Just North of Bliss

by Duncan, Alice

  “Too bad you didn’t bring your bonnet,” Kate said. “Most proper ladies don’t go outdoors without one.”

  The bonnet. Belle cast a withering glance at Win, who frowned back. “My bonnet got ruined in the accident.”

  Kate tapped her chin with a finger. “Too bad. Let me see what I can create.”

  To Belle’s utter astonishment, Kate actually did create a hat of sorts for her. When she and Win left Kate’s booth to meet Amalie and Gladys, Belle realized that she had a whole new set of experiences and realizations to try to cram into her southern belief system, which was getting a little cramped.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Win was moderately certain Kate Finney was out of her mind, which made his own descent into insanity only that much more distressing, since it meant he wouldn’t have a friend to discuss it with. Why, he asked himself at least six thousand times as he walked into the Congress Hotel, did Kate’s idea of himself and Belle together sound so appealing? The woman drove him crazy; he couldn’t seriously conceive of attaching himself to her permanently. Could he?

  The Richmonds were awaiting him in the elegant lobby of the Congress. Amalie, jumping up and down in excitement—Win wished Belle would be that glad to see him—waved and would have called out to him if her mother hadn’t forestalled such undignified behavior. Garrett, sporting a black eye, grinned impishly. The Richmonds smiled a greeting. Mr. Richmond, Win noted, looked particularly self-satisfied this evening. He reminded Win of a stuffed halibut his uncle had mounted on the wall of his trophy room in Philadelphia.

  His heart plummeted straight into his highly polished shoes when he saw that Belle was not with the family. His mouth was open to ask where she was when he realized that wasn’t an appropriate way to begin a conversation with a family whose goodwill he needed. Instead of blurting out, “Where’s Belle?” he forced himself to smile and say, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Where’s Belle?”

  He cursed inwardly. He’d meant to spread on a shade more butter before asking about Belle.

  “She got a telegram,” Amalie announced. It looked to Win as though she were trying to look serious. “Mama says cables often mean trouble.”

  In spite of himself, Win grinned at the girl. “Your mama’s right about that, Miss Amalie. Cables often bring bad news. But what’s this about Miss Monroe getting a telegram? I hope it didn’t contain anything too bad about her family or anything.”

  Gladys said, “We all hope that. Belle took the envelope to her room so she could read it privately. I suggested she do that, since she’s such a dignified little thing. If it did contain bad news, I didn’t want her to feel constrained by our presence.”

  “That was nice of you, Mrs. Richmond.”

  “I asked to go with her, but she said not to.” Plainly worried about Belle and her telegraphed news, Gladys shot a troubled glance at the staircase.

  Win knew the answer to that one. Without even asking, he said, “I’ll go up and see how she’s doing.”

  “Oh, but I don’t . . .”

  Win didn’t stick around to be waylaid by a kindhearted Gladys Richmond. Without a backward glance, he bounded up the staircase, glad he’d seen Belle to her room the first night they’d worked together, since he knew which room was hers. He trotted down the hall, his heart hammering a quick tattoo against his ribs. He didn’t know whether that signified worry for Belle or delight that he was about to see her again, but he feared the worst.

  He was right. As soon as he’d rapped on the door and she opened it, his entire being lit up like the White City at night. “Belle!” he cried, whipping off his hat. His beaming smile suffered a slight setback when Belle grabbed onto the door and tried to slam it in his face. The flat of his hand stopped her, and he barged right in. “Hey, what’s wrong? Mrs. Richmond said you got a telegram. I hope it’s not bad news.” The truth was that he hoped her fiendish mother had suffered a stroke of apoplexy and passed on to her reward, which he thought ought to be hot and stinky, but he deemed saying so would be inappropriate.

  Foiled in her attempt to slam the door in his face, Belle jumped back and tried to slap said face instead. He caught her wrist in his hand. “What the hell’s going on here, Belle? What’s the matter?”

  “You’re the matter, curse you!”

