Under a Gilded Moon(47)

“The light like this,” he continued, “the color of sterling silver. Only with cracks of white in it. The immensity of it.”

The new wicker glistened with beads of ice, its fresh black paint still unmarred. If Mrs. Smythe were to peek outside from the tapestry gallery, at least she would see Kerry working, not standing and chatting with a guest.

“The peculiar thing is I’ve a lifetime of looking at the ocean—summers in Newport, mostly. But I’ve never felt quite this way.” He turned from the view. “Perhaps you’ve not seen the ocean?”

Rather than answer, Kerry bent to dry the next chair. Except for the past two years, she’d not left Buncombe County before. Madison Grant probably wouldn’t include in “seen the ocean” having walked past the wharves and acres of tenement housing on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and New York Harbor.

“But the ocean has never made me feel small. Dozens of times I’ve stood on the very precipice of the Cliff Walk in Newport.” He motioned to the drop off the loggia. “Easily as steep as this. And a scene that ought to feel as immense. And yet . . .”

Kerry straightened. “It’s part of the role mountains play in our lives. To make us feel small. Humbled.” She offered this without looking at him.

“Ah.” He drew alongside her. “Do pause a moment to look.”

Kerry turned. Let her eyes scan the roll and crest of the mountains, an ocean of dark, swelling gray-blue. She felt her shoulders relax.

Madison Grant leaned in. Brushed the back of his hand down her arm. And stepped in closer, his chest nearly touching her back.





Chapter 18

For an instant, Kerry did not move. Couldn’t.

Reaching with the broom for a rogue leaf, she stepped away. Did not look up. Pretended she hadn’t felt his touch on her skin.

“You know, Kerry, I don’t believe George would mind one of his staff taking a moment to stand in awe at this prospect, the very reason he built his house here.” His voice was smooth as sweet milk.

“I don’t believe, Mr. Grant, that Mr. Vanderbilt pays his staff to stare at the view.”

“Then think of it as your helping to please one of his guests. With the others out in the deer park, the house is empty.”

Because, she thought, a small army of maids, cooks, and carpenters don’t count.

“Kerry, I want you to know that I empathize with you”—he stepped close again so she could see the concern in his eyes, the buckle of his brow—“in the abrupt change in your life. I know how you must feel.”

“Do you, Mr. Grant?” She was aware, vaguely, of internal warnings—to stop talking. But the words were coming now, unfiltered. “I was raised in a one-room log cabin.”

“That must have been horrific.”

“It wasn’t.” She met his eye. “Our other rooms were the mountain hollows and peaks; our ceilings were the blue sky, the clouds and the fog—low one day, endless the next. I never owned more than two dresses at a time—with no burden of too much choice.”

“That sounds . . .”

She didn’t wait for him to grasp the right word. “Growing up, I’d never slept in an actual bed or been to the symphony, but the pallet I shared with my siblings smelled of pine straw, and when my father was home and sober, we fell asleep to the serenade of the crickets and the stream that cut through our clearing and my father’s fiddle on ‘Barbara Allen’ and ‘Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.’”

“That sounds . . .”

“Appealing, Mr. Grant? And it could also be miserable, cold, and exhausting.”

As if a man like you, she stopped herself from adding aloud, could possibly understand. You with your soft, small hands and tailored clothes. Your assumption that anything—and anyone—is yours for the grabbing.

He stepped closer to her again, despite her hand on one hip, her fist around the broom handle. “It must be a wonderful relief for you, working here now.”

She stared at him in disbelief.

Here, she wanted to say, where envy stalks my every step? Where every electric bulb and vaulted ceiling reminds me some people live without fear of a falling roof?

Madison Grant brushed two fingers—only two fingers—over the back of her hand, then slid them away. “I wonder if I might mention two things.”

Tense, she waited.

“One is that I’ve noticed John Cabot’s interactions with you. How unfriendly he may often seem. For no reason.”

“Mr. Cabot has no reason to be friendly to me, Mr. Grant. Nor I to him.” This sounded rude, she realized. But there it was, the muscadine jelly spilled out of the jar.

“Still, I feel I should offer this insight. I have good reason to believe that John Cabot and the poor late Mr. Berkowitz not only knew each other prior to this autumn but, even further, were in love with the same woman.”

She let this wash over her.

In love with the same woman.

Meaning that John Cabot, who’d disappeared only moments before the attack, and whose wealth and connections with George Vanderbilt had apparently kept him above suspicion so far, would have had reason to kill Aaron Berkowitz.

The oldest reason of all.

“Mr. Grant, you’ve told this to the police, I hope.”