Her Beguiling Bride Read online

  “Yes,” both Belle and Alice said at the same time.

  Alice took over. “Of course several of our hands left, but a good many have returned looking for work.”

  “How much did you produce last year?” Billings inquired, obviously unaffected by Alice’s boast.

  Alice and Belle’s gazes collided. Belle pursed her lips undecided on whether to tell Billings the truth or not.

  Alice flat blurted a lie. “Two thousand pounds.” And that was a huge exaggeration.

  Billings snorted. “Two, did you say?” He shook his head. “Before the war of Northern Aggression, Rattle and Snap yielded twenty-five thousand pounds of cotton.” He eyed Alice hard when he mentioned the war. And then he pinned Belle with a stare. “I realize the war hurt us all, but it’s been two years, dear. I don’t deal in piddling amounts.”

  Alice took a step closer to the desk. “Mr. Billings, we’ve cleared several acres and are planting—”

  “That’s all well and good, Mr. O’Malley. You come back when you have the cotton and we’ll conduct business. I’ll get you top dollar.”

  Belle shot to her feet. “But Mr. Billings, the taxes on Rattle and Snap are so high we’re going to have to sell if you can’t get any investors for our cotton.”

  Billings pointed a trembling finger at Alice. “You’re a Yankee veteran.”

  Alice nodded.

  “Then why don’t you marry this young lady and have done with it?” Billing asked pointedly. “The taxes will be lowered, if not done completely away with, and you can come back and sell your cotton crop when you harvest. There will be a buyer. Europe is clamoring for our cotton.” He waved his hand in dismissal.

  Belle looked at Alice who merely stared ahead, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. No amount of scheming or pretending could help them now. They’d just have to wait for their money until cotton picking time in the fall—provided they were able to grow any cotton to speak of at all.

  Already Belle began a mental inventory of the furnishings they’d have to sell. Perhaps they could keep the barn for the goats and all move to the cabin where Uncle Hewlett now lived. It would be cramped of course, but they’d just have to make do.

  But the thought of some stranger living in Rattle and Snap…

  Belle blinked back tears.

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Billings,” Alice said formally. “And for your advice. I’ll take it into consideration.”

  * * * *

  Neither Alice nor Belle uttered a word as the hansom driver took them to the Marshall House hotel. A bellboy met them at the door and loaded their bags onto a cart. Ever the gentleman, Alice paid the cabbie and followed Belle inside to the front desk. She cleared her throat, and then to Belle’s surprise Alice said, “Mr. and Mrs. Holloway from Jonesboro. I believe my wife made the reservation under her name.”

  Belle held her breath, surprised at just how easily Alice pulled off her farce. It was no wonder she’d served alongside men in the Union Army for more than a year’s time without being discovered.

  The man at the desk handed Alice a pen, and she signed Dalton’s name without so much as a blink before he handed her the key and instructed the bellman to show them to their room.

  Without words, Alice offered her arm, held her head high as they followed the bellboy up the stairs and down the hall. He took the key and unlocked the door, opened it, and stood back as Alice strode inside and surveyed the room. “It’ll do nicely. Thank you.”

  “Yessuh,” the bellman said with a polite nod of his head as Alice placed coins in his palm.

  Once the door closed behind them, Belle waited until the bellman’s footsteps faded in the hallway, and then she burst into laughter. Alice didn’t laugh at all. Instead, she removed a handkerchief from the inside pocket of her frock coat and mopped her brow. “Whew! I wasn’t sure I’d pull that off at all,” she said breathlessly. “I wasn’t so worried when I saw that ancient Mr. Billings. I doubted he could see all that well. But the hotel staff… Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

  “No one batted an eyelash,” Belle added.

  “I’m woefully out of practice.” Alice turned and looked at her appearance in the mirror.

  Belle moved behind her and peered over her shoulder. “I never would have looked askance at you…had I not known what you have hidden under these trousers.” Something had come over her. She didn’t know if it was the unfamiliar surroundings or the fact that her female lover looked so damned handsome in a man’s suit, but she couldn’t help letting her palms wander over the gabardine trousers to explore the moist heat between Alice’s legs.