  He’d never actually heard her bellow and swear before. It was very disconcerting to hear her now, in the confines of her hotel room. He also didn’t understand why she was doing so. “What did I do now?” He was becoming resigned to Belle considering him the author of all the world’s ills.

  “This is what you did!” She waved the yellow paper in front of his face.

  He made a swipe for it, but she snatched it back. “But . . .”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not going to read this piece of my personal correspondence, Mr. Win Asher.”

  “But what does it say? I swear to God, Belle, I haven’t sold any more pictures of you.” Not exactly, anyhow. She didn’t need to know about the arrangements he’d made with his U.S. agent yet. He had some ruffled feathers to soothe before he hit her with that tidbit of news.

  “Oh, no. Not you. You’re Mr. Perfect, Mr. Always Honorable, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to—”

  “Curse you! Just listen to this.” Belle lifted the telegram and read. “‘Photo Blissborough Gazette. How can do this to family? Ashamed. Hurt. Crushed. Love, Mother.’”

  Win guessed that saved him the trouble of trying to wrest the telegram out of her hand. “Um, that’s from your mother?”

  “Who do you think it’s from, curse you? Who else would sign a telegram to me ‘Mother’?” Belle spun around and hurtled across the room. After pounding her little balled fist against the far wall, she spun the other way and hurtled back to him. He braced himself, sure she was going to pound him next. “This is all your fault! How could you lie to me like that?”

  “Now, wait a minute, Belle. I didn’t—”

  “You did so lie!”

  “It wasn’t a lie. Exactly.”

  She was nose-to-nose with him by this time. Her nearness did funny things to him. Or maybe they weren’t funny. They were probably more scandalous than funny. At least Belle and her family would think so.

  “You’re a superb equivocator, aren’t you, Win Asher? You should have been a Jesuit, you’re so good at it!”

  “Say, Belle, that’s a great line. Mind if I share it with a newspaper friend of mine?”

  “What? Oh, you—you—”

  Since she seemed to have run out of words momentarily, and since she was standing smack in front of him, and since he really, really wanted to, Win did the only thing he could think of that might offer at least one of them satisfaction. He reached out, drew her into an embrace, and heard the telegram crinkle as he crushed her body to his. “Shut up,” he muttered the second before he kissed her.

  She struggled like a tigress for approximately seven seconds. Then she lost the battle with Win and herself and melted into his embrace. Weak in the knees, Win started edging toward the bed. He told himself he wouldn’t take this too far, although the thought of stripping Belle naked and ravishing her was wildly appealing. He sat to the accompaniment of a soft sigh of mattress ticking and a softer sigh from Belle.

  Her full breasts taunted him as they pressed into his chest. Confounded clothes. He wanted to feel her breasts in the flesh, damn it. He wanted to taste them. He wanted to lick her from her toes to her hairline. He wanted to plunge his engorged sex into her body and drive her to pinnacles she didn’t know existed. He wanted to . . .

  A sharp rap on the door brought them both to attention with unpleasant rapidity. With a loud gasp, Belle pulled away from Win, her eyes huge and staring. Frustrated beyond anything, Win tried to haul her back into his arms. “To hell with the door,” he murmured as she started struggling.

  “No!” Belle smacked his arm. “The Richmonds are waiting for me.”

  The smack was a small one
. There didn’t seem to be much heat behind it, but it jolted Win’s senses into renewed mental functioning. Shutting his eyes and feeling tormented beyond what he considered just, he released her, whispering a ragged, “Damn.”

  Belle leaped up from the bed as if she had springs in her legs and raced for the door.

  And that was another thing, Win thought unhappily. He wanted—no, he needed—to see those glorious legs in the flesh. He wanted to feel them, to kiss them. Just thinking about the soft, warm flesh of her inner thighs provoked a groan of misery from him.

  “Get up!”

  Belle’s sharply hissed command made Win blink and glance at her. Another rap at the door made her jump. “Um . . . I beg your pardon?”

  He saw that her teeth were clenched. “I said get up from that bed, curse you! I’m not opening this door until you do.”

