by Martha Hix
“Hate to leave, I do, but ’tis not to my station I get, there’ll be hell to pay from yer nephew.” Throck reluctantly got to a seated position, then took her hand in his beefy one. “Thank ye, Miss Phoebe.” He kissed her knuckles. “Ye made me a happy man. Will ye gimme another go at ye?”
“We haven’t docked yet . . .”
“If I be a lad of twenty-five, which I ain’t and ye know it, I couldn’t do it again. Ye wore me out, wench.” He patted her scrawny behind tenderly. “One thing ye gotta learn, pussycat. A man’s gotta build up a head of steam between trips.”
“My trip is over,” she said, now glum and reflective. “We’ll say our good-byes today.”
“No good-byes. There’ll be none of that betwixt us.” Throck tucked the sheet under his abdominal overhang, rubbed his hairless chest, then sighed. “Meet me in New Orleans, Miss Phoebe. ’Tis there we’ll be, could be for a long spell. The Lloyds of London flea gotta be scratched, ye know.”
“Take good care of Burke,” she whispered.
“Always do.” Throck chucked her jaw lightly. “Turn up in New Orleans. In case I need some help in the taking care. And because I want ye with this old dog of the river.”
“You are truly the answer to a spinster’s prayers.”
“Fifty years I spent searching for a woman like ye.”
“Yes,” she teased, “and you did quite a lot of looking.”
“Ye don’t argue with me training, do ye?” He ran a toenail along her calf while his finger fondled her nipple.
“I love it.” Lordy, had she gotten more than her anticipated tweak, and had done more than tweaking herself.
Throck took his leave, kissing her twice more before he went to his duties. Phoebe stayed abed until way after the breakfast bell summoned everyone to the meal. Yes, she would travel down to New Orleans. Wicked place, that New Orleans. Phoebe intended to be wicked with the best of them.
How could she keep from meddling in Burke’s affairs while there though? Throck may have asked for help, but she’d stuck a long nose into her nephew’s life too many times.
Yes, she would leave the lamp for Burke, but considering his attitude, she doubted he’d use it. It was up to Susan to make him happy. That Susan, such a plum. Guilty for denying her new friend’s request, Phoebe reconciled her mind. Susan did need Burke, and vice versa. Those two could heal each other.
There was but one way to ensure happiness for everyone. One way. If this wasn’t an emergency, what was?
Phoebe eyed the locked valise. The means to happiness rested within it. She wrapped a sheet around her thoroughly sated body and unlocked the treasure. So cold and lifeless it felt. As she had twice before, she rubbed the bowl and felt warmth. “Lamp, make Burke perfect for Susan.”
She expected the genie to walk right in.
“Eugene? Eugene, where are you?”
Always before, he’d materialized within seconds. Not this time. She shook the lamp. “Come out, doggone it!” Screwing up an eye, she looked inside. Nothing. “Where are you?”
The genie still didn’t show his face.
Two beeps of the steam whistle announced the arrival at the Pleasant Hill plantation. Why didn’t the jinn appear? “Eugene Jinnings, don’t you do me this way.”
Eugene didn’t heed the call. What did this mean? Would her wish not come true? She crammed the lamp into a nest of her unmentionables. “I’ve gotta keep faith in Tessa’s wish.”
But how long would it take, getting Susan for Burke?
Getting shut of the magic curse was the last thing on his mind. Burke stared westward, as far from the magnolias and oaks of Pleasant Hill as eyesight reached. He thought of the night Antoinette was carried off the Delta Star, right there. Yet he hadn’t taken a drink that night. The booze started in December.
“Are you not going ashore?” Susan asked from behind him.
“I am not.”
Pippin spoke. “Please, Cap’n. Please! Throck says they got sort-a fun stuff. And kids too, but they’re younger than me. That’s okay. I like little kids.”
Burke turned from the aft rail. Susan and Pip were five or six paces away, her hand holding the lad’s. Her chin bruise gone, she stood with sunshine sparkling on her coronet of braids.
His thoughts shifted. This was the first he’d seen her since learning her relation to Horace Seymour. If Susan knew the lengths the wizard had gone to in forgetting his daughter—
“Won’t your brother and his family be disappointed if you don’t go ashore and greet them?” she asked.
