Just North of Bliss (21 page)

“Belle, please . . .”

“Oh, leave me alone!” In total defiance of
her words, she turned and threw her arms around Win, who instantly
took advantage of the situation and held her close to his
chest.

“It’ll be right, sweetheart.”

It wasn’t until the word
sweetheart
penetrated her head, the hair on which was being nuzzled by Win,
that Belle realized what she’d done. She tried to pull away from
him, but he held on tight.

“Calm down, Belle,” Win begged gently. “I’m
sorry your family doesn’t appreciate you.”

“Nobody appreciates me!” Belle whimpered.
She was appalled by how pathetic and whiny she sounded.
Nevertheless, the words felt right, and it was a relief to say
them.

“I appreciate you.”

“Ha! You hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.” She felt Win take a deep
breath. “Not at all.”

“You th-think I’m a simpering
Rowena
because I don’t dress like a slut!”

“What?” He sounded honestly astonished.

Belle realized she’d just been vicious about
Kate, and despised herself. Since she’d already been despising
herself quite effectively, this additional dose of self-loathing
about finished her off. She hated herself for being a mean-spirited
fuddy-duddy, and for finding such pleasure, however hot and sweaty,
in Win Asher’s arms.

She buried her face in the convenient hollow
of his shoulder, glad he’d removed his jacket because she could
smell him better this way. A hint of bay rum added spice to the
aroma of Win himself, and she wished she could drink it in for the
rest of the evening, tomorrow, and a couple of months thereafter,
although she wasn’t sure even then she’d get enough.

“You’ve been right about me all along,” she
said, trying to decide if she wished she were dead or if she’d
prefer remaining exactly where she was for all eternity. “I’m
horrid. I’m judgmental and hateful. And spiteful.” She tried to
come up with some more critical words, but her mind went blank.

“I never said that.”

“You thought it.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You think I’m a silly belle from Georgia
who hates everything.”

“Well . . .”

Belle grabbed on to his hesitation and
flayed herself with it. “See? I’m right. You hate me.”

“I do
not
hate you!”

Again, Belle felt Win’s chest expand as he
sucked in air. She wanted to crawl onto his lap, curl into a ball,
and stay there, like a fat house cat. What a shocking hussy she’d
become! The North was playing havoc with her sense of propriety.
Her mother was right about her. Belle said, “Ohhh!” as the truth
struck her, painfully, smack between the eyes. “She’s
right
!”

“What the hell is going on in that lovely
head of yours, Belle?” Win asked at last, sounding moderately
frustrated. “Who’s right? And I don’t hate you. Jeez Louise!”

She finally found the moral and physical
strength to pull herself out of his arms. What a blithering fool
she was being. Scooting over to the other side of the bench and
clutching her handkerchief, not to mention her moral worth, in a
death grip, she said, “I beg your pardon, Mr. Asher.”

Win said, “Win.”

Belle said, “Win,” and blushed.

He scooted after her, and she jumped up from
the bench. She’d made enough of an ass of herself for one day.
Unfortunately, she’d left her mother’s letter behind. Win picked it
up. Belle made a grab for it, but Win lifted it out of her
reach.

“Your mother must be even worse than my Aunt
Theo, if she created that kind of reaction in you.”

“Don’t you dare read that letter!” Belle
made another swipe for the missive, but again Win eluded her.

He sprang up from the bench, too, and jigged
out of her way, reading as he did so. “Shoot, she really has it in
for us Northerners, doesn’t she? You’d think we all burned down her
barn personally.”

“Stop it!” Belle realized with horror that
she’d started to screech. “That’s my private correspondence!”

“Applesauce,” said Win, grinning like the
Cheshire Cat in
Alice In Wonderland
. “You started telling me
about it. I’m just taking it another step.”

“Ooooooh!” Understanding at last that she
was doomed, and that Win Asher was going to read her letter whether
she wanted him to or not, she flopped down on the log atop the
platform and sank her chin in her cupped hands. She supposed this
was no more than she deserved, after allowing Win to take such
liberties with her person.

