by Martha Hix
Dawn having broken, haze clotting the wooded shoreline, Burke navigated past rocking chairs on the main deck. His eyes were peeled for a craft bringing an intruder. His weren’t the only eyes on the lookout. He’d ordered an all-night watch. Susan’s tyrannical husband would not board the Yankee Princess.
Susan.
Leave her alone. She’s married, dammit.
Burke didn’t dally with other men’s wives. It went against his principles. Why, though, should he respect a bully? Furthermore, Susan had left her mister. To seek a divorce?
A bell then rang officers, crew, and trio of passengers to breakfast. Already Burke had called at the galley, picking up slices of bacon and an orange, enough to slake his hunger pangs. As soon as the men had broken their fast, the Yankee Princess would make steam. The captain would now get the specifics of why his orders about women had been disobeyed.
He climbed a companionway, his course set for the dining compartment set aside for his men. Located on the upper deck—as were the galley and elegantly appointed common areas—it caught the breezes. Burke took a moment to admire his new flagship.
Not a gambler, he’d made a huge bet in commissioning her. Doing so had been an affirmation of the future, and a tangible way to show himself and the world that he couldn’t be beaten.
And she was wedding-cake pretty. To her owner, even her heart had beauty. The propulsion system of stout boiler and piston-driven engine dominated her deck below the waterline, with a tank for lantern fuel near the stern. Having a penchant for gadgetry, he’d never grow jaded at the machinery making child’s play out of sails and rigging.
Above her belly, the beauteous beast had been designed to hold cargo behind the bulkheads of her main and second decks, midship and forward. No stacking bales, barrels, or crates on the Yankee Princess’s sides, no sirree.
Built to disgorge people and freight at her bow, she always headed into port and never hove to a dock. It was a fine feeling, guiding her straight toward a moor.
Burke glanced at a circular paddle-housing. He blinked, saddened. No one would ever again fall into exposed paddle wheels, as Antoinette Lawrence had done in the spring of 1864.
Best not to think about Toni.
Burke returned his attention to the riverboat fitted with fine equipment, including miscellany from the Seymour mind. Aft on the main deck were passenger and captain’s quarters; above lay crew chambers. Situated topside, the wheelhouse afforded a bird’s-eye view of open air. A pair of tall smokestacks behind the bridge rose toward the heavens.
The Yankee Princess had been built to last.
Steamboats, as a rule, played out after a few years in the narrow channels and treacherous twists of the fickle Mississippi. The Delta Star had been on her last paddles when she went up this river and the Ohio to collect bottles of natural gas from the oil fields of Pennsylvania. She almost made it home. Her greatest loss had been human life. Burke would see those lives avenged.
By then he’d reached the upper deck. He strode past the dining salon. He could see his aunt being served. He would avoid her. Where was Susan?
He reached the crew’s mess. A rectangular area with open scuttles to let in the morning air, it had one long eating board for crewmen and a table in a corner for the officers, Shirley Throckmorton and Newt Storey.
Everyone was in place, with a new addition to the assemblage. Pippin Paget sat with the crew, who waited for the shouts to begin. They weren’t responsible for last night. Blame lay in that pair of officers.
Burke neared the lad, saluted, and offered, “ ’Morning.”
Wary blue-gray eyes looked up at him, then dropped. He set a forkful of flapjacks down. “Good morning, sir.”
Mindful of the boy’s hesitance toward him, Burke ruffled his dark hair. “Plenty more flapjacks where those came from.”
“Uh, um, I told Cook I’d help with the dishes. I don’t mean to eat without workin’.”
“There’s a good lad. We all work to eat.”
Burke carried on, then drew up a chair to sit down with his two beefy officers. The duo, each fifty, could have passed for brothers, so strong was their resemblance, though one was bald as an Easter egg, and the other still had a full head of hair.
A forearm parked on the table, Burke said, “Well?”
They knew what he meant.
Newt Storey, a gray cap covering his slick pate, shrugged. “Your aunt tipped me. I couldn’t turn down a twenty-dollar gold piece. Saving money for my shrimp boat, you know.”
