by Martha Hix
“ ’Evening,” Burke snapped as he approached her, shucking frock coat and necktie as he moved.
A strange mood for a new husband. “What happened?”
“Nothing. It’s taken care of.”
He dropped his backside to the bed’s edge and jerked off one boot, then the other, tossing both in a corner. Susan watched the play of his muscles against the white shirt. She noticed tension radiating from him.
“Whatever is the problem?” she asked tentatively, uneasy at his bad side surfacing. That he had bellowed at a hapless boy this afternoon, well, she mustn’t think about that. “Husband, don’t you want to kiss me? I have had all these hours to long for you . . .”
The shirt shucked, he stood to unbutton britches and to slide them and his unmentionables down hairy legs. He had a splendid bottom. The sight of him slew many bridal misgivings. All Susan had to do was get him back in a good mood. Her fingers touched the side of one thigh, and she savored the feel of his prickly, hardened leg. If he didn’t assuage the heated brick that was her insides, and soon, she would go mad.
He uttered a soft oath and got between the sheets. He didn’t touch her.
“Why?” she asked succinctly.
“I’m in no mood for chatter.”
After he had so actively pursued her, this was more than she could take. Was this an echo of Orson? Snare, lose interest. She shot from bed, rushed toward the dressing room.
Burke yanked her to a halt. Oh, God! He’s angry and he’s going to hurt me. She fought to be rid of his clutch. Useless. His strength overpowered her. She’d given her heart to this?
“You lied. You promised never to hurt me.”
He went still. “I wasn’t going to hurt you. I was trying to keep you from leaving. That’s all.”
Believable. She’d been looking for trouble and found it. Perhaps because she wanted him so overset with desire that he could think of nothing but making love to her. He was her husband. Her beloved husband. She yearned to have these next months happy for him. For them. They had known enough upset.
She turned into his arms, burying her face against the crook of his neck. Her arms wound behind his back, and she felt his staff swelling against her. A curl of triumph spiraled through her.
Susan’s fingers inched between them, and she closed her fingers around him. Their mouths met and held, his tongue sliding into his bride’s. Five of his fingers combed into her hair; the others swept down her back and cupped her bottom. They sank to the floor. He settled between thighs damp with need, his lips at the throat she presented.
“Take me,” she demanded. “I can’t wait.”
“Neither can I. Dammit.”
Masterfully, he plunged into her. She moaned. He thrust deeper and groaned. Or was it her own purl of pleasure?
His fingers covered her breasts, the tips gently working her nipples, causing luscious havoc. Yet there was nothing gentle about the way he pressed into her. She didn’t want gentle. She wanted this.
The floor ate into her back; she didn’t care. Her veins on fire, her heart nearly bursting, she bucked beneath him. The heavens formed behind her eyes. The little death. Yet this death was very new, the floating, whirling, and sailing to the most satisfying experience of her life. It was love.
As she gave herself up to him; he gave himself into her.
Entwined, they fought for breath. He rallied his. Burke’s lips touched hers. Barely. His tongue moved across her upper teeth. And then he was whispering against her ear, “You are wonderful, wife.”
“So are you.”
“You bewitch me.” His voice roughened. “It’s been a day in the depths of hell—”
“What do you mean?”
“Business,” he replied shortly, and nipped her chin. “1 couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“Nor I you.”
She gazed at his face, exploring the shading of his whiskers, the black brows and lashes, the oleander-leaf green of his eyes. Fingers coasting over almost-dimples, she reveled in such a feeling of contentment that it became nearly impossible to bear. For however long they had, he’d spoil her and show her life needn’t be tawdry or mean. And she’d learn to pamper him out of bad moods. He deserved to benefit from their time together. “I’m going to sew you a shirt,” she announced. “And bake lots of cakes.”
He threw back his head, laughed, and tickled her chin. “Mrs. O’Brien, there’ll be no homespun shirts. The nimblest fingers in New Orleans will stitch our clothes.”
That hurt, until he said, “The cakes I accept.”
“Cakes you will have.”
His hand cupped her bottom, rocking her to him. “I want you, wife. Again.”
