Heart of Glass
Authors: Jill Marie Landis
IRISH ANGEL SERIES
of
A Novel
Book Three
New York Times
Bestselling Author
For thou art my lamp, O L
ORD:
and the LORD will lighten my darkness
.
2 Samuel 22:29 KJV
PROLOGUE
LOUISIANA, 1861
F
our measly years older
.
As Katie Keene followed her best friend, Amelie Delany, through a well-tended boxwood hedge on that balmy April night in 1861, all she wanted was to be seventeen.
Thirteen seemed like an endless purgatory on the road to adulthood. Her parents were forever telling her she was too old to run through the house, yet she was too young for Amelie’s handsome older brother, Colin, to notice her.
Light spilled from the tall narrow windows of the
garçonnière
, a hexagonal outbuilding where Colin and his friends holed up after dinner to play faro and discuss romantic conquests. All of them were between sixteen and twenty years old and were sons of wealthy planters. The young men spent their days hunting and carousing, traveling up and down the river to visit each other’s plantations and flirt with the belles who lived along River Road.
But tonight was different. Tonight talk of war peppered their conversation, and their laughter and ribald shouts sounded forced.
“Do you think they’re afraid?” The toes of Katie’s black slippers sank into the soft, well-tilled soil of Amelie’s mother’s flower bed as she gripped the windowsill and rose up to peek inside.
Amelie turned to her in the semidarkness, her wide black eyes huge against the perfectly shaped oval of her face. She blinked twice and shrugged with a toss of her head.
“Papa says the shots fired on Fort Sumter have got the men all primed and ready to fight. That’s why he and Colin enlisted. He said it’s not going to take more than a week or two to best the Yankees. Why should they be afraid?”
“People get killed in wars. Aren’t you scared for them?”
Gilbert Keene, Katie’s father, was too old to go to war. He claimed someone had to stay home and make money to bankroll the army while young men like Colin defended their rights and property. Unable to imagine a world without Colin, Katie prayed he’d stay safe.
“Stop being such a worrywart.” Amelie shook her head and her dark corkscrew curls danced against her collarbone. Though Katie’s looped braids were the height of fashion too, she still envied her friend’s bobbing black ringlets.
“They could be hurt, Amelie. Maybe you’re not worried, but I’m scared for your papa and Colin.”
“They’ll never lose to the Yankees.” Amelie’s mouth set in a firm, determined line for a moment. She didn’t sound quite as certain when she added, “Not ever.”
Unable to keep her eyes off Colin, Katie turned to the window again. At seventeen he was tall, broad shouldered, and strikingly handsome. His jawline was finely honed, and his hair was black as midnight with a tempting curl to it. His smile was so infectious no one was ever morose when Colin was around.
She watched him shrug off his long, burgundy, fitted jacket before his fingers worked out the knot in his silk tie. He tossed them both over a nearby chair and proceeded to roll up the sleeves of his white linen shirt.
Her heart fluttered at the sight of his suntanned forearms. If only he would turn his dark Creole eyes her way. What did it
matter if he caught them spying? His eyes seemed to reach into her very soul.
Truth be told, he took very little notice of her. Her dresses were just as expensive and as pretty as Amelie’s and she spent most of her time at the Delanys’ house, but, with her plain brown hair, thick spectacles, and still-flat chest, there wasn’t all that much for Colin to admire.
Besides, he could have the attention of as many plantation owners’ daughters as he desired: girls his own age; poised, blushing beauties who knew how to flirt and pose and hold a man’s attention. Girls who weren’t a bit shy. Amelie would be just like them in another year or two, but next to her best friend, Katie felt like a wilted wallflower.
“Look at him,” Amelie said. “He’s trying to act like Papa.”
Colin crossed to a low serving table where a tall vase filled with Marie Delany’s yellow tea roses stood beside a cut-crystal decanter of brandy. He picked up the decanter and sauntered around the room splashing liberal amounts of the amber liquid into snifters cradled in his friends’ hands.
“I’ll bet he sneaked that liquor out here.” Amelie sniffed.
“You going to tattle?” Katie asked.
“’Course not.” Amelie pretended not to care but she worshipped her big brother.
A sigh escaped Katie as she watched Colin pause to light a cigarillo he’d drawn out of his waistcoat pocket. He leaned back, let go a cloud of blue smoke, and then stared at the glowing end of the thin cigar.
With their brandy and cigars, finely tailored cutaway coats, and crisp white shirts, he and his friends played the part of the men they hoped to be as they headed off to join their Louisiana regiments and fight the Yankee War of Aggression.
