Magic and the Texan (25 page)

“How did you know Todd's name is Mortimer?”

Somewhat in the neighborhood of three dozen answers came to mind, yet Bethany hesitated to answer her husband. A good while back she'd vowed never to lie to him again.

Rather than make up a story, she took up the fire-poker and rearranged logs in the hearth. “We've been home for hours. Long enough to change into work britches and shirts, and to take care of several chores. You haven't said one word about Sabrina. Is her mother going to take her away?”

“I don't want to discuss Sabrina.”

“But you went after Terecita, for the very purpose of—”

“Beth, you didn't answer my question.”

“You didn't answer mine, either.” She rubbed her upper arms. “Such a chill. Warm toast would be nice. I could brown those leftover biscuits from breakfast. Or shall I pour us a tot of whiskey?”

“Cut the folderol. I don't want a servile wife. I want the truth.” Jon Marc loomed into her path. “Beth, answer me. How did you know Todd had another name?”

Nothing would be the same, ever the same, if she confessed. Her gaze ascended to her husband's sharp regard. Trouble etched brackets at his mouth. She had the eerie suspicion that he, like any good interrogator, knew the answer before asking it.

“I'm interested in a shot of whiskey,” she said.

Somehow she sidestepped Jon Marc to make for the corner cabinet. Her hand shook as she poured a generous shot into a glass. That hand trembled even more as she brought the fiery contents to her lips. It burned down her gullet. Perhaps it was the conflagration of what was yet to come, she decided. Was there any way to avoid that fire?

She had to try.

With a wan smile plumbed from the very depths of her essence, as if she could ever smile again on her own, she said, “Before my traveling companion succumbed—” fingers moved to make the sign of the cross “—we discussed Hoot Todd. Miss Todd mentioned his given name. I believe Mortimer is Celtic for sea warrior. Quite elegant as a surname in England, I understand. ‘O, how stalwart is thee Mortimer, who sails the seas as mine heart does purr.' ”

“That's awful.”

“That's not fair.”

Jon Marc set his feet wide apart and crossed arms over his chest. “I could mention you've never recited for me before now, but I won't. Let's leave it at: you're awful.”

His assessment made her flat offended. She had no right to call herself a poetess, but her verse had a certain ring to it. At least she hadn't added anything bawdy. “I'd like to hear you come up with something better.”

Her husband took the glass out of her hand to fling it to the hearth. It shattered. “You knew his name. How do you claim? As a wise soothsayer? Or as an untruth-relayer?”

“Is relayer a word?”

Smoke might as well have plumed from Jon Marc's nostrils and ears, so incensed was he. Yet he got still. Very still. His eyes changed from fiery to as cold as the temperature outside their home. “I think I've been made a fool.”

“You're not foolish. Not in the least.”

“I didn't question you too much about why your eyes weren't blue. Or why your hair didn't curl. Did I call you on why you didn't object to a ‘foreign' priest? No. And never once did I mention anything about Aaron Buchanan not carrying a fob watch.”

What could she say, but “true”?

“Let's don't even discuss why you don't eat fish on Fridays. But I do, by damn, wonder why you appealed to
Mortimer's
sense of honor.”

“To make peace for us all.”

“At what price, Bethany?”

“What price is too high?”

The moment she gave that answer, she knew she'd given herself away. Her heart plummeted. Her blood rushed from her face.

Beth Buchanan would never have replied to “Bethany.”

Jon Marc looked equally as stricken. The strength seemed to leech from his formidable body, his shoulders hunching. He dropped his jaw. A lock of old-penny hair fell over his brow. “What has happened here? What did you do? What are we?”

He shoved up his gaze. And it was as if he were seeing his wife for the first time. “Who are you?”

“A good wife.”

“What I wanted was a true wife. I wanted Beth Buchanan. You're an imposter. A liar.”

Beth whirled around to stare at the floor. How could she argue the truth? Her only hope was to throw herself on his mercy. She pivoted to face his disappointment and confusion. “I'm sorry, Jon Marc. So very sorry. All I can offer is myself. I pray I'll be enough. Because I truly love you.”

He stood without moving, until his hands dropped to the side. “You are in fact Hoot Todd's sister?”

