Murder at Marble House (A Gilded Newport Mystery) Page 2

  “He should be here in about a week, Emmaline, so you see the urgency.”

  I nodded absently, not truly hearing her question as my mind spun with a dozen contrary thoughts. The “he” she spoke of was Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, recently dubbed ninth Duke of Marlborough—or Sunny, as his friends apparently called him. Even now his transatlantic steamer headed toward New York, where he would turn north for Newport and officially become engaged to the eighteen-year-old Consuelo.

  Aunt Alva hadn’t counted on one small problem: Consuelo was having none of it.

  “If anyone can convince her, Emmaline,” Alva said, “it’s you.”

  I stepped back as though she’d struck me. “Me? I’m sorry, Aunt Alva, but you cannot imagine I’d approve of a forced marriage. Or that I’d ever step into the middle of a family matter. You know me better than that.”

  She took an ominous stride closer, forcing me back another step, and then another. Alva followed my backward course until my calves struck a thronelike side chair. She loomed mere inches away. Her features hardened; her eyes turned icy. A lethal finger rose to point squarely at my heart. “Make no mistake, Emmaline. Consuelo will marry the Duke of Marlborough. There is no other choice in the matter. The only question that remains is will she do so willingly, or will I have to drag her by her hair to the church?”

  The breath froze in my lungs and chills traveled my spine. Yet this was nothing new. Alva wasn’t acting out of character with her threats or her sudden vehemence, or with her desire to live vicariously through her daughter. Alva had always intended for Consuelo to marry into minor European nobility, landed gentry at the very least; hence last year’s European cruise. But a duke! I could already hear her, announcing to all of society: Oh, yes, my daughter the duchess . . . What a triumph: every society mother’s fondest ambition. Here was a prize this bull terrier of a woman had sunk her teeth into and would never, ever, ever let go of.

  With Alva standing so close, all but threatening to sink her teeth into me as well, I became very afraid, not for myself, but for Consuelo. Because I knew that no matter what I or anyone else did, in the end her mother would prevail. She always had; she always would.

  With or without a handful of her daughter’s hair.

  In a perverse way, then, Alva was right. The best thing I could do for my cousin was comfort her and help her face her impending marriage bravely. But to do it I would have to disavow everything I believed in, such as a woman’s right to choose her own fate, as I had chosen to do only that morning. To help Consuelo, I’d have to lie to her and do so with a smile.

  How I dreaded the role I must play.

  “Is she upstairs?” I asked in quiet resignation.

  With a victorious spark in her eye, Alva nodded. Her smile returned, but her chin lifted and her nostrils flared in a way no doubt intended to remind me of my place—my lowly place—in the family. “She respects you, Emmaline. Even has a silly notion that you’re better off than any of the rest of us Vanderbilt women. That’s why if you, of all people, tell her this marriage is in her best interests, she’ll believe you.”

  As she spoke those last words she took in my carriage dress, the dark blue one formerly belonging to my aunt Sadie, but which Nanny had freshened with new velvet trim and shiny jet buttons. Her assessing gaze didn’t stop until it reached my hemline, where Nanny had done a splendid job of concealing the slight fraying of the fabric where it skimmed the floor.

  “Remember, Emmaline, as a duchess, Consuelo will never want for anything. And if it is a bit of independence she’s after, between her new title and her inheritance, no doors will be closed to her. Good grief, think of the good she’ll be able to do, if that is what she wants. She’ll have the means to fund charities, form scholarships—whatever strikes her fancy, so long as the cause is a suitable one and her husband is agreeable.”

  Yes, independence. Aunt Alva’s definition of the word dripped its bitter irony on my already sagging spirits.

  She reached out and gave my shoulder a little nudge. “Go on. She’ll be delighted to see you.” Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t think I’m not aware that she called you earlier. The little sneak. Why, I should have—Oh, but we’ll work it to our advantage, won’t we?”

  “Our advantage?”

  She nudged me again. “Just talk to her. She adores you. And make her come downstairs. Tell her I have a surprise for her.”

  “What is it?”

  Alva rolled her eyes. “A surprise. Now go.”

  I turned and began walking, wondering how much Consuelo would adore me—or respect me—once she discerned my part in this debacle. Somehow the task ahead seemed even more difficult than tracking down a murderer, nearly being murdered myself, and clearing my brother of false charges. Gripping the cold, wrought-iron banister until my knuckles whitened, I started up the staircase.

  Alva’s parting words drifted from the doorway of the Gold Room. “I’m counting on you, Emmaline. Do not let me down.”

  The or else hovered in the air between us.

  Chapter 2

  Upstairs, I was met by one of the maids coming down the hallway. She held an oval silver tray, and cutlery and china clinked with each step she took, while the domed covers sat half off their platters. The aromas of hotcakes and eggs tickled my nose. Upon spotting me, the young woman, a slender, curly-haired blonde about my own age, jerked toward a doorway as if to duck into it and become as invisible as possible, tray and all. It was one of Aunt Alva’s rules that maids should never be seen, or, if they must, to make themselves as much a part of the background as possible.

