Her Beguiling Bride

HER BEGUILING BRIDE

Paisley Smith

www.loose-id.com

Her Beguiling Bride

Copyright © March 2012 by Paisley Smith

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eISBN 978-1-61118-780-9

Editor: Jana J. Hanson

Cover Artist: April Martinez

Printed in the United States of America

Published by

Loose Id LLC

PO Box 809

San Francisco CA 94104-0809

www.loose-id.com

This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Warning

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* * * *

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Dedication

As always, I’d like to thank my wonderful critique partner, fab author Naima Simone, for helping me bring Alice and Belle to life. And to my editor, Jana, whose insight is always spot-on. Thanks is not a big enough word.

Chapter One

February 1867

“You can’t keep this…thing…with Alice up forever.” Granny lowered herself into one of the porch rockers.

Ignoring Granny, Belle never tore her gaze from the red-earthed fields where Alice walked with Uncle Hewlett and Chester, one of the field hands who’d returned after the war. Belle sighed, her tight stays preventing her from taking a deep enough breath.

She pursed her lips. Alice had been with her since 1864, and while theirs was not a conventional relationship by any standards, Belle found comfort in it.

The barren winter landscape faded and with it the rows of withered cotton stalks in the furrowed red clay and the bleak gray hues of the trees and barn. It all blurred until the only thing Belle could see was the image of her lover looming in her mind’s eye.

Alice.

Belle’s stomach grew taut at the memory of her lover’s fingers thoroughly exploring her most private recesses earlier that morning. The muscles in her thighs tightened, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, but the movement only enhanced her need. It had been three years since the Yankees had left Alice O’Malley, dressed in a Zouave uniform, in Belle’s bed. Belle and Granny had nursed the wounded she-soldier back to health, but Belle had been unprepared for the odd bond that had formed between her and the strange, boyish Yankee girl.

At some point in their relationship, Belle had realized she loved Alice in the same way she’d loved her departed husband, Dalton. Everyone had known Belle had suffered several great losses in a row, and the illicit relationship between the two women hadn’t been publicly questioned.

Until now.

Belle, herself, had avoided questioning it. She and Alice never discussed the particulars of their commitment to one another. They simply
lived
it. Since the war’s end, they’d both fallen into a very comfortable routine of working together to run the vast plantation before falling into bed at night and silently fulfilling deeper, darker needs.

Biting her bottom lip in memory, Belle blinked her reverie away before turning to Granny, whose brow wrinkled in expectation of an answer to a question she’d never asked.

“I don’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter with Grayson gone,” Belle told her. Her brother, Grayson, had run off to join the Confederate Army after the Yankees murdered their father. He’d been captured at the Battle of Nashville and sent off to prison at Camp Douglas where he died days before he was scheduled to be released.

Belle’s gaze swept the family plot at the edge of the woods where Grayson’s body had been buried next to their poor afflicted mother, who had passed away shortly before Grayson.

Alice had been by her side the entire time, offering unspoken comfort and a shoulder to cry on.

Granny wet her thin lips with the tip of her tongue. Her eyes twinkled as the rocker creaked on the wooden porch. “Nathan Bailey is back from England.”

“The man who hired your Tommy as his substitute?” Belle knew very well who Nathan Bailey was, but she could not resist uttering the wounding reminder that he’d hired Tommy to fight in his stead, especially when it was obvious Granny meant to act as matchmaker. Poor Tommy had lost both legs in battle and, it seemed, had also lost his will to live. His days were spent lying in bed, staring at the window. He only ate when Granny forced him and had lately taken to refusing all visitors.

“The same,” Granny said, ignoring the barb even as one sparse white eyebrow lifted.

Belle couldn’t tell if the look was from spite or some sort of conspiratorial mischief. “Has he even paid Tommy a visit?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, he has,” Granny said smugly. “He also paid Tommy a pretty hefty sum for those legs my boy lost in his stead.”

“As if that redeems him,” Belle muttered under her breath. She knew Granny, who was deaf as a doornail, couldn’t hear her words. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Just what are you suggesting, Granny?”

Belle’s gaze drifted back across the fields to where Alice stood, hands outstretched as she gestured toward the expanse of an area that had once been a cotton patch but was now being quickly reclaimed by the woods and underbrush.

“I just think you ought to accept his invitation if he calls on you,” Granny said, still rocking the chair for all it was worth.

Belle heard Granny’s words, but her thoughts were consumed with the way Uncle Hewlett stood shaking his gray-topped head in the negative while portly Chester hooked his thumbs under his suspenders and rocked on his ungainly feet, nodding vigorously. Between the three of them only Chester knew anything about farming. Uncle Hewlett had been Belle’s pa’s manservant while Alice was a fresh-off-the-boat, Irish city girl.

Uncle Hewlett, despite his station as a former slave, was more at home quoting Shakespeare than picking cotton. And Alice… Although she meant well and learned fast, she just wasn’t cut out for farming. She’d never grasped the art of goat milking, and the ornery old goats knew it. She’d suffered more than a bruised bottom at the rack of old Jefferson Davis, the buck who lorded over Belle’s herd.

