Just North of Bliss (24 page)

There. He’d said it, although he wasn’t
honestly sure he was sorry. He was definitely sorry she was mad at
him, so he guessed it wasn’t too much of a lie.

She sniffed. Win pressed his lips into a
sour line and knew he should have expected as much. “But I paid you
the amount we agreed upon, so you shouldn’t be too angry.”

Her gaze slid from the stack of greenbacks
she clutched, to his face. “I appreciate the money.” Her voice was
low and strained. “But I wouldn’t have agreed to take it if I’d
known my likeness would appear on the front page of a big-city
newspaper. Or—” She stopped speaking suddenly, her chocolate-brown
eyes opened wide, and she gasped.

Fearing she was about to suffer a spasm of
maidenly distress or something equally southern and beyond his ken,
Win put a hand on her shoulder. “Say, Belle, what is it?”

The look she gave him then was so
accusatory, Win feared she’d mistaken him for Jack the Ripper or
somebody like that. “What’s the matter?” he demanded again, more
harshly.

“Oh, my land, what if my parents get wind of
this?”

“Of what? I thought they already knew?”

She waved a hand in the air. “Oh, they know
I’m posing for photographs, but they don’t know about
this
.” She gestured toward the cabinet photograph of
her displayed in his window.

“Ah.” Damn. “Um, where did you say you’re
from?”

Belle had sunk her head into her hands—after
she’d tucked the bills away in her tiny pocketbook—and moaned,
“Blissborough. It’s not very far from Atlanta.”

“Ah.” For the life of him, Win didn’t know
what to say now. The truth of the matter was that H.L. May’s
articles, accompanied by whatever photographs went with them, were
syndicated in newspapers everywhere. He decided Belle didn’t need
to know that yet.

“They’ll think I’ve sunk beyond anything if
they see that picture of me in a Georgia newspaper.”

Forgetting he was trying to placate the
wench, Win said, “That’s plain stupid, Belle! The more places that
picture shows up, the more I’ll get paid.”

She eyed him with what looked a good deal
like loathing. “Lucky you.”

He instantly started backpedaling. “And you!
You—you should get a percentage of every placement.”

Her lovely dark eyes gazed at him in clear
disbelief for long enough that Win got edgy and started fidgeting.
“I, um, never heard that,” she said at last.

“I guess we never discussed it,” he
muttered. “But it’s the way these things work. You see, every time
a photograph of mine appears anywhere—as long as I know about it,
or my agent does.” He scowled, thinking about the unfairness of
life. “So many unscrupulous people try to steal a man’s work, and
don’t want to pay—” Glimpsing Belle’s altered facial expression, he
decided he’d better not go in to unscrupulous motives. “I mean, I’m
supposed to get paid every time another newspaper or other venue
picks up one of my photographs for publication. It’s sort of like
books.”

After several tense seconds, Belle said,
“Ah.”

What the hell did that mean? Ah. Ah? Damn
it, Win as getting fed up with this conversation. That being the
case, he stood, reached down, grabbed Belle by the arm, and hauled
her up off the bench. “Come with me. I’m going to talk some sense
into you.” And he was going to do it somewhere they couldn’t be
interrupted.

“What are you doing?” Belle cried.

“You heard me.” Win snatched his hat on the
way out of the booth without releasing Belle’s arm.

# # #

Belle figured the thrill she experienced
from Win’s forceful treatment of her was only further indication of
her fallen nature. It was her bad luck that her fallen nature
seemed to have beaten the rest of her nature into submission. The
thought of that hundred dollars in her reticule had obviously
softened her moral character.

Nevertheless, she did manage to dig in her
heels. Since that didn’t stop Win’s forward motion appreciably, she
only succeeded in scuffing her shoes. “Where are we going? What are
you doing?”

“I’m taking you somewhere to talk some sense
into you.” He continued to haul her along.

She saw a gentleman in a tweed suit,
accompanied by a stout lady in plaid, lift his hand to shade his
eyes and stare at them. The tweed man frowned at Win, who scowled
back. Fellow appeared taken aback, turned at once, and hurried his
stout companion on. Some gentleman
he
was, Belle thought
bitterly. Damned Yankees.