  But then Clara Parker recognized me. Although we had grown up in different parts of Newport, we had attended the same church growing up, and still did. She kept on toward me and offered a deferential smile, the kind that reminded me that, while she might not feel the need to hide, my Vanderbilt background sometimes made it difficult to meet my own neighbors on an equal footing. Such deference never failed to make me slightly uncomfortable, but I did my best not to show it.

  “Good morning, Miss Cross,” she said, curtsying despite the burden she carried. “Nice to see you again.”

  “Good morning, Clara. Was that Miss Consuelo’s room you just came from?”

  Clara frowned down at the tray, then once more lifted her elfin face to me. “It was, miss. She’s hardly eaten a thing today. Poor dear.”

  “She’s terribly upset, then?”

  “She’s . . . well . . .” Clara’s large-eyed gaze held a trace of wariness as it skittered toward the staircase. She continued in a whisper. “Maybe you can cheer her up, miss.”

  I nodded and allowed Clara to resume her duties. I moved on to Consuelo’s door, where my knock was answered with a tremulous “Come in,” and a sniffle I could hear through the paneled wood.

  The room was a masterpiece of rose-colored silks and velvets framed in gold leaf, every piece of furniture and every priceless knickknack arranged just so. French provincial shelves held dolls from around the world, and Alva claimed the daintily carved chaise lounge in the corner had once graced a room in Versailles. A canopied bed draped in rich satin and ivory lace dominated the space, and I found my cousin lying carelessly across its rumpled surface, her chin propped on an elbow while with the other hand she grasped a gold-plated pen. An open book lay on the counterpane in front of her, and a gray Angora cat was curled against the curve of her waist, its chin resting on the bit of moiré silk sash that trailed from the back of Consuelo’s gown. The animal’s contented purrs traveled across the room. My cousin stole a teary-eyed glance at me and dropped her pen. She scrambled to her feet, swept across the room, and propelled herself into my arms.

  “Emma, Emma, thank God you’re here!”

  Simultaneously, the cat raised an indignant yowl, jumped down from the bed, and disappeared beneath the tiered lace spread. From over Consuelo’s muslin-clad shoulder I could see the bottle-brush tail swish once and thump against the Persian rug before vanishing
along with the rest of its owner under the bed.

  “She’s holding me prisoner, Emma. A virtual prisoner. She’s even sent my darling governess, my Miss Harper, back to the New York house. Mama means to deprive me of everything comfortable and cheerful. All because I refuse to marry that dry toast of a man. He’s horrid, just horrid, all stiff and proper and superior, but there are things going through his mind, Emma, especially when he looks at me. Like he’s tallying up his future stock earnings or pricing out a new racehorse. I hate him. And I don’t care if I have to scrub floors for the rest of my life—”

  “Shh,” I said somewhat forcefully, before she made any further assertions we both knew she didn’t mean. I held her close and patted her back. “No one is scrubbing floors, Consuelo. It’s not as bad as all that.”

  “Isn’t it?” She pulled slightly away to look at me. Tears magnified her dark eyes, and I could see now by the puffiness around them this wasn’t the first time she’d cried today. Angry red blotches mottled her cheeks, and the tip of her nose glowed pink. Her mouth was nearly colorless in comparison, except for a raw patch where her teeth had obviously been worrying her bottom lip. She gave another sniffle and shoved a dark, bedraggled curl away from her face.

  “Of course not,” I tried to assure her, and drew her back into my embrace. It tugged my heartstrings to see her reduced to such a state; Consuelo, the young beauty of the Vanderbilt family. Yet to me, she remained my little cousin, three years younger than I, an introspective girl who feared the dark, hated to be sent up to bed before the rest of us, and who always hugged me longer than any of my other cousins each summer when we were reunited.

  I had once believed it was simply in her nature to be affectionate. Only as I grew older did I realize that from the earliest age, Consuelo had felt deprived of the affection most of us took for granted in our lives.

  No, not felt deprived. Was deprived.

  “Did you see her when you arrived?” she asked me, her voice harsh with bitterness.

  “Your mother? Yes.”

  “Did you meet her guests? Did she parade you before them like you were the latest altruistic project to her credit?”

  “Uh, no, not yet.”

  “She will.”

  “Yes, I know. But I’m not concerned with that right now. I’m concerned about you, dearest. Tell me what has been happening, but calmly, so I can understand you.”

  I took her hand and led her back to the bed. As we settled ourselves, she gathered up the pen and the book she’d been writing in and set them on the bedside table. Before she’d closed the scarlet velvet cover, however, I’d glimpsed the watery ink splotches staining the page in several places.

  She turned back to me, her eyes narrowing. Even in her distress, she held her back perfectly straight, and I remembered about the rod she was once forced to wear as a child during her lessons—a length of steel that ran along her spine, held in place by a strap at her waist and another around her forehead. I’d been horrified to learn of it years ago; now I was struck by the symbolism of it, of the complete control her mother wielded over Consuelo’s very existence.

  “They’re all plotting, you know,” she said, breaking into my thoughts. “To get the vote.”

  The abruptness of the statement confused me, and I blinked. “To what? Who’s plotting?”