  Alice sucked in a sharp breath. “Look out now, Mrs. Holloway.” She raised an auburn eyebrow in mock warning.

  But Belle continued to stoke the fire she’d kindled. She found it erotic touching a woman dressed in male attire in such a way, knowing that what lay underneath the trousers was all velvety softness.

  Her belly tensed as desire heated and thickened her pulsing blood.

  “I was thinking of taking you out to dinner,” Alice said raggedly, obviously affected by Belle’s touch.

  Belle pressed her mouth against her lover’s ear. “I can think of only one thing I’d like to taste right now, my sweet.”

  A shudder tore through Alice’s body, and Belle thrilled in the effect her words possessed. She reached around Alice’s narrow hips and began to unbutton the fall of her trousers. Alice watched in the mirror, mesmerized, eyes heated.

  When Belle had unfastened three buttons, she slipped her hand beneath the fabric and slowly drifted down the warm, taut abdomen to the copse of curls at the juncture of Alice’s thighs.

  Alice exhaled as Belle prodded, stroking over the distended bud there and lower still to where wet folds readily parted for her probing fingers. She pressed a kiss to the velvety shell of Alice’s ear and moved in impossibly closer to dip her middle finger into the juicy aperture hidden by a pair of men’s trousers.

  “You’ve got me,” Alice muttered, her brogue so thick that her words were barely discernible. She braced her hands on the dresser in front of her and parted her feet.

  Belle followed her movements, bending to penetrate the slippery channel more deeply.

  Alice’s gaze found hers in the mirror, and then she suddenly turned to face her. “I want your mouth on me,” she said, taking Belle by the shoulders and walking her backward toward the bed. “Get on your knees.”

  Belle loved being commanded by the other woman. Obediently she dropped, watching intently as Alice finished unfastening the buttons of her breeches and pushed them down just as far as her thighs.

  As Alice slid her fingers into the chignon pinned neatly at the nape of Belle’s neck and pulled her toward the damp thatch, Belle’s lips parted. Her tongue explored the folds and hardened clitoris as Alice spread and rocked, riding the mouth so eager to please her.

  Belle clung to her lover’s hips, anchoring her as she tongued the sweet cunny. Her own passage tightened and released in anticipation.

  Alice’s moans filled the room. “Yes, sweetheart. Oh God, yes. Don’t stop,” she murmured. Her ribald encouragements spurred Belle onward. Belle couldn’t get close enough; she couldn’t suck that succulent clitoris hard enough.

  Alice raked Belle’s fingers with her own, pushing the hand toward her crotch. Needing no further encouragement, Belle adjusted her position and thrust a finger inside her lover’s wet sheath. The feminine taste of Alice’s nectar and the feel of the damp, inner muscles gripping Belle’s finger aroused her until her own clitoris throbbed with almost painful need.

  Alice groaned. “Right there. Yes. Oh, don’t stop, love. I’m almost there.”

  Just as Alice uttered the words, Belle felt the telltale spasms milking her finger. The clitoris seemed to swell and pulse between her lips, but she did not let up the pressure or the thrusting until Alice began to tremble and backed away.

  Belle looked up at Alice’s flushed face. Their gazes met and held for a mome
nt before Alice sagged onto the bed. “Take off your skirt and that blasted hoop.”

  Belle stood, and holding Alice’s steady gaze, she untied the tapes at the top of her skirt and then those of her hoops. The fabric billowed down around her ankles, leaving her clad in her bodice, petticoat, and pantalets.

  “Pull up that petticoat,” Alice told her. “Show me your cunny.”

  Belle bunched the beribboned white cotton in her fists, gathering it higher and higher, taking her time because she liked the look of anticipation that clouded Alice’s grayish blue eyes. Belle thumbed the slit of her pantalets open, revealing her dark thatch. Alice stared. She wet her lips with her tongue. “Tell me what you want, love.”

  “Did you bring Rufus?”

  Alice laughed out loud at the reference to the leather phallus she’d painstakingly made. The apparatus included a harness with belts that Alice enjoyed wearing and Belle most definitely enjoyed receiving.

  “Of course I brought Rufus. It’s in my valise.” Alice edged off the bed. “Bend over.”

