Just North of Bliss (35 page)

“Good morning, Belle. I hope I didn’t keep
you up too late last evening. We had a lot of business to
discuss.”

“Yes, we did.”

Amalie broke into the slight aura of strain
that had sprung up around the table. “Hello, Mr. Asher! You wanna
go on the Ferris wheel with us today?”

“Yeah,” said Garrett, for once sounding
happy about something. “Can you?”

Belle thought it was interesting that both
children liked Win. Their approbation made her feel a tiny bit
better.

“I’d be delighted to join you on the Ferris
wheel,” Win said, sounding almost as jovial as George had.

“Please sit down and join us, Mr. Asher,”
Gladys said, gesturing at an empty chair. “Belle has been telling
us that you’re hoping to form a business partnership.”

“Has she now?” Win directed a glittering
smile at Belle, who gave him one back with interest.

“Yes. I think it’s very enterprising of you
both to go into business together.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Richmond. I’m glad you
approve.”

“Brilliant idea, old boy,” boomed George,
clapping Win on the back. “Seize the opportunity, is my motto.”

It was, was it? Belle’s gaze went from Win
to George, and she wondered if that might not be Win’s motto, as
well. Had he seduced her merely in order to cement a business
opportunity? The thought was unpleasant, and she wasn’t certain how
to discover the truth of the matter. She could ask Win, but he’d
say no, even if he meant yes. He seemed to be a trace unscrupulous
where his photography business was concerned.

And if that wasn’t a depressing notion, she
didn’t know what was. It took a good deal of effort for her to
smile at the waiter, order a breakfast she hoped she could hold
down, and to eat it as if her mind were at ease. It wasn’t. Blast
Win Asher, anyhow.

Chapter Eighteen

Win had felt sort of foolish, showing up at
the Congress before eight in the morning, uninvited. He’s put on a
fair show of nonchalance, but couldn’t conceal his joy when George
Richmond greeted him as if he had every right to be barging in on
his breakfast. Good old George. He was as thickheaded as he was
thick-waisted, and Win blessed him for it.

The truth of the matter was that he couldn’t
settle down to anything at all until he’d seen Belle and assured
himself that she was in reality—well—
real
. That she wasn’t
just a figment of his artistic imagination. He knew he tended to be
fanciful sometimes, but surely he couldn’t have fancied that wild
romp on his chaise longue last night.

When he walked into the restaurant and saw
her, he knew his sanity remained intact. She seemed momentarily
startled by his unexpected appearance, and that moment of
uncertainty was all Win needed to assure himself that all was well
in his universe. She’d agreed to go into business with him, too, so
his continued acquaintance with her was a settled thing. Or it
would be as soon as she signed a legal document binding her to him
for the duration of their partnership.

The notion of a legally binding contract had
occurred to him sometime during his unsettled night. He hadn’t been
able to sleep for thinking about Belle and how to keep her. Oh, he
knew he should marry her, and he’d ask her, but what if she
surprised him and refused? One of the things he cherished about her
was her unexpectedness. She might get some sort of
southern-gentlewoman’s notion in her pretty head that her family
would cut her off if she married a Yankee.

When that notion occurred to him, Win’s
heart had very nearly stopped beating. He couldn’t allow something
like that to happen. He couldn’t allow her to escape. He couldn’t
let her go. No way. Not now that he—ah—had found out how photogenic
she was.

Ever since the realization that he loved her
had smitten him, he’d tried to drive it away. Love was ephemeral.
Business was a solid fact. Love was chancy. Business was firm.
Business was admirable, firm, and good. Love was scary as hell.

Besides all that, and her family
notwithstanding, Belle was an entrenched southerner. Win couldn’t
imagine her agreeing to give up her Georgia roots and live in
Chicago with him. She clung like a barnacle to that damned
ungrateful family of hers. He feared that even if H.L. May, who had
taken the train down to Georgia several days ago, dug up all sorts
of bad things about her family, Belle wouldn’t desert them. She was
too damned stubborn. Too damned good.

