Under a Gilded Moon(97)

“Our host,” Grant added, “is a more complex man than most, is he not?”

In answer, Lilli steepled the other brow.

“He’ll require a wife who’d rather read by the fire in a remote corner of the Blue Ridge than waltz until dawn to ‘The Blue Danube.’ Wouldn’t you say?”

The maid took a silent step toward the door. But Grant’s hand shot out for her arm.

“Monsieur,” Lilli said, “one may not always grab what one wants.”

Straightening one lapel, Grant cleared his throat. Then plucked a telegram from his jacket pocket, which he held out to the maid. “The man Ling delivered it earlier. Though I’d forgotten about it, I confess, until this moment.”

The maid lifted her head. “Rather like the phylacteries?”

Lilli laughed.

Taking the telegram from him, the maid’s curiosity—or, from her expression, her dread—appeared to get the better of her. She tore the telegram open.

Casually, Lilli glanced over her shoulder to read.

YOUR SCHOLARSHIP ABOUT TO BE REASSIGNED.

CAN YOU ASSURE TRUSTEES OF YOUR RETURN TO NY?

Crunching the telegram in one fist, she fled down the hall still clutching the bottle of port.

Madison Grant’s eyes followed her.

Lilli waited until he’d turned. “One petite memory from my childhood, Mr. Grant. As a girl, I once stood on my father’s wharf in New Orleans and watched a shark circle a wounded fish just thrown back into the sea. I recall, Mr. Grant, wanting to jump off the wharf to save the poor fish, small as it was.”

For a full moment, neither one of them spoke, or moved.

“Interesting,” he finally observed, “that the police have not yet suspected your connection with Aaron Berkowitz.”

Lilli’s pulse dropped to the faintest thrum.

Grant knew. She could see the dare in his eyes. The triumph. Lilli could not breathe.

“I’ve no idea, Mr. Grant, what you mean.”

“Really, Miss Barthélemy? Because a friend of mine in New York who does legal work for the Times responded to a letter of mine. He tells me reporters had been sent to New Orleans and Asheville both to talk with a certain Louisiana businessman about whom they had new and quite interesting information. If I know this, I suspect someone among the police does, too, by now. Don’t you?”





Chapter 44

Lilli watched Emily smile at John Cabot from beneath her lashes—frosted prettily with ice pellets on this misty late-winter day. Biltmore’s deer park, gone a honeyed brown, crunched under their horses’ hooves.

But the profile of his face that Cabot turned away from poor Emily was less warm than one of the men in the friezes over the banquet hall fireplaces. Lilli nudged her own mount closer.

“Cheer up, chérie. He has a fine face, I’ll grant you. But with no suitable income attached.”

Emily sighed. “If only I could make myself flirt with a suitable income attached to a pudding face. Oh, well.” She patted the gelding she rode. “At least the grooms matched me with a sweetheart of a horse today.”

Lilli grimaced. “Rather a plodder, though.”

“Only to those who do not plod well.”

“Ah. C’est vrai. Fair enough.”

“I did notice that the stablehand who’s disappeared”—she cut her eyes toward Lilli—“had learned a great deal about your . . . particular preferences.”

Lilli waited, her face giving away nothing. Emily could not possibly know how many times Lilli had lingered in the stables last fall to talk with the Italian. Unless the servants had talked.

“What sort of horse, I mean, to saddle for you.” But Emily’s face said more.

Lilli glanced away. “He did tend to saddle the most high-strung of George’s hunters for me.”

“Yes. He must have sensed that in you. That you relished a good risk.”

Lilli gave a laugh that sounded false even to her. “That, or he was trying to help me break my own neck.” She shielded her eyes from the sun with her hand. “Where’s that uncle of yours, I wonder?”

“Lils.”

Lilli turned in her sidesaddle, her right knee raised nearly to the mare’s neck now.

“Lils, surely it’s a good thing the Italian has disappeared—for your sake, I mean. No, you needn’t respond. Just answer me this: Do you find my uncle intriguing? Honestly.”

“I . . .” Lilli slowed to choose her words carefully. “Your uncle George possesses something I’ve rarely found in men of our class.”

“Yes?”

“An overarching kindness.”

Emily beamed. “Why, yes. That’s so true.”

The other truth was, Lilli thought, it bewildered her. And all that kindness bored her a little, too. The complete consistency, the utter predictability of it.

But surely kindness in a man was the sort of thing one could learn to live with.

“You know, don’t you, Lils, what people are saying?”

Lilli stiffened. “About . . . New Orleans?”

“I meant about George’s inviting you back to Biltmore. The society pages are crackling with anticipation over a forthcoming announcement.”

Lilli lowered her eyes. Sweet, loyal Emily: she deserved a humble reply. Kind, trusting George: he deserved gratitude.