  Belle’s heart rate accelerated as she dragged the back of her petticoat up and positioned herself over the side of the bed. She wanted to squeeze her thighs together to massage her own sex.

  Practiced at donning the thing, Alice stepped into the harness and buckled it quickly. She coated it generously with the greasy salve and stepped in behind Belle to rake the tip through her already sensitized folds.

  A shiver rippled up Belle’s spine. She dipped her spine, lifting her posterior in order to take the thick leather phallus.

  The crown prodded and slipped easily inside, and Belle moaned as the smooth leather filled her inch by wicked inch. Stretched to capacity, she dug her nails into the counterpane covering the bed. When Alice was seated to the hilt inside her, Belle laid her head on the mattress, adjusting to the sensation of being utterly dominated by her female lover. At first Alice had speculated aloud that the faux cock would remind Belle of copulating with a man, but Belle had assured her it was different. From the first time she’d been thoroughly probed with candles, Belle had discovered that she loved the feel of something hard and inanimate exploring her most private recesses. She’d allowed Alice to violate her in places she would have never allowed her husband to access.

  Alice’s fingers dug into the soft flesh of Belle’s hips. She braced for the slow, measured thrusts that followed. In. Out. In. All the way out. Belle whimpered. Perspiration beaded on her spine, and she struggled to take deep breaths against her tight stays.

  The phallus slipped out; Belle ached for the loss of it. Her thighs shook. “Alice, please…”

  But her pleas went unheeded. She heard the lid to the salve being screwed off, and then fingers slathered the cool cream all over her rosette. Belle tensed. Her blood pounded thick and hot through her veins, pulsing in her temples as she anticipated the sweet torture to come.

  Alice always knew just how to please her.

  One long finger breached the tight opening, eliciting a soft yelp from Belle. She adjusted to the invasion quickly, feeling her muscles contracting around the wriggling digit. It felt so sinfully good Belle began to mewl in response.

  “You’re tight in there,” Alice said just before a second finger joined the first.

  Belle’s head lifted off the bed. She cupped her own breasts. “Oh God! I won’t be able to take it. Not today. Please, Alice.” She knew Alice wouldn’t pay attention to her words. Long ago, they’d agreed on a word Belle could use that meant she’d had enough, but she enjoyed the playful banter too much. She most certainly enjoyed the way Alice took from her. Somehow it freed Belle to give in to illicit things she would otherwise never agree to doing.

  A sharp smack landed on her cotton-clad bottom. Heat fired through her buttocks and loins, sensitizing her even more.

  The two fingers slipped slowly out, and Belle’s breath froze in her lungs when the head of the phallus nudged against her.

  “You’re going to take all this cock up your ass,” Alice promised, and with an easy thrust of her hips, the tip pushed inside.

  Belle bit her bottom lip, waiting for the curious pleasure-pain to subside. Her muscles contracted involuntarily around the cock, but at the same time, she eagerly awaited more of it to fill her full.

  Expertly Alice eased the thing inside. Belle slowly expelled the breath she’d been holding as inch after inch stretched her to accommodate the phallus. How could that entry possibly be so much more sensitive than the one made for such play?

  When the device was seated firmly inside, Alice rolled her hips, pushing her groin hard up against Belle’s bottom. “Tell me how it feels with my cock in your ass?”

  Belle could hardly form words. “G-good.”

  “It’s all the way inside you. All the way, sweetheart.”

  Yes, it was. Belle’s stomach tensed. “Move. Please move. Please give me release.”

  It was as if Alice had been waiting for those very words. Gripping Belle’s hips, she began to pump, short, forceful strokes that sent dark pleasure rolling from Belle’s center outward. She’d be sore later, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered now was allowing herself to be claimed by her lover.

  Belle reached to find Alice’s hand, and she tugged it, guiding it toward the needy pulse pounding between her legs. A jolt of pleasure shot through Belle when those fingers found and began to knead her clitoris. The sensation of the phallus filling her ass and the fingertips working their magic was almost too intense to withstand. But there it was. Ecstasy lurked just within reach, and Belle knew all she had to do was give in. A sense of peace inundated her, and she allowed herself to feel, to experience, to surrender.

