by Martha Hix
No.
Jon Marc recalled something about making the old man a bed, then sending him off the next day. I should’ve thought about the implications of that.
How long would it be before Fitz made his bid for Fitz & Son, Factors?
“Try the lemonade,” Beth said.
“No lemonade,” Jon Marc repeated.
“Where . . . where have you been?” She lowered the glass.
“Taking care of business” was his terse reply.
These folks needed to get moving, not engage in a brush-country version of high tea. Already he knew Sabrina and Pippin were down at the pigsty, the coachman and Sham II with them. Why wasn’t the girl back with Padre Miguel? Jon Marc didn’t have to wonder long. His wife hadn’t respected his order. Which might park Sabrina amid the fury of her father’s wrath.
Pippin, ah, Pippin—that boy didn’t need trouble.
Fury did brew, Jon Marc, fresh from trying to find Hoot Todd, was certain of it. Todd hadn’t been at the cabin he occasionally used, nor had he been at the cantina or anyplace else nearby. Terecita, at Santa Maria, had banged on piano keys and claimed no knowledge of his whereabouts, although she did wax enthusiastic about the gift piano.
It wasn’t a bad idea, giving the musical instrument to the church. Beth did have good ideas, perhaps a heavenly gift. If only I’d listened to her before I left ... and found Peña.
Jon Marc glanced around, his gaze resting on Beth. What should he do about her?
He swung his eyes to the visitors. Jon Marc wanted nothing to do with what he’d left Memphis to be free of. Yet Fitz was in no shape for a battle royal.
Eugene Jinnings? The sleeping eunuch, who’d lived for centuries, had aged somewhat in the past four years. Without the magic lamp, Jinnings would die a mortal. That was his own wish, to fade away an ordinary man, albeit a lazy one cosseted by wealth and privilege.
He was mortal enough to die in the cross fire. Which would break Tessa’s heart. She loved this curious fellow.
Jon Marc couldn’t turn his back on any of them. They needed protection; he must give it. Unless he could get them to leave—each and every one of them—without a fight. And before Todd went on the rampage.
Too bad the genie doesn’t have the magic lamp. It might be useful for a number of things.
The lamp four years gone, Jon Marc faced facts. Fitz was here, with others. Beth ought to be on her way to Laredo, bound and gagged, if necessary. But they were all here, now.
Jon Marc strode to an empty chair, apparently hauled from the kitchen to await him, and sat down. Arms folded over his chest, he decided to ease into demands. “How-d-ya-do?”
Rousing, Eugene flashed a golden smile, the one that had charmed a maidenly Tessa but didn’t hold water with Jon Marc. “Allah be praised, I am fine.”
Beth took a seat.
“Do ye have not a welcoming word for me, Jonny?”
Jon Marc glared at Fitz, and got right to the point. “You are out of line, visiting without being asked.”
“I doona need an invitation to visit an O’Brien,” Fitz came back.
“You reneged on your word.” Jon Marc scowled. “I wrote and asked you to leave me be while I got my wife.” The family hadn’t left his half brothers alone. He might have known he’d be no exception, the bastardy of his birth not carrying weight when it came to curiosity. “You got Pippin to do your answering. You said you wouldn’t darken my doorway.”
“ ’Tis not ye I be here t’ see, Jonny.”
Right. Jon Marc bounced his gaze to Beth, who sat with hands in her lap, while he addressed his words to the grandfather who wasn’t. “You’re here to see what magic brought me.” And to lasso and hogtie me to that coach for a return trip to Memphis.
Memphis, Jon Marc wouldn’t bring up.
Eugene, sitting next to Beth, smiled anew. “A plum, bright and ripe, is your Beth.”
Jon Marc’s scowl settled on the genie. “Don’t mean to be rude, Jinnings, but . . . go get those children from the pigpen. Take your time doing it. Wait for us in the kitchen.”
Lifting his large body from the chair, Eugene dragged himself away, whistling a tune as he went.
“Where would we be finding Abbott?” Fitz then asked.
“He’ll be here directly.” Jon Marc didn’t find it strange that Fitz would ask after India’s nephew. “He’s securing his cabin. And gathering my vaqueros.”
“Hoot,” Beth said succinctly.
