River Magic

by Martha Hix

  “Fellow officers.” Connor smiled, then took India’s elbow. “May I present my new bride? We’ve been honeymooning on my brother’s riverboat. This is her first visit to the South. Say something to these nice gentlemen, darling.”

  Her talent with voices came in handy. “Pleased to meet you,” she said in her best imitation of a Northern accent. “Honest Abe’s whiskers—is it always this hot down here?”

  “She’s India Marshall, I tell you. Arrest her!”

  Matt hurried down the last of the three decks of steps leading from the bridge. “What’s—”

  Please don’t give us away, Mattie!

  “Mr. Smith,” she said swiftly, deeming it unwise to call attention to the Marshall name. “These gentlemen are searching for an abducted lady. Annabel Lawrence, did you say, gentlemen?” She cocked her head as if for confirmation, then bent eyes on her brother again. “As well, they don’t believe I am the new Mrs. Connor O’Brien, or that I am the former Scheherazade—remember, I told you my parents believed in abracadabra”—Lord, let him get the distress message—“Meade.”

  He got it. And covered his Southern accent, too. “Fascinating story. But we’re weeks late reaching port—an outbreak of smallpox, you see. We’ve got goods for the Army. Excellent grains from Iowa. Wouldn’t want to hold up the war effort any longer, would we?”

  “They’re all lying!”

  Captain Ball, obviously peeved—and unwilling to court trouble with the powerful General George Meade—rounded on Lawrence. “Sir, you’re distraught, what with your recent illness and the abduction of your niece. Let’s allow these good people to pass, while we get on with our search for Miss Lawrence.”

  Luck on one hand, craps on the other. There was no way India and Connor could leave the Delta Star. Not with a search party aboard. The fortune would have to wait awhile longer.

  Antoinette needed help.

  India lifted gloved fingers to dab her forehead. “Dear, I’m feeling faint. The heat, you know. And the distress of being called a criminaless,” she added, raising a brow at the furious Lawrence. “Perhaps, dear husband, you might escort me back to our cabin so that I may dress in cooler clothing.”

  “As you wish, Scheherazade, my pet.”

  “What a crocka shit! Well, you ain’t seen the last of me!” As the “married” couple swung around, Lawrence charged past them, directing his bulk toward the bridge. “Where’s Anty and that son-of-a-bitch what stole her away?”

  Matt to their rear, India and Connor strolled in the opposite direction from the search party. “Head for Antoinette’s stateroom,” she said out of the side of her mouth.

  Upon gaining the steamship’s interior, Matt voiced an idea. “I’d best alert the crew, in case we need to move fast.”

  “Do it,” said Connor.

  India gave silent thanks that Antoinette’s slippers hadn’t fit. She wore sturdy boots. She and Connor took off at a run, rushing for a particular stateroom. A series of knocks brought Burke; they charged inside. Antoinette sat crying. Burke looked white beneath his tanned face.

  “Your uncle.” Connor spoke fast. “He’s aboard.”

  “Don’t let him get me.” Antoinette fell at Burke’s feet, tugging on his britches leg. “I’m sorry I can’t marry you, but if you still love me, even a bit, protect me!”

  “You’re safe.” Burke’s voice held a ragged strain. “And I’ll always love you.”

  “What should we do?” India asked. “Burke, he’s accused you of abduction.”

  Antoinette trembled. “Burke, I’ll have to see him, sooner or later. Now is for the best. Now, when I have you behind me.”

  Nothing any of them said changed her mind.

  The moment the foursome reached the main deck, Lawrence’s sour expression took on real concern. “Anty, look at your face.”

  She kept a distance from her uncle. “It appears you caught smallpox from me. From your personal contact with me.”

  He had enough decency to appear embarrassed, but there wasn’t much of that in him. He rattled off his plainly rehearsed speech, which the Natchez brigade took a dim view of, after his accusation against the great General Meade’s very own niece.

  Lawrence jabbed the air with his finger, pointing at Burke. “That sidewinder stole my niece.”

  Antoinette looked him in the eye. “I left of my own free will. To escape your sickening ravagement.”

  “Ma’am,” said the Union captain. “You’ll have to come ashore with us.”

