Just North of Bliss Read Online Free PDF

moment!” Belle called
after her.
    But Amalie was gone. Belle heard her shout,
“Mama! Papa!” as she grabbed Garrett’s hand and hurried after her.
Garrett held back, evidently more interested in pursuing the
fascinating subject of photography than in his parents, but Belle
persisted.
    Win Asher stared after the trio, scratching
his head, and with a strange, sinking sensation in his middle. Had
that little girl cried out “Mama!” upon spying that well-dressed
couple on the Midway? Striding to the door and squinting at the
reunion that was taking place a few yards off, he uttered a soft,
“Damnation.”
    He remained only slightly daunted, however.
Win Asher was accustomed to reaching out and taking what he wanted
from life and of wrestling it into submission if it didn’t oblige
him of its own accord. Therefore, he followed Belle and Garrett out
of his booth and up to the couple on the Midway.
    “Papa,” Garrett was saying when Win
approached, “that nice Mr. Asher wants to take photographs of me
and Amalie!”
    “Amalie and me,” Belle correctly softly.
    Garrett didn’t even roll his eyes, but
instantly repeated, “Amalie and me, I mean.”
    Win assumed from the brief dialogue that
Garrett and the woman he had assumed to be his mother were
accustomed to such interchanges. From this, he gathered that the
woman was some sort of employee. A governess or nursemaid,
perhaps.
    “Really, Garrett?” The woman Win now deduced
to be the mother of the two children had lifted her daughter in her
arms and smiled at her progeny. The father of the pair, a
wealthy-looking, self-satisfied sort of fellow of a type with which
Win was well acquainted, beamed down at his son and heir, then
glanced up to see Win walking over to the family.
    The father disengaged himself from the
portrait of familial reconciliation and took a couple of steps
toward Win. He held out his hand. “How do you do—Mr. Asher, is it?
I understand from my son that you’ve been entertaining my
children.”
    “I don’t know about the entertaining part,”
Win said with a laugh as he shook the man’s hand. “But, yes, my
name is Winslow Asher, and I’m the official photographer of the
World’s Columbian Exposition.” Win had fought long and hard and had
won the title over hundreds of other aspiring photographers. Thanks
to a good deal of brashness, loads of talent, and oodles of
self-promotion, he’d succeeded where the others had failed, and he
never let an occasion slide by without mentioning his status. He
aimed to make a lot of money with it.
    “George Richmond,” the father said,
returning Win’s hearty handshake. “You’ve met my children, Garrett
and Amalie and, I presume, the children’s nanny, Miss Belle
Monroe.”
    Belle sniffed. “We haven’t been properly
introduced.” She held out a small gloved hand. “How do you do, Mr.
Asher?”
    “I’m fine, thanks.” He shook her hand and
wondered if she were the perfect embodiment of true American
womanhood after all. She seemed a little prissy at the moment.
    “He wants to take photographs of us, Mama,”
Amalie said happily. “He thinks Garrett and me are charming.”
    “Garrett and I,” Miss Monroe muttered, as if
she didn’t expect her correction to take hold and stick.
    Nevertheless, Amalie parroted, “Garrett and
I, I mean.”
    “Is that so?” said Mrs. Richmond.
    She smiled with interest at Win, and Win
took heart. While she didn’t come anywhere close to the image he’d
created in his mind’s eye of the female subject in the series of
photographs he’d envisioned, he might be able to talk her around to
lending him her children. And her children’s nanny.
    “Yes, indeed, Mrs. Richmond.” Win gave her
one of his best professional smiles. “I’d love to talk to you about
it, if you’d care to come with me to my temporary photographic
studio.” He waved toward his booth.
    Mrs. Richmond looked doubtfully from Win to
her husband. “Well, I don’t know. I’d