Authors: Jill Marie Landis
Kate was used to managing everything, pushing and prodding, lifting everyone else’s spirit, fighting to make things right. Now the fight in her was gone.
“I hope so.”
“I know so.” When the owl hooted again, Eugenie got to her feet. “You better come on in with me now. It’s gettin’ damp out here.”
“I’ll be in shortly.”
“You promise?”
“I promise. Just a few minutes more.”
As soon as she was alone Kate walked through the darkness to the crypt. Whitewashed plaster was cracked and peeling off the thick walls that were shaped like a miniature domed church. Beneath the cross at the apex, Kate pressed her forehead against the cold metal door.
She closed her eyes and saw Amelie as a carefree thirteen-year-old, laughing, dancing, smiling.
“Good-bye, my friend,” she whispered. “Good-bye, Amelie.”
T
hree days after the burial, Kate still hadn’t found the inspiration she needed to begin her assignment for Roger Jamison. With Damian and Marie under Eugenie’s watchful eye, Kate made her way to the main house to find Myra so she could tell her about their finances. Walking along the gallery she heard Colin’s voice coming from one of the back sitting rooms. She paused outside the open French doors and found him inside with Jason Bolton.
“Kate.” He waved her in. “Join us.”
Feeling fragile, she had taken great care to avoid him lately.
“I was just looking for Myra,” she said before greeting Jason and asking after his wife. She had paused in the open doorway. “I’m sorry for the intrusion.”
“I’d like you to stay,” Colin said, “if you have a minute.”
She was in no hurry to find Myra so she stepped inside.
“I wanted to ask you about the crew you hired for repairs,” Colin said. “I’ve offered Jason the foreman’s house where he grew up. It’ll take some fixing, but he’s willing to refurbish it and live there in lieu of pay until we harvest our first crop.”
She looked at each man in turn. Jason looked fine with his fair hair and eyes, but he couldn’t hold a candle to Colin’s compellingly dark eyes and rugged features. She lost herself in Colin’s intense gaze.
“What kind of crop?” Kate struggled to focus.
“Cane. As always,” Colin said.
Jason interjected, “Cotton is doing just as well, but this land has always produced fine sugarcane and there’s quite a demand since the war. Hopefully it won’t take much to get the old sugarhouse shored up.”
“So there
is
a sugarhouse here?” she asked. Dan Rosen had mentioned refurbishing it.
Colin nodded. “What were you thinking about it?” He indicated Kate should sit.
She remained standing. “Simon gathered the work crew for me. They did an excellent job.”
“He’s already assured me he can round up all the field workers we can afford,” Colin addressed Kate and Jason both. “At best it will be a skeleton crew.”
Jason added, “Since I’ve been back, I’ve met with the other cane planters up and down the road. Unlike cotton farmers, most of them aren’t sharecropping their land yet. The labor demands with cane are too great and the freedmen know it, so they have some bargaining power. Most of the planters have finally reconciled to paying for labor, but it hasn’t come without violence.”
“I’ll have no violence here. I’ve lived through enough of it to last a lifetime,” Colin insisted.
“How will you pay them?” Wishing she could help, Kate’s heart sank.
“We’ll negotiate a fair wage and provide housing. Perhaps even open a store where workers can purchase goods using credit tokens. They’ll be able to borrow against the crop,” Jason explained.
“I banked my soldier’s pay for the past three years. It’s not much, but it should help get us started. It’s fall now. If we can get the crop in, we’ll be able to harvest the cane a year from now.”
Now, thanks to Jason’s arrival, there was more than a hint of the man Colin used to be.
Jason slipped his watch out, opened the lid, and checked the time.
“I told Cora I wouldn’t be long,” he said, rising. “She’s a bit jittery with the baby on the way. I’d better head back.”
Colin was slow to his feet but no longer needed help. He grabbed his cane and indicated that Jason and Kate precede him. Kate stepped onto the gallery into a cool breeze that dropped the temperature in the shade.
She walked to the edge of the gallery with Colin and stood with him in a pool of sunlight until Jason mounted up and rode away. Colin turned to her and asked, “What are you up to this morning?”
It was hard to concentrate so close to him. “I was looking for Myra. I think she’s in the garden.”
