Destiny's Magic (28 page)

Two weeks after Throck's announcement, Susan insisted not only on leaving her bed, she demanded that Keep Smile drive her to the street that was so aptly named Bourbon.
Furious
described her. She would confront the sot who hadn't once deigned a visit to his felled wife.

She found him in a hole-in-the-wall public house, propping up the bar, the sole customer at two in the afternoon.

His nose in a glass filled with whiskey, he didn't notice her lurching approach. He resembled reheated hell—hair wild and dirty, bags under his eyes, splint as filthy as his clothes. He smelled as if he'd spent a lifetime in a distillery, or on the floor of a public house.

The urge to turn back was a force to be reckoned with. But this visit had little to do with her feelings. She must harden her broken heart. Her marriage might be over, but she would do her best to save the man.

Unable to sit on one of the hard stools, and not wanting to, she sidled up beside him. “Celebrating?”

“Susan . . .” He grabbed the bar edge, her miniature falling to the crusted floor. “What are you doing here?”

“Celebrating.” She motioned for the barkeep. “Bring me two of whatever he's having.”

Burke took the drink out of her hand, saying, “You don't have any business here.”

Neither do you
. “You're going to do me out of a good-bye drink?” she asked in a chipper tone that belied her bodily urge to crown him with that whiskey bottle. “Let's celebrate, husband. Everything is going well for you and the O'Brien Steamship Company.” That was a laugh.

A drunken grunt was Burke's reply.

“This is all my fault,” she admitted quietly. “I shouldn't have gone to the dock. You always did your level best to keep me and Pippin safe, yet in my greed to get him for my own, I ran after Angela.” Susan swallowed. “Yet you were in Judge Duval's chambers, signing adoption papers. Pippin was ours, while I defied your orders.”

“You never did like cages.”

“I thought I disabused you of that misconception.”

He slugged another shot of rotgut.

Her mouth flattened with disgust. “Are you waiting for me to thank you for the two tickets to England?”

“Not.”

“I don't think I'll be able to travel just yet.” She didn't feel at all strong this moment, her strength ebbing. “When we do leave, will you come down to the wharf to bid me and Pippin bon voyage?”

“No.” Burke quaffed a slug of rotgut.

Could she rouse a bit of wisdom with reminders of the future? “I've decided to open a seamstress establishment once I get settled.”

“Do as you please.”

Don't let that hurt you.
“Then I was quite mistaken. I presumed you meant it when you said you loved me.”

“Go away, Susan. You got your boy. Now go away.” He tipped the glass to his lips. “Leave me be.”

“I will not. I love you.”

“The gris-gris worked.”

“It was unnecessary.” She almost touched him. Almost. “I've loved you all along. You were always magic to me.”

“I don't know how.” He took another slug of rotgut. “I failed you, just as I failed in the past. I couldn't keep you, or our babe, from harm.”

Susan wouldn't cry. Not now! “We could have another child.”

“No. No more. Not with me. Find yourself a coxcomb, one who hasn't messed up too many lives. Make a fresh start in England, you and Pip. I've told Fabienne Laure to transfer money into your name.”

Susan nearly hated him at that moment. What would it take to knock sense into his thick head? “Isn't it a shame, this place not having a mirror over the bar? Then you could take a look at yourself. You're quite a sight, Captain O'Brien. You'd get a gander at the weakling Rufus West accused you of being. You are
not
the man I married, to be sure.”

“You knew what you were getting.”

Not quite. “Burke, you aren't responsible for Antoinette. Her course was set before you ever met her. Which doesn't mean I'm not sympathetic to her, or that you lost your child.”

“I'm not even certain he was mine.” Burke motioned for a refill. “All I know is, she never stood a chance. She and her child never stood a chance. I wasn't able to help her. Just like I wasn't able to spare your suffering. You'll be better off without me, Susan. I'm not worth having. Go home. And I mean to England.”