“Your whole future—Rattle and Snap’s whole future—depends on what them three out there do,” Granny said, pointing an arthritic finger and giving it a menacing shake in their direction. “And not a dern one of ’em knows a whit about cotton farming.”

Belle huffed. “Chester does.”

Granny snorted. “He might know how to plant it and pick it, but who’s going to deal with them cotton agents? Who’s going to sell it? None of them men is going to take a woman serious.”

Belle wished the old woman would shut her mouth, mainly because Granny’s claims had more than an inkling of truth. But Belle just didn’t want to hear it. Or face it. Outrageous taxes had been levied on the plantation, and she had to choose whether to take a chance on planting a crop with inexperienced hands or selling off the land to Yankee carpetbaggers who had romantic notions of living in the handful of Georgia mansions Sherman hadn’t seen fit to burn.

The rocker stopped. “Nate Bailey’s as rich as Midas, or so they say.”

Belle bristled, but some dark part of her longed for the financial safety she’d felt with Dalton. Then her only worry had been what color bonnet to wear with which dress. Now finances, farming, taxes, and a host of other qualms plagued her and kept her awake at night.

But what about Alice?

Belle loved Alice. There was no question about that. She and Alice had lived as lovers in the three years they’d been together. They’d slept together. They’d nursed each other in sickness. They held hands when they walked to the barn to milk the goats.

That was it, Belle thought. The goats. “I’ve made a good income with the goat dairy.”

“Honey, you can’t run Rattle and Snap on them goats. Not with the Yankees running the taxes through the roof. I heard Johnny Johnson saying his taxes went up as high as a cat’s back. He had to sell to some Yankee carpetbagger and move back in with his momma.”

Belle swallowed thickly. She didn’t want to think about taxes. The Northern transplants were using their pull to get taxes raised on every large plantation in hope of forcing the owners to sell their homes and land. The Northern real-estate speculators then bought the property at fire-sale prices and sold it off piecemeal. It sickened Belle to think this plantation, which had been her father’s pride, would be carved up and sold to emigrant homesteaders.

But what could they do? They hadn’t had a successful crop, and Granny was right: the small amount of money they earned from the dairy couldn’t support Rattle and Snap.

“You need to get you a good man to take care of you,” Granny said softly. “While you’re still young and comely enough to attract one.”

* * * *

A chill pervaded the air as the sun sank low over the tops of the trees. Belle trudged toward the goat barn, not really seeing the surroundings she knew by heart: the rushing creek, the old cur, Brownie, that traipsed along at her side. Instead her mind ran rampant with the conversation she’d had with Granny earlier.

Jeff Davis bleated as she neared. He trotted toward her with the usual mischievous spring in his step. Everyone else feared him. Belle loved the cantankerous animal and joked that he was a better judge of character than any of the two-legged inhabitants of Rattle and Snap.

He jerked his head as he fell into step beside Belle. “What are you doing, you grand rascal?” she asked him, grabbing one horn to give him a playful tug.

He bounced on his hooves and then jogged toward the barn.

Usually the buck goat lightened Belle’s mood but not tonight. Was Granny right? Did she need to find a man? She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and drew in a sharp breath. What about Alice? The thought of being with a man again seemed so strangely foreign to Belle now that she didn’t even want to consider it.

A shudder shook her spine as she stepped into the shadowy barn. At once, the pungent but familiar scents of animals and hay filled her nostrils. She expected the jostling of the goats vying for position to be milked, but her heart skipped a beat when a figure emerged from the darkness.

Belle gasped.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Alice said, thumbing her slouch hat back on her head. Waning light from the outside illuminated her strawberries-and-cream complexion.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here,” Belle said breathlessly. Even though the brigands who’d harassed them during the war were now rotting in the ground, she was ever vigilant.

Alice stepped toward her, removing one of her gloves as she reached to cup Belle’s cheek. “I couldn’t think about anything but you all day.” Alice’s voice was low and husky, tinged with the slightest Irish accent.

Belle’s stomach tensed as she turned her face more fully into the cool palm. Guilt welled that she had even been considering Granny’s suggestion that she find a man. This woman had become Belle’s life, and as such, she met her every need and desire.

“What’s wrong, love?” Alice asked.

Belle drew away. “I’m just cold,” she lied as she pulled down her milking stool from the peg.

“I’ll warm you up,” Alice whispered playfully.

Belle shrugged away as Alice tried to draw her into an embrace.

“What’s wrong?” Alice asked again, folding her arms over her chest. “And this time tell me the truth.”

Belle sank onto the short three-legged stool as the first doe sidled into place to be milked. Munching sounds filled the small barn as the goat pulled at the hay in the trough. “Granny told me the Yankees are fixing to raise the taxes on Rattle and Snap,” Belle confessed.

“I was afraid of that.” Alice exhaled. “Well. We’ll just have to produce more cotton this year.”

Belle shook her head. “The carpetbaggers and land speculators are trying to get the plantation to sell it off piecemeal. It won’t matter what we do.” She gripped the goat’s udders and milked. Instantly milk sprayed into the metal pail.