by Martha Hix
“I’d been making love to you.”
“No, you hadn’t. Not really. Your lovemaking was lust. And you wanted to be free of magic.” Her accusation banged in her head and throughout the room. “I think you sent Throck to kill two birds with one stone. To get rid of a flagship. And to get rid of an obstinate woman bound to you by a magic lamp. You didn’t want a wife. What better way to get rid of a pesky woman than to kill her? That would have proven the lamp wrong.”
“Well, isn’t this just fantastic?” He spoke to his offended self. “That’s gratitude for you. I take in a destitute voodooess and the urchin she’d stolen—when no one else would have them. When she could’ve been beaten to death by a gaudy circus clown. Where would she be if not for me? But what does she do? Accuses piracy.”
His words hurt, for they were true, yet . . . “Do you seek to shame me into believing you?”
“It’s tempting to say I don’t care what you think. But we’ve made a deal for the rest of this year, and I love . . . Pip enough to give it to him.” Burke’s anger bore down as his iron grip clamped her shoulders. He said, “Think straight. You can’t make fire without flint. Throck and I didn’t have the makings to destroy my flagships. Another thing. If I blew up the Yankee Princess, why would I destroy the Delta Star?”
The first ship hadn’t entered her mind. That he brought it up caused more alarm. What was she—and Phoebe!—to do?
Burke shook her. “Think, Susan, think. If I wanted to kill you, why didn’t I let you die? I boarded a burning ship to save your life.”
That day in St. Francisville rose in her mind’s eye. Again she saw him reaching for her, felt him yanking her into the Mississippi, saw him throwing his body over hers as the Yankee Princess exploded. Was she wrong about him?
Tears this moment stung her eyes. Oh, to have that magic lamp. Oh, to be given a wish or two! There was no magic lamp to turn to. No favors would be granted. Even if the lantern were to appear in her hand, could it have made her husband innocent? “What choice did you have but to save me? You might’ve lost face with your brother and his family.”
Silence thudded between them. “If that’s what you think, then you’d best sleep on it.”
“Not with you.” Too upset for clear thought, she wanted nothing more than to be away from Burke. “I’d prefer to sleep with Zombi!”
“What a lovely picture, my snake-charmer wife with a serpent at her breast.”
“Would beat having your serpent between my legs!”
“Hoodoo witch.”
“It would take hoodoo, or something just as strong, to perform a miracle for you and me!”
“You’re not turning to spell casting. I’ll lock you up and throw away the key before I’ll let you go to St. Ann Street.”
“No one will ever cage me again.” She ducked away, and got halfway to the broken door before he yanked her to his chest.
It was then that he bumped her hips against the table edge. She fought him. Unsuccessfully. During the fray, he brought his hands forward to rend the bodice of her gown, her breasts spilling forth. His lips lowered to the displayed flesh, but she slammed his head away.
“Brute. Bilge-water brute,” she grated out. “Do you think I’d allow you to force me?”
“I won’t force you. And don’t even consider reaching behind you for that candlestick,” he warned as her fingers walked to a certain place on the table. “You won’t strike me as you did Bilge Water.”
Burke jerked the tablecloth to the floor, the centerpiece and candelabra flying. “I’m going to make love to you, wife. When I’m through, you’ll apologize for your accusations. And you’ll never threaten to withhold your favors again.”
Twenty-one
“Do you think I would rut with a pirate?”
“When you spread your legs for Paget, you weren’t doing it for the Prince of Wales.”
Susan tried to slap him. Burke caught her wrist and kept hold as he forced her spine to the dining-salon table.
“You!” She lifted a coiled hand to scratch his jaw. “I hate you for this. And for everything.”
“Hate is the next thing to love, Susan. Do you hate me because you love me?”
How else could she be so disappointed and hurt? And scared for their future. “Arrogant bastard, I hate you is all.”
“You can’t deny you want me.”
Regrettably, Shallow Susan did want him.