“You’re making a spectacle of yourself,” Win
growled. “I thought you didn’t want anyone noticing you.”

“It’s not I who’s making a spectacle of me!”
she whispered indignantly. However, she did stop resisting. Not
only was resistance bad for her shoes, but she couldn’t catch her
breath.

A group of young man stood idling beside one
of the beautiful statues set up on the grounds of the Exposition.
They were dressed in the height of fashion, and looked to Belle as
if they were practicing languor as an art form. One of the young
men lifted a—good heavens, was that thing a monocle? How
affected!—to his eyes and ogled Belle. Nudging his nearest
companion, he nodded toward Belle and Win. His companion grinned
and winked at Belle. The rest of the young men turned to stare at
them, too.

She lifted her nose, thinking those
ill-bred, though evidently well-off, fellows wouldn’t dare to do
such a thing to a lady whose photograph hadn’t appeared on the
front page of the
Chicago Globe
. “Drat you, Win Asher! Did
you see that?”

“Yes.” Win turned to the group of young men
and bellowed, “Who are you staring at, you filthy louts? My lady
friend doesn’t appreciate your obnoxious attentions. Mind your own
business or I’ll level the lot of you!”

The young men clearly had never been called
to account for their rudeness before this. The first man dropped
his monocle and retreated a step. The second fellow stuttered,
“S-s-sorry, sir. We didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Humph,” Win growled. “A likely story.”

The young men turned as if they were
connected by a string, and started walking away from Belle and Win.
Win sneered. “Cowards.”

“That was
your
fault,” Belle said
furiously. “They probably think I’m a—a—” She couldn’t say the
word. Figuring it wouldn’t hurt, and might just help, she tried
yanking her arm from his grip. As she’d suspected, that didn’t
work, because his hold on her was firm. So firm, indeed, that she’d
probably have bruises on the morrow. She wondered how well they’d
photograph.

“Applesauce. They were only strutting their
stuff and trying to be sophisticated.”

“It’s still your fault,” she muttered.

“Just be still for a minute, and we’ll be
able to talk this thing out.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. You misled
me, and now I’ll have to pay the consequences.” She added a sniff.
It wasn’t a very potent one because of the corset situation, but it
demonstrated her displeasure.

“You’re being unreasonable, damn it.”

“Don’t swear at me, drat you!”

He didn’t respond, but came to a precipitate
halt in front of a boating dock, causing Belle, who hadn’t been
able to keep up with him after he stopped pulling on her, to bump
into his back. He turned to give her a hideous scowl, which wasn’t
fair.

“It’s your fault for dragging me,” she
panted, worried that she might faint. Her mother was always
fainting. Belle had heretofore chalked up this aspect of her
mother’s character to her dramatic tendencies, but now she wondered
if she swooned all the time because she laced her stays too
tightly.

Win didn’t bother with a rebuttal. He didn’t
speak to her at all, in fact, but rather to a young lad who was
grinning at the two of them like an imp. Belle felt herself flush
with embarrassment. “Taking your lady on a boat ride, Mr. Asher?”
the lad said, tipping Win a wink.

“Right.” Win thrust some money at the boy.
“I don’t know how long we’ll be on the canal.”

Pressing a hand to her bosom in hopes of
stilling her wildly beating heart, Belle looked around. She hadn’t
been paying attention to where they were headed, but now that they
were here, she realized Win was renting a boat.

The World’s Columbian Exposition had been
built on what had basically been a swamp. Since water was
plentiful, they’d taken advantage of it and created a series of
waterways that threaded the Exposition grounds, interspersed with
numerous lovely lakes. The landscaping surrounding the rivers and
lakes was breathtaking, even when one hadn’t laced ones corset too
tightly. Belle realized Win expected to take her out on one of the
rowboats being rented to take advantage of the waterways, and
yanked at her hand again.

“I can’t go out there with you!” she hissed,
thinking of her already tarnished virtue.

“Hush. Here, Buster. I’ll take the
oars.”

“Sure thing, Mister Asher.” With a laugh
that sounded too lascivious to be coming from a boy his age, Buster
took up a pair of oars.

