River Magic

by Martha Hix

  She could almost hear her grandmother saying, You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. India wrestled her mouth into a smile, batted lashes. “He isn’t here. You are. I’ve brought crates of blankets and medical supplies. Plus boots and gloves. I must distribute them. Let me do it.”

  As mean and hateful as the worst of Union generals, Connor O’Brien spoke curtly. “Take heed. It is a crime punishable by death to impersonate an official of the Union. It was also such a crime to enter a Federal compound without proper authority.”

  “You can give me the authority.”

  “I won’t compromise prison security.” The major tugged on an end of the vivid sash that draped over his waist belt. “I’ll tell Corporal Smith to send your crates to the rail station. There’s a train heading south at dawn. Be on it.”

  With military precision the major turned toward the doorway and marched through it.

  “Be on it,” India mimicked as she kicked the door shut. “I shouldn’t have expected any better from that churl.”

  Blue, gray, or nothing, Connor O’Brien must be dealt with. She should have used a different tack, should have been less abrasive, less antagonistic. She should have paid more attention to feminine wiles. Huh! In the billing and cooing art, she was as wily as a can of pork and beans.

  When she’d sailed from St. Francisville—the heart of English Louisiana—India had left optimistic, certain she could add a few decades to her twenty-four and skim blithely through Yankee territory.

  After all, she’d had some success with the Yankees at Port Hudson. Not quite a year ago, the Confederates still held the river towns of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. The Union had been set on gaining total control of the Mississippi, both to cut the Confederate forces into geographical pieces and to utilize the river for transporting men and supplies.

  Thus, they bore down. Victory came neither easily nor without bloodshed, despite four-to-one odds. Vicksburg fell on the fourth of July. The siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, didn’t end until after its Mississippi neighbor had capitulated, didn’t end until seven thousand Rebels were lost to the Cause.

  During it all, India had looked out for the people of Pleasant Hill Plantation. The family cotton farm lay between Vicksburg and Port Hudson, very near to the latter, and she’d assumed that the Union commanders would show mercy to the merciful. Over and again, she’d driven a flat cotton wagon south to the besieged fort to give medical aid to the Billy Blues.

  Her intention had been to help her family, but a cause had grown in her heart. Not the cause of the Confederacy. The cause of kindness.

  It had been sorely tested during the ups and downs of those fateful months.

  When Port Hudson fell, Matt Marshall was among the captured officers sent to prisoner-of-war camps. Nothing could stop that. And he’d taken valuable information with him that could save the Marshall family.

  On the heel of Matt being taken away, renegade troops had helped themselves to Marshall belongings, as well as those of their neighbors.

  Yet the commander of Union forces had later shown mercy to India, thanks to her good deeds during the siege. She regained faith in individual honor. Many of the Union Army were akin to General George Andrews, were kind and kindly, especially toward the elderly. Some, like Connor O’Brien, had ties to the old South. India had left Louisiana fearless.

  She’d found compassion at the Federal prison near Sandusky, Ohio, where most of the surrendered officers from Port Hudson were incarcerated. Woe, her search of the Johnson’s Island prison barracks had been for naught.

  After distributing half her supplies, she’d toiled at a second crusade—bringing comfort to all who needed it. Her good deeds had not gone unrewarded. A grandfatherly captain had checked the records for Matt Marshall, had sent her here.

  India would not leave Rock Island with nil to show for her efforts.

  Stumped on how to accomplish that, she flounced to her reticule, pulled a flask from it, and poured two fingers of wine into a water glass. Just as she took a sip she noticed Opal Lawrence’s pussycat curled up in one of Granny Mabel’s old knitting bags, where gloves awaited Mattie’s cold fingers.

  “Wake up, Amelia. I need someone to talk to.”

  White as the snow covering Rock Island, the cat lifted her whiskers and yawned.

  “I’m turning into a sot, all in one night,” India mumbled. “Here I am, swilling wine like one of Papa’s sailors. Trying to figure out how to outsmart a pigheaded Billy Blue.”