“This is boring.” Amelie sighed and tugged on Katie’s sleeve. “Let’s go back to the house.”
There was nothing boring about Colin, but if Amelie wanted to leave, Katie would oblige her best and only friend. For three years now they’d been as close as sisters. If it hadn’t been for Amelie and the Delanys, her life would be a very lonely affair indeed.
And Colin? Though he held a very special place in her heart, she was definitely glad he wasn’t her brother.
“I want to go
now
.” Amelie stretched and accidentally bumped against the windowpane.
Inside, Colin whipped around. Katie ducked below the sill and crouched in the dirt.
“It’s all right.” Amelie grabbed Katie’s hand. “Come on.”
Just as they slipped back through the low hedge and stepped onto the oyster-shell path to the house, the door to the
garçonnière
suddenly flew open. Colin’s tall frame was silhouetted in the light streaming through the open door. His hands were behind his back.
“I see you tadpoles. Come over here,” Colin said. Behind him the card players let out a shout that was followed by a round of laughter.
Tadpoles
.
Humiliated, Katie stared at the dirty toes of her slippers, ashamed to be caught spying like a child.
“We don’t have to do
anything
you say.” Amelie stuck out her tongue.
“Does Mama know you’re creeping around out here in the dark?”
“Does Papa know you’re drinking his brandy?” Amelie shot back.
“Here you go, little sister.” He held out a yellow rose.
Amelie sniffed it and then dropped her hand to her side. The rose, already forgotten, hung against the folds of her full skirt.
“And one for you …”
Before she realized he’d moved, Colin’s hand was beneath Katie’s chin. He forced her to look up. The very sight of him looming over
her took her breath away. Beneath her chin, his hand was warm and strong. Her mind went blank.
“Well,” he said, as he shrugged, holding out another rose. “Don’t you want this, Katie Keene?”
Katie stared up at him with a lump in her throat and pushed her spectacles up her nose. Praying she looked older and perhaps even a bit pretty in the ring of lamplight, she smiled up at him and nodded. His fingers touched hers as he handed her the flower.
“Th … thank you.” The words came out as a raspy croak.
Raising the rose to her nose, Katie inhaled the heady scent. Without warning she sneezed. Not once, but three times. Colin laughed. Her cheeks caught fire and, humiliated, she ducked her head. When she looked up again, Colin was walking through the door, and an instant later he was once again closeted inside with his friends.
Amelie grabbed her free hand and they started running along the path, the oyster shells crunching beneath their thin-soled slippers. As they reached the wide gallery surrounding the ground floor of the mansion,
Belle Fleuve
, Amelie tossed aside her rose, and it went sailing out into the dark.
Katie clung tightly to her rose, intent upon pressing it between the pages of her book of Irish folktales and keeping it forever.
The girls followed the sound of Marie Delany’s tinkling laughter and found Amelie’s parents seated at a small damask-covered table just outside the French doors to the formal dining room. Tall tapers burned in an ornate candelabra gracing the center of the table. Melted ivory-colored beeswax slid down the silver, hardening into pools on the tablecloth.
It was customary for the Delanys to share romantic dinners alone beneath the stars on warm, clear nights like this. Katie hung back in the shadows, content to watch in silence. The dancing candle flames flickered off the crystal glasses, casting an almost magical glow over the loving couple.
Amelie broke the spell as she sidled up to the table. She reached for a biscuit on her father’s plate, broke off a piece, and popped it into her mouth.
“Papa, may we go riding in the morning?”
“I don’t see why not. I’ll tell the stable hands to have your mares ready.”
Patrick Delany turned the same bright smile on Katie. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles like hers, a feature that endeared him to her even more.
“How are you tonight, Katie? Are your mama and papa in the city?”
She curtsied. “I’m fine, sir. They’re staying at the townhouse this week.” Forever tied up with various philanthropic causes and hectic business and social lives, Nola and Gil were always in New Orleans these days. “When are you and Colin leaving for New Orleans?” Katie asked.
Marie Delany, with her smooth, plump cheeks, soft hands, and diminutive height, looked more like a young girl than the mother of a strapping seventeen-year-old son. At the mention of Patrick’s leaving, Marie turned to gaze into the dark garden, but not before Katie caught the shimmer of tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry if I’ve misspoken,” she said.
“Not at all.” Patrick smiled his reassurance. “We’ll be leaving with our regiment at the end of next week.” He reached across the table for Marie’s hand and covered it with his. She turned to him again. “It will be over before it starts, darling,” he promised.