Exerting his power over her, Burke got between her knees, his manhood at her pelvis. The last vestige of sense left her. She twitched against him, and a rush of desire went through her. She didn’t stop him as he lowered his head to her breasts.
Her fingers twisted into his coarse raven hair as his lips drew deeply on an eager peak and his hand curled around the other breast. He drew the crest between his finger and thumb, and the pressure of his mouth, as well as his fingers, increased, until she reached that plane where pain and pleasure meet. She cried out in frenzy, wanting what only her husband could give. Shallow Susan in love with a murdering pirate.
Her fingers tightened. “Take me, Burke.”
It seemed as if he would. He reared back to be rid of britches and to toss skirts to her waist and touch her intimately. Lust in his voice, he asked, “My brazen wife who borrows from the help, do you ever wear drawers?”
“Does it bother you how I dress? Or undress.”
“Not as long as it’s for me.”
“I dress for comfort, not for your pleasure,” she countered defiantly.
“Sorceress. Your attire be damned.” His finger massaged her core until passion’s fluid wet his skin and hers. “I want you to think. Don’t you imagine I could’ve stumbled going down that hill?” His middle finger delved deeply. “There are all sorts of ways I could have sent you to your death.”
Reasonable words at an irrational moment. Telling herself that her beloved couldn’t be a murdering pirate, she whispered, “Stop torturing me, husband. Take me to the little death.”
“Like this?”
But he did the unexpected, something he’d never done before. His tongue darted to the folds guarding her womanhood. She gasped, tried to push him away. “What are you doing?” But he didn’t answer, and would not cease. He flicked his tongue, circled, probed. The cadence of lovemaking in his rhythm, he carried her to the brink of petite mort, then over it.
She reared up when he eased away. “Where are you going? Don’t leave me like this, Burke.”
“Do you still think I would have killed you?”
How could she think? Say anything. “Of course not.”
“Will you ever threaten to cut me off again?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, then, wife, you’ll have your pleasure. That’s the most important to you. Pleasing me is your last consideration.” He positioned the tip of his staff at her portal. “By the way, my rubber interests are the raincoats. Which I am not going to use now. It pleases me.”
He plunged.
Later, as Susan rushed out of the dining salon without a word on her lips, Burke sat before the table and dropped his forehead against the heels of his hands. She still thinks you’re evil, that you tried to kill her.
Dammit. He shouldn’t have let her get the best of him. She drove him to distraction with her defiance and loathing, and he shook with the realization that if she hadn’t quit fighting, he might have taken her by force.
The mere thought sickened him.
They needed distance between them.
The business of intrigue added to his disorder. Did Seymour sell dynamite to anyone? Had it been stolen? Who knew its secrets?
Why had Throck lied to the Lloyds coxcomb?
Why hadn’t Velma sent notice of safe arrival in Natchez?
Natchez.
Burke would have to go there. To search for Velma. And to find out what was happening on a murder investigation.
First he had to make certain his wife stayed put. He wouldn’t have her striking out for
St. Ann Street. Or for England. Despise him she did, but he remained determined to prove innocent in her eyes. And to win her heart.
That night, in a small community of Barataria Bayou, the joint was lively. The café was a squalid place frequented by cutthroats and their painted women. In the corner a singer pumped an accordion and sang in Louisiana French. The floor vibrated with drunken dancers and the thump of waitresses serving grog and spicy food to slake late-night appetites.
Rufus West, one day back in South Louisiana, used the back of his crippled hand to shove a plate of cayenne-spiked shrimp to the table center, toward the large-breasted brunette who’d taken a traitorous Velma’s place in his bed. “It’s after midnight. Where the hell is he?”
“What’re you worried about?” she asked. “He sank those boats for you. You got what you wanted.”
“He could turn on me. He tried when I—”
“That’s just because he didn’t like you roughing up that hussy Velma. He’ll get over it.”
“Thought he might refuse to obey me.” West thought this might have happened when he had demanded Velma be prepared for presentation to O’Brien.
