Destiny's Magic by Martha Hix Page B

those things! He doesn’t know everything. Couldn’t know!”
    â€œYou’d be amazed at what he knows.” An exaggeration on Burke’s part. In hindsight he took no pride in coaxing her story out of the lad. “And I’m no fool. It didn’t take much to patch the gaps together.”
    Burke went to the worktable, draped himself in a chair, and leaned back to study the woman with as many twists and turns as the Mississippi itself. “Black-eyed Susans need sunshine. You’ll wither in the gloom of England.”
    She rushed to the table, slumping down in the seat beside him. “I wane in America. Never have I known peace here. 1 have no skills, save for a way with snakes. I—”
    â€œSpeaking of snakes, I’ve put two and two together. There’s an infection in New Orleans afflicting most of the city. I think you were a part of it. You’re hoodoo.”
    She paled. “I—it is known to me.”
    His teeth ground together. “You’ll be the talk of merry old England, pirouetting around with a serpent twined around you, worshiping chickens. That’ll set the stage for making Pip a fine and accepted English coxcomb.”
    â€œI’ll rear him properly.”
    â€œOn what? Chicken feed?”
    Offense rife, she answered, “Don’t trouble yourself, Captain, with my finances.”
    Obviously she had nothing to count on.
    â€œReckon you’ll escape before the law catches you? I understand you didn’t just up and leave Paget. I understand you knocked him upside the head.”
    She dropped her chin and hugged her arms. “I did hit Orson. With Snooky’s hook. He would have thrown Pippin to the lioness. The only way I could gather our things and get away was to stun him. Even then I had to have help. A kindly stranger held Orson at bay while I grabbed our bags.” Head up, her gaze found Burke. “He brought me to you.”
    Burke drew back from the promise in that last statement. Lust needed quashing. While the idea of diddling her wouldn’t be easy to avoid, Burke would be relieved to turn her over to her father. Whoever he was.
    This was a sorceress. He didn’t mess with magic.
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    Phoebe O’Brien sat shaking in her stateroom. She clutched the magic lamp as if it were a life buoy, she going down for the third time. “Get a grip, Phoebe Louise.”
    Marshaling her wits had little to do with the scare she’d gotten upon finding a sidewinder coiled amid unmentionables, but Throckmorton—such a peach, that man!—had proved a noble knight in matters of long, round, wiggling things.
    Her upset had to do with Burke.
    Over and over again she’d tried to speak with him, had begged for a chance to explain a situation. A very serious situation now that his birthday had passed.
    Phoebe gazed down at the ancient oil lantern, stared at the intricate Arabic symbols etched in the battered brass, then lifted it upward. A sconce lit the handle and shadowed the spout. She tipped it one way, then the other. A certain tranquility stole through her as she marveled at the powers that could be unleashed by merely rubbing the bowl.
    Love and romance. Riches untold. Possibly eternal life or youth. Peace. Happiness. Havoc.
    Once, Phoebe had collared Eugene to ask, “How do you work? How did you go about picking India for Connor? How will you choose ladies for Jon Marc and Burke?”
    He’d given a vague answer. One that roused suspicions that Phoebe had once held. In ’64, after he granted the first two of her wishes—an end to India’s trouble with the Yankee Army; that Jon Marc would leave Confederate service, still upright in his boots—Phoebe changed her mind. Eugene Jinnings got the job done.
    Never mind that his “I cannot explain my powers, but it seems reasonable that the abracadabra reaches out for the nearest available candidate” had been vague. She trusted