  Glass in one hand, India picked up the pet with her other. Taking Amelia to the four-poster, she plopped down. “What a miserable end to a pleasant evening.” She abandoned the glass. “Miss Lawrence and I had a nice time, despite our supposed differences in ages, and national alliances.”

  India scratched Amelia’s ear. “It was nice to forget war for an evening.”

  The voice recital had been awful, the soprano’s screech like fingernails scraping a blackboard. The audience, at least where India and the Lawrence niece were concerned, had barely contained their titters, especially when a mouse ran up the haughty singer’s skirts during “Tenting on the Old Camp Ground.”

  For a while, India had been able to forget the desperate search for her brother, now so close yet so far away.

  “Miss Lawrence had the answer, at least in regard to the terrible singer. Elderberry wine. She even gave me that flask when we parted. You know something, Amelia? I think she’ll cross over to a good cause.”

  Amelia looked up, then rested her chin and front paws on one of India’s soft breasts.

  “Forget Miss Lawrence. Here’s the real predicament, cat. What can I do to warm that Tennessean’s heart?”

  She had an idea. “No, I won’t go that far. Everyone in plantation country has called me incorrigible and worse, but I’ve never compromised my morals. Okay, I was tempted as a girl by the overseer’s son, now a martyr to the Cause. Then there was Tim. Tim and his poetry.”

  Amelia yawned. Well, Tim Glennie could be a bore, his favorite subject beyond poetry interpretation being his butterfly collection. “Anyhow, I never got close enough to Tim to have wicked thoughts about him, which was just as well. Persia stole him away. Not that I hate her for it, mind you. She never knew I had eyes for him.”

  All of that had been in the magical era before the war had started, when cotton was king and half the millionaires in America lived along the delta stretch of the mighty Mississippi. Those had been halcyon days of waist-high cash crops and endless possibilities for the Marshalls of Pleasant Hill Plantation.

  It wasn’t all mint juleps and crinolines, of course. Two of India’s six siblings had met early deaths, one of them India’s twin brother. Losing Winny had to be the worst part of her life.

  Even worse than Mama succumbing to smallpox. Or Papa taking the high seas to get over his loss.

  Those were yesterdays.

  “This is war.”

  Besides, what was she saving herself for? She might not get out of Illinois alive. And if she did, what would she return home to? In the times of abundant suitors, the swains of West Feliciana Parish avoided India Marshall as if she had six nostrils and was dripping green stuff.

  There were too many ivory-complected, charming young women thereabouts, particularly at Pleasant Hill, so no male had called on the box-faced, ornery tomboy. Her skin tone much too dark to make men fall to a knee. Spinster fit India Marshall.

  She set the glass on the nightstand, next to Arabian Nights Entertainment. Why couldn’t she, for once, be like the lucky princess in her favorite of the thousand tales? All the men wanted the sultan’s daughter, especially Aladdin. His every wish had been for Badroulboudour.

  Oh, for magic.

  To be loved unconditionally—this was India Marshall’s deepest personal desire.

  Achieving it would take the black art, and a lot of it.

  “Amelia, even if I had the guts to go through with seducing Major O’Brien into a compromising position, I won’t m
ake a fool of myself. I’ve spent enough time in front of Granny Mabel’s cheval glass to know I’m not like Persia and my other sisters. Or Badroulboudour.”

  But the major had complimented her eyes, and he had been interested in peeling her clothes away. He might be desperate enough to forget her too-honest tongue and lack of allure.

  Amelia began to purr.

  “Oh, cat, what am I doing, considering a seduction? I mustn’t give away the most precious gift a woman can give, not to a Tennessean who’s letting the sons of the South suffer.”

  Then again, this was war. “I mustn’t let him send a telegram to Washington.”

  What would Persia do at a time like this?

  Four

  Stretched out on his bed, certain the India Marshall problem had been put to rest, Connor scratched his bare chest and chuckled. Hit him with her puss. Ha! That Marshall temptress was something else. He’d wanted to laugh at her threat, wished he had. It might have made the confrontation easier.

  What was her true story? Sanitarian or troublemaker? She could be on the up and up. Those papers had appeared in order, and she was right—attractive maidens weren’t welcome in the volunteer medical corps established by Clara Barton.