“He came around, didn’t he? Just like the rest of us, he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do.” The brunette picked up a discarded shrimp and popped it into her mouth. “Besides, stud lover, you owe him for the last job, and he’s got plans for the future. He’ll be along to collect his money.”
For the dozenth time that night, West looked at his fobbed watch. He had a bad feeling about this deal. If his disgruntled hatchet man went to the police, or to O’Brien, his plans could go the way of two downed freighters.
West would not let that happen. His one hand might be lame, but he wielded a harsh cane.
“Say, lover. Tell me again about nice, cool Sweden.”
Why not kill time? West gave her a thumbnail sketch of the strange land where he’d learned the secrets of dynamite.
“Let’s go there,” the woman suggested. “Soon as we’re finished with the O’Briens.”
“I’m thinking of a more temperate climate. Cuba.”
“Well, whatever.” Another shrimp went past his tonsils. “How much money you figure I can get out of Orson’s old flame?”
“Ten, twenty thousand.”
West took his first full look of the night at his new woman. A pretty thing. Wasplike waist, nice chest. And he knew he could trust her. Unlike with Velma, he knew exactly where she’d come from and where she was going. Yet her plans for blackmail might come back to haunt her. And make him miserable.
“You’re a mother,” he said. “I don’t want to get you out of the country, then have you squalling on my shoulder about not taking Baby Boy with us.”
“The little turd means nothing to me. ’Cept for what I can get for him.”
“Suits me. But I had to make sure of your mind.”
Angela Paget laughed wickedly. “Trust me, Rufus. All I care about is you.”
“Liar. I’ve watched you take on a row of panting men.”
“That’s what we both like, so hush.”
It was true. Rufus had found his match in Angela Paget, illiterate widow of Orson Paget. He’d never gotten such a thrill as when he’d watched her take on men, then afterward. When she got the canings she deserved.
At that moment a finger tapped his shoulder. West looked over it, and there stood the husky hireling, wearing a gray cap.
“Box’s in the wagon” was the man’s growl.
“Good.” Rufus would have rubbed his hands together if he could. “It’s time to show O’Brien the evidence . . . of just how obtuse he was to cross Rufus West.”
Trouble was, Burke O’Brien—damn his hide!—decamped New Orleans before West and party could get to him. O’Brien, it was easy to find out, had left his wife and Angela’s brat behind.
Moreover, Remy Cinglure of the Metropolitan Police had gendarmes guarding the entrance to 21 rue Royale. West took delight from that, figuring he had O’Brien on the run.
Caged. He had caged her. A fortnight after her could-be-piratical husband placed guards to keep her cooped up, she reposed in a puritanical dress of her own design, sitting for another session with the portrait artist. Into Susan’s thoughts came reminders of the quarrel that sent Burke away without so much as a by your leave. I shouldn’t have said I hated him. What would have happened if she’d admitted that love drove her to hysteria?
Furthermore, how could he leave with her thinking terrible thoughts about him, her harsh denunciations between them?
Why had she allowed his leave?
He’d accused her of selfishness and more, in advance of caging her. Was it a stingy spirit that drove her? Perhaps. Perhaps not. She asked herself a pointed question. If given one wish, what would it be? Burke’s innocence in the crimes.
Why? For herself or for him? Would it be selfish to accept that her wish would be for them both?
If she had a second wish, it would be totally for her own delight. She would throttle him!
Better she hadn’t expressed the depths of her love. She now seethed at Burke in absentia. How could he do this to her? The town house on Royale wasn’t a lioness’s cage, but knowing how she feared being confined behind ever-shrinking walls, he’d locked her away lest she go to Father or Sir Joshua.
Did he do it in the name of innocence or guilt?
His had been a good defense, of course. Looking back on both the fervor and intensity of her offense, Susan was tempted to believe him, or at least prove him right.
As for her concerns for Phoebe, she’d sent a message to Barataria Bay, requesting a visit. Phoebe had not appeared, although she returned a note. O’Brien visitors kept her at Throck’s little home. Surely family would protect her.