“Conn will understand. I wrote him weeks back. He’s warned not to expect a visit this close to my birthday.”
“Very well.” Susan spoke next to her boy. “Best run along, dumpling. Throck is waiting for you.”
Pip glanced down at his scuffed boots. “I really would like you to come with me, Cap’n. You said they got one o’ those fancy spyglasses like you was telling me about. We could look at the stars tonight.”
Pip had become Burke’s shadow these past days. Eager to learn, quick to comprehend, he was a fine lad. Disappointing him did not sit easily with Burke. He strode to the youngster, ruffled his hair, and bent at the knees to settle back on his haunches. His thumb brushed two crumbs from a corner of the boy’s mouth. “We won’t be staying the night at Pleasant Hill.”
“Why not?”
“It’s an unscheduled stop.” Its purpose to eject a bothersome aunt “Besides, I own a telescope. It’s at 21 rue Royale. First night we’re there, we’ll study the galaxies.”
A moue of disapproval twitched Susan’s lips. Burke knew why. It was time to do more persuading. He winked at Pip. “Lad, you don’t want to keep Throck waiting. Cast off!”
The first mate had strict orders not to let Pip out of his sight, in case a certain father should jump from the bushes. “I’ll be right here, waiting for you to tell all about my niece and nephew, and the other delights of the place.”
“Well, o-kay. I mean, aye, aye, sir!”
Snapping a salute—Burke had taught him how—Pip took off, leaving the couple alone on the Yankee Princess, the crewmen on their way into the quaint town near the plantation. And there was a God. Aunt Phoebe had taken her leave without incident.
Fingers shading her brow, Susan turned to watch as Pip dashed down a companionway. She didn’t pivot toward Burke. “You’re good to him. And good for him. For that I thank you. But I would appreciate your not rotting his mind on England.”
She swept toward her stateroom, Burke in her wake. “Aren’t you going ashore?” he asked.
Her hand on the latch, she shook her head. “No. I believe I’ll rest today.”
“Another headache? Another excuse to avoid a ‘madman’?”
“Do you accuse me of lying?”
“Aye.” He closed the distance between them. “If you’re worried about the true madman, don’t. A skiff just took off. My man’s aboard. Newt Storey will catch a northbound in town to go back upriver and track Paget down.”
“Who is Newt Storey?”
“He let you and my aunt aboard.”
“I don’t recall him. I was quite addled that night.” Susan tipped her chin to a wary angle. “What exactly have you ordered Mr. Storey to do once he finds Orson?”
“Report back to me.”
Burke wouldn’t mention how Storey took the orders: not well. Always envious of Throck’s higher position in the hierarchy, Storey had objected to a job “beneath him.” But he’d obeyed orders so Burke wouldn’t dwell on his second mate’s reaction.
He had a different problem. Susan. She shoved open the entry to her stateroom and stepped inside. One try at closing the hatch failed, for Burke planted his feet in the interior. “I don’t reckon to be avoided.”
“Leave me be, Burke. Go to your quarters. You might find something to interest you there.”
“You interest me.” He sidestepped her and blocked her way. Her heliotrope scent enticing him, her eyes wary, she retreated. “You needn’t
fear me, Susan. I won’t hurt you.”
“I don’t trust your temper. At the very least.”
“I’ll earn your confidence.”
Her lips drew tight. “A strange day to say that. You’ve just sent your aunt away without so much as a by your leave.”
“Aunt Phoebe doesn’t need a champion. She’s capable of taking care of herself.”
“Burke, I really do have a headache. I’ll thank you to leave me to it.”
“Not before I work magic on you.”
“You dare say that word?”
“Shhh.” He steered her to the bed, coaxed her to sit on the edge, and eased down beside her. His fingers slipped up the high bones of her cheeks, his thumbs hooking beneath her ears. “Where does it hurt?”
“My temples.”
He massaged them, then circled his thumbs on other tense spots on her face and head. It was no happenstance that he managed to loose the coil of plaits, even got them undone. Thick, fair hair spilled over his hands, and he reveled in all that golden glory as his fingers slipped into it.
