Heart of Glass

by Jill Marie Landis

  “She hardly crawled, and she’s not alone.”

  “She didn’t dare bring that lily-livered deserter with her—”

  “Her husband is dead. She brought her children, Colin.”

  “Children? As in more than one?”

  “That’s what the word usually means, yes. A ten-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son. They’re beautiful. Wait until you meet them. I’ll help you walk over to the house if you—”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then I’ll ask Simon to help you.”

  “I’m not going over there. I don’t want to see them.”

  “Fine, then stay here. You know where they are.” She didn’t look forward to telling Amelie that he refused to see her when what she needed most right now was loving care, not her brother’s rejection.

  “It’s still my house,” he reminded her.

  “Amelie’s too, remember.”

  “But not yours.”

  Kate sighed. “No. Not mine.”

  As soon as Colin saw Kate Keene swish her shapely bustle out the door, he reached for the photographs on his bedside table. He stared at the images in the family portrait. He didn’t need a mirror to tell him how much he’d changed. He doubted Amelie would recognize him.

  And what was she like now? A grown woman with two children. He hadn’t even asked their names. Ten and four, Kate had said. The girl was a few years shy of Amelie’s age the last time he’d seen her. According to the odious Kate Keene, Amelie’s life had not been easy and her husband was dead.

  Was it possible his sister had changed as much as he had?

  He’d been mired in self-pity for so long it was hard to think of life outside the walls of the garçonnière, hard to imagine Amelie home and living here with her children. Kate Keene was no doubt feeling smug for predicting as much. Did she expect him to thank her for making the place livable?

  She’d be waiting a long time. He hadn’t asked for her help nor did he want it now. He had been too broken, and his wounds too raw, to take up the challenge. He should have been here during the war to keep Amelie from ruining her life. Apologizing now wasn’t enough. How could he ever admit he had nothing left to give, no way to provide for her and her children?

  All he knew how to do was soldier, and thanks to the Comanche, he could no longer wear a uniform. Colin tossed the photo aside and picked up his breakfast tray. Eugenie’s biscuits were impossible to ignore and she knew it. Every tray she brought in of late had a generous pile of biscuits on it and this morning they were smothered in gravy. Determined to gain back some strength, he started in on the ham. Glad he’d tapered himself off his laudanum, he glanced at the hateful cane propped within reach. It was high time he try to get on his feet again.

  Miss Katherine Keene had been running things at Belle Fleuve long enough.

  FIVE

  Three days later, accompanied by Simon, Kate followed a narrow dirt path to a ramshackle house perched on stilts in the bayou not far from River Road.

  She stopped long enough to glance up from the path toward the weathered cypress-wood house ahead and then walked on, studying the ground, taking care not to trip over any exposed roots or stones on the path. None of Eugenie’s remedies had helped Amelie. Together they had concocted and doused her with all manner of peppers and honey and teas that Eugenie swore almost always worked. They’d also tried applying steaming plasters to Amelie’s chest. And when someone told Eugenie that milk was the best curative for consumption, they began pouring it down Amelie at every turn until the poor woman begged them to stop.

  When Simon suggested Kate go to Cezelia Mouton’s place and ask the Cajun traiteur for one of her potions, she balked.

  “I don’t hold to any superstitious hoodoo,” she told him. She’d heard tell of the traiteur, or treaters, as the Cajun practitioners were called, but neither her parents nor the Delanys had ever consulted one.

  But after spending several sleepless nights watching Amelie suffer through night sweats and fever, Kate became desperate. The Cajun woman’s place was closer than seeking out a physician in New Orleans, so she slipped away with Simon, leaving Eugenie and Myra to watch over her patient.

  As Kate climbed the steep, narrow stairs to the sagging front porch, she took in the surrounding landscape — the silent water so still on the surface but running deep beneath, the spears of sunlight streaming through the tall cypress, the knobby cypress knees poking up out of the muddy water.

  A shiver ran down her spine. She knocked on a front door painted bright red.

  “‘Allo?” A young woman peered around the edge of the door. She was a bit shorter than Kate and around the same age, or so she seemed.

