Her Beguiling Bride Read Free

with Alice—Alice did something to remind her where she belonged.
    * * * *
    Alice shoved her hands in her pockets as she stalked back toward the big house. Her knees quaked, not from what she’d done with Belle, but from just how close she thought she was to losing the one woman she’d ever truly loved in her life.
    She blinked her eyes against the images of Belle with her head thrown back, her lips parted in the throes of ecstasy as Alice had felt the inner muscles inside her wet velvet sheath gripping and releasing. Alice’s channel clenched in response.
    Remorse swamped her that she’d spoken to Belle as she had, but it frightened Alice that her only connection to Belle was their own unspoken one. None of their friends or neighbors really knew of their relationship as lovers. Alice didn’t doubt they speculated. She wasn’t exactly the most feminine woman in Georgia, and people did love to gossip, despite the fact Alice had been instrumental in ridding Jonesboro of a band of nasty bushwhackers.
    Her gaze swept over the barren cotton field, stark reality eradicating any residual sexual thoughts. Who was she fooling? She didn’t know a damn thing about growing cotton. The scant crop they’d produced last year had only taught her that she wasn’t suited to be a farmer.
    Uncle Hewlett knew even less, and Alice gathered that Chester tended to be the braggadocios type whose words far outweighed his actions. A former Rattle and Snap field hand, Chester had planted and picked plenty of cotton in his day, but he had never been privy to the information of where and how much to plant. He’d returned to the plantation looking to get on as a hired hand after he couldn’t find work in Atlanta.
    Only once had Alice broached the subject of selling Rattle and Snap. She shook her head at the memory. She’d never seen Belle so mad. And yet, when Belle had explained how her grandfather had built this place from the ground up and had turned it into one of the most successful cotton plantations in Georgia, Alice had shut her mouth. All her life, she’d only wished for a family legacy like Belle’s.
    A sick feeling roiled in Alice’s gut.
    Perhaps the best thing for Belle to do would be to marry that rich planter. It pained Alice to imagine it, but how else would they be able to keep this place? Alice knew full well how difficult it was for a woman to make her way in this man’s world.
    The only time she’d ever experienced true freedom had been when she’d donned a uniform and fought for the Union Army. It was too bad saving Rattle and Snap wouldn’t be as easy as passing herself off as a male.
    She’d fooled them all! And not only that, she’d held her own in the army. She’d never forget how she’d saved the life of Phineas Ryan just outside Decatur, Georgia. On the front lines, he’d been wounded so severely, Alice knew there was no way to get him back to the field surgeons. Risking capture, she’d made a surrender flag by stabbing a piece of Ryan’s shirt to the point of her bayonet, and then she’d dragged him across enemy lines, seeking help. The Rebels had been so surprised by the both foolish and courageous action they’d taken Ryan and allowed Alice to return to her troops.
    It was too bad she couldn’t pull off the masquerade now. It was also too bad she didn’t own Rattle and Snap. As a Union veteran and Northerner, she’d get preferential treatment.
    Alice just wished there was something she could do to help Belle—and to prevent her from having to marry. She clenched her fists until her short nails bit into her palms. She’d have to think of something.
    * * * *
    Belle wiped her feet on the cast-iron boot scrape before she stepped into the house to hang her bonnet on the peg behind the door. Excited voices drifted into the spacious foyer from her father’s old office. Listening, she crept down the hallway, carefully stepping over the stubborn bloodstain that refused to come out of the heart of pine