Burke never claimed to be much of a singer, but he could hum. He hummed. Nice and sweet, mild and soothing. He felt the tautness begin to leave her, heard her sigh. He ministered to her neck before beginning the healing journey again. She became like butter, her bones melting. It wasn’t any time until Susan slid down, her face near the open neck of his shirt.
“Mmm,” she murmured.
How good it felt to cuddle without antagonism between them. He held her close and kept rubbing, now on the ridges of her spine. Somewhere between there and her shoulders he eased her onto his lap . . . where the heat began to swirl and swell. He forgot to hum.
His lips touched her forehead; she didn’t resist. What had been heat became an inferno. He yearned for her, burned for her, and the magic lamp had nothing to do with it. When he’d thought the curse broken, he’d fallen for a sorceress. The earth mother. She wasn’t far off from first impression, albeit he now knew she had passion, lots of it, and he wanted her earthly sustenance.
He murmured, “I’ll be good to you. And to Pip. But I’m not a mind reader. You must tell me what will make you happy.”
“You are good to me. I find that . . . nice.”
“You’re good for me. I need you, earth goddess.”
“The stars say I’m fire, not earth.”
“You’re both.”
“Your water would flood the earth, put out the fire.”
“I don’t ever intend to let your fire go out,” he said, and it was the wrong thing.
“Oh, ho!” She pulled up her head. “Already you’ve ordered me to forego the hoodoo, which, by the way, I do not practice, but that’s beside the point. You offer New Orleans. I do not want that city. I want to be gone from there as soon as possible.”
“Do I make you that unhappy?”
“I’m quite pleased. At the moment.” Her voice wound soft, mere butterfly wings. “Bedevilment is taking over.”
“Let me kiss you,” he whispered, knowing the magic had them both in an unbreakable grip. “I promise it won’t hurt.”
Momentary resistance. Only momentary. “Yes” was her faint reply. She crossed her hands behind his back while upturning parted lips to him. Sweet, she tasted sweet. And hot. So hot. He slid his tongue into all that hot sweetness, loving it, luxuriating in it.
In one fluid motion he drew her to the counterpane, where they settled side by side, legs entwined. His fingers found a breast behind the buttons of her dress. He discovered a hardened peak waiting for him. He heard her gasp. He felt the backs of her fingers skim along the flesh of his arms, then journey through the crop of chest hair. This was luck.
Would Susan again become the aggressor? It wasn’t that Burke hadn’t liked that, he did, but he was going to be the boss this time. Fevered, he rolled atop her. He had to taste her neck, her collarbone, that breast and the other one. And they tasted good. More than good.
For a fleeting moment Burke gave thanks for magic.
Eleven
A half second after Burke, nestled in Susan’s bed, gave thanks for her magic, he felt something peculiar. What was it? Her toes running beneath the bottom of his britches and up the back of his calf? No. It felt too cold for toes. He’d known many cold toes. This didn’t feel like toes either.
“Snake!”
He cannoned from bed. Susan jerked to a seated position as he did a wild dance: hopping on one foot, jerking the other, and trying to grab Snooky’s tail to pull him out of the trousers.
Susan laughed.
“Dammit, don’t you dare laugh!”
She kept laughing. In fact, she’d fallen to paroxysms, doubling over with them. Elongating each vowel and several of the consonants, she charged, “You look so funny!”
“Dammit, woman, help me. Grab this frigging snake!”
Effortlessly she freed Burke from the menace, then stroked scales. “I didn’t realize you were afraid of this old fellow.”
“I’m not scared,” Burke came back, rattled. “He caught me unawares. And at a helluva time.”
“Just in time.”
Snooky settled on her arm, his ugly tail draping toward the rug. Serene as they pleased, woman and serpent. Until the cobra hooded his neck and hissed at Burke, who would have without compunction made shoe leather out of dear old Snooky.
Watch out. Watch your temper. Don’t scare Black-Eyes.
He flopped in the armchair. His legs spread and with his arms dangling from the sides, Burke lamented the end to what might have been a very satisfying toss on the bed. “What a sight Snooky and I must’ve presented.”
Susan glided to him and ruffled his hair, as he’d done to her boy on many occasions. “I’ve never seen such a sight,” she teased good-naturedly.