  “It’s my word against a Union colonel, isn’t it? When has my word ever counted?” Antoinette’s eyes grew bleak. “Uncle, how far must I go to escape your pawing hands?”

  From the looks of him, this was a story that Connor’s brother hadn’t heard. Fury turned his tanned face vivid. He lunged for Lawrence, but the four Union privates wrestled him down, held him fast.

  Lawrence grabbed Antoinette and pulled her toward the stern of the Delta Star.

  Connor, India in his wake, went after the panicked victim. “Remove your hands, Lawrence,” he ordered. “Now!”

  The colonel whirled around, Antoinette tight in his stranglehold. He pulled a pocket pistol, leveled it at Connor. “Stay outta this, La Dee Dah.”

  The engines idling beneath the deck vibrated India’s feet, echoed in her ears during the stand-off’s silence. She cast a backward glance at the quartet still subduing Burke. They were losing supremacy.

  “Put down the gun, Lawrence,” said Connor.

  Such wasn’t of interest to the miscreant.

  A privy hatch burst open, into his path. A craggy mariner—the second mate Throckmorton—sailed forth. “St. Elmo’s light!” His eyes ricocheted from one blue uniform to the next. “ ’Re we un’er attack from army fleas?”

  Connor shoved Throckmorton out of the way.

  Antoinette seized opportunity. She wiggled, ducked, whirled around, running aft.

  Lawrence, flustered and confused, looked down at his pistol, then shifted rocklike eyes to India and the rest. With a roar of rage he pivoted in his niece’s direction. As fast as his bulk could carry him, he hurried after her.

  Connor bolted aft, India and Captain Ball to his rear.

  Lawrence stretched out the arm holding the pistol, fired at his niece, yelling, “Ain’t nobody gonna have you but me!”

  He missed his mark; she continued to flee, her screams rending the air. She reached the stern, climbed the rail.

  “No,” someone shouted; India realized it was her own warning. “Don’t jump!”

  But Antoinette pitched over the rail—skirts flying over her back. Lawrence dropped his gun, screaming, “Anty, no!” She fell into the paddles that suddenly began to rotate. Whoever was at the helm had misread the commotion down here. It was later that India learned Throckmorton gave the order.

  India screamed to the top deck, then down toward the boiler room. “Cut the engines! Now!” She stumbled to the rail, seeing a horrible sight. “Cut the engines!”

  Caught in the paddles and wailing pitifully, Antoinette rose with her tethers. Everything and everyone seemed to move as if stuck in time. It seemed longer than forever that Antoinette revolved, like a sacrifice served up to the gods.

  Burke O’Brien, freed of his bonds, was dashing to the rail, casting off coat and shirt. As did Connor. The soldiers stormed Lawrence, wrestled him to the deck as both brothers lugged off boots, their muscled backs sweat-coated.

  “Heaven help them,” Captain Ball uttered to India, “those idiots are gonna go after her.”

  “My worries exactly.”

  In a fluid yet hurried motion, Burke dove into the water, Connor following suit. With a pitiful wail, almost the sound of an injured gull, Antoinette disappeared in the brown water. Keelhauled beneath those huge blades.

  India watched, horrified. She’d lost Winny to this ugly river. Would Connor or Burke or Antoinette—or all—lose their lives in the Mississippi? Please don’t let them die.

  Connor surfaced, th
en dove under the paddles again. The engines stopped. Too late. An awful splotch of red then mingled with the brown water. Someone was hurt.

  Or dead.

  Twenty-four

  They brought her to the surface of the Mississippi, Burke and his elder brother heaving her gently upward, her clothing ripped by the paddle wheels, her body broken as well as her mind and spirit. Antoinette Lawrence would never be the same.

  Her odious uncle, a man who hated himself almost as much as he hated everyone save for his niece, gagged as he laid eyes on the result of his violence. He tried to throw himself beside her, but the army men restrained the transgressor, Captain Ball ordering him placed under arrest for attempted murder.

  The disabled Delta Star crept to her moorage; Antoinette’s spurned but adoring beau suffered in silence, draping his discarded black coat over her limbs, then carried her away from the stern. Lawrence’s eyes stalked them as far as the hatchway; he cried and bawled about the bitter injustices of his life, especially about losing out to “trash like them O’Briens.”

