Lilli Barthélemy knew a thing or two about men, the first of which was that most of them possessed only a fraction of the confidence they tried to wear like a rack of sixteen-point antlers.
But here was the youngest child of eight, an artist and a scholar, grandson of a tyrant. With her affirmation, she’d just earned more of his trust. She liked George Washington Vanderbilt II, she was startled to realize. Genuinely so.
It was Cedric the Saint Bernard who disrupted the moment, the dog bounding around the horses and up to its master, then wiping a wet muzzle against his wool trousers.
Lilli concentrated on not wrinkling her nose in distaste.
George stopped walking to scratch the creature behind his ears. “Cedric’s litter was from Bar Harbor, you know.”
Shifting the reins to his left hand and kneeling to scratch the drooling beast under his collar, John Cabot’s tone was low and affectionate. “You’re a magnificent creature, Cedric. You know, you’re the first Saint Bernard whose acquaintance I’ve been honored to make.”
George was clearly basking in the praise of his dog. Which let Lilli know she would be making friends with the slobbering beast. And therefore changing clothes more than the usual seven times a day.
“About the murder,” Madison Grant put in suddenly, apropos of nothing and jolting their calm. “Forgive me for bringing up a subject none of us wants to relive. But I feel we should keep abreast. Has there been progress in the investigation?”
Lilli’s pulse dropped to a faint thrum.
Beside her, Cabot’s hand stilled from scratching Cedric’s oversized head.
As if, Lilli thought, he’s also uneasy with this subject.
George frowned. “Wolfe rode over this very morning to update me. Apparently, something new has come to light.”
Cabot straightened. “What was it?”
It struck Lilli how very guilty John Cabot might sound—to anyone not already assuming he was beyond suspicion.
“Wolfe has been interviewing everyone he can find who was there to learn what they saw. Apparently, several names continue to come up: Ling Yong’s for one, Robert Bratchett’s for another. And there’s also, I’m sorry to say, my own stablehand still among the suspects.”
“Not Mr. Bergamini, surely!” Emily said.
Grant tilted his head, considering. “Interesting.” He glanced her way—or was it Cabot’s? “Though hardly surprising.”
Lilli’s blood seemed to still in her veins. She had no sensation whatever of breathing. No one in this group except Emily and George would be aware Lilli’s father had been here and left in a rush. And Emily’s naive sweetness made her slow to suspect anyone of anything ever. No one here but John Cabot seemed to remember the New Orleans story.
As if he had his own reasons for disliking the topic, Cabot was looking straight ahead.
Grant smiled amiably. “From among the three current suspects, we have the common thread: genetic descendants of Africa, Asia, and Southern Europe—so far south it’s nearly to Africa and the Middle East. They can’t be expected to have the same moral fiber as you or I, George. Or Cabot. Or your excellent niece.”
Lilli noted the flicker of hesitation before he included her in the next nod.
“Or our crack shot, the lovely Miss Barthélemy.”
Cabot glanced wryly her way. “Apparently the French, too, will soon be asked not to breed.”
Grant bristled.
Vanderbilt turned slowly, stiffly, as if his spine had been fused into a solid rod. “If I’m following what you’re suggesting . . .”
“Merely that some races of humanity are simply beaten men of beaten nations, particularly those of darker hue—as it’s been proved. With a proclivity toward theft. Toward rape. Toward murder.”
“Good God,” Cabot exploded. “That’s Francis Walker you’re quoting, that crowd and their pseudoscience. Let me suggest you let the president of MIT teach you what he can about numbers and gather your science elsewhere.”
“Really, Cabot, your temper.”
“My temper is hardly the threat here. And it tends to be triggered by stupidity.”
Lilli braced for Grant’s fury—and she could see George doing the same, poised as if he expected fists to fly next.
Instead, though, Grant only smoothed his mustache. Then smiled. “I hardly think this is behavior becoming a gentleman. Scientific inquiry”—he enunciated both words—“ought not precipitate raising one’s voice.”
“Scientific quackery,” Cabot shot back. His face was a deep, dangerous red.
“It’s biological determinism, plain and simple. We autochthonous Nordics evolved from Homo europœus, with the hard winters of the Northern European steppes and forests eliminating defective genes and producing a race of men renowned for virility, strength, industry, and intelligence.”
“With you as the prime exemplar, Grant? Is that where all this leads—to your ego?”
“We are, quite simply, what our genes have destined we will be. No amount of education, social workers’ sentimentality, or religious pity for the poor and weak changes that.”
“No.” It was George’s voice this time, more harsh than Lilli had ever heard him—as much of a slap as it was a word. “You’re wrong. And your ideas, undemocratic.”
“Yet you yourself, Vanderbilt, are a shining exemplar: your Dutch ancestry, your grandfather’s industry and savvy, the genetics that gave your family the capability of earning—and deserving—its wealth.”
Lilli held her breath in the tension.
Picking up a stick, George hurled it with a force that startled them all to stillness for several moments—except for Cedric, who bounded after it. “Let me say this, Grant: I have no wish to banish a guest from Biltmore. Ever. Much less one of the nation’s leaders in land and wildlife preservation. And a man with whom I share any number of friends.”
A but hovered there in the mountain air.
“So perhaps we can agree on at least three things from today’s conversation.”
“And those would be?”
George ticked them off with his fingers. “One, that the attack on Mr. Berkowitz was a horrible thing. Two, that the assailant must be found.”
“Indeed. And the other?”
“That perhaps the quite admirable wildlife and land preservation efforts you’ve led would be better topics for the future.”
“My only goal in all my work,” Grant said evenly, “is preserving what is good. Making room for that which is best to thrive.”
Turning, Cabot sprang angrily up onto his horse. “No matter what, apparently—or who—that means rooting out.” He urged his gelding into a run, stopping only at the far side of the field to wait for the group.
Grant cleared his throat, his tone smooth and unctuous. Lilli pictured oil dripping from the tips of his mustache. “I will of course adhere to any request of our gracious and generous host.”
No one else spoke. And George, Lilli noticed, fixed his eyes angrily on the mountains ahead.
Lilli welcomed the clatter of their horses’ iron shoes on the brick—a cover for the brittleness of their silence as they made their way back to the front of the house.