“Sit still, please, madame.” Fabienne Laure, Gallic annoyance in her breathtaking face, lifted her paintbrush. “Please stop frowning. It is difficult enough to capture a pleasing likeness for your husband without your squirming and looking sour. You know I am not a miniaturist.”
It went without saying—Burke would be disappointed that the large and scandalous portrait commissioned would become a palm-sized painting. Whether Susan remained Mrs. O’Brien or not, she would have no considerable likenesses put on canvas.
She adjusted the folds of her sash, resettled her foot on the fainting sofa, and tried to mind the artist. “Tell me more about the O’Brien Steamship Company,” she prompted, scrutiny in a cage having been her reason for agreeing to the sessions.
Auburn curls bouncing, Fabienne dabbed her forehead with a wrist. “I have told you everything I know, madame.”
Then it was time to explore another avenue. “Fabienne. . . so much having happened of late, I have places to go and people to see. Do help me get away from here for a few hours. Please.”
“My answer is the same as yesterday and the day before. And the day before. I cannot. Until I support myself as an artiste, I must not jeopardize my position at the steamship company.” Exotic hazel eyes flashed. “What is more, my first loyalty is to your husband. No one in New Orleans believed a young artist, a femme, could also have a head for figures. Until Monsieur O’Brien defied society.”
“Was he drunk at the time?” Susan asked unkindly.
Fabienne returned a deserved scowl. Setting aside palette, brush, and paints in the precise manner of a bookkeeper, the young woman said, “I do believe your patience is at an end, madame. We will finish the miniature another time.”
Susan was glad for that, but contrite. “Fabienne, forgive me. I am wretched.”
“Your husband is never so, madame. He is a most generous and tender man.”
Unless the black mood beset him. Knowing his frame of mind to have been dismal before his maiden flagship went down, Susan asked, “What was his temper before the Delta Star sank?”
“That you would have to discuss with Mam’selle Harken.”
“Miss Harken? Who is she?”
“His amour. Bonne nuit, Madame O
’Brien.”
The artist flounced out of the bedchamber, leaving Susan to chafe over the existence of “Miss Harken.” Did he still go to her? Most assuredly, he’d had the opportunity. Was he with her now? That last question hurt to the greatest degree.
Don’t be ridiculous. He’d given no reason to doubt him in matters of the flesh.
Fabienne had set out to defend her employer and went too far. They didn’t matter, Burke’s past assignations. Never had he mentioned Miss Harken. Of course Miss Lawrence had come up again and again, like a response to a huge dose of ipecac, but it was silly, selfish, and shallow to repose on this sofa while forces were destroying a marriage.
There was but one person in this city who might hold the key to a mystery of two downed riverboats. Father.
Susan must get to him. There was no use in applying to Zinnia or Keep Smile for aid. As flagrantly loyal to Burke as Fabienne, they had refused several times to help her. She had to help herself.
Let Seymour come to you. Her husband’s words haunted her, for he was right. She’d made her bid. It wasn’t fair to her father’s composure if she kept making a pest of herself. But this call would be for Burke.
It might prove him innocent.
She went to the courtyard balcony. By lantern light, Remy Cinglure sat on a chair with a lap table across its arms, playing solitaire. A tall and flaxen-haired Norman of about her husband’s age, her night guard was pleasant enough, unless put to the test. She flattened her lips. Twice, she’d tried to get away from Cinglure. Twice, she’d gotten caught.
The shuffle of cards drew her attention again. Just as the detective began to deal a new hand, she said, “Monsieur Cinglure, I believe I’ll retire for the evening. You will keep an eye on my son, I trust?”
He motioned across the courtyard. “My man stands guard.”
Susan closed the shutters, locked them as well as the door, and proceeded to shed her clothes. Scissors in hand, she went to Burke’s clothespress and took partial delight in trimming a pair of trousers to fit shorter legs. Well, if the cat didn’t wish the mouse to play, he shouldn’t have left the rat hole!