“I know. I feel it.”
“I’m going to carry you to bed. And take all night making slow, sweet love to you.”
“I’m not complaining about the floor.”
“You may.” Burke buried his lips in her hair. “I didn’t take time for . . . I didn’t guard against getting you with child. It’ll never happen again.”
Susan wouldn’t regret starting a babe.
Eighteen
“Please let Burke be married,” Tessa whispered on a wing and a prayer. Phoebe’s letter, posted the day after the explosion and received that morning in Memphis, announced a wrecked lamp and a bridal prospect. “Let him be married or fixing to be.”
“He is wed.”
“How do you know, Eugene? What do you know?”
Tessa O’Brien quit the questions to glare at her pruned suitor. His broad behind squashed her own not-inconsiderable rear against the carriage wall. Having reinstalled himself the day before in Memphis, Eugene Jinnings had offered a lame excuse for his absence. The eunuch claimed an alien abduction.
“I’m suspicious of you, your motives, and your talents as a jinn, Eugene.” At her most aggravated, Tessa called him Eugene instead of Genie. “I don’t feel at all confident of your magic.”
Oversized lips peeled back to fashion a gold-capped smile. “Trust me.”
“Piffle.”
“Don’t be peevish, milady,” he cooed.
Fitz O’Brien drew her attention when he hawked up something to deposit in a spittoon. Seventy years out of Belfast, not to mention being ninety on earth and looking every day of it, her father proceeded to stroke his hound dog. Shamrock rode on the carriage seat with him, proud as a human and more spoiled than the worst southern belle.
“Tessa, Jinnings, doona argue,” Fitz said in an attempt to bring reason. “Ye make me rheumatism worse.”
“It’s the smell of that dog.” Tessa fanned fresh air into the coach window and flicked a clot of lank curls from her neck. Without Phoebe to dress her hair, she was a mess. Without Eugene she’d been a mess. A shrew. Not herself at all.
It seemed they rode forever between their Memphis home and a southbound steamboat that would take them to St. Francisville for a respite. “Why can’t we go straight to Phoebe?” She batted her lashes at Fitz. “Pretty please.”
“Phoebe? Or Burke? Yer sister says to stay clear o’ him.” Fitz struck the carriage floor once with the tip of his cane. “We willna be bothering my gran’son.”
“Now, Daddy, how will I ever get rid of this awful curiosity if my own menfolk”—she dimpled a grin at Fitz, then at Eugene—“won’t pamper this poor little girl?”
“Ye’re neither poor, little, nor a girl, Contessa. And ye’ll not be going to Burke. Not unless ye get a sign of welcome. We’re headed to Connor and India. That is the last Eugene and I are gonna be hearing of it.”
Tessa pouted, fanned, and thought about losing her sister. Imagine, Phoebe with a flame. Tessa barely recalled the fellow, but she did remember bushy brows and a gregarious nature. “Why, land sake’s alive. We can’t let my sister be in that wicked New Orleans by herself,” Tessa suggested artlessly. “She’ll need chaperones. We’ll help find her a nice big cottage in a decent part of town, and do what we can to settle her in.”
Fitz flattene
d his lips. “Phoebe has reached fifty-eight, and she’s got a suitor to lead her around.”
“Not that her skinny arse needs leading around,” commented the magic man from the Arabic lands.
Fitz chuckled, the folds of his face jiggling; Shamrock lifted ears in question at his master. “He will be needin’ big balls to handle Phoebe Louise.”
“How dare y’all be crude and critical of dear Phoebe?”
“Get the bees outta yer bonnet, daughter.”
“Fitz, we have erred in but two areas. Everything we say and everything we do.”
Tessa tsked. “Shush, you.”
“Ah, Eugene m’boy, ’tis lovely being alive, is it not?”
It was always this way, two against one. Sometimes Tessa wondered if Eugene hadn’t taken her late brother’s place in Daddy’s affections. Often she believed he would have passed the baton of Fitz & Son, Factors, to her suitor. If Eugene weren’t too lazy to take it.