  He frowned, recalling India’s charge of “selfish.” Daniel O’Brien had been selfish, and his son had never imagined he’d follow in those footsteps. Am I self-centered? Connor supposed so. This was no badge of honor, but he wore it. Leave it to a woman to get to the crux of a man.

  India. Irritating woman, that one. Did she have a sweet side? He’d like to spend time, getting at her crux, in bed and out of it. Not a good idea. It was for the best she’d leave by morning light.

  He picked up a stack of mail to reread the birthday greetings from his aunts. Aunt Phoebe’s message was no-nonsense, as expected. Aunt Tessa’s flowery script matched her nature. Two fine ladies, his aunts. Connor missed the dears who had reared him, even though, sailing aboard Burke O’Brien’s flagship steam freighter, the Delta Star, they had made a short visit last fall, Eugene Jinnings in company.

  Unlike Burke and Aunt Phoebe, Connor, as well as his grandfather, didn’t begrudge Aunt Tessa’s romance with the swarthy foreigner. Strange liaison between those two, Connor thought. Jinnings called to mind a Barbary pirate gone soft with fat and the good life in Memphis.

  Was he a eunuch?

  Connor knew for a fact Jinnings sat down to pee. Whatever the man was, it was no business but his own, of course. Besides, Jinnings was a likable enough fellow, certainly harmless, and Aunt Tessa enjoyed his company. So why couldn’t Burke and Aunt Phoebe accept him?

  I wonder what Jon Marc would say about Jinnings.

  None of the O’Briens had seen hide nor hair of the youngest O’Brien brother since his falling out with Grandfather, but Connor figured Jon Marc wouldn’t give a damn about Tessa’s choice in men. Jon Marc didn’t give a damn about family, period.

  Connor didn’t cotton to that in his long-lost kid brother.

  Sounds filtered through the second-floor window, dragging his regard. The Rebs sang again, like they did every evening. En masse and loud, though their voices were faint to Connor’s ears, they figured to flaunt rebellion by serenading the island and close by towns with “The Bonny Blue Flag.”

  “. . . band of brothers, and native to the soil, fighting for our liberty, with treasure, blood, and toil—and when our rights were threatened, the cry rose near and far—Hurrah!—for the bonny blue flag . . .”

  “Stupid deluded bastards.” Connor rose from bed to walk barefoot to the window. “If they see their homes again, it’ll be with the Stars and Stripes flying over it.”

  What would happen in the meantime? Many would die. Many had died already, both from disease and exposure. And Dimpled Darling Lawrence, too stingy to spend U.S. money on traitors, too mean to give a damn about anything or anyone but himself and his precious niece, had turned a blind eye to the suffering.

  Connor O’Brien might be obligated to carry through with Lawrence’s orders, but he didn’t have to like it.

  He backed away from the window, shutting his ears to “The Bonny Blue Flag,” and ambled back to bed. It was then he heard footsteps on the hallway boards, heard them nearing his room.

  His back to the door, he didn’t turn around. His guest had to be India Marshall. Damn the woman. Too drunk for good sense, she hadn’t gotten his message through her thick skull.

  “Need help packing, Miss Marshall?”

  “No.” She paused. “I, uh, I’m willing to make a deal.”

  He refused to turn around, even as she cleared her throat and gathered courage, but did ask, “What kind of deal?”

  “What kind would you like?” Her voice was now as heady as the best of Kentucky bourbons.

  Hers was a helluva question. Although he wasn’t much of a drinker, he did enjoy an occasional sip of Kentucky’s finest. He was only a man. He tried to be a reasonable one. “You’re drunk. You’ll need your wits for your trip. Get to bed.”

  “That’s what I have in mind. Bed. You mentioned a birthday gift,” she murmured, each syllable carrying a seductive entreaty. “I’m a thoughtful woman when it comes to birthdays.”

  A traitorous smile eased across his tight lips as he recalled the scent of lavender, along with the sight of a curvaceous form that no dowdy clothes could hide. And those eyes—those indigo eyes. Eyes of India ink.

  O’Brien, good army men don’t sleep with the enemy and certainly not with Clara Bartons.