“Goddammit!” Burke pounded a fist on the table. Cutlery and plates bounced. He saw Pip jerk. Schooling his temper, Burke unclenched those fingers. “Storey, I ought to fire you.”
“You fire me ever’ time we make a trip. We’re nigh on home port. Won’t deprive you of pleasure. But I ain’t swabbin’ your damned heads, like you swore last night.”
No officer in Burke’s service could inflame his temper as Storey could. Yet they had traveled together to Ohio in December of 1864—A fistlike hand grabbed his innards as he recalled that last visit with Antoinette, when she’d paid a gruesome price for Contessa O’Brien’s wish on a magic lamp.
If it hadn’t been for Storey at his side . . . well, that was a memory best left alone. Yet Burke’s shame, like the crutch of rotgut whiskey, could not be forgotten no matter how many riverboats he commissioned.
“If ye be wondering about me,” Shirley Throckmorton put in, slurping hot tea and showing gold-capped teeth, “couldn’t keep me eyes open. ’Twas as if I’d been drugged.”
Burke routed the urge to say: Sure, Shirley.
No one called Throckmorton by his given name. No one knew it save for his captain, and for good reason. The boisterous first mate would break a man in half for even mouthing the name Shirley in connection with him.
Burke rolled his eyes at the gray-haired, incorrigible fellow. “Don’t let it happen again.”
“What do ye think of the lady?” Throck wiggled his big ears.
“Be quiet,” Burke whispered. “That’s her boy over there.”
“Nice kid.” Storey stabbed at his plate with a fork. “I don’t know why we can’t have omelettes instead of this crap. Who made these flapjacks? They’re burnt. And funny-shaped. You ought to keelhaul the cook, O’Brien.”
“Pip made them,” Burke answered. “So shut your mouth.”
“Say, whelp.” Throck motioned. “Ye there. We’ve got to get this tub asteam. Could use some help in the engine room.”
“Really? You really mean it?” Pippin swabbed at his mouth with a forearm. “When?”
“Right now!”
Aye, they did need to head south. Thirty minutes later, the Yankee Princess nosing along the brown waters, Burke turned the wheelhouse over to Storey and went looking for Susan Paget. Curiosity drove him. He needed to know if she planned divorce. Or was it the strange magnetism that made him thankful Black-eyed Susan hadn’t been a birthday present?
Whatever it was, he meant to find a solution to the Mr. Paget state of affairs. Burke found Susan at the afterdeck.
Four
“You missed breakfast.”
Susan flinched as she heard the captain speak from behind her. She turned from the rail, where she’d been appreciating every bubble of foam that separated her and Pippin from their troubles, yet might take her to more: Horace Seymour.
Her eyes filled on this sunny morning, filled with the white of the captain’s shirt, his verdant gaze, the tan of a captivating Irish face. “Good morning. How is the hand?”
“It’ll take more than broken glass to keep me down.”
No doubt. “Did you sleep well?”
He shortened the distance between them, halting in front of her. A gentle hand, the uninjured one, smoothed several strands of hair that had come loose from under her hat, thanks to the breeze. His touch, so feather-soft, made her pulse to jump.
“Slept better than I have in several years.” He smiled, and that interestingly crooked tooth caught her eye.
His smile disappeared into a scowl.
The fortune-teller’s discourse on children of the moon popped to Susan’s mind. Cancerians were moody, sad one moment, content the next, which certainly described this moon child.
“My goodness, Captain. Did I say something wrong?”
“Not in the least.” He chuckled, the dyspeptic look vanishing. “Seems I’ve got a habit. Scowling over thoughts of my latest birthday. A habit I need to break.”
“The disagreement with your aunt?”
“Let’s just say the moment has passed to worry about the ninth of July.”
He propped an elbow on the rail. The wind ruffling the pleated sleeves of his white muslin shirt, Burke stared at Susan. The intensity rose goose bumps on her arms. What was he thinking? Did he study her bruise? No. His was the look of a man interested in a woman.
