Destiny's Magic by Martha Hix Read Free Book Online

injured.”
    â€œDon’t let pride stand in the way of getting something you need. As long as you’re on this riverboat, you’re under my care and protection. Avail yourself of the amenities.”
    She laughed warmly. “I do believe I proved last night that I’m willing to swallow my pride. It wasn’t easy, begging.”
    His gaze drilled into her. “Susan, what plans do you have for yourself and Pip once you reach New Orleans?”
    â€œDoes this mean you’ll take my son and me there?”
    â€œMy brother can hide you. Throw Paget off your scent. Conn can flag down another of my ships when the time is ripe.”
    This wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but his set expression told her not to argue, so she answered his question. “I shall go to my father at the first opportunity.”
    â€œWill he welcome you?”
    â€œWhat makes you think he wouldn’t?” she asked much too defensively. “Of course he’ll welcome his family.”
    â€œDo you plan to seek a divorce?”
    â€œThese shoes seem much too tight at the moment.” Susan hurried to her stateroom and barely noticed his aunt, though she did offer a perfunctory good morning. Once reaching privacy, she closed the hatch and leaned against it for support. The subject of divorce not being an issue, she struggled with a palpable issue. Would Father relinquish the trust fund his father set aside for her twenty-first birthday?
    When she’d left with Orson shy of her majority, Horace Seymour vowed to forget she’d ever existed.
    Should she go to St. Ann Street and ask for gris-gris to back her? No. The days of active hoodooism were behind her. She wouldn’t expose Pippin to it, much less allow him to know she’d once mixed potions and powders, and marveled at magic. Yes, it was a marvel. But magic could also sicken the heart.
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    He felt lucky as hell.
    Even though his pockets didn’t hold the proceeds from Orson Paget’s marker, Rufus West knew fortune was on his side. At midday he’d boarded the riverboat Lucky Lady, destination Baton Rouge. Seating himself in the rococo poker parlor, he set a bottle of bourbon down, doffed his eyeglasses, and grinned smugly. His visit to the Best Ever Traveling Show had nearly ricocheted.
    There had been no money to collect. He’d aimed a pistol at Paget, but missed. It was all he could do to slam the cap of his ornamental cane against the trapeze artist’s head.
    As the law-leery troupe scattered, West got away one step ahead of the sheriff.
    Yes, luck was with him. And soon the maiden Princess would go down. Sweet, sweet, sweet, it would be. Thanks to a handy invention brought to America by Horace Seymour.
    â€œYou gonna ante, sugar? Or you just gonna sit there?”
    West refitted his spectacles before replying to the lady gambler at the baize-topped table. The room was nearly empty of players, with one bored barkeep drying crystal behind the long, ornate bar. Only West and the top-heavy blonde of about twenty-five, dressed in taffeta and ruffles, were of a mind for poker.
    She had the sort of look O’Brien preferred, paleness that didn’t have a yellow cast. Her come-to-me breasts appealed to West. “I’m in.” He wrested gold pieces from his pocket, then tossed them on the table. “Deal the cards.”
    He propped a hand of aces and eights in his misshapen fingers. For ten, maybe twenty minutes he focused on winning, which didn’t take much concentration. The lady wasn’t much at cards. He cleaned the blonde out.
    As he raked the chips to his side of the table, she said, “You’re too good for me, sugar.”
    â€œI am on a roll.”
    â€œWanna talk about it?”
    West knew what she meant. She had ideas to earn back her losses in one of the many cabins in the floating palace. He considered it. She wasn’t fat. Furthermore, she had the biggest teats