FF (March 2012) Paisley Smith - [Beguiled 2] Her Beguiling Bride

Three years have passed since Belle Holloway gave her heart to Alice O’Malley, the brash woman Union soldiers left on the doorstep of Belle’s Georgia plantation. Now Reconstruction Era taxes threaten their home, and Belle must decide between the female lover whose touch sets her flesh and soul ablaze. Or a cold marriage to a wealthy man and an even colder bed.

In hopes of saving the plantation, Belle and Alice travel to Savannah where doors close at every turn. Until Alice tenders a scandalous proposal that could cost them everything...or offer them the love of a lifetime.

Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual situations, graphic language, and material that some readers may find objectionable: anal play/intercourse, female/female sexual practices.

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Sample

Chapter One

February 1867

“You can’t keep this…thing…with Alice up forever.” Granny lowered herself into one of the porch rockers.

Ignoring Granny, Belle never tore her gaze from the red-earthed fields where Alice walked with Uncle Hewlett and Chester, one of the field hands who’d returned after the war. Belle sighed, her tight stays preventing her from taking a deep enough breath.

She pursed her lips. Alice had been with her since 1864, and while theirs was not a conventional relationship by any standards, Belle found comfort in it.

The barren winter landscape faded and with it the rows of withered cotton stalks in the furrowed red clay and the bleak gray hues of the trees and barn. It all blurred until the only thing Belle could see was the image of her lover looming in her mind’s eye.

Alice.

Belle’s stomach grew taut at the memory of her lover’s fingers thoroughly exploring her most private recesses earlier that morning. The muscles in her thighs tightened, and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, but the movement only enhanced her need. It had been three years since the Yankees had left Alice O’Malley, dressed in a Zouave uniform, in Belle’s bed. Belle and Granny had nursed the wounded she-soldier back to health, but Belle had been unprepared for the odd bond that had formed between her and the strange, boyish Yankee girl.

At some point in their relationship, Belle had realized she loved Alice in the same way she’d loved her departed husband, Dalton. Everyone had known Belle had suffered several great losses in a row, and the illicit relationship between the two women hadn’t been publicly questioned.

Until now.

Belle, herself, had avoided questioning it. She and Alice never discussed the particulars of their commitment to one another. They simply lived it. Since the war’s end, they’d both fallen into a very comfortable routine of working together to run the vast plantation before falling into bed at night and silently fulfilling deeper, darker needs.

Biting her bottom lip in memory, Belle blinked her reverie away before turning to Granny, whose brow wrinkled in expectation of an answer to a question she’d never asked.

“I don’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter with Grayson gone,” Belle told her. Her brother, Grayson, had run off to join the Confederate Army after the Yankees murdered their father. He’d been captured at the Battle of Nashville and sent off to prison at Camp Douglas where he died days before he was scheduled to be released.

Belle’s gaze swept the family plot at the edge of the woods where Grayson’s body had been buried next to their poor afflicted mother, who had passed away shortly before Grayson.

Alice had been by her side the entire time, offering unspoken comfort and a shoulder to cry on.

Granny wet her thin lips with the tip of her tongue. Her eyes twinkled as the rocker creaked on the wooden porch. “Nathan Bailey is back from England.”

“The man who hired your Tommy as his substitute?” Belle knew very well who Nathan Bailey was, but she could not resist uttering the wounding reminder that he’d hired Tommy to fight in his stead, especially when it was obvious Granny meant to act as matchmaker. Poor Tommy had lost both legs in battle and, it seemed, had also lost his will to live. His days were spent lying in bed, staring at the window. He only ate when Granny forced him and had lately taken to refusing all visitors.

“The same,” Granny said, ignoring the barb even as one sparse white eyebrow lifted.

Belle couldn’t tell if the look was from spite or some sort of conspiratorial mischief. “Has he even paid Tommy a visit?” she asked.

“As a matter of fact, he has,” Granny said smugly. “He also paid Tommy a pretty hefty sum for those legs my boy lost in his stead.”

“As if that redeems him,” Belle muttered under her breath. She knew Granny, who was deaf as a doornail, couldn’t hear her words. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Just what are you suggesting, Granny?”

Belle’s gaze drifted back across the fields to where Alice stood, hands outstretched as she gestured toward the expanse of an area that had once been a cotton patch but was now being quickly reclaimed by the woods and underbrush.

“I just think you ought to accept his invitation if he calls on you,” Granny said, still rocking the chair for all it was worth.

Belle heard Granny’s words, but her thoughts were consumed with the way Uncle Hewlett stood shaking his gray-topped head in the negative while portly Chester hooked his thumbs under his suspenders and rocked on his ungainly feet, nodding vigorously. Between the three of them only Chester knew anything about farming. Uncle Hewlett had been Belle’s pa’s manservant while Alice was a fresh-off-the-boat, Irish city girl.