“She’s out there so often I’m beginning to think she’s searching for Mama’s buried treasure. Damian does nothing else.”
“Myra loves roses.”
“And the children?”
“In the kitchen with Eugenie. She’s teaching them to make hushpuppies.”
“Hopefully, she’s not serving them for dinner.”
“I’m sure they’ll turn out just fine.”
“Obviously, you didn’t taste the grits they made yesterday.”
Kate hid a smile, tempted to ask if he would join them for supper. He still took his meals alone in the
garçonnière
but she hoped that soon he’d share them with the children in the main house.
“How are they getting along?” His concern was written on his face.
“It’s only been a few days, Colin.”
“I know exactly how long it’s been. I just wondered what you’ve observed.”
“Damian spends most of his time in a fantasy world pretending to be a pirate. He nearly gave Myra a heart attack yesterday when he launched himself off the sideboard at her.”
Colin chuckled. Kate smiled for an instant.
“Marie isn’t doing as well. She’s naturally shy and can’t express herself, or won’t. I’m going to give her a watercolor lesson later this afternoon. Perhaps she’ll open up and talk to me.”
“Can you help her much in less than two weeks?”
Her self-imposed deadline was quickly approaching. Colin was studying her closely.
“I really need to speak to Myra.” Uncomfortable, Kate started to step off the brick gallery floor onto the drive.
“Wait.” He caught her arm, forcing her to stop.
When he lifted his hand and reached toward her cheek, Kate’s breath caught. She watched in silence as he leaned closer. His fingertips grazed her cheek and then he wrapped the escaped tendrils of her hair around his index finger and gently untangled them from the hinge of her glasses.
“There.” He leaned back. “Now you can be on your way.”
Kate’s heart was still racing as she rounded the corner of the house and spied Myra kneeling in Marie Delany’s rose garden. Since the burial Myra had spent every spare moment on her knees attacking weeds and turning the earth around the base of the bushes.
Myra looked up as Kate approached and started to rise. “Are the children finished?”
Kate shook her head no and waved her back down. She sat on the ground near Myra, carefully tucking her skirt and petticoat around her ankles.
“You’ll dirty your skirt.” Myra leaned back and wiped her brow with her sleeve.
Kate smiled. “Always watching out for me,” she noted. “The dirt will shake off. The children are still busy cooking. I’m here because there’s something important we need to discuss.”
“You sound very serious, Katie Keene.”
“I am.”
“I’ve been wantin’ to talk to you too.”
“Let me start.”
Before I lose my nerve
. Kate reached for a weed, twisted it, and gave it a tug, then tossed it onto Myra’s pile. “There’s no easy way to say this.”
“Then out with it.”
“I met with Dan Rosen in New Orleans, and he warned me that I’ve nearly gone through my inheritance.”
Myra’s blue eyes widened before she dropped her gaze to the weeds again. “I started worryin’ back when you paid off the back taxes on this place. What will you do?”
“Fortunately, I found work while I was in the city, and I’ve given up our suite at the St. Charles. We’ll find a modest place to live, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to pay you much of a salary, at least not until I’m established.”
“It won’t be easy for you,” Myra warned. “Dabblin’ in men’s work.”
Kate didn’t have the energy to argue.
“I don’t see it as dabbling. If I’m frugal I’ll make enough to support us both.”
“You don’t need a nanny anymore, Kate.”
“Of course I don’t, but we’ve been together forever.”
“Aye.” Myra set down her trowel and rubbed her hands together to dislodge the dirt. “I was only nineteen when the Keenes hired me. Thought I’d be tending to an infant until I found out they adopted a seven-year-old.”
“If you want to find other employment, I’ll understand.” Kate couldn’t imagine life without Myra O’Hara in it.
She waited for Myra to agree, but the woman remained silent and picked up the trowel again.
“I’ve been thinkin’ of the future a lot lately, what with Miss Amelie up and dying so young. I’m near forty now and if I’m ever going to have a life of my own, it’s high time I start goin’ about it. I’ve decided to move back to Ireland.”
“Ireland?”
“It’s my home, you know. I still know plenty of folks there.” Myra’s blush gave her away.
“Is there someone special waiting for you?” Kate clasped her hands together in her lap. “Is that it?”