Someone had to take over. Fitz wanted retirement. She suspected Genie’s disappearance had to do with Daddy’s plans. What, she wasn’t exactly sure. And they would never confide.
She eyed the two men. The usual Tessa surfaced, her sentiments softening. One male so big and lazy, not unlike that spoiled dog, and the other old and nearing the end of his life.
Eugene had been good for poor Papa, who’d lost his only son in 1848. As well, he couldn’t depend on his grandsons to carry on with the cotton-factoring business that he had so lovingly built from nothing. He needed Eugene.
And Tessa needed to keep the faith in magic somehow.
It worked once for her already, and twice for Phoebe. Why wouldn’t it hold? She had to make certain. “Genie, with the lamp destroyed, are you sure you’re still a jinn?”
“But of course, milady.”
“Oh, Genie, you are grand.” Save for the alien-abduction story, he’d never lied to her. “I believe in you.”
She pulled down her lids and began a daydream. Arriving in New Orleans, they would be welcomed at 21 rue Royale by a married Burke and his fine bride. What a treasure, that Susan. Pretty and friendly. She’d even find a nice rug for Shamrock. There would be a good pot of coffee, a freshly baked coconut cake, and southern hospitality at its finest.
Tessa, your sister’s letter says Susan is English.
English, southern, whatever. It would be a fine day.
This should have been a fine day.
It had been one helluva tremendous night. His bride’s passion hadn’t been a surprise, but Burke had been more than pleasantly surprised to learn Susan was insatiable. That she had waged a wanton challenge to the limits of his prowess—one he had met—should have puffed his chest with pride.
He had too much on his mind for pride.
Sitting at his desk, he lined up business problems, all of which came at him in spades. Lloyds of London and two wrecked riverboats. The financial reports showing his shipping firm in the red. Deep red. Last and absolutely least, there was the question of why Horace Seymour had turned on him.
He figured Seymour had been irked over Susan, that was all. He didn’t give a damn about the wizard’s frame of mind.
Susan had him troubled in the light of this day. It had all started when the runner Billy trespassed into a bedroom of eager newlyweds.
“What is so important that you fetched me from my wife?” he had demanded to know on Royale Street while Billy handed over Avenger’s reins.
“Don’t know exactly, sir.” The curly haired boy dug an envelope from a britches pocket. “The lady said to give you this and do whatever I had to to get you to her.”
Billy waited expectantly, as if he thought Burke might read the note aloud.
“Go on to the office, boy.”
“Sure, sir.” The runner shrugged, turned, then took a comb from that same pocket and tended his hair as he whistled his way down rue Royale.
Burke peeled open the envelope.
Absinthe Room. V—
Burke exhaled loudly, relieved to know Velma was reporting in. He trotted the palomino down Royale, up Conti, toward Bourbon. The smells of the Vieux Carré filled his nostrils. Damp, musty, slightly rotten, but cut by flowers, Creole cooking, and river scent. It was good to be home. It was good to know Velma had made it home. What had she learned about Rufus West?
Burke dodged the people who made up the Quarter. Vendors selling watermelons hawked their goods from carts. Serving women, tignons wrapping their hair, balanced baskets of wash on their heads. A scissors man plied his trade in front of the post office. One crinolined miss, her nose in the air, held a parasol above her ringlets as her pipe-sucking mammy yapped in French.
The miss ground to a halt, her skirts swishing. “Monsieur O’Brien, bonjour. I would like to thank you for sending the money. Ah, you do not recognize me. I was married to—”
“I know you.” He tipped his hat. She might have looked like a miss, but she was a widow, her husband having gone down with the Delta Star. “Do you need anything, ma’am?”
“No. You have been generous.” She carried on.
Burke turned Avenger onto Bourbon, reaching the rendezvous point. An attendant took the gelding to the livery, and Burke entered the tavern where Andrew Jackson and Jean Lafitte had planned the defensive of New Orleans during the last war with the British. A couple of men lined the bar and sipped the speciality of the house. Burke went straight for the second-floor chamber, where all that parlaying had taken place.