  “Why so quiet, Major? Earlier you wanted me to disrobe.”

  He turned. Just as he’d figured, there was nothing ancient about the exotic, tawny-complected siren. Was she part Indian? Whatever she was, he liked what he saw.

  Wavy hair of jet flowed across her shoulders, falling to her back. The curves adhering to a scrap of lavender-hued silk ought to be outlawed, they so beguiled him. Her small feet encased in satin curl-toe slippers, she glided to him, her allure akin to that of the narrator in the book in her room, Scheherazade.

  Yet she wasn’t a great beauty, not like Antoinette Lawrence or the sensuous raconteur of Arabic fable. Her face had too many angles for classical beauty. The whole of India Marshall, nonetheless, was easy on the eye and warming to the loins.

  “You have a wicked gleam in your eye,” she whispered.

  “So do you,” he said, welding his gaze to intoxicating eyes. Yet, in spite of her recklessness, he detected a quiver of fear in her voice and an almost imperceptible trembling in her limbs. “Do you know what you’re doing?” he asked quietly.

  “Oh, yes.” Now tinted with rouge—her mouth rinsed with something that had cut the wine bouquet—her lips were more than seductive as she mouthed, “Happy birthday, Major.”

  Connor knew he should order her out of here, told himself to do it. Then again, a gentleman ought to put a lady at ease.

  There was something in his eyes. Desire? Let it be, India prayed as he hesitated in accepting her birthday gift. Could the major tell how much her limbs shook? Would he care? Lousy were her attempts at being a seductress. Yet women older and uglier, fatter or skinnier, than India Marshall had gotten what they wanted from men. Surely she could bewitch this one mule-headed Tennessean.

  “This is insane,” he grumbled, echoing her own frame of mind. Yet he didn’t retreat.

  Nor did she. As Connor O’Brien’s heat radiated to her, she began to feel an odd strength and a delicious rush, even before his finger moved along her jaw. What had been trepidation now turned to a shiver of anticipation.

  “Do you do this sort of thing often, calling on a man in his room?” he asked huskily.

  “Does it matter?” Despite budding passion, she didn’t feel as bold as her words, since she’d barely been kissed, much less tempted to the carnal.

  Her study moved from the substantial wall of his hair-dusted chest, up to his face. The brush of her curls against an arm and the feel of silk against her breasts added to her stirred insides, or was it
from the light strokes his fingertip made on her bare skin? Whatever it was, she reveled in being half naked for the first time in front of a man.

  This was nice insanity.

  These feelings were nothing compared to what he did to her, without so much as another single touch. The manly scent of him—a blend of musk and a much-earlier splash of bay rum—wafted into her senses. “I like being wanton.”

  Ready for the next step, she lifted her arms to rest both hands on his shoulders, as she’d seen Persia do while turning Tim Glennie from an unctuous bootlicker to a man out of his wits.

  Moistening her lips, India locked eyes with the Yankee from Dixie. “Happy birthday, Major O’Brien.”

  “You might try smiling,” he chided.

  “So should you.”

  But neither smiled. He angled his lips; she rose on tiptoes to meet the kiss. Inexperience caused her to knock her teeth against his chin.

  “Ouch! ”

  “Don’t try so hard, darlin’. Let me be the man.” The major tightened his arms around India’s waist; his hands spread over her derrière. “It’s my duty to do the seducing.”

  “Whatever you say,” she replied as a masculine swelling pressed her tummy. With a moan low in her throat that needed no coaching, she tangled her fingers into his hair; he closed that magnificent mouth over hers.

  A lock of hair fell over his forehead—mussing military perfection. His tongue nudged past her lips, sliding behind her teeth, and she realized he was much better at kissing than Ben Wilson, the long-gone overseer’s son. This was nice!

  India fell headlong, clumsily, into the eddy of awakening passion. When the major lifted his lips, he didn’t let go his hold. His hands, experienced and masterful, continued to caress her hips and heat her vitals. Reeling, she pressed against him for support, her cheek resting on a powerful upper arm. Once she’d caught her breath, she asked, “Are you liking your birthday present, Major?”