“I ... I wish I weren't.”

Jon Marc slammed shut anguished eyes and reared his head back. His lips moved silently. And then he glared at the woman who had vowed to love, honor, and obey him, until death did them part.

The distance in his eyes caused Bethany to shiver, even harder than before.

“Where is my bride?” he demanded.

Her hand went to her heart. “I am your bride. I love you, husband. I'll always love you. Forever. And beyond. I would give my life for you.”

He retreated, the heel of his hand slicing the air. “I don't know you. You're a stranger.”

“That's not so! You know me. I've given you my everything. I have cleaved to you. I'll never be anything but a faithful and loving wife to you.”

“How can this be?” He shook his head, as if to clear cobwebs.

Bethany understood his stupefaction, his antipathy, his quest for honesty, yet the whole of her yearned to be everything he demanded. That couldn't be. She hadn't been born a Buchanan.

“My only thought was to make you a fitting wife,” she whispered. “If you'll listen to what I have to say, maybe you'll understand how I came to be here.”

“Nothing you can say would interest me,
Bethany Todd.
You're not what I want.”

Heartstrings threatened to break. Why hadn't she thought of how deeply she might hurt him, with this black-hearted scheme?

“But, Jon Marc, I am your wife.”

“I pledged to Beth Buchanan, not to Hoot Todd's sister.”

“I am, for all intents and purposes, the woman you sent for.”

He wasn't convinced. “What happened to my bride?”

Jon Marc clamped his hands on Bethany's shoulders, as if to shake her. The seeking stare that she had once cowered from, later relished, now ate into her, leaving her without defense.

She wasn't able to look at him, when he implored, “Tell me, wife. And I don't want any of your stuff and nonsense. Where is Beth Buchanan?”

“She's dead.”

 

 

“I feel as if somebody walked on me grave.”

“Oh, Daddy, don't be talking about dying.” Tessa O'Brien Jinnings dimpled a smile at her elderly father, not that she wasn't approaching elderly herself. “You're just cold. That's all. Do you need another cup of this nice hot cocoa?”

Eugene Jinnings swallowed a groan. He didn't want to get up and fetch Fitz's chocolate. Truly didn't. With the servants having turned in for the night, Tessa would likely send her husband to the kitchen.

The genie burrowed into the lap shawl, closer to Tessa's plump side.

This was a blistering cold night in Memphis. A fire had been lain in the fireplace of the O'Brien family home, where Eugene nestled on a horsehair sofa in the drawing room with his wife, her father in his invalid chair, the latter's feet toasting before the fire.

“I wonder how Jon Marc and his little bride are doing,” Tessa said, her mind never far from her nephews or their families, unless it was to think about Eugene. “I do hope they'll join us at Burke and Susan's home for Christmas.”

“A rancher is Jonny.” Fitz gave his second daughter a kindly smile. “Doona be disappointed if they canna make the journey. 'Tis a cattle drive he is wanting. Ranchers canna leave at the drop of a hat. Another time, Contessa. If we doona see them on me birthday, we will another time.”

“I can't wait to see Jon Marc. Or to meet Beth.” Tessa got one of her stubborn looks, then turned it squarely on Eugene. Her silver ringlets bounced pertly. “I think we should visit. Daddy says we're welcome. I have every right to see what my wish brought dear Jon Marc. I have sat still long enough.”

Not another trip to Texas. Not another! Eugene was still worn out from the last one. He'd never catch up on his naps.

The trouble with living as a non-working genie, he got older. Which had been the foremost wish of Eugene Jinnings, formerly having served as a jinn, the genie to grant wishes. How could a man live in retirement, or expect a pleasant death, if carriage wheels were forever bouncing his bones to pieces?

Eugene oiled a smile at his wife. “Let us not be hasty, milady. And do not despair. Jon Marc and his bride may end up in New Orleans. If we leave, we might pass them in the night.”

“I do wish they had a telegraph office in Fort Ewell.” Tessa's diamond bracelet sparkled as she fluttered a hand. “Why, we could be in touch in no time.”

“Contessa, go be getting yer old da more of that cocoa,” said Fitz.

