Grant seemed to coil back into himself, eyes narrowed. Like a rattler, Kerry thought, before it strikes.
Leblanc’s gaze swung over the guests again now.
Skipping, Kerry noticed, only Lilli Barthélemy, who stood haughty and distant.
The lady raised her chin. “That will be all now, Leblanc.” She spoke icily—but also as if she had some sort of connection with—or power over—the man.
She drew a breath as if to steady herself and glanced toward Vanderbilt—as if she’d just realized she’d let her irritation with Leblanc slice away her caution in not revealing a link before.
George Vanderbilt had indeed turned to look at her quizzically. But said nothing.
Leblanc, running a hand once down his black triangle of beard, opened his mouth as if he would speak. Then, closing it, he spun away on one heel and stalked out.
Chapter 43
“Lils?” Emily asked, bewildered. “Surely you couldn’t have known this Mr. Leblanc?”
Lilli felt their eyes like weights on her. She’d shown too much of her hand.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I seem to have a bit of a headache.”
They’d assume she’d gone to her room, the Chippendale, with its two separate Renoirs. She’d gushed about them this morning to George. But truly, all she saw was a dull girl with an orange.
Like a sea creature drawn to water, she ducked into the swimming pool’s vaulted room down the corridor and shredded the silk of her stockings as she yanked them off. Hiking up her skirts, she lowered herself to the pool’s edge, bare toes skimming the water. Which, bon Dieu, was actually warm. Strangely sensual.
Which made her think of the Italian. The strength of his arms as he’d carried saddles from the tack room. The way, when she’d been near, he kept his hands frenetically busy—brushing and oiling and stretching and buckling, often repeating work he’d just done. The smolder and fire in his eyes when he looked at her. Stepped close to her, arms tensed by his side.
She arched her feet in the water.
Extraordinary, really, how Biltmore catered to its guests’ every whim and need. Except peace of mind.
Lilli sighed. If she looked scandalous with her skirt hiked up like this and her calves bare . . . well, so be it. She had good calves. Now if she could just slash through her corset strings, that would be progress.
Alone for some time, she felt her spine relax. Then, from across the corridor at the pool’s far end, sounds echoed off the stone walls. From the gymnasium.
Rising, Lilli padded to the door to peer across: the climbing rope, the weights neatly lined on one wall, the parallel bars. But only the male guests could use it.
Not seeing her, Madison Grant, in a sleeveless shirt, turned, his arms oyster-white and without definition, his gut rounding out like a puff of uncooked beignet. He leveraged up from the floor a bar with weighted plates.
“Simple physics,” he murmured to himself as he strained to press it over his head. “Angles more than mere muscular power.”
Here came the maid, Kerry, scurrying past the broad entrance to the gymnasium.
“Ah!” Grant called. “Kerry!”
Ducking into the pool’s room, Kerry flattened her back against the wall.
The maid and Lilli regarded each other in silence for a long moment. Lilli studied her: the red hair pulled back into a maid’s cap, with rogue wisps curling around the face. The sunburned cheeks, even here in winter. The chapped hands, their knuckles cracked, nearly bleeding as she clutched a bottle of port in one hand, a glass in the other.
Without a word, the maid stepped forward, filled the glass, and handed it to Lilli.
“Well. How timely that you appeared to refill my glass.” They continued eyeing each other. “You caused quite the stir, you know. The help participating in a conversation. Is that the way things are done here in Appalachia?”
The girl kept her face still. Unafraid. Lilli had to give her that.
Lilli leaned closer. “The truth is, I enjoyed seeing Grant caught with his hands in the phylacteries, so to speak.”
“Kerry!” Grant’s voice echoed off the gymnasium’s stone walls.
With a tilt of her head, Lilli acknowledged the look in the maid’s eyes. Strode to the door of the pool and called across the corridor to the gym. “Why, Mr. Grant. Were you looking for someone?”
“Ah.” He stopped, flustered, as he approached the door of the pool room. “Miss Barthélemy. What a surprise.”
“I’ll bet.”
Grant’s eyes traveled from Lilli to the maid he’d spotted now, her back still against the wall.
The maid was blushing a fuchsia that clashed with her hair. But her eyes were striking. Defiant. Perhaps Lilli had given her too little credit before.
“So, then. Mr. Grant.” Lilli arched an eyebrow. The arch of that very brow had yanked men far more powerful than this pathetic New York attorney back into line.
She was from New Orleans, and she was French. Two very good reasons not to be much startled by a man flirting with a pretty housemaid at a friend’s vacation estate. Still. She was unaccustomed to stumbling directly upon it herself. Perhaps because the men in her orbit typically orbited her.
Grant offered a smile gleaming with polish and calm—and money. “Miss Barthélemy, I must tell you how refreshing it is in an era of mannish cycling clothing and walking skirts to see a lady dress so elegantly for dinner—and then even for bowling.”
Reflexively, though she saw his game, she smoothed her skirt. To breakfast, she’d worn a wonder of tiered lace, a gown designed to turn heads—though with a modest neckline. Tonight’s gown, by contrast, had not had a modest neckline. She meant to make the most of her time with George Vanderbilt.
“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.”