Uncle Hewlett, despite his station as a former slave, was more at home quoting Shakespeare than picking cotton. And Alice… Although she meant well and learned fast, she just wasn’t cut out for farming. She’d never grasped the art of goat milking, and the ornery old goats knew it. She’d suffered more than a bruised bottom at the rack of old Jefferson Davis, the buck who lorded over Belle’s herd.

“Your whole future—Rattle and Snap’s whole future—depends on what them three out there do,” Granny said, pointing an arthritic finger and giving it a menacing shake in their direction. “And not a dern one of ’em knows a whit about cotton farming.”

Belle huffed. “Chester does.”

Granny snorted. “He might know how to plant it and pick it, but who’s going to deal with them cotton agents? Who’s going to sell it? None of them men is going to take a woman serious.”

Belle wished the old woman would shut her mouth, mainly because Granny’s claims had more than an inkling of truth. But Belle just didn’t want to hear it. Or face it. Outrageous taxes had been levied on the plantation, and she had to choose whether to take a chance on planting a crop with inexperienced hands or selling off the land to Yankee carpetbaggers who had romantic notions of living in the handful of Georgia mansions Sherman hadn’t seen fit to burn.

The rocker stopped. “Nate Bailey’s as rich as Midas, or so they say.”

Belle bristled, but some dark part of her longed for the financial safety she’d felt with Dalton. Then her only worry had been what color bonnet to wear with which dress. Now finances, farming, taxes, and a host of other qualms plagued her and kept her awake at night.

But what about Alice?

Belle loved Alice. There was no question about that. She and Alice had lived as lovers in the three years they’d been together. They’d slept together. They’d nursed each other in sickness. They held hands when they walked to the barn to milk the goats.

That was it, Belle thought. The goats. “I’ve made a good income with the goat dairy.”

“Honey, you can’t run Rattle and Snap on them goats. Not with the Yankees running the taxes through the roof. I heard Johnny Johnson saying his taxes went up as high as a cat’s back. He had to sell to some Yankee carpetbagger and move back in with his momma.”

Belle swallowed thickly. She didn’t want to think about taxes. The Northern transplants were using their pull to get taxes raised on every large plantation in hope of forcing the owners to sell their homes and land. The Northern real-estate speculators then bought the property at fire-sale prices and sold it off piecemeal. It sickened Belle to think this plantation, which had been her father’s pride, would be carved up and sold to emigrant homesteaders.

But what could they do? They hadn’t had a successful crop, and Granny was right: the small amount of money they earned from the dairy couldn’t support Rattle and Snap.

“You need to get you a good man to take care of you,” Granny said softly. “While you’re still young and comely enough to attract one.”

* * * *

A chill pervaded the air as the sun sank low over the tops of the trees. Belle trudged toward the goat barn, not really seeing the surroundings she knew by heart: the rushing creek, the old cur, Brownie, that traipsed along at her side. Instead her mind ran rampant with the conversation she’d had with Granny earlier.

Jeff Davis bleated as she neared. He trotted toward her with the usual mischievous spring in his step. Everyone else feared him. Belle loved the cantankerous animal and joked that he was a better judge of character than any of the two-legged inhabitants of Rattle and Snap.

He jerked his head as he fell into step beside Belle. “What are you doing, you grand rascal?” she asked him, grabbing one horn to give him a playful tug.

He bounced on his hooves and then jogged toward the barn.

Usually the buck goat lightened Belle’s mood but not tonight. Was Granny right? Did she need to find a man? She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and drew in a sharp breath. What about Alice? The thought of being with a man again seemed so strangely foreign to Belle now that she didn’t even want to consider it.

A shudder shook her spine as she stepped into the shadowy barn. At once, the pungent but familiar scents of animals and hay filled her nostrils. She expected the jostling of the goats vying for position to be milked, but her heart skipped a beat when a figure emerged from the darkness.

Belle gasped.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Alice said, thumbing her slouch hat back on her head. Waning light from the outside illuminated her strawberries-and-cream complexion.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone to be here,” Belle said breathlessly. Even though the brigands who’d harassed them during the war were now rotting in the ground, she was ever vigilant.

Alice stepped toward her, removing one of her gloves as she reached to cup Belle’s cheek. “I couldn’t think about anything but you all day.” Alice’s voice was low and husky, tinged with the slightest Irish accent.

Belle’s stomach tensed as she turned her face more fully into the cool palm. Guilt welled that she had even been considering Granny’s suggestion that she find a man. This woman had become Belle’s life, and as such, she met her every need and desire.

“What’s wrong, love?” Alice asked.