It was distressing to realize that she had
allowed the heathen North to subvert her southern morals and
standards. Yet that was exactly what had happened to her. Never,
ever, would she have allowed a man to put his arms around her when
she lived in Georgia. Well, except for her father and other male
relatives, but that was an entirely different matter.

“Oh, Lord,” she moaned, staring at the toes
of her little white boots peeking out from beneath her skirt. It
had been she who’d thrown her arms around him, hadn’t it? First it
had been her corset. She’d thrown that out without giving it a
second thought—or a third thought. She
had
worried about it at first. Hadn’t lasted long.

But she’d sunk fast from there. Perhaps she
ought to quit her job and go home again.

Everything inside her rose up in protest.
“I’ll be damned if I will,” she muttered to her boots, and
immediately cringed when she heard a profanity leave her mouth. She
glanced with trepidation at Win. To her consternation, she saw that
he was staring at her. Her letter, she noticed, lay limp on his
lap. She sat up straight. Even though she’d sunk beyond redemption
in the morals department, he didn’t have to know it. She said,
“What?” sharply.

“I don’t understand why she wrote all this
guff.” Win lifted the letter.

Belle sighed heavily. “I don’t, either.”

“I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. You’d
think she’d be overjoyed that you’re trying to better your family’s
lot in life.”

Her family’s lot in life. “Hmm.” Belle
thought about that. For the very first time, it occurred to her
that if she managed to increase her family’s overall economic
welfare, her mother wouldn’t have anything to talk about any more.
Neither would her father. Or Granny and Gramps. Or Uncle Stephen
and Aunt Mae Scudder. Or the rest of her siblings, cousins, aunts,
and uncles. They’d have to stop whining and improve themselves.

“Well,” she murmured musingly, “they
wouldn’t
have
to.”

“They wouldn’t have to what?” Win’s smile
this time was different from any of the others he’d smiled at
her.

Belle thought she detected sympathy, and she
resented it. Defiantly, she said, “They wouldn’t have to stop
talking about things.”

Win’s befuddlement was clear. “I beg your
pardon?”

Belle threw up her arms. It was, perhaps her
very first spontaneous gesture she’d ever given that was not
rendered in defense of another human being but only done because
she felt like throwing up her arms. “If they didn’t have their
poverty and old family traditions of hating the North to talk
about, they’d still be able to find topics of conversation. If they
really wanted to.” She realized she’d sounded every bit as bitter
as she felt and wasn’t even sorry about it. Not very, anyhow.

She didn’t appreciate the expression on
Win’s face, which was smirky and oh-so-knowing. “Drat you, Win
Asher! Your whole way of life wasn’t wiped out by a bunch of
invading monsters, as ours was!”

He held his hands up in a gesture of
surrender. “I know, I know. I’m sorry, Belle.”

“You don’t look it.”

“Well . . .” He shrugged. “I guess I don’t
understand, is the main problem. My family never, ah, did stuff
like that. You know: moan and groan about the past, I mean.”

“Why should they? They didn’t have to.”

He thought about it. “I guess you’re right,
although my father fought in the war.”

“On the winning side,” Belle said
acerbically.

“Yeah, but lots of Union men died, don’t
forget.”

“Your entire way of life wasn’t
destroyed.”

He remained silent for a moment. Belle at
first thought he wasn’t going to respond to that sharp reminder,
but he did at last.

“You know, Belle, you’re probably going to
hate me for saying this, but I have to admit that the notion of
slavery appalls me. Any way of life that depends on slavery to
support itself deserves to be destroyed, in my opinion.”

She stared at him, wishing he hadn’t said
that. She’d always been secretly ashamed that in her heart of
hearts, way down deep where nobody could see, she felt the same
way. She dropped her gaze until she was again peering at the toes
of her little white boots.

What kind of a disloyal daughter of the
South was she, to harbor these feelings? She knew the answer to
that one: The worst kind. And yet she couldn’t condone slavery.
Always before she’d consoled herself with the vague notion that the
South itself would surely have done away with slavery eventually.
Sooner rather than later, in all probability. At any rate, she
liked to believe it was so.

