Masquerade by Janet Dailey

Author:Janet Dailey [Dailey, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mills & Boon
Published: 1975-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

16

A waxing moon, a shimmering crescent in the night sky, joined the dusting of glittering stars to look down on the collection of elaborate homes with expansive front lawns that had sprung up in the partially wooded outskirts of the city, built by prosperous Americans on the former site of the old Livaudais plantation. Stately processions of towering columns, Corinthian and Doric in design, faced the streets, the wide galleries borrowing the lacework ornamentation of iron railings from the Creoles, and the interiors adapting to the subtropical climate of New Orleans with rooms sixteen and eighteen feet high, wide doorways, tall windows, and folding shutters that could be thrown open to admit the flow of air.

Brodie Donovan stood at a parlor window in one of those homes—his home, finished only a few short months before, its grandeur befitting the residence of a successful shipowner. Yet, looking into the mirror-black night, he had only to close his eyes and remember the unbelievable green of his native Ireland, the two-room mud house that had been his home, the meager meals that had been served on its crude table, the patched and worn clothes that had covered his back, the hunger that had been in his belly, and the smell of peat burning in the hearth. He had only to close his eyes and remember the sensation of the swamp's mire tugging at his legs, drying on his clothes and skin—the suffocating heat, the zzzizzing buzz of attacking mosquitoes, the trembling and aching of exhausted muscles, and the stench, always the rank, malodorous smell of the miasmal swamp.

It didn't matter that he'd left it all behind; it hadn't left him.

If Adrienne had seen him then, she would have given him a look of cool disdain and drawn her skirts aside to avoid contact with him. In all the times they'd met and talked, he'd never told her about any of it. Oh, he'd told her of Ireland, described the green of its countryside, the rocky promontories of its sea cliffs, the sparkling waters of its springs and lochs, and told her of the grand wakes—the keening and weeping in one room and the toasting and tale-swapping in another. And he'd recounted the story of how he'd started his company and built it, as well as his plans for the future.

There was a truth to all of it, but not the whole truth, not the parts that might change the way she looked at him. Did he think she wouldn't love him if she knew? Did he think he wasn't really good enough for her? Was that why he went along with meeting her in secret—because he didn't feel he had a right to be seen with her in public?

But this was America. There was no rigid separation of the classes here; a man was not forever bound to one station. He could rise—as Brodie had done. Look at his clothes, look at this house —they were as fine as anything Adrienne's family possessed.

The darkened windowpane reflected his scowling look.

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