Jon Marc nodded. “Right. Hoot. Todd isn’t to be trusted.”
“There’s a thousand dollars in the cookie jar that says he isn’t as bad as you claim. Of course, that was before Peña,” she added, her voice trailing off.
It took biting his tongue for Jon Marc not to ask his wife to follow Eugene. He couldn’t demand she leave. She was, after all, his spouse. She had a right to hear whatever he and Fitz had to say to each other. Again, Jon Marc wondered when the subject of Fitz & Son would rear its repulsive head.
He said to the old man, “You’ve come at a bad time.”
“Aye. Yer wife told me. Trouble with the one calling himself Hoot.”
“You need to pack up and get gone, Fitz.”
“Ye ought t’ know I doona run from fights.”
“You’re too old for this one.”
“I can still fire a rifle, if Pippin will load it for me.”
Jon Marc said, “You should leave for his benefit. It’s going to get ugly around here.” The boy, natural son of a now-dead trapeze artist and a woman not fit to bring a child into the world, had suffered before Susan O’Brien, then Susan Seymour, had rescued him from a circus. Pippin even knew what it was like to have his first father threaten to throw the child into a lion’s den. “Pippin’s had enough ugly.”
Beth shot up, like a soldier raring for combat. “I won’t allow it to get ugly. I’ll find Hoot, and—”
“Sit down, wife! Now. You’re staying put.”
While she retook a seat, her eyes spoke: Bully, my methods are superior to yours. Jon Marc tended to agree. But Peña was dead. They had to go from here. That wouldn’t include cowering behind his wife’s apron strings.
He asked Fitz, “How far to the rear are Tessa and Phoebe?”
“The girls dinna break their word. Contessa stayed in Memphis. Phoebe and her husband are cozy in New Orleans.”
It was unfathomable, the aunties being unwilling to appease inquisitiveness, especially with Fitz making this trip. But they had. Jon Marc swallowed a smile, such an expression not what he wanted to convey at the moment. At least he could trust the aunts.
“Ye will be having another visitor, ye will,” Fitz hinted. “No more than a day or two behind me party.”
“My brothers?”
“Not at all,” Beth said, and Jon Marc resented the hollow feeling that went through him, as well as the yearning to have brotherly love once more. Dammit. Did a man never learn?
“Who?” he wanted to know.
“A chap knowing how to handle a firearm, is me thinking.”
“Don’t talk in riddles, Fitz.” The heel of Jon Marc’s hand sliced the air. “I’m in no mood for it. Who is the mystery visitor?”
“Marcus Johnson.”
Eugene Jinnings, eunuch, known in the Arabic lands as Marid, beheld a sty of swine and two beautiful youngsters, one as foreign-looking as the genie himself. “Hark, children. You must come with me.”
Pippin O’Brien, older by several years than the girl, stopped filling a trough with what appeared to be chunks of fish. “Will Uncle Jon Marc let us stay?”
Having eavesdropped on the conversation at the house, Eugene tugged on his ear bob. Jones had not reacted well to the news that Marcus Johnson would make his presence known.
A mess that needed the grace of Allah, that was what this trip had unearthed. It followed that the Creator would grant no goodwill to heretics. This is where a genie needed his lamp.
Although no one was aware of it, outside Eugene himsel
f, the lamp still existed.
At least a piece of it remained. The genie had retrieved a portion of the bowl, after the Yankee Princess went down in 1868. Not a soul knew that. Or that it was buried behind the O’Brien manse in Memphis.
Tired of toiling at the lamp’s behest, Eugene couldn’t breathe a word about the lamp’s existence. He abhorred work. Or anything related to it. Wishes on the lamp meant work.
This journey had been too much for a lazy jinn, truth be told, which it had been fruitless to mention, Fitz having been set on the trip. A loyal son-in-law, Eugene had proven. Yet he would have preferred to be ensconced at the O’Brien lair in Memphis, tucked up with a hot mug of chocolate and a plump wife who accepted that his tongue was the hardest object that would prod her treasure trove.
Eugene licked his lips.
“Will Uncle Jon Marc let us stay?” Pippin repeated.
“I do not want you to leave.” Shyly, Sabrina sidled up to the older youth. “You have much to learn about pigs.”