He hated that. One of the reasons he loved
her was that she saw things so clearly, even if her conclusions
were antithetical to Win. Everything was black and white to his
Belle. She harbored none of his anomalous feelings about good and
evil. She knew what was what in her life, did his Belle. She never
saw a ragged beggar on the street and wondered if his rags were his
fault or the fault of an unkind society. She didn’t care; she saw
only the beggar in his present state. She
knew
that her family’s current woes were a direct
result of what his northern kin had done to the south thirty-some
years ago.

That particular notion was laughable to Win.
He freely acknowledged that life was unfair, and that it burdened
some folks more harshly than it did others. But Win didn’t cling to
life’s unfairness as an excuse for current unpleasantnesses in his
own life.

Not Belle. She might be willing to kill a
man for trying to hurt someone she esteemed, or even a complete
stranger, like Kate Finney, but she was flat blind when it came to
her family. She loved them blindly. She excused them blindly. She
even allowed them to bully her from afar.

Therefore, he’d decided to visit a lawyer
friend after breakfast and have a contract drawn up. He hoped Belle
could go with him, but he’d go alone if she had duties with the
Richmonds.

After he’d given his order to the waiter, he
turned to her. “Say, Belle, are you free any time today?”

She looked alarmed. “No. That is, Mrs.
Richmond and I are taking the children to the Exposition, Win.”

“Do you need Belle, Mr. Asher?” Gladys asked
politely, although Win thought he detected a hint of avid interest
in her eyes.

He held up his hands. “I don’t want to
interfere with her duties, Mrs. Richmond. I only wanted to chat
with her about our business agreement.”

“Oh?” Belle said, her tone sharp.

“Oh?” Gladys’s voice conveyed only
intrigue.

“I thought it would be a good idea to go
over a few points, is all,” he said, trying to sound easygoing and
casual.

“What points?” Belle demanded.

Win sighed. He’d obviously gone about this
wrong. “Nothing significant. But I thought it might be a good idea
to get everything down in black and white and sign on it.”

“On paper, you mean?” Belle said.

Win didn’t understand why she seemed to
stiffen. “Yes. It’s probably best to have it on paper.”

“Sound notion,” George said, nodding
judiciously. “Very sound. Good business practice.”

“I see,” said Belle.

Win didn’t think it was a good sign that she
seemed to have gone all frigid. “It’s for your protection more than
mine,” he said, feeling desperate and misunderstood.

“I see,” she repeated. She flapped her
napkin once to open it and slapped it back down on her lap.

That was a bad sign, too. “Say, Belle, it
really is a good idea to sign business agreements in order to make
them legally binding in every particular.”

She gave him a smile that froze his blood.
“I see. Yes, I think that’s a very good idea. Perhaps we can go
over the papers this evening?”

“Right.” Win wished he understood this
woman. Every time he thought he had her figured out, she went and
smashed his theories all to blazes.

She didn’t speak to him again until they
were through with breakfast and all headed out of the hotel to
catch a cab to the Exposition. He itched with impatience. He needed
to talk to her, to settle things, to find out what the hell was the
matter now, to calm her down. To make love to her.

Win passed a hand over his face in
frustration and wondered why the poets waxed so euphoric over love.
As far as he could tell, love was only a supreme pain in the
neck.

# # #

Belle supposed it was as well that she’d
discovered now that Win only considered her a business entity. If
he hadn’t made his opinion of her perfectly clear this morning, she
might have allowed herself to wonder if perhaps he actually
cared
for her.

Idiot
, she shrieked at herself.
Fool. Moron. Benighted moonling
.

Love-sick woman.

What a ridiculous situation she’d put
herself in. Here she’d been happily employed by the Richmonds and
enjoying life, and even had a little money to spend on herself now
and then, which was a glorious novelty in her life, and she’d
thrown it all away because of a man. She’d even given Win Asher her
virginity, for all the good her maidenhood had ever done her, only
to discover too late that he’d been using the act of love as a
means of bending her to his will. She could scarcely believe it of
herself. That she, who used to pride herself on her common sense,
could have stooped to such folly, was . . . well, it was
embarrassing, is what it was.

