River Magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

room. Deuteronomy Smith, smiling as Connor had never seen him grinning before, stepped closer to the lady of the house. “Miss Antoinette Lawrence calls.”
    â€œAh,” Mrs. Lawrence said after a moment, “Roscoe’s charming niece has arrived for dinner. Show her in, Doot.”
    A fair-haired, blue-eyed lady of eighteen swept in thereafter, hoops belling, ruffles flouncing. “Am I late?”
    Connor rose to welcome the songstress. Until now, he’d seen her only in passing, since she studied voice in Rock Island town, and rarely called on her uncle’s household. Connor, truthfully, hadn’t wanted to meet her.
    He liked women, not girls. He especially didn’t want to tie in with her sort. Her sights were on finding a nabob to whisk her away from the humdrum of midwestern life. Typical of an Army man, Connor wasn’t rich and wouldn’t get that way.
    Chattering like a magpie, Antoinette tugged off winter gear as she advanced, passing it to the goggle-eyed Smith. Obviously, the farm boy from Vermont had a case of the smitten. Just as obviously, the blonde was accustomed to having slavering males at her beck and call. Even her uncle.
    Connor’s interest returned to the impostor. The Lawrence ladies chatted about a voice recital set for this evening in town; India Marshall agreed to attend. “I must freshen up.”
    This time when he shoved to stand, he did it with curiosity. Plus interest. No taller than she was, her head could have fit under his chin.
    What war would this half-pint bring to Rock Island?
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    She felt the Yankee from Dixie looming behind her as she started to ascend the foyer staircase. Once more she’d made a muck of winning him over, and didn’t know what to do next.
    â€œGet fed up with recital talk, Miss Marshall?” he asked, his deep baritone sending shivers through her youthful body. “The benign seemed to interest you earlier.”
    Brazen it out, Indy. Brazen it out.
    â€œThat was for Mrs. Lawrence’s benefit. I care nothing for material things. It’s life that counts.” She learned that lesson when renegade Billy Blues were descending on the old family home. “My interest lies in the good of our boys.”
    â€œWhich ones, Northerners or Southerners?”
    â€œWhy are you asking me this, Major?”
    â€œYou tell me.”
    She almost glared. It was best if she didn’t spend too much time gawking his way, since each time her eyes ventured a look, she’d been discomfited under the perusal of a man of war so handsome that he stole her breath.
    O’Brien insinuated his tall, lean body to where she couldn’t climb the stairs. She got an ample view of polished coatee buttons and a wide breadth of chest. Thanks to being short, though, she didn’t get a full shot of his handsome face.
    She shoved her gaze to the left and up, to concentrate on the stern tintype visage of Roscoe Lawrence. “He’s cruel,” she concluded aloud.
    â€œHis wife likes him.”
    The major lifted an arm to plant a palm on the middle of Lawrence’s boarlike image, the action supporting India’s conclusion at teatime. Connor O’Brien might be mad for the golden leaves shining from the epaulets of his dastardly uniform, but he didn’t like being here at Rock Island. Or was it he just didn’t like the colonel? She’d bet on both.
    â€œI’d say you’re a Confederate,” the major surmised aloud.
    â€œPish posh.”
    Being a Southerner didn’t mean the Cause had a natural claim on her loyalty. Port Hudson still fresh, India sought peace, and meant it when championing clemency for the sick and injured, blue or gray.
    She might be searching for a brother, but she wouldn’t disregard others in need. “The milk of human kindness should flow to every man at war, no matter whom he blindly follows.”
    Her eyes turned up to a face that held the visage