“Aw, hush. I ain’t here to learn about pigs.”
Eugene sighed. “Do not say ain’t. Susan would object.”
The boy’s face boiled with indignity. “Momma ain’t here. Anyways, she’s got sons of her own to teach not to say ain’t.”
Thick lips flattened. It was work, trying to make this boy understand his adoptive parents loved him, with no partiality toward their two baby sons. “She would object to your saying ain’t. She has standards where you are concerned.”
“Well, she ain’t here, is she?”
Again, Eugene sighed. Why was it that so much trouble attached itself to families?
Why couldn’t these O’Briens be happy with their lot?
Fitz on his never-ending quest for an heir.
Jones with bandit problems. If the genie could read unsettled faces, which he could, being a canny genie, he knew something smelled in Denmark, where the newlyweds were concerned.
Add that to Pippin’s unhappiness at thinking he was odd son out—In the words of Eugene’s old friend, Shakespeare, something was rotten in Denmark.
Too much work, too much work.
There was no rest for this genie. Pippin needed to know he was loved, so Fitz had demanded the boy come on this trip to “wheel me chair.” The true reason? The patriarch knew his great-grandson admired the wayfarer Jones. Fitz believed the boy would benefit from being near his uncle. Possibly not.
Oh, for a cocoa, a cuddle, and a nap . . .
“Scoot, Pippin,” Eugene suggested. “Go to the house. Work magic on your uncle. So we can be gone at the earliest.”
“How’m I supposed to do that?”
“What is work magic?” Lovely eyes went round as pita.
Pippin cast her a look of disgust. “ ’Brina, don’t you know nothing about English? Uncle Eugene knows I’m the best one to make Uncle Jon Marc see the light.”
“I do not understand. You speak too quickly.” The girl bored hazel eyes into Pippin. “What is ‘see the light’?”
A beacon Jones will never see.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The last light of day faded.
Jon Marc lit a lantern, set it on the passageway floor, and wished he could retreat from his wife and nephew, plus Hoot’s daughter, who’d gathered to catch evening breezes. Perhaps he just needed an excuse to be away from here, where he could think. Quietly, silently. And come to grips with the news that his begetter was on the way.
Too bad there couldn’t be a limit on how many problems a man could tackle at once.
“Wanna play some checkers? Great-granddaddy brought his set along.” Pippin grinned at his uncle. “Bet I can beat you.”
Jon Marc swallowed a groan, knowing he could have Sabrina halfway to Fort Ewell by the time he finished a game of draughts. For his nephew’s sake, he couldn’t be rude.
“No checkers,” Beth put in with the authority of a mother. “It’s late. And you, young man, have had a long journey. Off to bed with you. You, too, Sabrina.”
Already Fitz had settled into the parlor. Beth had insisted old bones shouldn’t sleep on a cot, even though Fitz had slept on a cot since leaving the steamship that brought his party to Galveston for the overland trip here.
Eugene would put up on that cot, next to the sofa. Beth had made a pallet for Pippin, next to the cot. When Sabrina asked where she might light her head, Beth smiled sweetly, assuring the girl no one would mind having her pallet beside their bed. Jon Marc would gladly strangle his wife for her suggestion.
She wanted to save face, he figured. If he took to his bedroll, it wouldn’t bode well for their standing as newlyweds. Jon Marc would not light his head beside hers, face or no face.
Beth got a stern look. “Get ready for bed, children.”
“Okayyyy.” Pippin’s grouse lost its fizzle as he clipped salutes to the hostess and to Sabrina. “Tomorrow we’ll play checkers. I’ll teach you, if you want, ’Brina.”
No telling what the morrow would bring.
“Count Sabrina out,” Jon Marc informed his nephew. “She’s going home.”
“I do not have a home.”
“Yes, you do.” Jon Marc crossed arms over his chest. “With Padre Miguel.”
“But I want to stay with Tristan.”
“Tristan?” Jon Marc and Beth echoed in unison.
“That’s the name ’Brina picked for me.” The boy slid a hand behind Sabrina’s waist. “Momma and Dad said I could choose my own name, whenever I wanted to. Pippin just ain’t proper for a grown fellow. My woman’s got good taste.”
