“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. Velmaâthey had just met; she wouldn't become merely a friend for another yearâcoaxed 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 orgiesâ
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”âshe blushed againâ“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. When 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 . . .
Well, this was one morning he'd never forget.
Â
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Aye, this proved to be a morning Burke would never forget all the long years of his life. It turned out to be one of the most hellacious.
That wasn't caused by visiting the grand plantation to call on his brother and sister-in-law. Their pairing forestalled his marriage to Antoinette, but he'd gotten over the pain of Conn and Ind's involvement at the onset, in '64.
Nor was the horrific day spoiled by another encounter with his aunt. She kept a distance. Yet . . . if she'd shown her face here in the solarium at Pleasant Hill, Burke would have extended an olive branch. This was how good Susan made him feel.
He now bounced the infant Pays O'Brien on his knee and attributed the child's good looks to her mother, even though she was the spitting image of Connor O'Brien, outside of her complexion, which was all India Marshall O'Brien. “She's a beauty, Ind.”
Dark-haired Connor, who towered over his pint-sized, even darker wife, stood proud as a peacock and squeezed her waist. India smiled, first at her husband, then at his brother. “Why, thank you, sir. We think so, but we may be prejudiced.”
Burke tried to harness the little wiggle-worm known as Pays; she managed to dislodge shirt buttons and to yank chest hairs in the space of a few seconds. It would be some time, her uncle figured, before Pays learned Susan's finesse.
“Better keep your shotgun oiled, Conn. You're going to need it for this one.”
India grinned. “That's what her namesake said. Papa Zekeâyou recall his last name as Pays, don't you?âvows to live long enough to help. In case my husband's aim gets rusty.”
They chuckled, Burke afterward asking after the rest of the clan. Zeke Pays and his wifeâIndia's grandmother, Mabelâwere catching the gulf breezes, Catfish Abbott and his unfortunate mother in party. Burke didn't need to inquire about a specific Marshall, the one Toni loved in vain: Matt Marshall. Burke had always called him Marsh.
As soon as Winston Marshall, father of India and her siblings, had miraculously returned from a protracted voyage to the Orientâand not long after Connor took over plantation managementâMarsh and his wife, along with their young son, had joined his father on another trip to the high seas.
Marsh was meant for the sea.
His taking off had spared Burke from divulging a painful secret. Antoinette hadn't just drawn a last breath. She died giving birth to a stillborn son. That boy might have been Marsh's.
Or Burke's.
The magic lamp had taken two lives.
“Did we tell you about Persia?” India asked, drawing Burke up from the doldrums.
“What about your beauteous little sister?”
“She and her husband have removed to Texas.”
Texas. Where the youngest of the O'Brien brothers had taken up cowboying. “God help Texas.”
“Uncle Bunk, Uncle Bunk!” a black-haired whirlwind, youngest of the three, exclaimed from the archway, bounding from his nursemaid and into the family circle. “Lik-wish. Want lik-wish.”
Winn O'Brien crawled onto Burke's lap to nudge his sister into a lesser spot. “Uncle Bunk, did you bwing my lik-wish?”
“Licorice
. Check the hall tree by the front door.”
Winn sprang from his lap, not unlike a frog, and bounced out to collect his treat.
“We're working on his lisp,” Connor said.
“No, we're not. He'll grow out of it.”
Burke chuckled. The O'Briens of Louisiana loved to argue. The only time to worry about them? When they got too quiet. Even then it wasn't a worry. Their love was the enduring kind.
Pays suddenly screwed up her fine-boned face to let out a howl that would have wakened the dead. Her mother took her from Burke, patted her back, and said, “You'll have to excuse me, gentlemen. This young lady has no patience at mealtime.”
“We're hoping for one more,” Connor confided. “Then we're going to quit.”
“Quit what?” Burke teased, winking at his sister-in-law.
India wasn't a woman to blush, and she didn't now. “Shame on you!” She shook a finger. “And what puts you in such a good mood? Oh. I know.” Her lips clamped.
“You needn't shy from the subject, Ind,” Burke assured her. “My birthday has come and gone.”
India gave Pays a bounce and a “Hush a minute, lovey” before demanding to know: “Don't keep us in suspense.”
“Forgive my wife. She knows what happened.” Connor exhaled. “Aunt Phoebe filled us in.”
“I'm going. This baby is hungry.” India made a quick exodus from what, undoubtedly, she suspected to be the line of fire, despite Burke's heretofore fine frame of mind.
Connor frowned once he and his brother were alone. “You going to marry Miss Seymour?”
“Aye.”
“When you marry a woman, you marry her family. And I recall you washed your hands of Horace Seymour.”
“I spent many an hour strolling through his laboratory. But he's a changed man. Wild-haired, cold-eyed. In a helluva state.”
“He once floated a barge south to the old pirate's cove at Barataria Bay, I recall. Asked you to go along, didn't he?”
“I went out of curiosity. But he'd gathered up everything that reminded him of his wayward daughter. Didn't know he'd blow memories of Susan to smithereens. He crawls my skin.”
“You sure you want that guy for a father-in-law?”
“Hell, no. But I'll have his daughter.”
“Seems you're not fighting the magic spell.”
“I'll make Susan my wife. But I don't want to make her miserable in the doing. I admire her. She's plucky and determined, and a fine mother. And I've got a constant hard-on for her.” Burke chuckled dryly. “Hell, if she were weak like Toni,
I
could take the helm.”
“One of you needs to give. Or you need to find a compromise.” Always the big brother, Connor cautioned, “Be careful, toying with a woman's heart. I wouldn't recommend it.”
Burke studied the ceiling. What would he do to guard her heart? Hellfire, why be concerned? Her heart did not, and might never, beat for Burke O'Brien. “Everything will work out.”
“I understand she has a stepson.”
“Aunt Phoeb
has
been busy yapping.”
Connor paced the room but returned to Burke. “Be careful how you handle the youngster. If anyone knows what it's like, growing up amid family troubles, it's you or me. And Jon Marc.”
“I'll take care,” Burke replied with integrity.
Right then a boom rent the air.
Both brothers leapt in the sound's direction to peer out the tall windows located on the western side of the mansion. Her bow berthed at the wharf, the
Yankee Princess
teetered. A plume of smoke rose from somewhere toward aft. “Holy shit!”
Susan! He had to save Susan.
Already Burke was rushing toward the riverboat.
If the fire reached the holdâ“She'll blow!”