Destiny's Magic by Martha Hix

he’d promised to succor Susan to New Orleans, Burke had felt sturdy enough to shoulder life’s ordeals. Now Samson with sheared hair couldn’t have felt as powerless.
    Yet fate brought Susan to Burke. She was his responsibility, not only to the levee of New Orleans, but forever. What a cruel joke.
    She caught up just as he reached the entry to his quarters. She laid a tender hand on his upper arm, the warmth pressing against the material covering cold, cold skin.
    â€œBurke, if I’d had any idea of . . . of the situation, I wouldn’t have stepped aboard this riverboat.”
    The sincerity in her voice balmed his invisible wounds to a certain extent. Grimacing, he squeezed shut a pair of eyes that didn’t want to look at the future.
    â€œYou can be rid of me easily enough, Burke. Accept your aunt’s offer.”
    â€œNever. What I might wish could make hell for someone else. I know. It happened to me. And to Toni.”
    He fell to memories that had torn him apart. Again, it was 1864. He spoke to his pain. “I did everything in my power to prove the lamp wrong. I offered my name, my resources, my undying love. I promised to protect my lady from harm.”
    Yet soldiers had held Burke down while his Yankee princess had run for her life, had tried to flee from her advancing enemy.
    Burke pressed his forearm against the bulkhead, leaning his head into it. “I floundered. Weak, ineffective. Feeble.” A vision rushed to his mind’s eye, the sight of the fragile young woman falling into the paddle wheels . . . and afterward, when she’d lain broken in body and mind. “There was nothing I could do to save Toni from the madness.”
    â€œBurke, don’t. You judge yourself too harshly.”
    Susan’s voice yanked him back to the present.
    â€œIt makes no difference now,” he muttered.
    Toni was lost, as she’d always been lost to Burke, although he’d taken too long to accept it. Witchcraft had coaxed her heart to Matt Marshall, even before she threw herself into the blades to escape an incestuous uncle. Perhaps she’d sought to flee Burke too. No one would ever know.
    It wasn’t death that took her, not then, for she lived in her vacant world with a guardian aunt. Lost to everyone for eight months. Then her vacant stare was no more.
    What had been pain for Burke then turned to hell.
    â€œThis night will pass,” Susan whispered. “You’ll feel better on the morrow.”
    He twisted around. There the sunshine beauty stood, dressed as a Gypsy, the ringmaster’s fist marking her chin. Very real, very alive, very aware of their environs. She was whole, as Antoinette had not been. He needed whole.
    And the lamp had brought Susan the Sorceress to Burke.
    â€œYou’re through with chicken worshiping.” Through gritted teeth he made a snap promise. “If I ever catch you with gris-gris, I’ll snap your neck.”
    She gasped.
    He started to amend his rash statement, but this was no night for apologies. “Twisted fate is cruel. Ruthless. We must accept it. God help us both.”
    Taking her elbows, Burke pulled her to his chest and looked down into wide eyes. So lovely, those big, dark eyes. His lips descended, taking hers in a kiss that intoxicated his veins like no bottle had ever done. He tasted cognac, inhaled vanilla . . . and woman. Beautiful, luscious woman.
    It wasn’t love, no, it wasn’t, not like he’d felt for another desperate lady. He raised his head to say, “I don’t want you any more than you want me, but you will be my wife. You’ll sun yourself at 21 rue Royale.”
    â€œDon’t say that. This has been a horrid evening for you. You know not what you’re saying.”
    â€œAye, but I do.”
    â€œSheer madness. You reject the lamp, yet you tamper with my fate by your refusal. Have you considered that?”
    â€œI will do better for you than