  “Send for the doctor,” India appealed to Captain Ball.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  India, Connor at her side, followed Burke and his burden to the quarters he occupied as owner of the line and captain of this ship. Before entering, India spied the gangplank being lowered to the narrow strip of land beneath the Natchez bluffs. She had no interest in watching Captain Ball and his men lead Lawrence to the civil authorities on the hill.

  Connor’s brother peeled back the mosquito netting and laid the injured Antoinette on his bed in the commodious room furnished with a desk, tables, chairs, plus stacks of books and navigational charts. Her blood ran over the satin coverlet, and he prayed aloud for her recovery.

  It had been a treacherous day for Burke, learning that Antoinette not only didn’t love him, neither would she become his wife. “Her past wouldn’t’ve stopped me from calling for a preacher,” he agonized to no one in particular, but mostly to his elder brother, “if she’d given any sign of a changed mind.”

  India placed a blanket over his wet, bare shoulders. He didn’t seem to notice, but did say, “I promised to protect her from harm. I failed.”

  “Don’t punish yourself,” Connor advised, but his brother wouldn’t listen.

  India had already begun to tend the form ravaged by incest, disease, and injury. For modesty’s sake—Antoinette had, after all, made it clear Burke’s hands never touched her—India replaced the coat with a clean sheet, ducking under it to cut away the remaining clothes. Both legs were broken, and a right arm. After stanching the flow of blood from open wounds, she set about to make the patient comfortable, even crooned to her.

  Eyes stared, vacant and unfocused, even though the injured girl hadn’t lost consciousness. She murmured not a whimper, not a cry, lost to this world—as surely as if she’d breathed a final breath.

  “At last she’s escaped her uncle,” India whispered to Connor, mindful not to let his brother hear. “She’s escaped into a place no one can reach her.”

  “Heaven help her.”

  Matt strode into the improvised sickbay. “Major,” he said quietly, his gaze showing compassion for the young woman who would have chosen him over her greed, “I don’t wanna disturb the captain, but I could use a hand overseeing. We’ve got to get the stores off-loaded and the paddles patched up.”

  “No problem.” Connor, shirtless, his britches still wet, patted his brother’s shoulder. “Call, if you need me.”

  “Go help Marsh.”

  Alone with her patient and Burke, India felt green eyes drill her, sensed his need to talk.

  Slumping into a chair at bedside, he said, “Terrible, how life plays out. You awaken in the morn, feeling as if the world is yours to conquer. Then you get hit from all sides.”

  That could have described him, but India figured he meant the lamentable swan song for his lady. “I’m awfully sorry, Burke. I know she meant so much to you.”

  “If she had an ounce of your grit, Miss Marshall, she could’ve fended off that lecherous uncle.”

  Since boarding the Delta Star, India and Connor had come up against so much resistance from the steamer’s captain that she’d begun to feel he’d forever keep a distance. He’d never used her given name, though he was wont to shorten everyone else’s. Yet she understood him. The magic lamp had been a curse, keeping him from his chosen bride, and India would always be a reminder of that curse.

  Hearing his praise balmed her uneasiness, though.

  His broad shoulders hunching, he raked the long fingers of both broad hands through wet devil-black hair. “Why didn’t someone stop that satyr from touching her?”

  “That, I can’t answer. But I know Antoinette thought beauty was all she needed to survive,” India said. “It was both the making and the ruin of her.”

  “Aye, you’re right.” He studied Antoinette. “But what of today? Can we be certain that bloody lamp didn’t play a part in this?” Burke leaned toward the bed, propping elbows on it and setting his forehead against a pair of whitened fists. “If I never see Tess O’Brien again, it’ll be too soon.”

  It was a relief, the bespectacled Natchez doctor arriving at this moment. India felt somehow guilty for Tessa’s wishes, and being basically alone with the odd-man-out in the game of magic that started with good intentions made her uncomfortable.

  “Do better than your level best for her,” Burke demanded of the doctor.

  “I don’t work for free. Can’t. Got a family. And you Yankees sap too much of my time, with no monetary reward.”

  “You’ll get your cash.” Nostrils flared, eyes blazed. “Set to work, man.”

