Heart of Lies (34 page)

Stretching to reach as far as he could, his hand fell just shy of an oil lamp on his bedside table. She could tell by his furious expression that when his fingers came in contact with the lamp he had every intention of hurling it at her.

“Colin, stop!”

At the sound of his name, his head whipped around. He skewed her with a cold, hard stare. Dark shadows stained the skin beneath his deep-set black eyes. He winced in pain when he moved. As his dark eyes bored into hers, Kate saw that he’d finally realized she was not the woman who had just left. A sound escaped him, something between a rusty laugh and a snarl.

“You’re not my type either,” he rasped. “So go.”

Shielding the architectural plans, she ignored the command and dared to take a step closer to the bed but remained out of reach. Her heart faltered when she noticed a cane propped against the bedside table littered with a tray of food and a half empty brown bottle of laudanum. This time when she spoke, she barely managed a whisper.

“Colin, it’s me. Kate. Katie Keene.”

K
atie Keene.

Colin stared at the petite bespectacled mouse clutching a roll of paper as she hovered across the room. She was a far cry from the wench who had brazenly showed up earlier willing to do anything for a price. This one was no bigger than a minute and modestly turned out in an expensive traveling ensemble. She studied him from behind
her spectacles, her features shaded by the brim of a small hat jauntily poised atop thick brown hair.

His gaze swept downward from the lace around her high collar to the toes of her rain spattered boots before returning to her face. Behind small wire glasses, her intense blue-eyed gaze never wavered. Something about those eyes forced him to search through long forgotten memories. He knew this young woman but he had no idea how.

Katie Keene, she’d said. Suddenly he was assailed with painful flashes of recollection; memories of giggles and crinolines, hoop skirts with cascades of ruffles, and pleas for his time and attention. He pictured his sister Amelie and remembered.

Katie
Keene. His little sister Amelie’s best friend.

His eyes narrowed. Colin tried to intimidate the woman with a cold stare. She had nerves of steel, he’d grant her that. She hadn’t budged an inch, nor was she frightened of him. If she was, her fear didn’t show. Clutching that long roll of papers, she appeared to be dug in. Katie Keene wasn’t going anywhere.

Or so
she
thought. He didn’t care who she was. No, the truth was he cared too much because she had known him before. He needed no witness to what he had become. He wanted her out. She was too painful a reminder of a life that vanished long ago.

“Leave, Katie Keene, and don’t come back.”

She lifted her stubborn chin.

“It’s Kate now, and I’ll not go until I’ve had my say.”

“Nothing you have to say interests me.”

“Oh, I think it might.” She dared take a step closer.

He made another attempt to grab the lamp until searing hot pain shot from his ruined ankle to his groin. He tried to turn a groan into a growl, hoping to frighten her away.

“Colin — “ Concern stained her blue eyes. She took another step forward.

He held up his hand. “Stop right there. Don’t you dare come any closer.”

Thankfully, she halted.

“I want you out.” He didn’t need her help or her pity. He needed her gone.

For a second he thought she was going to comply until she glanced around uncertainly and walked over to a wooden chair drawn up to a drop-leaf table. She pulled the chair to the center of the room, stopping just out of reach again.

Fall rain spattered hard against the window pane behind him. This gray dismal day was proving to be even more tedious than all the other miserable days he suffered of late. Kate Keene was apparently determined to make this one memorably the worst.

As she perched on the edge of the hard bottomed chair, she carefully positioned the long rolled pages of newsprint on her knees. Then, acting as if he hadn’t just bellowed at her to leave, she took a deep breath and started talking.

“I heard you were home and I have come to help.”

“I don’t need or want help. Yours or anyone else’s.”

“You may not want help but it appears you need it. Not only that, but
Belle Fleuve
needs to be restored before it’s in total ruin, and I can assure you that I’m just the one to manage that. Thanks to your father’s inspiration, I’ve spent the last few years educating myself as an architect. I don’t pretend to be as talented as he was, but Patrick Delany would have wanted someone who truly cares about the house to do this, Colin. During the war and afterward I was in Boston and Ireland. I have studied —”

She quickly worked up a full head of steam, seemingly unaware that he was in excruciating pain. He couldn’t care less about who or what inspired her or about restoring the house to its former glory. The place was still in as complete a shambles as the entire South even though the war was ten years ago. So was he for that matter.

He didn’t want to listen to her, didn’t care to see her plans. What he wanted was for her to leave him to his misery. He was in dire need of a hefty dose of laudanum while she blathered on about living in Ireland and studying architecture on her own. It was time to cut her off.

“Miss Keene, I have no intention of restoring this place.”
Not even if I had the money. Not even then.

His words shocked her into silence—but unfortunately only for a moment.