Having tasted the lascivious before Orson’s fall from the tightrope, Susan knew how it was, the pleasures of . . . licking liquid from a man’s chest. She’d tried it. Eight months had passed since she’d known such wickedness. Orson had lost interest in coitus after his accident; beforehand, he was never interested in sipping her flesh.
“You’re shallow, daughter. Shallow. In matters of men, you don’t have the wits God gave George III!” Horace Seymour’s parting words came back to haunt her. Last night in the captain’s quarters her father hadn’t plagued her. But shallow described her. Shying away from Burke—lest her shallowness get the better of her, and the truth take an upper hand—she made it a point to study the riverbank.
A covey of birds flew from the branches of a cypress tree near the shore, then an alligator slipped into the water. Susan’s goose bumps increased when Burke moved closer to her side.
Was this a good moment to request passage straight to New Orleans? She didn’t get the chance to ask.
“There’s something we need to discuss,” he said smoothly. “Your cat. We’ve got a problem.”
Good heavens. Of all her concerns, why did Snooky have to become one? “Do go on, Captain O’Brien.”
“Call me Burke.”
“As you wish. Burke.”
“Thank you. Now, as I was saying, I’m going to order a stop. There’s a good spot not far from here. I’ll send a deckhand ashore to dig sand for a cat box.”
“That really won’t be necessary,” she said quickly, trying to come up with something—anything!—to keep this vessel on a southward and steady course. “No need to tarry. I—I brought a sack of sand along. Snooky is taken care of. He won’t be a problem. Not one whit of a problem.”
Burke didn’t look convinced, although he did say, “Glad you’ve gotten something in your life under control.”
“I’ve done several things to control my life.”
He squinted up at the summer sun, then back at Susan before rubbing the sides of his mouth, where it could almost dimple. “We’ll reach Fort Adams soon. We’re going to stop and let a doctor take a look at your injuries And the lad’s.”
“That’s kind of you, sir. But Pippin and I are fine. It’s our pride that is most grievously injured.”
“Don’t let pride stand in the way of getting something you need. As long as you’re on this riverboat, you’re under my care and protection. Avail yourself of the amenities.”
She laughed warmly. “I do believe I proved last night that I’m willing to swallow my pride. It wasn’t easy, begging.”
His gaze drilled into her. “Susan, what plans do you have for yourself and Pip once you reach New Orleans?”
“Does this mean you’ll take my son and me there?”
“My brother can hide you. Throw Paget off your scent. Conn can flag down another of my ships when the time is ripe.”
This wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but his set expression told her not to argue, so she answered his question. “I shall go to my father at the first opportunity.”
“Will he welcome you?”
“What makes you think he wouldn’t?” she asked much too defensively. “Of course he’ll welcome his family.”
“Do you plan to seek a divorce?”
“These shoes seem much too tight at the moment.” Susan hurried to her stateroom and barely noticed his aunt, though she did offer a perfunctory good morning. Once reaching privacy, she closed the hatch and leaned against it for support. The subject of divorce not being an issue, she struggled with a palpable issue. Would Father relinquish the trust fund his father set aside for her twenty-first birthday?
When she’d left with Orson shy of her majority, Horace Seymour vowed to forget she’d ever existed.
Should she go to St. Ann Street and ask for gris-gris to back her? No. The days of active hoodooism were behind her. She wouldn’t expose Pippin to it, much less allow him to know she’d once mixed potions and powders, and marveled at magic. Yes, it was a marvel. But magic could also sicken the heart.
He felt lucky as hell.
Even though his pockets didn’t hold the proceeds from Orson Paget’s marker, Rufus West knew fortune was on his side. At midday he’d boarded the riverboat Lucky Lady, destination Baton Rouge. Seating himself in the rococo poker parlor, he set a bottle of bourbon down, doffed his eyeglasses, and grinned smugly. His visit to the Best Ever Traveling Show had nearly ricocheted.
There had been no money to collect. He’d aimed a pistol at Paget, but missed. It was all he could do to slam the cap of his ornamental cane against the trapeze artist’s head.
As the law-leery troupe scattered, West got away one step ahead of the sheriff.
Yes, luck was with him. And soon the maiden Princess would go down. Sweet, sweet, sweet, it would be. Thanks to a handy invention brought to America by Horace Seymour.