A familiar blonde stood by the window, her back to him. She whirled around and smoothed her skirts. “I have been to hell and back with Rufus West.”
“Velma”—Burke strode to her, getting a whiff of neroli oil—“are you all right?”
“Sure.” She took hold of the lapels of Burke’s wedding suit, her arms pushing together the cleavage displayed by a low neckline. “If I didn’t love you like a brother, bet your boots I wouldn’t have taken the job.”
“I thought you took it in your brother’s memory.”
“I did it for Teddy too. Rufe is one disgusting fellow.”
“You’ll be well paid for your trouble, Vell.”
“Damn shootin’ I will.”
Burke stepped back; the flicker in her big blue eyes asked why. “I’m married now.”
A smile brightened her heart-shaped face. “That’s just about the best damned news I’ve heard in years. It’s about time you got yourself a wife, sugar. You’ve been needing one. Just had to wait till you reached thirty, I know. Congratulations, sir. Where’s the missus?”
“Waiting at home for the honeymoon.”
“Then let’s talk quick, so’s you can get back to her. Lucky gal.” Velma winked at his crotch. “You’ve got the finest pecker in New Orleans. Could be in the whole U.S. of A.”
Burke was not a modest man, save for discussions of raincoats with his bride, but he had the urge to cover his privates with crossed hands. Instead, he stepped over to the window and glanced down. “Vell, what did you find out?”
“Patience. I don’t have any proof, but I know he planned everything. Hired one of your officers.”
“Which one?” Burke asked, and dreaded the answer.
“Don’t know yet. His man’s been out of town. There’s supposed to be a powwow this afternoon.”
Storey was out of town. Throck had been. Either man, Burke got a sick feeling in the pit of his gut. “Where’s the powwow?”
“If I told you, you’d charge forth and ruin everything before I’m ready. I can’t let Rufe get suspicious. I almost had the chance to get free last night. Wanted to meet you at midnight, but he cleaned out the other poker pigeons early.”
“Who are his cronies?”
“Don’t know. But I don’t think they’re involved. Just pigeons.” Velma shrugged. “Back to what I was talking about, it’s all I could do to get away today. He had an appointment, else I wouldn’t be here.” She gathered gloves, pulled them on. “I’ll get word to you when and where to meet me.”<
br />
Burke had waited this long, what was a while longer?
“By the way, Burke. My sympathies on the Princess. I know you’re hurting.”
Had Susan extended sympathies? He didn’t think so.
“You deserve a spell of smooth sailing. Pardon the pun.” Patting the light hair that he’d spent many nights delighting over, she finished with: “I’m gonna get him. He’ll pay. Trouble is, I hafta be careful. Rufe has a mean streak. That right hand of his may be gimped, but the other is strong enough to make up for it. And he wields a mean cane. Guess Rufe likes to make a woman hurt, so’s she won’t notice his pecker being slim as a pencil.”
“I won’t have you manhandled. It’s time to put Cinglure on the case. I met with him yesterday. He’s offered to arrest the Eel on a trumped-up charge. I’m going to let him.”
Velma’s face fell. “After all my efforts, you would turn Rufe over to the Metropolitan Police for nothing? Thank you very much for the vote of confidence.”
“Getting the goods isn’t worth your getting roughed up.”
“Burke O’Brien, I am a sleuth. I won’t be pandered to because I’m a woman. You hired me to investigate, and I’m gonna do it. Hell, sugar. Nobody made me get in bed with Pencil Pecker. I did that for fun, till I found out it ain’t fun. But ole Velma’s got a leg up on Rufe. He won’t touch a woman during her monthly. I’ve had a very long monthly.”
Burke cajoled, “You’ve always wanted to see Natchez. The Edna Gal is headed there. Be on her when she steams out.” He looked at a clock. “You’ve got an hour.”
“Nope. My job ain’t finished.”
He would make sure the job got done.
Rufus West waited in the shadows of unloaded freight, and shook his head with amazement at learned-earlier gossip. O’Brien let magic get the best of him? He’d married the snake charmer, the flagship destroyed, and he wasn’t over the brink?
It’ll take more calculating.