That made Susan flat angry. “You're not even certain that child was yours! You've wrecked your life over a faithless woman? Thank you very much. You've cleared my head. Thank you for the tickets. Once”—when she'd recovered, she thought—“Phoebe and Throck are wed, I'll take you up on your offer. But rest assured, I won't take your seed money. You've given me quite enough of yourself already.”

His bleary eyes turned to her. “Susan, don't. Don't say any more. Just go.”

“I do believe this is a free country, sir. With free speech guaranteed by the Constitution. You can't stop me from talking.” She got in his stinking face. “Wake up and smell the coffee, Burke O'Brien. Do something to rectify the past. Or learn to accept yourself as is. If you cannot, then do enjoy your drink, sir.”

She picked up the bottle and poured the contents into his lap. He didn't even give her the satisfaction of flinching.

“Bloody bastard. Go right ahead, brood into your drink. Carry on grieving for your precious Yankee princess who was never worthy of you. Don't bother to think about me. Nor the child you can be damned certain was yours.”

He took her hand, but she yanked it back.

“She . . . I didn't love her. Not like I love you.” His eyes watered. “Don't you realize I'm setting you free because I love you?”

“Then prove it!” Susan gathered her pride. Never looking back, she parted with: “But don't come to me a failure. And don't show your face until you have forgiven and forgotten everything that you view as connected to that damned magic lamp!”

 

 

Inside the squalid grog shop, Burke had never been this sober. He stared vacantly at his sodden lap. The tears of a weakling mixed with the poured whiskey. He didn't move until he heard Susan's conveyance pull away from the banquette of Bourbon Street, and when he did, he rushed to fresh air. To watch as the carriage turned southward, carrying his cherished wife away.

A drunk he was, but it had taken all his strength not to gather Susan to him, mingle his tears with hers for their lost child, then give in to her pleas, those issued before that final adieu. He hadn't. For her sake. He was unworthy of the earth goddess who'd transformed into a wonderful spate of wifely contradictions. She did deserve better than he could ever offer.

And now she'd have her chance at better. She'd have her dreams.

Aye. But what good could he do her, like this?

That would mean forgetting the past, as she'd advised so wisely. Burke glanced into the grog shop, then toward the street of Canal. He could go back to whiskey. Or he could do whatever it took to make a man out of himself.

He didn't have what it took.

The years had proven that.

You can't change the past
. But he could do something about the future. And the first step was never taking another drink.

 

 

Susan waited a week for her husband to return, but he didn't. She and Pippin, along with Zinnia, took Throck and Phoebe up on their offer of shelter. Lost, empty, and unhappy, Susan went to the booking office and exchanged the tickets for passage on a sailing ship to leave Halloween afternoon.

She told herself that this would allow for attendance at the upcoming Halloween wedding, but giving Burke ample time to crawl out of the ditch of drink was her true intention.

Halloween arrived. Susan had healed, at least in body. The doctor had given her a clean bill of health. She could travel, and would. She had no reason not to.

All these weeks, and she'd heard nothing from Burke. But she wouldn't ask after him. She had, nevertheless, sent a package to his office. She couldn't in good faith wear her jewelry, so she'd sent it back to the source.

Throck and Phoebe left early for the church, where they would congregate with the rest of the O'Briens. Susan, along with Pippin and their escort, lagged behind. She refused to show a downcast face until she had to.

A coach would arrive soon, would take the threesome to the wedding. Sitting on the porch of Aunt Phoebe's cottage, Susan had her valises packed.

She and Pippin would go straight from the church to the wharf. Her sullen son stood behind their belongings, Zombi's crate at his side. He didn't understand the situation, but neither did Susan. Her whole existence had dissolved into heartache.