Before taking them from the boy, Win lifted
Belle into the small rowboat. She was too shocked to struggle,
although she might not have struggled had shock not been a problem.
She was already a spectacle. She didn’t much care to become a
waterlogged one. The boat rocked wildly as soon as Win plunked her
down on the bench. Belle uttered a soft shriek and gripped the
sides of the boat.

“Thanks, Buster.” Win grabbed the oars from
his collaborator in crime and deftly climbed into the boat. To
Belle he grumbled, “No need to scream, Belle. I know how to row a
boat.”

“Blast you, Win Asher!”

“Yeah, yeah.” His mouth closed and his lips
pressed together until white encircled it in his tanned face.

He was furious, Belle realized. As furious
as she. And for no reason. At least
she
had a reason for her wrath. If she’d dared let go of the sides of
the boat, she’d have crossed her arms across her chest and stared
off into the distance, as there didn’t seem to be any other way to
express her anger and disapproval. Since that option was denied
her—she’d never been on a boat before, didn’t know how to swim, and
wasn’t fond of being on the water—she settled for turning her head
and staring at the shore, trying to ignore Win.

He didn’t speak for what seemed to Belle
like hours, but was probably only several minutes. He was rowing
fast. The little boat seemed to zoom through across the lake. In
spite of herself, Belle enjoyed the view.

The entire Columbian Exposition was
beautiful. The buildings, most crafted in the Beaux Arts
style—Belle had read a little bit about the school of art—were
gorgeous. The landscaping, which she could see better from the
water than from on the walkways, was lush and beautiful. She
realized that Win had rowed them to the Wooded Island because she
saw the magnificent rose garden. She sighed with pleasure before
she could catch herself.

One day, she promised herself, she was going
to have a rose garden. Even if she remained impoverished and had to
move back to Blissborough and live in her parents’ dilapidated
home, there was no earthly reason she had to forego the pleasure of
roses. The disloyal thought niggled at her that her mother had
deliberately denied herself some of life’s inexpensive pleasures
for no better reason than that she wanted people to feel sorry for
her.

“Phooh,” she muttered under her breath,
irked that she should be thinking such things in the present
circumstance. She shot a glance at Win. Sure enough, he was staring
straight at her. Vexed, she said, “Don’t you have to look where
you’re going?”

“No.”

Since he didn’t seem inclined to elaborate,
Belle guessed he didn’t have to look. Drat it. It was uncomfortable
to be stared at, especially since his expression was odd. It wasn’t
long before she gave up looking at him at all, but turned her head
to view the scenery, which was lovely. They were on a waterway that
bore a resemblance to pictures Belle had seen of rivers in the
Belgian Congo, with thick vegetation growing everywhere. She’d have
been surprised, but not very, if a hippopotamus suddenly showed
up.

She grabbed the sides of the rowboat and
uttered a gasp of alarm when the boat came to a bumpy stop.
Glancing around wildly, Belle realized Win had pulled into a tiny
indentation in one of the islands. “What are you doing? Did we run
aground?” She thought that was the right terminology.

“On purpose,” he said shortly.

Good Lord, he wasn’t going to drown her, was
he?

He seemed to sense her fear. “Don’t worry. I
won’t hurt you, dash it. I just need to talk to you. We need to get
this straightened out.”

She sniffed. “I want to be taken back
to—to—” Drat it, she couldn’t remember where Gladys and Amalie
were. Ah, yes. “—to the balloon ascension.”

“You can’t get in without a pass, and I
don’t have any more passes.”

He did whatever oarsmen did with their oars
when they weren’t in use. Belle vaguely recalled that there was a
term for it, but she didn’t know what it was. Eyeing him
suspiciously, she said, “What are you doing now?”

“Damn it, Belle Monroe, you’re driving me
crazy.”

She goggled at him, even though she knew
goggling was unladylike. “
I
! Driving
you
crazy?”

“Yes.”

Since he’d taken to glaring at her savagely,
Belle guessed he meant it. Still, she didn’t understand, and her
own temper blossomed like a rosebud on a hot day. “How dare you?
I’m the one who’s been lied to and misled and—”

“Damn it, you’ve been paid!”

His roar was so loud, Belle clapped her
hands over her ears. Shooting him what she hoped was a hideous
frown, she snapped, “Money doesn’t make up for the humiliation of
having my likeness plastered all over the United States!”