Just North of Bliss (20 page)

“I must say, my dear, that this new venture
of yours regarding photographs has your father and me in something
of a taking. My darling, darling Belle, you know your loving mother
would never, ever criticize you—”

“Ha,” said Belle, as she recalled the weeks
of wailing and weeping that had followed her announced intention of
moving to New York City and securing a job of work that paid actual
money. Belle’s family tradition ran more toward whining about the
past and weeping over present poverty than toward creating its own,
more profitable, future.

“Beg pardon?” Win, who had shed as many
clothes as he properly could in deference to the muggy heat, was
sorting through photographic images while Belle read her letter.
He’d told Belle that he’d stayed up late developing plates the
night before.

They were alone in his booth, as Gladys and
George had taken their children to a friend’s house for an evening
of socializing. Belle had been happy to see them go, not because
she didn’t adore the Richmonds, but because a rebellious part of
her nature had wanted to be alone with Win Asher. The rest of her
nature, needless to say, was shocked and horrified with the
rebellious part, but it didn’t make any difference.

She glanced up at him and smiled. She
couldn’t help the smile, either, blast it. “Nothing. Just reading
this note from my mother.”

“Hmm,” said Win, returning to his work.

Belle sighed, wondering if he’d ever
consider her as interesting as his work. Probably not. Recalling
the photograph of her that he’d been so excited about, and that
he’d showed her the prior afternoon after her headache had abated,
she decided she could understand it. Even Belle, for whom modesty
was a way of life, could not but consider that photograph a
stunning work of art. It didn’t look like her, which was probably
why. It was beautiful. Belle always tried to look her best, but
she’d never ever looked like that. Considering the miracles he
wrought, it was no wonder that Win’s work was much more interesting
to him than she.

On that depressing note, she turned back at
her letter. “You know, dearest Belle, that the Monroe family is
steeped in the glorious traditions of the Noble South, and that we
don’t hold with this modern-day obsession with fame and celebrity
that the Northern Aggressors seem so keen to promote.”

Yes, yes,
Belle thought with
asperity.
I know all about the Monroes and their glorious
traditions
. She stopped her mutinous mind from bringing up
poverty and false pride and flinging them at her mental image of
her parents.

“I do hope,” the letter went on, “that this
Mr. Asher is a trustworthy gentleman, although I harbor sincere
trepidations in my mother’s fond heart.”

Belle suppressed a second
ha
, but
with difficulty. She’d gotten sick of hearing about her mother’s
fond heart when she was around six years old, although she’d not
until this minute acknowledged the unfilial truth. She allowed
herself another small sigh.

“Never forget, dearest Belle, that he is
from the North.” And that, as Belle well knew, said it all.

She writes of him as if he were a savage
from the plains of Africa
, Belle thought. She’d finished Mr.
Haggard’s novel,
King Solomon’s Mines
and had gone on to
read the thrilling
She
, so the African plains were much on
her mind of late.

“What’s the matter, Belle? You don’t look
very happy to be reading a letter from home. Something amiss in
Georgia?”

Belle didn’t register Win’s use of her
Christian name at first. Guilt associated with her reaction to her
mother’s letter was uppermost in her thoughts when she jerked her
head up and looked at him. His smile, even without the sweltering
heat, was enough to melt her bones. It took some effort, but she
managed to rein in her rampaging lust. Lord in heaven, Belle
couldn’t understand her reaction to the man.

“Oh, no. Nothing’s amiss. My mother tends to
be—” She searched her mind for the right word, and ultimately
settled on “dramatic.”

“Ah.” His grin broadened slightly. Belle had
to swallow. “Like how?”

Her heart banging up a storm, Belle mulled
over the possibility that her condition might be heat-related. It
didn’t take long for her to conclude that her condition was worse
than heat-related. It was Win-related.

“Well,” she said in answer to his question,
“for one thing, she thinks I’m living in the frozen North.”

“Frozen?” Win laughed as he, too, drew out a
handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his dripping face. “If it
gets any hotter, my photographic plates will melt.”

She smiled at him, feeling vaguely wistful.
How nice it would be, she thought, to have a comfortable,
easy-going relationship with this man, as Kate Finney had. Maybe
Win only liked shameless females. That let Belle out.