  “Telegram,” said a voice on the other side of the door.

  Belle lifted a hand and pressed it to her crimson cheek. “Another one? Oh, my land.”

  “Good God.” Win staggered slightly as he rose from the bed. If Belle’s lunatic mother had hanged herself in shame over her daughter’s career as a photographer’s model, Win knew he was doomed. Belle would never speak to him again if something like that happened.

  Belle didn’t wait to see if his legs would hold him. As soon as he was on his feet, she flung the door open. A bell boy stood there, holding a tray upon which lay a yellow envelope. As if she didn’t want to touch it, Belle stared at it for what seemed like an hour and a half.

  At last the bell boy cleared his throat and said, “Telegram for Miss Monroe.”

  Since Belle seemed to have been stricken dumb and motionless, Win gave himself a hard mental shake and walked to the door, digging into his pocket as he did so. Removing a coin, he placed it on the tray and removed the envelope. “Thank you.”

  The bell boy tipped his hat. He looked relieved. “Thank you, sir.” His stride was jaunty when he took off down the hall, and Win guessed he ought to have looked at the coin before he’d put it on the tray. Obviously, he’d over tipped the boy.

  Still Belle didn’t move. Her gaze remained glued to the envelope. With gentle pressure, Win turned her around, shutting the door behind them. He guided her to a chair and turned her around again. She sank into the chair as if she were in a trance.

  “Ah, do you . . .” He’d been about to ask if she wanted him to open the telegram, but she looked sort of dazed, so he decided for himself.

  She uttered a small squeak when he ripped the envelope open and removed the telegram. He glanced at her over the top of the paper. “Don’t worry, Belle. Any information contained in this wire won’t leave this room unless you want it to.” He read the telegram before handing it to her. He wished he could be magically transported to Georgia so he could whip her family members into behaving themselves.

  “Oh,” she moaned as she read. “Oh, my land.”

  It wasn’t a long message. “Exhibiting self all over world. Shameful. Mother anguish. Father hurt. How could do this to family? Love, Father.”

  Belle let her hands drift to her lap, the message crushed beneath them. She looked as if someone had taken up a mental cudgel and battered her with it. Win’s heart ached for her. This wasn’t fair, damn her family to perdition.

  “I have to go home,” she said in a dull monotone.

  He had anticipated this reaction and was prepared for it, although he had to struggle to keep his anger from leeching into his voice. He didn’t want her to react to him, but to give him a straight answer. “Why?”

  When she lifted those beautiful brown eyes and gazed at him, his heart did a crazy flip in his chest. His anger toward her family intensified. “I’m hurting my family.”

  “Applesauce.”

  She blinked. “Um . . . I beg your pardon?”

  Win lost the battle with his anger and started pacing. “Damn it, Belle, you’re not hurting anyone! Except maybe yourself. And me. Hell’s bells, you’re sending practically every cent you make home to help support those lazy good-for-nothings in Blissborough. How dare they send you telegrams moaning about how you’re hurting the damned family.”

  “Don’t swear at me.” Her voice held no conviction.

  “I’m not swearing at you, damn it! I’m swearing at your family. They’re a bunch of whining idiots, Belle! Can’t you see that?”

  “No.”

  “Damn it, think for a minute, will you? From what you’ve told me about your family, they do nothing but moan about a war that happened a generation ago. It’s over. I know your family was damaged. Lots of families were damaged, on both sides. But, damn it, from what you’ve told me, you’re the only one who’s been willing to let the past remain in the past and move forward and do something for yourself.”

  “That’s not fair, Win.”

  “The hell it’s not! You’re the one who had enough gumption to get a job. You even moved to New York City to help your damned family, and I know you didn’t want to, because I know you, and you’re a southerner to the tips of your toes.” He snatched the telegram from her lap and waved it in front of her face. “And this is how they repay you. They’re worse than crazy, Belle. They’re downright cruel!”

