Free Her Beguiling Bride by Paisley Smith Page A

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