  Her moan came out as a strangled cry as a powerful orgasm detonated from her sex, exploding down her legs and up her spine. Her scalp tingled with it. Her entire body grew rigid, and all the while, Alice continued to gently roll her hips and kept her fingers firmly pressed against the throbbing clitoris.

  Belle’s knees buckled, and she sagged against the mattress, still riding the last crest of bliss until it subsided. She didn’t move when the phallus slipped out or while she listened to the sound of Alice unbuckling and removing the harness. Instead Belle let the heady waves of pleasure continue to roll in and then sweep out like the tide.

  Alice returned with a cool washcloth and tenderly wiped the greasy lubricant and Belle’s own wetness from her bottom. Afterward she pushed herself up to turn into her lover’s arms before she kissed her. Fully. Deeply.

  Renewed love warmed her heart as soft lips plucked at soft lips, as their tongues touched in a gentle, almost chaste kiss.

  Alice drew away first and held Belle’s face in her hands.

  At once Belle read the other woman’s need to protect, her desire to make everything all right. “Alice,” she whispered. “Whatever happens, we’ve tried our best. If we lose Rattle and Snap, we lose it. What matters is that we have each other. That we always have each other.”

  Alice expelled a breath. Her eyes turned flinty. “We’re keeping that farm, by God.”

  Chapter Three

  In spite of everything working against them, the Irish jig blaring from inside a saloon put a lilt in Alice’s step. She enjoyed the feel of the stylish clothes. The cut of her trousers and the crispness of her linen shirt infused her with a sense of class she’d never known as a young girl in Boston or even as a Zouave soldier.

  Everywhere the Irish brogue could be heard, and Alice met more than one person from her home county in Ireland. It seemed that anyone Irish within traveling distance had come to Savannah to take part in the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

  Buggies and wagons vied for position in the streets. A young boy traipsed down the sidewalk, cavorting with a mongrel dog. A downcast, one-legged man wearing a tattered, gray Confederate coat leaned against a building, holding a sign with a plea for money scrawled on it in crudely rendered letters.

  A well-dressed man dropped a few coins into the man’s upside-down kepi
.

  “God bless ye,” the old soldier said.

  A pang of something Alice could not define struck her at the sight of the grizzled old veteran. Were it not for the fact she was a woman, she would have lost her leg in the fighting around Jonesboro. As it was, her commanding officer had deemed her unworthy of the surgeon’s time to amputate and had abandoned her to die at Rattle and Snap.

  “Pardon me a moment,” Alice said to Belle before she slipped a coin out of her pocket and dropped it in the veteran’s hat.

  “Too generous of ye,” the man said. “Were ye a soldier yerself?”

  “Aye,” Alice told him. “But for the other side. I was in the Seventeenth New York Zouave Infantry.”

  His eyes sparkled when he chuckled. “You wore them fancy bloomers, then.”

  “That I did,” Alice said with a grin.

  “Anybody who fought in that war deserves my respect. God be with ye, soldier,” he said.

  “And with you,” Alice said, tipping her hat to the man. She turned and joined Belle once more.

  The odors of fish and shellfish cooking wafted from public houses, mingling with the earthy redolence of the Savannah River. A Gullah woman’s throaty voice rose in song as she sat on the street corner, weaving a sweetgrass basket. Her other wares, colorful baskets of all shapes and sizes, were displayed on the ground around her.

  Alice wanted to remember every sight, every sound, and every smell. This place and this moment seemed to hold some sort of magic. With Belle on her arm, Alice strode proudly beneath the festive green garlands and banners that stretched over the streets. She tipped her topper to a passing lady and heard Belle giggle softly.

  “You really do look like a man,” she whispered.

  Alice only smiled. But at times she wished she could be a man. If she were, she could have married Belle. They could be starting a family of their own. As it was, if Alice were found out, they both could be arrested and fined for impropriety. She was somewhat accepted in the small community of Jonesboro simply for putting an end to the brigands who’d terrorized the locals. Besides, she’d somehow earned Granny’s respect—and no one questioned anybody Granny respected.