Nevertheless, because she was possessed an
honest soul, even though it felt as though it was being tried
viciously hard of late, she grumbled, “I think so, too.”

Belle didn’t relish Win’s ecstatic cry of,
“You do? Good God!”

She was about to respond with something
cutting and sarcastic when she heard a thundering noise and glanced
up. She was just in time to realize the thundering noise had come
from Win’s boots racing across the floor. She cried, “Win!” when he
swept her up from the log and hugged her in a bruising embrace.

“By God, I never thought you’d admit the
heroes of the South had ever done anything wrong, Belle Monroe!
This is cause for a celebration! And I have a great idea on how to
celebrate. Let’s give your parents something really interesting to
talk about besides the damned Civil War that ended thirty years
ago!”

She didn’t even have time to protest his
calling the War of Northern Ignorance by the inapt and, naturally,
Northern name, Civil War, before she discovered she was being
kissed, deeply and thoroughly, and her shaken senses switched from
utter panic to absolute delight.

Throwing her arms around Win’s neck, Belle
held on for dear life while Win imparted unto her so many of the
lessons she’d felt were lacking in her life until this minute. She
melted, she throbbed, her heart soared, her soul rejoiced, and she
kissed him back with all the intensity in her body. God alone knew
what might have become of her if the door to his booth hadn’t burst
open. She and Win jumped apart as if an ax had hacked them into two
pieces.

“Oh!” she whispered, covering her burning
lips with her hand. She blinked fuzzily at the person standing in
the sunlight pouring in through the open door.

“Damn.” Win, too, appeared befuddled. Or
bedazzled. Belle couldn’t tell.

“Whoops!” Kate Finney stood in the doorway,
grinning like an elf, her fists on her hips, her throat livid with
fingerprint-sized bruises. “Sorry,” she said in a voice that,
although hoarse, held more than a hint of laughter. “Didn’t mean to
interrupt anything.”

On the whole, Belle guessed she was glad she
had.

Chapter Eleven

The next morning, Belle was more certain
about her gratitude toward Kate Finney’s interruption of that
spontaneous and improper kiss. Even as she’d saved Kate’s life a
couple of days ago, so Kate had saved Belle’s own life last night.
God alone knew to what depths Belle might have sunk had she and Win
not been interrupted.

Oh, but his kiss had been heavenly.
Beautiful. Just what the doctor would have ordered, if Belle had
visited a doctor of low moral character and asked for a
strengthening tonic. She heaved a huge sigh.

She was sure there was something wrong with
her that she should harbor in her soul a feeling of emptiness and
the consciousness of something in her body—indeed, in her life—that
remained unfulfilled. Those unsuitable and assuredly immoral
feelings were shades of the evil Belle Monroe surfacing. Although
until she’d arrived in New York City, Belle hadn’t known that side
even existed, it had been given more than enough freedom
recently.

She rummaged through her bureau drawer until
she found her corset, put it on, then laced it as tightly as she
could before going downstairs to breakfast with the Richmonds in
the lovely and very expensive restaurant attached to the hotel. In
a chastened mood this morning, she appreciated the fact that Gladys
and George treated her as if she were a member of their family, and
not an outsider merely working for them. Then she wondered if this
easiness with the hired help was another Yankee tradition that was
being used to subvert all of her early childhood training.

Since her head ached—she hadn’t slept at all
last night—she decided to worry about subversive Yankee influences
later. At the moment, she appreciated the Richmonds a lot.

“Good morning!” She put on her cheeriest
demeanor in order to counteract the misery within her breathlessly
corseted body. She hoped she’d be able to fit breakfast between her
corset stays and her ribs, because she was sure food would held
ease her headache.

“Good morning,” Gladys responded, smiling
sweetly.

Gladys always smiled sweetly, Belle thought
with a pinch of contempt and the rebellious speculation as to
whether Gladys had ever been forced to think for herself. Yet Belle
knew Gladys’s sweetness of temper existed because the woman
possessed a truly good heart, and she was ashamed of herself all
over again.

“We had fun last night, Miss Monroe!” Amalie
said, bouncing in her seat. “I wish you could have gone with us.
Cousin Fidelia has a real pony!”