Another person sat on the porch as well. Jon Marc O'Brien, reading a book of poetry, one booted foot cocked up on the rail, his Texas hat on the swing beside him. She studied her brother-in-law. He wore a yoked shirt that hugged muscular shoulders, and dress britches over long, long legs. Craggy and rugged, he had a shock of sorrel-hued hair that tumbled over his brow and roofed light-brown eyes. As India had mentioned, he was so ugly, he was pretty.

He would escort Susan and Pippin to the wedding ceremony.

Closing the book, Jon Marc glanced over at her. “Nice of you to sew me that shirt, ma'am.” He spoke with a drawl from having spent several years on the frontier. “It's about the nicest thing any lady's ever done for this ole cowpoke.”

She smiled wanly, her sympathies going out to this man who didn't want sympathy. All he wanted was to live his Texas life and not have the O'Briens interfere with it.

It had been a sacrifice on his part, heeding India's invitation, then returning for the wedding of a woman who wasn't truly his aunt.

“Think nothing of the gift,” Susan replied. She'd started it for Burke. Why let it go to waste? Besides, she intended to stay in practice. Once reaching Sussex, she would open that seamstress shop. There would be no more depending on anyone.

“Jon Marc, you know about the magic lamp. Does it scare you, the prospect of meeting your bride on the specified date?”

His mouth twisted into a small grin. “Well, you see, ma'am, it's like this. I figure to stack the deck in my favor. I'll make certain she's perfect
before
I meet her.”

Susan couldn't help but laugh. She thought she'd forgotten how. “Good for you, Jon Marc. Good for you.”

A fine coach then pulled up.

“It's time to leave,” she said to Pippin.

“I don't wanna go.” He proceeded to let out a screech that sent birds from the trees.

“Enough of that, Pippin.”

“Dad said if you ever tried to take me away, all's I'd have to do was throw the fit of my life, and he'd come running.”

Jon Marc stretched to his feet, ambled over, and proffered his arm. “Shall we go?”

“She's not going anywhere. Except to a wedding, then to 21 rue Royale.”

Burke!

“Dad! ”

The splint gone, a fruit crate in his right hand, he climbed the front steps. Shaved, sober, and his green eyes as bright as she'd ever seen them, her husband smiled. She got a glimpse at that crooked tooth, the one that had always given him character.

The rhythm of her heart soared to the heavens above.

Pippin shot past her and threw his arms around Burke's waist. “I knew you'd come, Dad. I just knew you would.”

“There's a good lad.” Ruffling the cowlick at Pippin's crown, he bent down to the boy's level. “Wonder what's in the box? Why don't you have a look?”

A trio of whimpers from the subject crate announced a bloodhound even before Pippin tore the bindings away. “Shamrock!” he squealed, and took the fat pup into his arms “Baby Shamrock.”

Jon Marc cleared his throat. “How 'bout I load up this stuff, brother?”

“Do that, Jones.”

Jon Marc and Pippin set to work as Burke straightened to his full lofty height.

“Just one minute, Burke O'Brien,” Susan put in. “I haven't agreed to go anywhere with you.”

“That's up to you.” He soldered his gaze to Susan. “You're needing a ride to church, then to the dock. No need paying a hackney.”

The luggage and onlookers disappeared into the coach.

Burke got closer to Susan. “You owe me a wish.”

“Do I?”

“You do.”

He pulled her to him and crushed her lips with a kiss. Her traveling hat fell away as she laced her arms behind his neck. “I've been out of town, getting my head together,” he disclosed when they stopped to catch their breath. “I wouldn't come back until every trace of the poison was out of my system.”

After all the hell he'd put her though, she felt deserving to make him suffer a little. “What if I'd been gone?”

“I can find England on a chart and Sussex on a map. You can't get away from me.”

“Well, then, where the devil have you been?”

“Spent some time at a shipyard upriver,” he said. “They're building us a new flagship. Would you do the honor of christening her when she's ready?”

“Of course I will.”

“Glad to hear it. Hope you won't be offended. I'm calling her
Black-eyed Susan.”