Myra studied the basket without looking up. When she finally met Kate’s eyes, hers were aglow.
“Aye. There is and I turned him down when we left, but he said he’d wait for as long as it took me to change my mind. When we buried Miss Amelie, I decided it’s time to see if he’s still waitin’.”
“Oh, Myra.” Kate blinked away tears.
“Now don’t go carrying on, Katie Keene. I’m worried about how you’re going to get on alone as it is.”
Kate raised the hem of her skirt and slipped it beneath her spectacles to wipe away her tears. She thought of all the years they’d been together, their wartime journeys. Gil Keene had trusted the young Irish woman enough to accompany Kate halfway around the world. To have found and lost Amelie and now to lose Myra — there was no denying it hurt. Kate smiled to hide her pain.
“I’ll get on just fine. You can count on that. You must follow your heart.” Kate grabbed Myra’s hands. “Just remember you’ll always have a home with me.”
“I hate leavin’ you at a time like this.”
Kate pulled another weed. “I feel as if I’ve fallen down a deep, dark well. I felt sad when my father died, but nothing like this.”
Myra set her trowel down and brushed off her hands. Then she leaned back against her heels.
“That’s because your father lived a long, full life. Amelie was too young to suffer the way she did, and from what those children have said now and again, I know their life in Kansas wasn’t easy.”
“No, it wasn’t. They certainly deserve more than what they’ve had.” Was leaving the children alone with Colin the best thing for them? Surely they were better off here than they were in Kansas.
“I was so lucky to have the life I was given,” Kate said, thinking aloud.
“There were times when I wondered, though,” Myra said softly. “You had everything money could buy, Katie, but were you happy as a child? Did you resent the way the Keenes left you on your own?”
“I think I was happy. When I remembered what it was like to have parents and sisters and all the laughter and tears that come with family, I felt alone, but those memories faded. I always had you. And I had permission to come to
Belle Fleuve
as often as the Delanys would have me. But many times I wondered why Gil and Nola ever adopted me.”
Myra didn’t look up but appeared to be concentrating on the pile of weeds.
“Do you know why?” Kate asked.
“Only servants’ talk, is all.”
“Tell me.”
“Nola Keene was a good twenty years younger than your father and proud of the standin’ his money gave her in New Orleans society,” Myra said.
“I’ve been fairly certain for years that she married him for his money.”
Myra nodded. “What I heard was one day Nola took it in her head to adopt an Irish orphan to set an example for her high society Irish friends. Didn’t want a babe, though. Wasn’t about t’ be puttin’ up with any crying or messes. You were a smart, biddable little thing. Sharp as a tack and quiet as a mouse. I always thought that was why she chose you.”
“My father always gave in to her.”
Myra nodded. “That he did. She wasn’t cut out to be a mother, but Gil Keene loved you, no doubt about it. But that man was fifty when they adopted you and he was already set in his ways. Business was his life.”
“Which is why they were never around. He was always happier in town.”
“And Nola wouldn’t ever miss a fancy soiree. At first she used
to dress you up and show you off at all the ladies’ gatherings, lording it over her friends, tellin’ them it was their civic duty to take in one of the many poor Irish children left orphaned by the yellow fever epidemic. It riled me to no end when she got bored and left you on your own.”
“I didn’t mind. Besides, Amelie and I would never have become such close friends if my father hadn’t brought me on a visit to
Belle Fleuve
to meet Patrick Delany’s daughter.”
“Your father did the best he could. No one thought the war would go on as long as it did or that the South would end up in ashes. Sendin’ you away was a blessing.” Myra adjusted the wide-brimmed straw hat Eugenie had loaned her to keep the sun off her face.
“How soon will you leave for Ireland?” Kate couldn’t bear to think of losing Myra but would never stand in the way of her happiness.
“As soon as you give me leave to go.”
“As soon as you can pack then. Life is far too short to waste. I’ll send word we need a carriage from town.”
“Simon can take me to the river landing down the road. I’d rather buy a steamboat ticket than face the long ride to the city.” She studied Kate. “When will you move back to New Orleans?”
“The day of the burial I told Colin I’d only stay two weeks more.”
“Eleven days left.”
Kate nodded. Eleven days.
So few
.
“You could work here and make trips into town when you need to.”