  “I wish to speak to Cezelia Mouton,” Kate said.

  “I am Cezelia.”

  “Cezelia Mouton? The traiteur?”

  The young woman’s dark eyes swept Kate from head to toe and then she smiled. “You thought perhaps I would be older?”

  Kate nodded. “I had heard you were older.”

  “My grandmother was also Cezelia Mouton. Sadly, she died last year.” She shrugged. “She taught me what she knew and now I am the traiteur in these parts.”

  Cezelia stepped outside and closed the door behind her. Two wooden chairs stood together in the far corner of the porch. She indicated Kate should sit. Soon they were seated side by side. Simon waited at the far end of the footpath.

  “How can I help you?”

  “My friend is very ill. I need something to relieve a cough and fever. A doctor told her she has consumption.”

  Cezelia stared off into the distance. Kate wondered if she was paying attention until the young woman said, “Tell me her symptoms.”

  “Night sweats, a constant cough. She’s very weak. A higher fever at night with body pain. She has trouble breathing and cannot catch her breath.”

  “She coughs up blood?”

  Kate hesitated. “Specks, that’s all.”

  “Can she walk?”

  “Yes …” Kate paused. “Actually, she’s been in bed for three days now, but I’m fairly sure she can still walk.”

  Cezelia shook her head. “I’m not certain I can help.”

  Irritated, Kate jumped up. “I knew better than to turn to hoodoo.”

  Cezelia rose and looked down at Kate. “I do not practice hoodoo, Miss Keene. I am a traiteur. I believe in the power of prayer and God’s intercession.”

  “As do I.”

  “Then you know your friend is in His hands.”

  “Yes, but I need to do something. If you didn’t think you could help people you wouldn’t have taken up this calling.”

  “I am but a tool, a woman who dispenses concoctions that may ease pain. Sometimes people are cured, but I am not stupid enough to believe it is all my doing and neither are you.”

  “I’ll go to New Orleans. I’ll find the best doctor in the city.”

  Cezelia sighed. “I’m afraid even the best doctor cannot help your friend at this point, so beware of those who claim they can. Soon her throat will crackle with each breath. Her bones will start to crumble. Her lungs will hemorrhage—”

  “Enough!” Kate fisted her hands at her sides. “I won’t hear more.”

  “Wait here.”

  Cezelia went inside for a moment and was back with a small jar. She handed it to Kate.

  “This is a mixture of camphor, eucalyptus, and turpentine. Rub it on the soles of her feet.”

  If the woman’s shuttered expression was any indication, the salve wasn’t going to help. Kate blinked back tears of frustration as Cezelia added, “Try boiling an onion for ten minutes. Pour the liquid in a cup and give her the onion juice with a little honey while it’s warm. As much as she can drink. At least two or three times a day.”

  “Will that cure her?”

  “Only prayer can save her now.”

  Prayer and a real doctor, Kate thought, as she thanked the woman and started down the stairs. Prayer was not a problem. Finding the bes
t doctor in New Orleans was.

  SIX

  Furious, Kate stared out at the garçonnière and watched the rain streak down the windowpane in Amelie’s room. Colin had ignored his sister and the children for too long. According to Eugenie, he hadn’t once even asked after them. Nor had he made any attempt to see them in the four days since their arrival.

  When she heard a soft knock at the door, Kate turned away from the window. Amelie was still sound asleep, her hair spread out across her pillow, and her skin sallow against the white linens. Cezelia’s salve and the onion potion had eased her cough only slightly, but enough that Kate held a little more hope.

  She hurried to the door and, when she saw it was Eugenie, stepped out onto the gallery and gently closed the door behind her.

  “How is she today?” Eugenie’s dark eyes were shadowed with deep concern.

  Kate forced a smile. “She still has a fever, but she’s finally getting some much-needed sleep.”

  “You could use a full night’s sleep yourself or you won’t be much help to Miss Amelie. That poor child was so weak yesterday. I’m sorely worried, Miss Kate.”