“It is warm,” she said. “It’s every bit this
hot and humid in Georgia. Maybe it’s even worse there.” She
frowned, thinking about the general level of activity in her
Georgia home. It ran toward sitting on the front porch and fanning
oneself. She didn’t say that. “But that doesn’t mean Chicago’s cold
during the summer.” Recalling the weather in New York City when she
and the Richmonds had headed to Chicago, she added, “Nor is New
York.”

He’d already shoved his handkerchief into
his back pocket, so Win used his shirt sleeve to give his forehead
another quick swipe before he turned back to sorting through
images. “Is she like that generally? I mean, you said she’s
dramatic. Does she have hysterics or weep and faint and do things
like that? My aunt Theodora is the drama queen in my family. She’s
always fainting and getting hysterical.”

Belle thought about it. “She doesn’t get
hysterical, but she tends to look on the emotional side of things.
Like my moving to New York. She’s still horrified about that. She
even swooned when I first told her about it.”

“When you and I first met, I thought you
were horrified about it,” Win said, giving her another one of those
grins.

“Fiddlesticks.” Now she was annoyed. Why
couldn’t she ever be in this man’s company without something
controversial cropping up. “I wasn’t horrified. I was coming to
grips with the differences between life in the South and life in
the North. That’s an entirely different sort of thing.”

“Is it?” He was still chuckling.

“Yes it is.” Blast the man.

“I thought you were still fighting the Civil
War.”

“It wasn’t a Civil—” Bother. “Are you trying
to rile me, Mr. Win Asher?”

He grinned like an imp, and she knew the
answer to her question. Nevertheless, he said, “No, although you’re
fun to rile.”

“For your information, life
is
different here! And so are attitudes.” Belle took
on a cargo of sweltering air and decided to drop that topic. It was
too volatile, the weather was too hot, and she was too apt to lose
her temper, for such a discussion to flourish.

Getting back to the original subject under
discussion, she said, “But that’s not what I meant about my mother.
She—she—” Bother. Belle thought for a couple of seconds. “She
enjoys making the most of things. You know, turning something
simple into something overblown and dramatic. She finds the worst
possible connotation for anything, however much she has to dig to
find one.”

“Sounds like my aunt Theo, all right.”

“My mother carries the tendency to extremes
sometimes,” Belle said glumly. “And she has a very large romantic
streak.”

“Yeah? Like what?” He pulled out a
photograph and stared at it thoughtfully.

Belle wasn’t sure she ought to tell him what
she considered the most extreme example of her mother’s romantic
tendency, but decided she might as well. “For one thing, she named
me Rowena, after that idiotic character in Sir Walter Scott’s
novel.”

That caught his attention. Holding the image
close to his chest, he stared at her. “Rowena? But I thought your
name was Belle.”

“I go by my middle name.”

“Hmmm. I read
Ivanhoe
. I didn’t think
Rowena was so bad.”

“I’m not surprised,” Belle said, feeling a
little crabby. “Most men prefer simpering women who don’t give them
trouble.”

“Simpering?”

“Yes. It was the other girl in the book,
Rebecca, who had all the gumption.” She didn’t understand why she
should feel so defensive. After all, she’d amply demonstrated her
own initiative, by moving to New York and getting a job. It was
aggravating that this man, who was so attractive to her in so many
ways, seemed totally oblivious of Belle’s spunk and spirit.

“I don’t like simpering women,” Win
exclaimed irritably, going back to sorting his photographs. “I
think you’re nuts. Kate Finney’s not a simpering female, and I like
her.”

“No,” Belle said, wishing she could throw
something at him. “She’s not a simpering female.” It had been
she
, Rowena Belle Monroe, who’d saved the spunky Kate’s life
yesterday. Win Asher didn’t seem to remember that. Belle would have
brought it up herself, except she’d been taught that to tout one’s
own successes was improper and boastful. She wouldn’t mind if Kate
were to pop in and thank her some more right this minute,
however.

“Hope Kate’s all right,” Win muttered,
selecting several prints he’d set aside and carrying them to the
table set up beside his camera. “I love Mr. Kodak.”

