unit?”

Alice remained standing. She twisted her topper in her hands. “Yes, sir. I served in the Seventeenth New York Zouave Infantry until I was wounded too severely to continue.”

Billings stared for a steep second before riffling through several papers on his desk. He finally withdrew the letter Belle had sent him last month. “You’re trying to revitalize your cotton crop?”

“Yes,” both Belle and Alice said at the same time.

Alice took over. “Of course several of our hands left, but a good many have returned looking for work.”

“How much did you produce last year?” Billings inquired, obviously unaffected by Alice’s boast.

Alice and Belle’s gazes collided. Belle pursed her lips undecided on whether to tell Billings the truth or not.

Alice flat blurted a lie. “Two thousand pounds.” And that was a huge exaggeration.

Billings snorted. “Two, did you say?” He shook his head. “Before the war of
Northern Aggression
, Rattle and Snap yielded twenty-five thousand pounds of cotton.” He eyed Alice hard when he mentioned the war. And then he pinned Belle with a stare. “I realize the war hurt us all, but it’s been two years, dear. I don’t deal in piddling amounts.”

Alice took a step closer to the desk. “Mr. Billings, we’ve cleared several acres and are planting—”

“That’s all well and good, Mr. O’Malley. You come back when you have the cotton and we’ll conduct business. I’ll get you top dollar.”

Belle shot to her feet. “But Mr. Billings, the taxes on Rattle and Snap are so high we’re going to have to sell if you can’t get any investors for our cotton.”

Billings pointed a trembling finger at Alice. “You’re a Yankee veteran.”

Alice nodded.

“Then why don’t you marry this young lady and have done with it?” Billing asked pointedly. “The taxes will be lowered, if not done completely away with, and you can come back and sell your cotton crop when you harvest. There
will
be a buyer. Europe is clamoring for our cotton.” He waved his hand in dismissal.

Belle looked at Alice who merely stared ahead, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. No amount of scheming or pretending could help them now. They’d just have to wait for their money until cotton picking time in the fall—provided they were able to grow any cotton to speak of at all.

Already Belle began a mental inventory of the furnishings they’d have to sell. Perhaps they could keep the barn for the goats and all move to the cabin where Uncle Hewlett now lived. It would be cramped of course, but they’d just have to make do.

But the thought of some stranger living in Rattle and Snap…

Belle blinked back tears.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Billings,” Alice said formally. “And for your advice. I’ll take it into consideration.”

* * * *

Neither Alice nor Belle uttered a word as the hansom driver took them to the Marshall House hotel. A bellboy met them at the door and loaded their bags onto a cart. Ever the
gentleman
, Alice paid the cabbie and followed Belle inside to the front desk. She cleared her throat, and then to Belle’s surprise Alice said, “Mr. and Mrs. Holloway from Jonesboro. I believe my wife made the reservation under her name.”

Belle held her breath, surprised at just how easily Alice pulled off her farce. It was no wonder she’d served alongside men in the Union Army for more than a year’s time without being discovered.

The man at the desk handed Alice a pen, and she signed Dalton’s name without so much as a blink before he handed her the key and instructed the bellman to show them to their room.

Without words, Alice offered her arm, held her head high as they followed the bellboy up the stairs and down the hall. He took the key and unlocked the door, opened it, and stood back as Alice strode inside and surveyed the room. “It’ll do nicely. Thank you.”

“Yessuh,” the bellman said with a polite nod of his head as Alice placed coins in his palm.

Once the door closed behind them, Belle waited until the bellman’s footsteps faded in the hallway, and then she burst into laughter. Alice didn’t laugh at all. Instead, she removed a handkerchief from the inside pocket of her frock coat and mopped her brow. “Whew! I wasn’t sure I’d pull that off at all,” she said breathlessly. “I wasn’t so worried when I saw that ancient Mr. Billings. I doubted he could see all that well. But the hotel staff… Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

“No one batted an eyelash,” Belle added.

“I’m woefully out of practice.” Alice turned and looked at her appearance in the mirror.

Belle moved behind her and peered over her shoulder. “I never would have looked askance at you…had I not known what you have hidden under these trousers.” Something had come over her. She didn’t know if it was the unfamiliar surroundings or the fact that her female lover looked so damned handsome in a man’s suit, but she couldn’t help letting her palms wander over the gabardine trousers to explore the moist heat between Alice’s legs.

Alice sucked in a sharp breath. “Look out now, Mrs. Holloway.” She raised an auburn eyebrow in mock warning.

But Belle continued to stoke the fire she’d kindled. She found it erotic touching a woman dressed in male attire in such a way, knowing that what lay underneath the trousers was all velvety softness.

Her belly tensed as desire heated and thickened her pulsing blood.

“I was thinking of taking you out to dinner,” Alice said raggedly, obviously affected by Belle’s touch.

Belle pressed her mouth against her lover’s ear. “I can think of only one thing I’d like to taste right now, my sweet.”

A shudder tore through Alice’s body, and Belle thrilled in the effect her words possessed. She reached around Alice’s narrow hips and began to unbutton the fall of her trousers. Alice watched in the mirror, mesmerized, eyes heated.

When Belle had unfastened three buttons, she slipped her hand beneath the fabric and slowly drifted down the warm, taut abdomen to the copse of curls at the juncture of Alice’s thighs.

Alice exhaled as Belle prodded, stroking over the distended bud there and lower still to where wet folds readily parted for her probing fingers. She pressed a kiss to the velvety shell of Alice’s ear and moved in impossibly closer to dip her middle finger into the juicy aperture hidden by a pair of men’s trousers.