The Magnolia Palace(87)

He didn’t step toward her but instead moved directly in front of the door, as if he was expecting her to make a run for it.

Which maybe she had been, or at least checking out the possibility.

“Miss Lilly?” he said. “I’m afraid I must ask you to return to your quarters. The Fricks have asked me to not permit anyone to leave.”

“I see.” Lillian pulled her wrap close around her. “We’re trapped, is that it?”

“I don’t know, miss. I’m simply doing what I’m told.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

It certainly wasn’t his fault. Back up on the third floor, a door flew open right next to her, making Lillian jump and cry out in alarm. But it was only Bertha, rubbing her eyes.

“Miss Lilly, is everything all right?” she asked. “I thought I heard footsteps.”

“Oh, dear, you gave me a fright!”

“Everyone’s on tenterhooks.” She spoke in a whisper. “I can’t believe they think someone killed Mr. Frick. It can’t be true, can it?”

Lillian thought of what Miss Helen said right before she spied the letters, about how her father had amassed many jealous enemies. About the long-ago flood that had killed thousands of innocent people. Which meant that more than Mr. Frick’s immediate family had reason to want him dead.

No, Lillian was grasping at straws; shock and lack of sleep had rendered her incapable of clear thinking. The house was impenetrable; no one would’ve been able to sneak in.

“I have some whiskey, would you like it to help you sleep?” asked Bertha, stifling a yawn.

She shouldn’t keep everyone else up; that wasn’t fair. “No, I’m fine,” she said.

They parted, and soon after, Bertha’s snores droned through their shared wall. Lillian couldn’t sleep anyway. She had to figure out who had placed that draft if she wanted to clear her name. No one else was going to stand up for her.

The answer was there, in some behavior or word, she was certain. Something was off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Something had happened the day before that didn’t make sense. But what was it?

She spent the rest of the early hours running through what the family had said at the will reading, how they had reacted, trying to put her finger on what was bothering her, with no luck.

At eight o’clock that morning, overtired to the point of exhaustion, she answered a knock at her door. A chambermaid stood before her. “Miss Helen has asked that you join her in the Fragonard Room in an hour, Miss Lilly.”

“Very well. Thank you.”

She cleaned herself up as best she could, the dark circles under her eyes like smudges of fireplace ash, and entered the room at the appointed hour. How fitting that she be fired, or sent off to jail, or whatever they were planning on doing to her, in the very room where she had first fooled Miss Helen into offering her the job. There, amid the panels where nymphs pranced and lovers blushed, solemnly sat Mrs. Frick, Miss Winnie, Miss Helen, Mrs. Dixie, and the private detective, while Mr. Childs leaned on a wall near one of the windows, an ugly grimace on his face.

Mr. DeWitt rose to his feet, took out his notebook, and addressed Lillian. “I’ve recently learned of a deception perpetrated by you upon the Frick family.”

So Miss Helen had told them after all. Lillian answered before he could go on. “I apologized to Miss Helen earlier, and I apologize to the family now. It was not my intention to attract the attentions of Mr. Danforth, I assure you.”

The last thing she wanted to do was further humiliate Miss Helen, but she had to try to explain. “He pursued me, and for a time I was briefly entranced, but then told him in no uncertain terms that I was not interested. I’m sorry for having hurt Miss Helen so, after all she’s done for me.”

“For God’s sake, you can’t even do that right.” But Mr. Childs’s angry words weren’t directed at Lillian. They were directed at his sister. He let out an ugly snort. “Danforth pursued a penniless working girl over you, an heiress? How Father would be laughing at this entire situation. At you.”

Miss Helen cried out. “You are too cruel, Childs. Mother, make him stop.”

Mr. DeWitt hadn’t been referring to the letters. In her panic, Lillian had opened up the wound she’d most wanted to avoid.

Miss Winnie and Mrs. Frick exchanged a glance, as if they weren’t surprised by the news. Poor Miss Helen, always the disappointment.

“That is not the deception I was referring to,” said Mr. DeWitt.

The family turned and stared at him. “What else?” asked Mrs. Frick.

“Miss Lilly,” asked Mr. DeWitt, “do you go by any other aliases?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“We’ve been informed that you are not who you appear to be. That you are also known as”—he glanced down—“Miss Angelica Carter. Or better known, simply, as Angelica.”

Lillian could tell by the way he was eyeing her that he knew exactly who Angelica was, had seen the suggestive illustrations in the press. Mrs. Frick and Miss Winnie simply looked confused, but Miss Helen sat frozen, mouth open. “The model?” she said.

“Yes,” answered Mr. DeWitt. “The artists’ model.”

All of her secrets were now out in the open, and for a brief moment she felt a flash of abandon, of being able to be exactly who she was and stop hiding. But that was quickly replaced by panic. A sliver of hope lay with Miss Helen, whose familiarity with the art world might make her more understanding of the role that models played in the creative process, less scandalized by her prior career. But deep in her heart she knew that only a few art collectors—Mrs. Whitney among them, as she was also an artist—entertained such liberal views. It would be one more reason to distrust her, not that she needed more reasons after seeing Mr. Danforth’s letters. Still, Lillian addressed Miss Helen, not the private detective. “I was a model, yes.”