“You gonna ante, sugar? Or you just gonna sit there?”
West refitted his spectacles before replying to the lady gambler at the baize-topped table. The room was nearly empty of players, with one bored barkeep drying crystal behind the long, ornate bar. Only West and the top-heavy blonde of about twenty-five, dressed in taffeta and ruffles, were of a mind for poker.
She had the sort of look O’Brien preferred, paleness that didn’t have a yellow cast. Her come-to-me breasts appealed to West. “I’m in.” He wrested gold pieces from his pocket, then tossed them on the table. “Deal the cards.”
He propped a hand of aces and eights in his misshapen fingers. For ten, maybe twenty minutes he focused on winning, which didn’t take much concentration. The lady wasn’t much at cards. He cleaned the blonde out.
As he raked the chips to his side of the table, she said, “You’re too good for me, sugar.”
“I am on a roll.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
West knew what she meant. She had ideas to earn back her losses in one of the many cabins in the floating palace. He considered it. She wasn’t fat. Furthermore, she had the biggest teats he’d ever seen on a slim woman. He liked big teats. More than a lot of these were displayed; that dress had a low cut.
Still, West wasn’t interested. He hadn’t had a wink of sleep. It had been wearying to the bones, hiding from the sheriff. But an interesting thing occurred. A woman named Angela Paget had found him.
West knew how to get in touch.
“Are you interested, sugar?” the lady gambler asked. “I’ve found a big nose matches a big pecker. True with you?”
“Needn’t fret. I can make it hurt like a long one.”
“My, such zeal.” Her eyes slid down West’s face, surveying a gaunt frame, and paused on his disfigured hand. Moving her line of sight upward, she settled on his weak eyes. “Guess you fight hard in bed, and in fisticuffs. But you don’t look like a fighter. I’d figure you for a man of ledgers.”
“Lady, you guessed right. Numbers is my game.”
She scooted the chair closer, to where her knee touched West’s, proffering lily-white knuckles for a kiss. “The name’s Velma. Velma Harken. What’s yours?”
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“Rufus.”
Her fingers smoothed his scars. “You got a woman?”
“I might be looking for one.”
“Isn’t this our lucky day?” She picked up his glass and sipped from it. Pale blue eyes shifting to his fingers, she asked, “What happened to your hand?”
“A cutthroat took a hammer to my writing fingers.”
“Such violence! Why, Rufe. I’m shocked.” Her palm settled on his upper thigh. “Hope you paid ’im back.”
“I’m in the middle of stacking the deck.”
He’d been planning his attack, and seeing it through, for eighteen long months. Rufus West had it all worked out, and fingers would point to Captain Burke O’Brien.
It was enough to give him a hard-on, even if this Velma weren’t running her fingernail over the tip of his member.
“Got anything else broken, sugar?”
“No. This is all.” West examined a mangled mess—the hand that splinting hadn’t helped. “These fingers brought a company back into the black,” he exaggerated, “while he guzzled whiskey and mourned a woman. But when I borrowed from the till, what did he do?” Shoving his hand under Velma’s nose, he said, “This.”
“Well, I don’t blame you, being mad. Need any help with anything, Rufe? Need a partner?”
He studied the cow eyes. A quest for revenge was one thing, but a horny woman—“How far do you want to go . . . Velma?”
“How far you wanna take me, Rufe sugar?”
West pressed his lips to the bulge of her mouth. His good fingers delved behind her bodice.
The barkeep chose that moment to stomp from the bar and charge toward the newfound team. “None of that in here! Be gone with the both of you.”
West drew back from Velma. “My cabin or yours?”
“Wherever the illicit takes us, sugar.”
Leave forbidden fruit alone.
Easy to tell himself, not so easy to do. Yet Burke had done a fair job of ignoring Susan Paget after her fast leave-taking that morning. But now, as midday waned and he steered small the Yankee Princess, he kept thinking about her.
Taking his left hand from the wheel, he studied the stitches and recalled how it felt as she’d touched him . . . and how it felt to touch her.