“Who’s Mr. Kodak?” And how did he get into
this conversation? Belle didn’t like feeling confused, although she
supposed she ought to be used to it by this time.

“Camera fellow,” Win said. “He’s the first
person ever to create portable cameras and to mass produce
photographic plates.”

“Oh.” Relevant, but vexing. Belle would have
liked to thrash the simpering-maiden conversation to a standstill,
but it was painfully obvious that Win Asher found Mr. Kodak of more
interest than anything Belle wanted to talk about. She went back to
her letter.

“Darling Belle, please don’t allow that
Yankee devil to take advantage of you.”

“Fat chance,” Belle muttered bitterly. He
couldn’t even keep her in mind for ten consecutive seconds.

“What’s that?” Win had ducked under his
black curtain, but he poked his head out and glanced at Belle.

“Nothing.”

She read on. “You know that Yankee men are
all vile seducers, darling, and that they’re still trying to lord
it over us because they won a modest victory in the Conflict. You
must guard yourself from harm, and keep in mind at all times that
your Mama loves you. We’re all praying that you will come to your
senses soon and return to the bosom of your loving relations.”

Not a word, Belle noticed, about the money
she was sending home. Not a thank-you, or a hint of gratitude. She
didn’t understand it. She knew good and well that her family was
benefitting from her work here in the so-called frozen, not to
mention heathen, North. But would her mother admit it? No. It was
all very—very—

“Why are you shaking your head?”

Belle glanced up to see that Win hadn’t
ducked under his black curtain again, but was standing beside his
camera, scrutinizing her as if she were a landscape he wanted to
capture on one of his blasted mass-produced plates. She lifted her
chin and did something she never believed she’d do. She confessed
her innermost guilt aloud to another human being. “My family
sometimes gets my goat, Mr. Asher.”

“Yeah?”

She didn’t appreciate his broad grin.
Frowning back at him, she said, “It’s not funny.”

“Of course not.” He laughed.

“Stop laughing at me, Mr. Win Asher.”

“I’m not laughing at you,” Win declared. It
looked to Belle as if he were having trouble keeping from rolling
on the floor in hysterical amusement. “It’s only that you look so
prim and proper for someone whose family is getting her goat.”

She straightened. “I do not believe it
proper to exhibit displays of emotion in public, Mr. Asher.”

“Call me Win. Please. I’d like to be
friends, if you can find it in your Southern-belle’s heart to be
friends with so despicable specimen of mankind as a Yankee from
Chicago.”

Gazing at him in serious doubt, Belle didn’t
answer at once.

He said, “Please? I promise I won’t tell
your mother.” He laughed some more.

“It is not funny,” she said through clenched
teeth. Sentiments she’d tried to hide for years seemed determined
to slither through her defenses today. Resentment, against Win and
against her family, finally bubbled over.

“Dad blast it, I send almost all of my money
home to my family, and what do they do? Do they even once write a
word of thanks? Do they express their gratitude? No! They write to
me that they’re worried for my moral welfare, and beg me to come
home. Back to the ‘bosom of my loving family,’ according to my
mother.” She lifted her mother’s letter and smacked it back down on
her lap, making a dent in the middle of the paper with her fist.
“It’s—it’s—it’s very upsetting.” It embarrassed her to death that
she had to wipe a furious tear away from her cheek.

Win left his camera and walked over to sit
on the bench next to her. “I didn’t know all that.” His voice was
gentle.

“No,” she said caustically. “You only
thought I was a piece of fluff, didn’t you? You never would have
guessed that I’m trying my level best to help my family. Damned
Yankee.” She felt stupid and beleaguered, and completely
humiliated. She nearly jumped out of her sweaty skin when Win put
an arm around her shoulder.

“Say, Belle, don’t cry. I had no idea you
were working so hard to help your kin.”

She hunched into herself and raged on,
unable to stop herself, even though she wanted to. “Of course you
didn’t. You only thought people like
Kate
were trying to
better themselves, didn’t you? You never even guessed that because
I have manners and value propriety,
I
could be doing something worthwhile with my life. Oh, no! Not me!
It’s only people who put on scandalous costumes and wiggle around
in front of a bunch of strangers who get
your
respect.” She
could hardly believe she’d just said that.