She’d never allow Win to see her
humiliation. Or the Richmonds, either. Rather, she put on a happy
expression, took Amalie by the hand, and tried to keep up with the
child as she skipped out of the hotel. Keeping up with children was
a task performed much more easily when one dispensed with whalebone
and stays; Belle was proud of herself that she’d done so. The
Richmond party stood under the awning as the liveried footman
hailed a cab for them, and Belle tried not to notice Win, which was
approximately as easy as not noticing an elephant, should one have
been present.

He kept glancing at her and frowning. Belle
had no idea what that meant, but she’d die before she asked. “Are
you sure you don’t want to take a sweater, Amalie?”

“A sweater?” The little girl goggled up at
her. And well she might, since the day promised as hot and humid as
the preceding several had been.

Belle sighed and smiled. “Of course not.
Whatever was I thinking?”

“I dunno,” said Amalie who, Belle recalled
with a twinge of irritation, was a Yankee child if ever there was
one. A properly reared southern child would have said something
conciliatory rather than agree that an adult had behaved
foolishly.

She leaned over to straighten the bow at the
neck of Amalie’s sailor-style dress. It was a cunning creation, and
Belle almost envied the little girl. When she straightened, she
jumped a little when she realized that Win had maneuvered himself
to her side. Before she could stop herself, she’d frowned at him.
At once, she turned the frown into a wintry smile.

“Say, Belle, we have to talk.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “This evening we shall do
so.”

Win cast a glance at the grouping of
Richmonds and, finding them involved with each other, hissed under
his breath, “What the devil’s wrong with you this morning? Are you
mad at me for something?”

The miserable fiend. “Not at all.” Belle’s
voice was so icy, she wondered if
she
needed a sweater.

“The hell you’re not. Is it about last
night? Listen, Belle—”

“Don’t you dare talk about that right now!”
Belle hissed back, wishing she could stab him with the point of her
parasol as she’d tried to stab Kate Finney’s father. “I said I’d
talk to you this evening. For heaven’s sake, Win, I have a job to
do.”

Win muttered, “Damnation!” and slammed his
hands into his pockets, a gesture Belle recognized as one he used
when frustrated or angry. But he shut up, which is all that
mattered to her at the moment.

Unfortunately, Amalie had observed their
tiny contretemps.
She would
, Belle thought sourly.

“How come you’re mad at Mr. Asher, Miss
Monroe?”

Through her teeth, Belle muttered, “I’m not
angry with him, dear.” She was pretty sure her icy smile gave the
lie to the words.

But Amalie only said, “Oh.” Evidently, even
Yankee children drew the line somewhere. Thank God.

Win, squinting at her as if he were trying
to figure out what kind of alien planet she belonged to, said, “I
don’t know what the hell’s the matter with you, Belle Monroe, but
we
will
talk tonight. I’ve got to get to my booth now. I’ve
got a job to do, too.”

Miffed by his tone of voice—a body would
think it was her fault he’d abandoned his booth and visited the
hotel—Belle ground out, “Yes, I suppose you do.”

“Damn,” he muttered.

She said, “I wish you would stop cursing. I
said I’d talk to you this evening. I’ll visit you at your booth.”
Dear heaven, she hoped he wouldn’t try anything untoward. She was
pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to resist, even as furious as she
was with him. And hurt. Oh, she hurt inside. Knowing that she’d
been an utter fool hurt a lot.

“Belle . . .”

She scowled at him. “Not now.”

He threw his arms in the air in a gesture of
surrender. “For the love of— All right. Tonight.”

And without even saying good-bye to the
Richmonds, Win stomped off. Belle felt as if a knife were twisting
in her breast.

# # #

What the hell was the matter with the woman?
Win worked all day long, thinking about Belle the entire time, and
never did figure it out. Thank goodness, he had lots of business or
he’d probably have ended up brooding. His lawyer brought the
partnership papers by Win’s booth around noontime, so the two men
ate lunch together. Win was grateful to have the company for more
than one reason.

He was glad to take a break, certainly, but
more, he was glad to have the opportunity to talk, however
circuitously, about Belle Monroe. His head felt as if it might
explode if he didn’t talk about her some way with someone.