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.
Lilli looked up and managed a smile for her friend. “The society pages would appear to know more about my life than I do.”
Trotting up to join them, Cabot swung down from his mount. “Remarkably fine horses Vanderbilt keeps.”
“Doesn’t he, though.” Lilli squinted toward the base of the next hill. “I suppose that’s the forestry crew gathered there by the river.”
Cabot gestured with a bob of his head. “Black and white men together. Working side by side as one crew. You don’t see that too often down here.”
“Or in New York, ever,” Emily pointed out.
A chill ran down Lilli’s arms. The burly Dearg Tate, off to one side in the farthest cluster of white men, sat staring at her. She’d heard somewhere that he no longer worked for Biltmore and had finally sold George his farm. Yet here he was on the estate.
Leading his horse up to the three of them, Grant ran a hand across his jaw. “That man appears to be looking at you, Miss Barthélemy. Rather intently.”
Given what she’d seen near the gym of Grant pursuing the maid, he wouldn’t dare expose Lilli in front of the others. She tilted her head at him. “Is a man staring at me so very hard to understand?”
“Ah. You make a splendid point.”
She was desperate to change the subject. “Mr. Cabot, you are awfully quiet today. I wonder if your in-depth study of the mountain people has you distracted.”
“No doubt,” he said. And looked back at her impassively.
“Kerry MacGregor in particular must prove a challenging case. Part refined lady. Part tanner of hides and slopper of hogs. Part scullery maid. Part wildcat.”
Emily sucked a breath in. “Really, Lils.”
“I agree,” Cabot said at last. “She is indeed a young woman of many gifts.”
George Vanderbilt was cantering now up the hill.
“Perhaps,” Lilli murmured to Emily, “I might entice George away from the group. Temporarily only, of course.”
“And risk his feeling pursued?” Emily looked skeptical.
“The real art of the thing, of course, is convincing the fox that he’s really the hound.”
Lilli urged her mare into a gallop. Reaching George, she reined in her horse. “You’ll be glad to know we delayed all scintillating conversation till your arrival.”
He smiled—those good, friendly brown eyes. Much like his Saint Bernard’s, really. “Forgive my delay in coming. I was attending to business at the stables. We’re a bit shorthanded.”
She’d not meant to broach the subject, but then, she’d not expected him to mention the stables. The question shot out of her mouth: “I wonder about where that Italian, your stablehand, has gone.”
“Of course . . . Bergamini.”
Lilli heard the hesitation. As if George knew for certain that wasn’t his name.
Salvatore, Lilli thought, hearing the name in her head that he’d confided to her. Confided, and then looked the next instant—for only a flash, but she’d seen it, nevertheless—as if he wondered if he could trust her fully. She could feel the rough of his cheek against hers as she’d whispered his name the last time she’d been alone with him. His hand at the small of her back. That last time they were together was the first time he’d not kept his arms full of tack and hay bales. Even that had only been moments.
George’s brow furrowed, a screen of apprehension dropping over his face. “Being from New Orleans, you would naturally be concerned about him.”