Belle drew away. “I’m just cold,” she lied as she pulled down her milking stool from the peg.

“I’ll warm you up,” Alice whispered playfully.

Belle shrugged away as Alice tried to draw her into an embrace.

“What’s wrong?” Alice asked again, folding her arms over her chest. “And this time tell me the truth.”

Belle sank onto the short three-legged stool as the first doe sidled into place to be milked. Munching sounds filled the small barn as the goat pulled at the hay in the trough. “Granny told me the Yankees are fixing to raise the taxes on Rattle and Snap,” Belle confessed.

“I was afraid of that.” Alice exhaled. “Well. We’ll just have to produce more cotton this year.”

Belle shook her head. “The carpetbaggers and land speculators are trying to get the plantation to sell it off piecemeal. It won’t matter what we do.” She gripped the goat’s udders and milked. Instantly milk sprayed into the metal pail.

“Granny thinks you ought to find a man, doesn’t she?” Alice asked pointedly.

Without looking up, Belle said, “Yes.”

An uncomfortable silence ensued. Alice finally took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Do you think that’s what you need to do?”

Belle twisted around. “Of course not!” The goat protested with a rumbling bleat but never raised her head from the trough.

Something flashed in Alice’s eyes.

“Of course not,” Belle said softer this time. “I…I don’t know what to do.”

Alice scuffed one booted foot on the hay-strewn floor. “Belle, if you need to—”

“I don’t want to hear any talk of me letting a man solve my problems. I’d rather lose this whole farm than let someone come between us.” Dampness rimmed Belle’s eyes, and she blinked to keep the tears from spilling down her cheeks. She stood and this time allowed Alice to crush her in an embrace.

“I’ll take care of you, love,” Alice promised, searching her eyes. “I’ll do anything I have to so you can keep your home.”

Belle swallowed against the painful lump in her throat. “Our home.”

Alice tenderly brushed her thumb across Belle’s bottom lip before possessing her mouth. Belle melted, opening for the tongue that teased and tasted—that claimed. Everything inside her body fired, heating her blood in spite of the February chill. Her pulse accelerated. Blood pounded in her ears, and lower, between her legs. What was this hypnotic power Alice’s touch held over her?

Everything about this relationship went against all Belle had been taught. But there was nothing she could do to stop it. There was nothing she wanted to do to stop it.

Desperately she wound her arms around Alice’s shoulders and held tight. Alice palmed her through the multitude of her skirts, and Belle ached for the crinoline and cotton to disappear so flesh could find flesh.

Tongue flicking with wicked promise, Alice’s mouth devoured hers. Belle writhed, unable to get close enough. Heat raced up the back of her neck, confusing her, rendering her awash with physical need only this woman could sate.

She drew away and dragged in a faltering breath. Clinging to the lapels of Alice’s coat, she murmured, “I have to get the milking done. I—”

Frustration welled. After milking, there would be supper, and Uncle Hewlett would insist on reading some dry passage from Shakespeare. Belle’s head swam. “I can’t wait,” she said reconsidering, even as she lifted the front of her day dress. “Touch me now.”

A lopsided grin claimed Alice’s full lips as she discarded her other glove and dipped to reach up and under the layers of fabric. A strangled cry choked in Belle’s throat when fingers found their intended target. She gripped the sides of one of the stalls and spread her thighs as Alice braced one hand on the small of her back, holding her still for the sensual assault between her legs.

Belle’s knees trembled as expert fingers explored her already dampened folds. One finger wriggled into her channel, and as inch by welcome inch of the digit found and stroked the hidden places inside her, she sighed her pleasure.

“God, your cunny’s wet,” Alice said, her lips brushing Belle’s.

But Belle couldn’t concentrate enough to return a kiss. And as if sensing she was close to the edge, Alice tightened the arm around her waist and pistoned the finger in and out of her slippery channel, faster and faster. “That’s it, love,” Alice coaxed. “Yes, that’s it.”

“Oh!” Belle cried as sudden ecstasy rolled over her with the intensity of raging thunder. Her head fell back, and she fought to keep breathing. “Oh, sweet mercy. Yes.”

Alice continued pumping the digit into Belle until the spasms in her channel subsided. The finger slipped out, and then Alice thrust it into Belle’s mouth.

“Taste that?” Alice asked.

Belle closed her lips around the intrusion and rolled her tongue around it, soaking up her own sweet, tangy flavor.

“Taste that?” Alice asked again, this time more forcibly.

“Mmm-hmm.”

Alice’s free hand seized Belle by the back of the neck, and she pulled her close. “Only I will ever do that to you. No one else. Do you understand me?” Alice demanded in her ear.

“Only you.” Belle breathed the words.

Alice rele