  She shook her head. “Oh, that’s not so, Win. They love me.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah? They love you so much they don’t even thank you for improving their lives? They love you so much they send you letters telling you you’re wrong to be earning a living and sharing it with them?”

  She lifted her hands and let them drop into her lap again. “They—they just don’t understand.”

  “Nuts! They’re just malicious, is what they are.”

  Her head only shook back and forth slowly. “You don’t understand.”

  “I do understand. You’re the one who doesn’t understand.” Win’s temper flared up a notch when he thought of something else. He looked at the telegram again. “This is the second telegram in one day. It costs a lot of money to send telegrams, Belle. Does your family have that kind of money? And if they do, where does it come from?”

  Again she blinked at him. “Um . . .”

  He spared her the trouble of thinking. Pointing straight at her, he bellowed, “You! That’s where they get the money to make you feel guilty, damn it. They take the money you earn and have the gall to blame you for earning it! That’s not only malicious, it’s downright stupid!”

  She straightened minimally, as if he’d struck a chord.

  Pressing his advantage, Win went on. “It sounds to me as if they’re happy to use you for a while, but they don’t want you to get accustomed to your independence. Or worse, change things for them so that they can’t moan and groan any longer. What they really want is for you to give up your job and go home again, so they can go back to whining about what the damned Yankees did to them thirty years ago.”

  “I don’t . . .” Again, she didn’t finish her thought.

  Totally disgusted with the Monroes of Blissborough, Georgia, Win resumed pacing. “It’s as if you’re taking away their excuses by getting out of that rinky-tink town and making something of yourself.”

  “A nanny?” A short, bitter laugh followed the two words. “That’s not making very much of myself.”

  “Who cares what kind of work you do?” Win’s shout was so loud it rattled a framed picture of a forest glade that hung above the bed. “It’s the fact that you’re doing something that counts! Your family doesn’t want you to do anything! They want to whine about what other people did to them! Don’t you see that?”

  “Um . . . No?”

  “For God’s . . .” Win was so furious now that he itched to haul Belle up from the chair and shake some sense into her. Instead, he whirled around and started pacing in the other direction. He was halfway across the floor when a brilliant notion struck him. He whirled back to face Belle. “I have an idea.”

  She gazed at him dully. “I wish I had one.”

  Her tone of
voice was as dull as her expression. It made Win want to comfort her and spank her beautiful bottom at the same time. Fearful that if he sat on the arm of her chair, he wouldn’t be able to resist doing one of those things, he walked to the bed and plunked himself down.

  “Tell you what, Belle. Don’t go back to Blissborough yet.”

  She opened her mouth, Win presumed to ask him why she shouldn’t, so he answered her before she asked. Holding his hand up to quell any noise from her, he said, “I think your family’s attitude toward you stinks. No, no. Let me finish. I know you love them, and that’s to your credit, but I don’t think it’s fair of them to cause you this grief because you’re trying to earn a living and help them.”

  He realized his voice had become a little loudish and made a conscious effort to hold on to his temper. “I’ve got a reporter friend, H.L. May, the one who wrote that wonderful article about the fair that went with the photograph of you.”

  “That no-good, sneak—”

  “Stop it!” He spoke so violently that she actually stopped it. Win was impressed. He wasn’t accustomed to Belle doing anything he asked her to do. “I’m going to have H.L. snoop around a little bit. Find out what your family’s really going through.”

  “Don’t you dare do that!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s immoral and sneaky, is why!”

  “Applesauce. You deserve to know what’s going on down there.”

  “They’d never lie to me about—”

  Again he cut her off. “I’m not saying they’re lying. I’m sure their feelings have been hurt. After all, it’s not every day a daughter out-does her parents.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Fair?” Win snorted. “Hogwash.”

  “I don’t want anybody— No! Curse you, stop interrupting me!”

  Win rolled his eyes, but he let her continue talking.

  “I don’t want anybody going down to Georgia and bothering my family, Win Asher! That would be worse than this!” She waved a hand at the two crumpled pieces of yellow paper that had somehow found their way to the floor.