  “Did you make up some more of Cezelia’s onion potion?”

  Eugenie looked doubtful but she nodded. “Soon as she wakes up I’ll try to get some more down her.”

  “Where are the children?” The last Kate had seen of Marie and Damian, they’d been playing checkers in the sitting room with Myra.

  “In the kitchen. They’re bored to tears. I was lettin’ them make pralines until they ate nearly all the extra pecans. Little Marie is worried. You could tell time by that girl. She asks after her mama ever’ five minutes. I wish for their sakes this rain would let up so Myra can take them outside berry pickin’.”

  Kate tapped her foot, as impatient with Amelie’s lack of response to the curative as she was Colin’s avoidance of his sister and the children.

  “Will you sit with her a few moments, Eugenie?”

  “‘Course.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Kate hurried downstairs, cooled by the mist of the rain falling beyond the open gallery. When she reached the kitchen, she found Damian running around the outbuilding with a tin pudding mold on his head. She plucked it off as he ran by.

  “Hey!” Looking like Colin, Damian crossed his arms and pouted. “That’s my helmet,” he said. “I want it back.”

  Kate held it out of his reach. “It’s a pudding mold, not a helmet.”

  “Aunt Kate, I need it. I wanna be a knight in shining armor.”

  Marie said, “It’s not shining armor. It’s a pudding mold. Besides, you shouldn’t be running around having fun with Mama so sick.” Her eyes filled with tears she swiped away with the back of her hand.

  Kate put her arm around Damian’s shoulders and walked him over to Marie where she embraced the girl too.

  “Damian, run into the sitting room and ask Myra to find our umbrellas,” Kate said. “We’re going visiting.”

  The boy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Really.” Kate nodded.

  “How’s Mama?” Marie’s eyes spoke of fear.

  “She’s sleeping,” Kate said.

  “I don’t want to go anywhere.” Marie crossed her arms.

  “We aren’t going very far at all,” Kate tried to reassure her. “In fact, we’re only going next door. To the garçonnière.”

  “What’s a garden-air?” Damian hadn’t gone to fetch the umbrellas yet.

  “It’s the tall funny building with the pointy roof next door,” Kate said.

  “Mama thinks it looks like a castle tower,” Damian added.

  Kate nodded, pleased. “Exactly. It looks like a turret, but it’s six sided. It’s a building where young men can be away from the rest of the family.”

  “Young men like me?” Damian wanted to know.

  “Older than you,” she said. “A bit older anyway.”

  “Who lives there now?” he asked.

  “Our Uncle Colin, remember?” Marie folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t want to meet him. I heard you and Mama talking the other night,” she told Kate. “She thinks he’s angry with her. Is that why he hasn’t come to meet us? Is he angry at us?”

  “He was a soldier and he got injured. He still has a hard time walking. He—”

  “How did he get hurt?” Damian leaned his arm on the kitchen table and propped his chin on his hand. “Daddy used to talk about the war. Was Uncle Colin shot by some Yankee son of a—”

  Both Kate and Marie shushed him at the same time.

  “I heard he took an Indian arrow in the ankle. You might want to ask him yourself,” Kate said. For a moment she wondered if she should be encouraging Damian to speak of Colin’s injury, but decided Colin could fend for himself. “Right now, you need to go collect the umbrellas from Myra so we can be on our way.”

  “Should we take Uncle Colin some of our pralines?” Marie asked as Damian ran out of the room. “Mama always says it’s not polite to go calling without a little something to give.”

  It was something Amelie would say. Kate tried to picture her living on the Kansas prairie so far from family and home. Did Amelie have neighbors she could call upon in a time of need? From the little her friend had revealed, Kate doubted it.

  “I think a few pralines would be a lovely gift. Especially since you made them yourselves.” Kate reached for a bread plate and handed it to Marie. “Let’s use this for the candies.”

  The three of them hurried through the rain beneath two bobbing umbrellas. Kate held hers over Marie, who carried the plate of pralines. Damian trailed behind, explaining that they knew all about castles and knights and towers because their mama had told them many fairy tales before they fell asleep. When they neared the garçonnière, Damian bolted ahead and pounded on the door.

