It was afternoon now, all the wagons long since gone to deliver the Jersey cows’ milk to the main house and the workers’ families, and the surplus milk on its way to the hospital, a gift from Biltmore. From his time in the stables, Sal knew at least that much of the dairy barn’s schedule.
No wagon should be rolling and racketing into the barnyard this time of day.
With no weapon, Sal reached for a pitchfork. It would be no match for Leblanc’s pistol, but it gave him something to grip against a swell of helplessness. Edging from behind a mound of hay, Sal peered down to the barnyard, where he could see only the top of a Clydesdale’s head.
They’d not really eaten since the evening before last, Nico and him—except for a small cheese rind and a heel of bread a worker had left. And plenty of milk.
At least, though, the two of them had managed to disappear.
“Mr. Bergamini!” came a child’s voice—or, no, a voice that was almost a man’s. Sal edged closer. Jursey MacGregor’s already large hands circled around a boy’s mouth. “Mr. Bergamini! You there? Kerry says you all are.”
“We got to hurry!” his sister, Tully, bellowed—a large sound from such a piccola ragazza, such a small girl.
From the driver’s seat, Kerry shaded her eyes as she scanned the dairy barn’s upper level—like she could make them out through the cracks in the boards.
Nico reached out, letting Sal know they should go down.
“Mi fido di te,” Sal said quietly, echoing Nico. I trust you.
Sal tucked his hand under Nico’s elbow, and the two of them tromped down the stairs from the loft and presented themselves, hay still clinging to their clothes and hair, in front of the wagon.
Tully held out her hand in greeting. “Reckon you ain’t got much choice, but we’re real glad it’s us you’ll come out for.”
“Mr. Vanderbilt hisself give us the wagon to take,” Jursey whispered, as if speaking too loudly might jinx their mission.
Kerry leaped from the bench. “Mr. Bergamini of the cow-herding and dairy-farming Bergaminis, I’m glad you and Carlo are safe.”
“I am grateful you thought of”—he gestured to the dairy barn—“this.” He shook her hand warmly. “The name is Sal. Salvatore Catalfamo. This is my brother, Nico.”
Rounding to the rear of the wagon, she flipped back a horse blanket to reveal what they’d brought. “I’m fairly sure Mr. Vanderbilt knew why I was asking to borrow a wagon. He didn’t ask where I was taking it—so he can answer anyone’s questions by saying he doesn’t know.”
“I would like to tell to you the truth. Of New Orleans.” He could see from the stiffening of her shoulders that she wasn’t sure she wanted the truth. That she’d chosen to help on instinct alone.
“Thank you. And soon. Right now we have to hurry, like Tully said.” She slipped chicken baked with butter and thyme inside biscuits and handed one first to Nico and then to Sal. “We brought plenty more. Left in a hurry as soon as I could slip away without Mrs. Smythe’s seeing, and while Rema had time to help us pack something up.” She winked at them both. “Rema wouldn’t let us out the door of the kitchens without this.” She peeled back cheesecloth to reveal a blackberry cobbler, still steaming.
Sal asked no questions, numb with hopes he was afraid to form into words.
Jursey stepped forward shyly, red hair in his eyes. “Reckon we ought to say our howdys again. Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Salvatore Catalfamo.” He grinned at the bounce of the name on his tongue. “You too, Nico.”
Before Sal had a chance to respond, Nico looked up from a big bite of cobbler, blackberry smeared across his mouth. “Grazie,” he whispered, eyes filling. “Grazie mille.”
Glancing at Sal, Nico added to the MacGregors, so low the twins had to lean forward to hear, “We trust you.”
Chapter 40
Quietly, Kerry slipped out the front door of Biltmore into a world of white. Mrs. Smythe would have turned a deep Liverpool purple at a servant using the front entrance, but Kerry was past caring.
It had been several days since Christmas, Kerry having snuck twice more to the dairy barn with food, both times after dark once the last worker had left. Today, since it was Sunday, she’d have the day off—from Biltmore, at least. She’d spend it caring for her father as she did every early morning and night the rest of the week. She’d been testing the limits of how little sleep a person could get and still function. But there had to be a point, coming soon, when the tide of exhaustion always lapping at her would one day crash over her head and carry her off.
Today, she’d be with Tully and Jursey. That lightened her mood as she turned to admire Biltmore’s copper roof caps and spires glinting above the snow.
Two gardeners bent into the task of shoveling paths straightened to wave to her. With no guests awake and George Vanderbilt likely ensconced in his observatory at the highest point of the house, and with the servants tiptoeing about, Biltmore sat serenely quiet but for the shush, shush of the shovels against the snow.
Kerry felt strangely warm as she walked, despite having left her father’s coat for the twins. It was as if those moments shared with John Cabot on Christmas night were still sending the blood coursing through her.
Which was why, she told herself sternly here in the clear light of day, she had to be wary.
Despite the deep, swirling pull of that night, and despite what she’d learned of his story, there were still reasons for caution. Like the cliché of the servant girl falling for the handsome gentleman on the grand estate, convinced that he loved her only to find she’d been just an amusement. John Cabot seemed nothing if not authentic, but wasn’t that what every abandoned young woman said, looking back? And he’d somehow known Aaron Berkowitz before that night on the train platform, yet he’d volunteered nothing to Wolfe that evening. For a man who claimed to value transparency of the heart so highly, there was something unsettling about his not divulging that he’d known the murder victim before.
She didn’t have to let his rumpled good looks or her sympathy for him pull her feet out from under her like the French Broad in a flood. She’d have to exercise caution.
Kerry veered into the woods, the snow thick. The beeswax she’d rubbed into her shoes helped only so much with moisture, her stockings wet through now.
At the barn, Tully and Jursey were up and dressed, Tully’s hair neatly braided, Jursey’s in its rooster comb. The three of them changed their father’s bedclothes, the air once they were done smelling of the pine needle tick.
Kerry kissed each twin on the top of the head. “So. Has he said anything?”
The twins exchanged glances.
“Okay, you two. What’s that about?”
Jursey frowned at Tully, then at their father, just beginning to stir. “He said not to tell.”
“I don’t care, Jurs. I’m not keeping secrets from Kerry.”
Kerry’s hands went to her hips. “Whatever it is, I’m guessing I need to know.”
Jursey sighed but said nothing, crossing his arms.
Kerry focused in on her sister, who strapped on every responsibility like a soldier with his pack. Tully had no capacity for shrugging off duty.