Her rosy, wrinkled cheeks turning up to Eugene, Tessa cooed, “Genie, my pumpkin, would you . . . ?”

“Contessa, do it yerself, please.” Fitz meant business. “ 'Tis a word I'm wanting t' have with yer husband.”

“You men. You never want to say anything in front of me.”

“ 'Tis because ye are the next best t' a telegraph office, Contessa. Canna have a confidence one, not with ye nosying about, passing along every word t' yer sister.”

“Men.” Grumble she had, but Tessa laid back the covers and headed for the cocoa.

No sooner did she leave than Fitz spoke. “Eugene . . . something bad is happening with Jonny and his bride. I feel it in me bones. They ache. Same as they ached before me grandson gave back his heart t' us.”

“You sense it in your bones, Fitz?” Eugene had his own intuition. “Or is it something you know?”

Fitz picked up one leg, then the other, to set them on the floor. “There's something I have been meaning t' tell ye. That postmaster lad—Liam Short, I believe is his name—said something at Jonny and Beth's to-do. Been drinking the priest's beer, had he, which loosens a lad's tongue. Said he worried about Jonny. Relieved he was, Jonny being happy with Beth. Said he hoped Jonny never found out the truth about her.”

“What truth?”

“The real Beth Buchanan is dead and buried. Methinks Jonny's bride is a woman named Bethany Todd. 'Tis my thinking, and that of the lady sleuth I sent to Kansas. You know her. Velma Cinglure of New Orleans. Used to be Velma Harken. Had her check on Beth. Velma followed Beth's trail. And found out our gal is an imposter. Run out of a town called Liberal, Bethany Todd was. Isna good. Isna good.”

It certainly wasn't.

“ 'Tis also in me bones that Jonny's bride is a good one.” Fitz wiggled into his blanket. “Mrs. Cinglure spoke with folks in our Beth's hometown. A schoolteacher, and the wife of an attorney, vouched for our lass's good character. Jonny's wife was a victim of circumstance. The ladies said she was a good girl, a hard worker, before events turned her bad.”

“Is that so?”

“ 'Tis so. Ran her out of town, did the ladies of Liberal. But they had a change of heart, once truth came t' light. The Baptist preacher turned on a lad named Frye, exposing him as a scoundrel. His wife kicked him out of the house. 'Twas too late to help our Beth, Mrs. Frye and the schoolteacher thought. Not so. They begged indulgence from Velma Cinglure.”

Eugene Jinnings, having lived before the age of Queen Victoria, found nothing titillating in the tales of Liberal. He recalled ribald days in the Renaissance, in the Dark Ages, and all the way back to Roman bacchanalia. He yawned.

Fitz continued speaking. “Done wrong our Beth may have, but I know she loves Jonny. And will be a wonderful wife, like me departed Edna.”

He forever equated fine women with his one and only wife. Of course, he'd never been acquainted with the plum who'd married Julius Caesar.

The genie had never met long-departed Edna, but he did agree with Fitz. Jon Marc's wife seemed a good one.

“Eugene, 'tis help I need. Ye've got t' give it.”

Work was in the offing. Allah, help! The genie said nothing, but he knew Fitz meant toil, knew it as surely as he knew every crevice of Tessa's body. The Creator be praised, Fitz didn't have a clue that the magic lamp still existed.

There was no time to rest on that comforting thought, since Fitz said, “Ye need t' let me have a go at the lamp.”

Surely the crafty old man didn't know . . . Surely!

Eugene shrugged. “I can't help you. The lamp is no more.”

“ 'Tis not what me gardener says. He showed me what he dug up in the petunia bed. Seen enough of that lamp in the past. I knew a portion of it, when I saw it.”

Desperation roused sweat on Eugene's upper lip. “Where is the lamp? If it falls into someone's hands . . . ! Allah, do not do this to me!”

“The lamp is right where ye left it, doona worry. Go get it, Eugene. I'm wanting me three wishes.”

Why not again claim the lantern held no more magic, that its powers had sputtered to nil in the explosion that ripped it apart? Because Eugene held his father-in-law in high regard. And why not? Fitz provided a fine life for his daughter and her husband. Moreover, they had been friends for many years. More than friends. Eugene knew Fitz considered him a son.