  “Just a minute!” Colin shouted.

  Kate was shocked to hear him respond so quickly. Usually he took his sweet time answering.

  She smiled to reassure the children. “He’s not as bad as he sounds.”

  “Let’s go back,” Marie whispered.

  Kate knocked again, harder this time. “Colin, it’s raining out here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  Inside, something clattered against the floor. Hopefully he wasn’t back to throwing things. She began to doubt the wisdom of the visit when he yelled, “Come in!”

  Kate folded her umbrella, took Damian’s from him, and then opened the door. She ushered the children in first. They took a few tentative steps into the room and stopped to stare at Colin. Kate closed the door and propped the umbrellas against the wall before she turned around.

  “You’re gaping like a fish up for air, Kate.” His voice was laced with sarcasm.

  She closed her mouth and tried to cover her shock. He’d shaved off his beard. The lower half of his face was intensely pale. Without the beard he appeared even more wan, far thinner than before, but still staggeringly handsome. The Colin she’d known had been a mere boy compared to the man lying down across the room.

  He was lounging on the bed as usual, but his forehead and upper lip were beaded with sweat. His dark, curly hair was still long, the curls in front clinging to his damp hairline. His hands were shaking. Kate’s first instinct was to go to him, but the sight of his cane lying on the floor stopped her.

  He’d been walking, or at least making an attempt. Now he was trying to appear nonchalant, trying to hide his efforts though she could see what they cost him.

  He looked at the children for a moment and then turned to Kate with a silent get-them-out-of-here stare.

  “Colin,” she began, “this is your niece, Marie, and your nephew, Damian. They were going stir-crazy in the house and I thought it was high time you met them.” To the children she said, “This is your uncle, Colin Delany.”

  Marie was clutching the plate of pralines so tightly that Kate asked her to set them on the bedside table. When Marie balked, Damian piped up, “I’ll do it, ‘f
raidy cat.”

  He took the plate from Marie and, holding it before him like an offering to a king, he used great care crossing the room. He set the plate on the table and then backed away. His eyes never left Colin.

  “That’s pralines. We made ‘em. They’re mostly sugar and butter with a few pecans. There woulda been more pecans but we ate them. Wanna taste one?”

  Kate held her breath. Please be civil, Colin. Please try.

  He glanced at her with steel in his eyes, turned to the boy, and shrugged.

  “Might as well,” he said.

  Instead of passing the plate over, Damian picked up a praline and slowly carried it on his palm within Colin’s reach. They all watched Colin take a bite, waiting.

  “Mmm,” he nodded. “Good.”

  Surely he noticed how much Marie favored Amelie and his mother. Could he tell that Damian looked like him?

  The children watched him without a word, their fear palpable. Kate walked over to the watercolor on the wall and told them, “Your mama painted these roses when she was just a bit older than you.”

  “Roses?” Colin’s voice cut the silence that followed Kate’s statement. “I always thought they were beets.”

  “I don’t like beets,” Damian announced.

  “As I recall, your uncle doesn’t either,” Kate said.

  A quick knock came at the door and Kate answered. It was Simon.

  “You’re needed at the house, Miss Kate,” Simon announced.

  “Children, stay with your uncle. I’ll be right back.” She carefully avoided eye contact with Colin.

  “Kate Keene, don’t you dare leave,” he warned.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, before she slipped out the door behind Simon. As they walked back to the house, Simon looked so concerned she reassured him. “Right on time, Simon. Thank you.”

  “You sure this is a good idea?” He frowned at the door.

  “Why, they’ll all be just fine.” She hoped.

  Colin watched the silent pair stare at him with frightened eyes. Kate Keene had just crossed the line. If he could only get his hands on her—

  With tears glistening in her eyes, his niece reminded him so much of Amelie that he forgot about the irritating Miss Keene. He’d never been able to withstand his sister’s tears, or any woman’s tears for that matter. Whatever Amelie had done was not the fault of these innocents.