dresses and costumes from her days as an actress. She and her great-aunt were about the same height, and the last time she saw sixty-something Gwendolyn Pickering, the older woman had the figure of someone half her age.
It’d been years since she’d played dress-up; attending the fund-raiser would bring back memories of the Venetian masked balls during Carnival. There was something about the city built on water that reminded her of Bayou Teche. It was as if time stood still, leaving those trapped within in a spell that was far from reality.
She rose from the chair and headed for the staircase. The fund-raiser was only two days away.
Sitting in a rocker on the porch of the Louisiana bayou plantation house where he’d grown up, Shiloh stared at his mother’s delicate profile. “Are you sure you want to go with Augustine?”
Moriah Harper’s hands tightened around the arms of a matching rocker as she stared at her bare feet resting on a cushioned footstool. “Yes, I’m sure, Shiloh.” She turned her head and glared at her firstborn. “Do you have a problem with that?”
His jawline muscles clenched angrily to halt the flow of expletives poised on the tip of his tongue. He loved and respected his mother, but her decision to attend the fund-raiser with a man who’d pursued her relentlessly since she’d become a widow annoyed him. His father hadn’t been buried a month when the man who owned the largest catfish farm in the region came calling.
“You’re a grown woman, Mama, and—”
“Oh, so you’ve noticed,” Moriah countered, interrupting him.
“Please don’t be catty, Mama. It’s not becoming,” he chided softly.
Her green eyes sent off glints of anger and annoyance that her children—Shiloh in particular—were meddling in her life. She’d lost her husband, the love of her life, but she was still alive.
“What I find unbecoming is you trying to tell me how to live my life. Your daddy and I always talked about what we would do if one outlived the other. And we both decided that we wouldn’t spend the rest of our lives mourning. I’ve gone to church every day since Virgil’s funeral mass to light a candle for his soul. One morning last month Father Basil met me as I was leaving, asking whom I was lighting the candle for. When I told him that it was for Virgil, he said something to me that made me rethink my actions.
“I was lighting candles for someone who couldn’t see the light, while my own light had gone out because I was mourning for what was, and would never be again. I’m saying this because Virgil’s gone and he’s not coming back. And in my heart of hearts, I know he doesn’t want me to stop living, so that’s why I accepted Augie’s invitation to go with him to the fund-raiser.” Her expression softened, making the elementary school nurse seem closer to fifty instead of sixty. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to find your own date this year.”
Shiloh smiled at the tall, slender woman with short curly salt-and-pepper hair. She’d inherited the large expressive green eyes from her Cajun father, and the richness of her chestnut-brown complexion from her African-American mother. “I already have a date.”
The lashes shadowing Moriah’s eyes fluttered as she sat up straighter. Her heart pounding a runaway rhythm, she prayed Shiloh hadn’t reconciled with his ex-wife.
“Who is she?”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Shiloh leaned back on the chair, smiling. “You don’t know her.”
“Does she have a name?”
“Miss Taylor.”
“Does Miss Taylor have a first name?”
“Gwendolyn.”
It was Moriah’s turn to smile. “Where did you meet her?”
“I picked her up along the road.”
“Along the road as in hitchhiking?”
Reaching over and patting his mother’s hand, Shiloh winked at her. “No more questions, Mama. You’ll get to meet her Friday.” Rising from his rocker, he leaned over, and kissed Moriah’s scented cheek. “Good night, beautiful.”
Moriah smiled, patting his back over the bulge of the firearm concealed under his shirt. “You be careful, son.”
“I will.”
She stared through the screen as he walked off the porch, got into his car and drove away. She’d always warned Virgil to be careful each time he left the house, and it was no different with her son.
“You’ll get to meet her Friday.” Shiloh’s words stayed with her long after he’d left. While she’d lit candles for her dead husband, she’d also prayed for her son, prayed that he would meet someone who would make him laugh again.
She hoped this Gwendolyn Taylor would be the one who would help soften his heart.
* * *
It was six-twenty, and Gwen still hadn’t slipped into the burgundy Renaissance-inspired ball gown. She was partial to the gown because it was in keeping with a black lace mask adorned with burgundy silk ties. She’d found the mask in a box stacked in a walk-in closet in one of the guest bedrooms.
Gwendolyn Pickering’s closets were a treasure trove of clothes and costumes spanning decades. Her aunt had made her theatrical debut at the age of six in a church musical, and as she matured, went on to starring and supporting roles in dozens of independent black films until her unexpected retirement in the early ’50s. She left California for Louisiana, moving into Bon Temps.
Sitting on a padded bench in front of a vanity mirror, the bulbs surrounding the mirror set for nighttime illumination, Gwen outlined her mouth with a shade of wine-colored lipstick. She wondered how many times her aunt had sat on the stool making up her face before putting on her evening finery to descend the curving staircase and greet her guests who’d gathered in the ballroom.
Her aunt’s life had always been shrouded in mystery, but some of that mystery was about to be stripped away. Gwen had found a large corrugated box filled with letters addressed to Miss Gwendolyn Pickering at Bon Temps. None of the envelopes bore a return address, but a postmark indicated they’d been mailed from New Orleans.
She applied a second coat of lipstick, pleased with the result. The upper half of her face would be hidden under the mask, so attention would be drawn to her mouth. A light coat of loose powder, a few brushstrokes over her hair pulled off her face and secured on the nape of her neck with ruby-jeweled hairpins that were in the package Billy Sykes had sent to her completed her exotic look. Her aunt had entrusted her lawyer with a small rosewood box filled with pieces of estate jewelry and an accompanying appraisal that listed the contents at half a million dollars. A teardrop-shaped ruby pendant suspended on an ornate filigree gold chain resting between the valley of her breasts matched the earrings dangling from Gwen’s pierced lobes.
She left the dressing room for the bedroom. Picking the ball gown off the bed, she stepped into it and eased it up her hose-covered legs and over the bodice of a strapless black bustier. Narrow bands to billowy gauzy silk sleeves with gold-threaded embroidered cuffs were attached to the beaded off-the-shoulder straps. The revealing décolletage that flowed into a full skirt was not a garment for a lady invited to the de Medici court, but of a Venetian courtesan.
The doorbell chimed, and she went completely still. Turning, she stared at the clock on the fireplace mantel. It was 6:30. Shiloh was on time. Clutching the back of her dress with her left hand, she used her right to lift the sweeping skirt, and raced out of her bedroom and down the long hallway to the staircase.
“I’m coming!” she shouted as she descended the staircase in her stocking feet. She made it to the door before it rang again, opened it, and went completely still.
Shiloh stood under the