  The physician nodded. Looking through the square eyeglasses that roosted a half inch above the tip of his nose, he examined Antoinette, then instructed India as she assisted in stitching the lacerations and placing the splints. Afterward, he gave a prognosis. “The lady’s bones’ll heal. I’m not as confident about her wits.”

  Wiping his hands, he elaborated. “I’d leave a bottle of laudanum, but I doubt she’ll be feeling any pain, and it’s too scarce hereabouts to waste.”

  “What exactly are you meaning, sawbones?”

  “Well, Cap’n O’Brien, I know she didn’t just fall overboard. Cap’n Ball says she ran from a disreputable uncle. I’ve seen cases like this before. A shock to the brain, mixed with a trauma to the body, breaks down the mental faculties. Best you send her to her people. She’ll need constant care.”

  The doctor packed the tools of his art in a satchel. “I can see after her in my office, provided I get paid upfront for services and keep. The war, you know. Can’t afford charity. When she’s ready, I’ll have her moved to an asylum.”

  “Forget it.” Burke spoke curtly. “See the purser on your way out. He’ll pay you.”

  “Fine and dandy.” Holding his satchel at midriff level, the physician tipped his hat and went to collect his fee.

  “Damned quack. So much for mercy from men of medicine.” Burke hovered over Antoinette. “What do you want me to do about you, Toni? Speak to me.”

  Of course, she didn’t, but India did. “Who’ll take care of her?”

  “Toni never mentioned family.” Those green eyes went to India, searching for an answer. “You were her confidante. Who does she have beyond that cretin uncle?”

  “No one,” India replied, recalling Antoinette’s second protracted confession, given just last evening, one in which she’d talked about a widowed mother who’d established a tavern only to guzzle the profits. “Just us.”

  “Us?” Melancholy drenched Burke’s baritone. “I don’t believe she’d want me handling her. She’d want Marsh.”

  “Know something—well. ’Marsh’ is a happily married man. Moreover, she confided in me. My brother never encouraged her.”

  “Whoa. Take it easy. You took me wrong. I meant to say he’s the one Toni wanted. Don’t think I’m accusing Mathews Marshall of pussyfootin’ around. Man
y a night he’s filled my ears with talk of his wife and son. He’s a good man and a fine mariner, one I’d be proud to keep as first mate.”

  In that he trusted her brother implicitly gave India relief. No one aboard this vessel needed more trouble. They had enough as is. She glanced down at the vacant eyes. “Burke, I promised Antoinette a home. She’ll have one. At Pleasant Hill.”

  Burke studied her warily. “Pleasant Hill? How would that work out? You’ve got Port Hudson to conquer. And Conn’s not got that much time to report to Colonel Lewis. Even if the war ends tomorrow, Conn won’t take root at a cotton plantation.”

  Uneasy at the reminder of just how precarious the future was, India crossed her arms at her midsection. “You needn’t worry about Antoinette’s welfare. We’re accustomed to mental illness at Pleasant Hill. My own sister suffered a shock, though not of the physical sort. America’s grief for her husband was a last blow to her heart. The family is seeing after her, and the Marshalls will see after Antoinette.”

  “Ind, that’s too much to ask of your people.”

  He’d shortened her name, a good sign. On the heels of an avaricious physician, though, India wouldn’t make mention that money for an attendant would go a long way in easing the strain. Before leaving Pleasant Hill, she sold her mother’s wedding china to pay for sister America’s nurse.

  Spode china would only go so far.

  A solution might be no more than five miles downriver. Buried in the root cellar that sister China had once called her own.

  Right then Connor strode into the captain’s quarters, went to his woman. The tingle that swept through India every time he touched her happened again, despite the sad situation.

  Concern bracketing the mouth that her flight from Illinois had grooved, he nudged his head toward Antoinette. “How is she?”

  India shrugged. “Depends on how you look at it.”

  Connor blew out a puffed breath, then addressed his brother. “Except for one, the paddles held fast. We got it repaired. And the hold is empty. Marshall says we can steam out in a half hour or less. I suggest we do it. I’m uneasy. If Captain Ball checks on General Meade’s ’niece,’ we won’t make it to Port Hudson.”