That was when Burke started laughing. She joined in. Again she was on his lap. They kissed once more, but this was an embrace of shared experience and the promise of more to come. Lingering thoughts of a temporary marriage went astray.
“At times, Captain, you really aren’t a bad sort at all.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Miss Snake Charmer.”
“Snake charmer.” She laced her fingers. “Burke, there’s something I feel I must say. About hoodoo.”
“You’re trying to turn me off marriage?”
From the downward tilt of her chin, he knew he’d guessed right. If anything might dissuade, it would be mumbo-jumbo. According to her father, a slave named Anne Helene took his sweet daughter to St. Ann Street to learn the secrets of witchery. This Seymour learned after she’d run off with Bilge Water.
Burke expected a foul story to roll from Susan’s lips, and got the surprise of his life when she said, “I didn’t see you for the first time when I boarded this riverboat. I saw you once before. At Mardi Gras time, a couple of years ago. On the banks of the Pontchartrain. At a hoodoo ritual.”
His muscles locked. But no one had forced his one visit to bacchanalia. He remembered it foggily. Velma—they had just met; she wouldn’t become merely a friend for another year—coaxed him into a wild celebration that lasted way too long.
He eyed Susan. Lurid images came forth. Hoodoo was bad enough, taking part in the orgies—Is the pot calling the kettle black? “I didn’t see you there.”
“I didn’t join in. I was simply an onlooker.”
He tended to believe her. “Well, what did you think?”
She blushed. “I found you quite attractive.”
“I was drunk. I doubt that was attractive.”
“There’s no accounting for taste, is there?” Susan came back, a smirk on her face. “Hoodoo does wild things.”
“You never participated in a ritual?”
“I never took off my clothes. Or”—she blushed again—“you know what I mean.”
Pot or no kettle, he liked that answer. He would not have cottoned to the idea of a snake-entwined Susan gyrating around, showing her attributes to a collection of males both dark and pale. Wh
en she danced naked, he wanted it to be for him.
Yet he wanted her side of Seymour’s tale. “What turned you to hoodoo?”
“I thought it was intriguing, the chance to ask for something, then get it. I came to realize the dangers. During the war my mammy hexed a man. He died of fright. Soldiers came after Anne Helene.” Susan rubbed her eyes. “She ended up shot in the back.”
“I recall the incident.” Remy Cinglure had told him about it. “Susan, are you sufficiently . . . realized?”
“It’s ingrained, when I pray to the loas. But I intend to rear Pippin in God’s church. The religions simply don’t mix.”
They damned sure wouldn’t at 21 rue Royale. “If you’ve got any gris-gris tucked in your grip, I want it tossed overboard. Immediately.”
“Rest assured, I do not.”
Satisfied she wouldn’t fall to mumbo-jumbo, he scanned her curvaceous form, got hot thinking about it. “Too bad you didn’t introduce yourself at the lake, Black-Eyes.”
She grinned. “That’s right, make me feel bad for not breaking in on you and your lady friend.”
“What all did you see?”
She blushed. “Enough. You were quite . . . energetic.”
“Why don’t I give you a demonstration?”
“On the heels of a Snooky attack? I should think not!” She chucked his jaw lightly. “Since you’re in such a jolly mood . . . would you reconsider a trip ashore?”
A new strength active in his spirit, Burke nodded. “I would like to see Conn and Ind and their son. I’ve yet to meet their baby daughter. It would be nice to put a face to the unlikely moniker of Miss Pays O’Brien.”
“Off with you, sir. Your family awaits.”
“Go with me.”
“Please indulge me. I really would like a nap. And I must get Snooky secured before anyone returns.”
He understood her reticence. Meeting her future husband’s family might be daunting. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
“You may catch me sleeping.”
“Is that a promise?” he growled lustily.
“Oh, you. You really are a dickens.”
It held a pleasant ring, that sobriquet. They had traveled a far piece that morning, Susan and Burke, and he felt freer and hardier than he had in years. Freer than when he’d thought the curse broken. It had felt great to laugh. Forever he’d recall the feel of that snake slithering up his leg. But most of all the memory of having Susan pliant in his arms . . .