“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.”
“Be assured I’ve had to wrestle with my conscience in order to do just that. I trust they will indeed follow up.”
In love with the same woman.
Kerry dragged her broom across the stone, but the words reverberated inside her head.
Brutality, someone had said in Bon Marché. Of John Cabot from, apparently, a few years ago. Could those same instincts have shown up again in a jealous rage at the train station?
“And regarding the second item: About your reasons for coming here. I want to offer my help. Truly.”
Still clutching the broom, she crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’m aware how difficult it must be, a young woman in your position. Forgive me, but I took the liberty of asking Mrs. Smythe about your situation when I saw you seeking employment and then appearing here at Biltmore. If I may say so, I was startled that so well-spoken a young woman would—”
“Work as a kitchen maid?”
“Well, yes. After finding a life in New York. Suddenly dragged back. It speaks well for the stock you come from—the strength you’ve shown.”
A tremor went through her. And perhaps he saw it—that his compassion had struck a chord.
“Thank you, Mr. Grant.”
She felt his eyes on her. Heard the way the words came from her own lips just now. Sounding very much—too much—like some sort of yes.
Grant followed her gaze out to the rolling waves of gray and black. “I like to think, Kerry, I’m contributing something of significance to this world—in my law practice, my wildlife work, land preservation.”
He paused as if she were meant to comment. She swept harder.
“But particularly in my work that will have lasting impacts on the future of humanity. It’s within our power, you know, to annihilate inferior traits and breed desirable, superior ones.”
Startled, Kerry paused in her sweeping. Surely she’d misheard. “I’m sorry. Did you say annihilate, Mr. Grant? And breed?”
“If one is willing to root out the laziness and criminality we see quite starkly in particular nationalities. While propagating the industriousness and intelligence in others.”
Kerry stared at him. “Surely you don’t mean . . . ,” she began.
“One of our leading researchers has shown how the poorer classes of people, particularly in the slums of London, were also of a lower intellect—nationalities we know to be genetically inferior. Here in the Appalachians—”
Kerry held up a hand. “You’re probably not accustomed to having your ideas challenged, particularly not by someone holding a broom. But surely you’re not suggesting people are poor because they’re genetically inferior.”
He stepped toward her again, voice smooth. “Your intelligence and your industriousness, I must tell you, are tremendously appealing. And evidence of your Nordic stock.” Before she could jerk away, he ran a hand down the line of her jaw. “As is your striking beauty.”
“The porch,” she said, momentarily paralyzed, “is finished.”
He reached to lift a stray lock of her hair.
Her feet moved at last. She whipped toward the loggia’s far door.
Grant’s voice hung in the air, hazy and soft as a patch of poison ivy catching fire and turning to smoke—and as lethal, Kerry thought.