“Of course you are going to restore
Belle Fleuve.
You must.”

“Why?” He closed his eyes, made an effort not to move his ankle.

Taken aback, she blinked her magnified owl eyes.

“Why? Because it’s your home. Because it’s … historic and magnificent, or it was. I have designs here that will make it so again. I’ll admit I’ve made a few changes and additions, but I can assure you that they will not come anywhere near ruining the integrity of the original design. They are adjustments that take into account the needs of not only the occupants, but the staff.”

Staff?
He had barely enough money left to cover his own expenses and pay a pittance to the former slave who cooked for him in exchange for lodging for her and her husband.

Kate Keene began to untie the thin black ribbon wound around the drawings.

“Don’t bother, Miss Keene,” he said, willing her to listen. “I have no intention of living in that house ever again. I’d be rid of it in a heartbeat if I could find someone to take it off my hands, but plantation houses aren’t even worth the inflated taxes the state demands. If I hadn’t enlisted in the army after the war, if I hadn’t donned a blue uniform, which seems to have gained me some leeway with the tax collector, I’d have lost possession of this land years ago.”

She opened her mouth, and surprisingly, closed it again. Her cheeks were on fire.

He was elated to see her apparently struggling for words.

Finally she managed, “You can’t be serious.”

His unkempt appearance, his surly attitude, his rudeness, even the thread of flying missals had not stunned Kate Keene as deeply as the declaration that he couldn’t care less and wanted to be rid of
Belle Fleuve.

“This is your home, Colin, your heritage. Your ancestors are buried here.”

“I look forward to the day it’s no longer mine,” he reiterated. “I have no use for this place anymore. It’s not worth the paper the deed is written on.”

As far as he was concerned, the grand pillared mansion was nothing but a tomb that housed memories of halcyon days that had faded to a cloudy dream. His father and mother had passed on years ago, victims of the war. He had no idea if he would ever lay eyes on his sister Amelie again. He had no notion of her whereabouts or even if she was still alive.

Nor had he any desire to move into the main house. He doubted he could travel the length of the narrow walk that connected the
garconniere
to the mansion even if he wanted to.

As if searching for a rebuttal, Kate Keene’s sharp gaze was calculating behind her glasses. Yelling at her hadn’t worked, so he attempted to reason again.

“I’m tired, Miss Keene. I’m feeling poorly, so please do me a favor and leave.”

She formed her words slowly, as if choosing them very carefully.

“Even if I wanted to, Colin, I owe it to Amelie and your parents not to leave you in this state. Apparently you need more help than I imagined, so I have no recourse but to stay on.”

Astounded, he forgot his injury and tried to sit up and was forced to clamp his jaw against a shout of pain. He closed his eyes and waited for the intense throb in his ankle and leg to recede. Finally he managed to take a shuddering breath.

“Stay on? There is no way in h —”

She cut him off with a quick wave of her gloved hand. “There is no need to be vulgar. I can see that you are in no mood to discuss this today. Perhaps in the morning you’ll be more receptive.”

“In the
morning?”
He couldn’t believe her audacity.

Miss Keene rose very slowly, taking great care handling her plans. Then she made a show of shaking out her skirt and carefully returned the chair to its original location. Moving back to the center of the room, she paused and blinked rapidly behind her spectacles.

Then Miss Katherine Keene smiled a very irritating smile. Either he had gone completely mad or she was insane.

“There’s no way I’m leaving you like this, Colin.” Her words were laced with Southern syrup. “I’ll send my companion back to town for our things and then find some way to make myself comfortable for the night. We’ll have the house livable in no time, you’ll see. You simply can’t stay holed up out here like this.” She looked around at the dingy paint and cracked plaster walls and shook her head. “It’s depressing. No wonder you feel so terrible.”

Colin shoved the fingers of both hands through his hair and gritted his teeth.

He pinned her with a hard, cold stare. “You are not wanted or needed here, so turn around, go back to New Orleans, and
don’t come back.”

She walked slowly to the door, crunched across the broken vase as if it wasn’t there, and stopped. Before she reached for the knob, she slowly turned to face him again. Her tone was laced with softness, but there was no denying her determination.

“Your parents once assured me that I was always welcome at
Belle Fleuve.”

“My parents are dead.”

“Which is a blessing. If they were here, they would be appalled by your appearance and rude behavior. Since you are obviously not yourself, I’m going to forgive you for such odious conduct. I will see you again tomorrow. Perhaps then you’ll be in the mood to go over the plans.”

“You will leave
now
— “ he bellowed.

When she smiled a most irritating smile, he noticed there was a dimple in her left cheek.

“I’m sorry, Colin, but I’m not going anywhere until you are capable of throwing me out yourself.”

Heart of Stone