Great, just great. On top of everything else, they must contend with puppy love. Jon Marc, before stomping away to gather a rope to hogtie Sabrina, bent his glare at an equally strong-minded female. This is your doing, Beth O’Brien.
“Husband?”
Why was Jon Marc not surprised at hearing Beth’s voice? He might have known she’d follow him. He should have walked faster, since she’d no doubt try to stop him from his rope-goal. Turning to her as she fell into step, he sued for reason. “You’ve got to agree to send Sabrina back to Santa Maria. You’ve got to understand why it’s necessary.”
“I do. It’s for the best. She’ll have to go.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s been a long while since you’ve thanked me for anything,” she said in a hushed tone.
He knew what she meant. Once, he’d told her gratitude would accompany each kiss, but that had been in his gullible days. “So be it.”
“Jon Marc, I know you have problems, but would you please listen to mine? I-I’m crying on the inside. For you, for me. And for Sabrina. I fear—especially now, with things unsettled around here—Terecita will send her away. Forever.”
He studied his wife. Even in the darkness of night, he could read the anguish in her features. Beth, who loved that kid, and probably the hombre she’d tricked into marriage.
Oh, Beth. What am I going to do about you?
The meanest varmint in the county couldn’t have denied her a comforting arm. Jon Marc surely didn’t. He laced an arm around her shoulders. “Honey, Sabrina will be better off, away from La Salle County.”
“Would you allow me to help her? Please! I’ll repay you. I’m growing plenty of vegetables. I can sell them. And I could take in sewing. Anything! If I pay her tuition, she can go to school in town. At least I’d be able to see her occasionally.”
“For your own good, you need to cut loose from Sabrina.”
Beth’s shoulders wilted. “I can’t. I love her.”
“She’s not yours.”
Balling her fist, she thumped it against her chest. “She is in my heart. Right here! And here she will stay.”
Jon Marc took her shoulders and gazed into her eyes. “You may not have a choice in it. Her mother makes Sabrina’s decisions. But . . . oh, Beth, if Terecita allows it, I don’t see why we can’t do what we can to educate the girl.”
Complete reversal—this was the change in Beth’s de
meanor. Quick as a blink, she threw her arms around him, bracing on tiptoes to kiss his lips.
Hands that ought to know better slid into her hair. His mouth responded to hers. So did Mighty Duke. Fool, stop. You don’t know enough about this wife of yours.
He set her away. “Enough.”
“Yes, I suppose it is. I shouldn’t push you.” Hugging her arms, Beth took off to the right to study the ground, then the sky. She whirled around. “We should keep a distance, until you know I love you.”
“That’s right.” His tone was crisp, his heart shaky. But he had to set something straight. “Beth, I want you to know something. I tried to find Todd. To make peace.”
“You don’t know how that pleases me,” she said, her voice showing every bit of it.
“Let’s hope it works. I don’t know how to deal with a jackal.”
“He’s not as unreasonable as you might believe.”
“Beth . . . I’d prefer not to discuss Todd with you.”
“Maybe we should change the subject.” She stepped closer. “Jon Marc, Fitz brought a message from your brother. Burke. You should ask about it.”
“You tell me.”
“Burke tried to write several times, but never felt he got the wording right. So he never sent a letter. Anyhow, he feels awful that he didn’t get his feelings across, before you left Louisiana. You see, he got over resenting your shooting that madman. But Burke was so caught up in reconciling with his wife that he didn’t express himself. He bears you no grudge. And hopes the two of you can be brothers again.”
Eyes closing, Jon Marc dropped his shoulders. So, Burke wanted to mend fences. A thousand thoughts crossed his mind, one on top of the other. He settled for a halfhearted “That would be nice.”
“I’m relieved you feel that way.”
Trouble was, she didn’t leave well enough alone. Having softened her husband up, she went in for the kill. “Jon Marc, Fitz didn’t tell everything about Marcus Johnson.”
The lousiest feeling caved through Jon Marc; it got more hollow. “I don’t want to know what it is. My haven’s been violated, infringed upon. Trespassed against. And the main encroacher has done me even dirtier. Why on earth did Fitz see fit to tell Johnson where to find me?”