  “Mother and her houseguests. They want women to have the vote and they plan to start petitioning Congress. How can they, Emma? How can they do that while I am up here . . . trapped up here—” Her head went down and a tear splashed the flowered pattern of her skirt.

  Still baffled, I shook my head, though she couldn’t see it, and reached out to stroke her hair. “Consuelo, I’m sorry, but I don’t follow. What has that to do with your engagement?”

  Her head swung up, her moist eyes blazing with anger. “Don’t you understand? Mother is down there with her cronies planning ways to gain independence and political power for women, while at the same time she’s holding me prisoner and planning my life for me. Taking away all my choices. Telling me I’d better hold my tongue and do as she says . . .”

  Or else. She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. The same phrase still rang in my mind from downstairs, though Alva hadn’t come out and said it then either.

  “She treats me as though I’m one of those dolls.” She jerked her chin at the shelves of bisque faces staring lifelessly back at us. “Those wretched, insensible, staring dolls. They’re horrible and I hate them. Mother’s horrible and I hate her.”

  Part of me wished to agree, at least about the injustice of the situation. Instead, I seized her hands in my own. “You don’t mean that, Consuelo. I know you don’t. Your mother . . .” I drew a breath and tried not to loathe myself. “Your mother wants the best for you. The very best. She may be a bit . . .” I bit back the words vainglorious and misguided, and replaced them with something more diplomatic. “. . . A bit overbearing at times, I’ll agree, but I believe her heart is in the right place.”

  Good Lord. So much for not loathing myself. So much for Consuelo respecting and adoring me.

  She snatched her hands out of mine. “You’re with her on this,” she said flatly. Bitterly.

  “No. Yes. No.” I shook my head and swallowed the growing lump in my throat. “Consuelo—”

  Before I could get out another word, she said, “How can you be? You, who have all the independence in the world. Who may decide each and every day what to do and where to go. Whom you’ll see. Whom you’ll someday marry.” This last came out as a choked whisper that nearly wrenched my heart in two.

  “You’re wrong,” I said, not altogether dishonestly. Hadn’t what occurred that morning between Derrick and me proved my options were limited, that I couldn’t simply do as I pleased whenever I pleased; that so-called independence came with a price, with often painful sacrifices?

  “My life might look appealing to you, but not a day goes by that I don’t sit down with our household account book and decide whether we’ll eat meat for the next week, or eggs and toast in order to pay our bills. When something in my house needs repairing, that’s another several items crossed off our grocery list. Barney should have been put to pasture a year or two ago, but I can’t afford a new horse. And I need a goat because I can’t afford a gardener.”

  She had set her head on my shoulder as I spoke and now I heard a watery chuckle against my neck.

  “And when was the last time you saw me in a frock as new and fashionable as this one?” I stroked the folds of her dress where they spilled across my own.

  She fingered the edge of her coral silk sash. “You don’t care about new dresses, Emma. You never did.”

  “You’re right,” I said with such fervor she flinched and sat up straight. “It’s not dresses I care about, it’s helping people. People like Katie, my housemaid, and Jamie, your new gardener. I made a difference in both their lives, I truly did. Just consider, Consuelo, how many people I could help if I had the resources . . . and the connections. Just think . . .”

  I trailed off to let that much sink in. Her brows converged, not in anger or sorrow this time, but in contemplation. I could all but see her mind working it over. Her bottom lip eased between her teeth. I leaned closer to her. “Just think how many people you’ll be able to help once you take your place in society. Not your mother’s place, Consuelo. But when you’re no longer under her thumb and you can step out as your own person. A woman of influence in your own right.”

  “I . . . I hadn’t thought of it that way. . . .”

  “Well, no. You’ve been too upset.”

  “I’ve been selfish, worrying only about myself.” The ridges between her brows deepened. She wasn’t quite there yet, not completely convinced. Doubt continued to niggle at her, yet when I should have moved in for “the kill,” when I should have gathered every persuasive ploy at my disposal to seal the bargain, guilt reared up to stop me cold. Guilt . . . and my own doubts.

  If I truly believed my own words, th
en why hadn’t I accepted Derrick’s proposal of marriage this morning? He was a good man. And what about all the people I could help with the Andrewses’ fortune at my disposal?

  But I’d seen all too well what fortune does to people, how it changes them. Especially women. Yes, society matrons like Aunt Alva and Aunt Alice could support any number of causes—as long as those causes were approved by society, and by their husbands. Take on a “wrong” cause and society would close ranks in opposition. Be seen as too forward or assertive or unconventional, and a woman would find herself ostracized by friends and family, her connections severed, her influence to do good works stripped away. It was a harsh reality . . . and all too often it produced hardened women, forced to subdue their own true natures behind a gilded façade of gentility that very often bore no resemblance to the person within.

  No. I had the means to be myself, to be independent—poor perhaps, but self-sufficient and unrestrained. I could envision no other way of life for me. But for Consuelo, raised so differently than I had been . . .

  “Little cousin,” I said gently, “you must make this decision yourself. In the end, no one can truly force you to marry the Duke of Marlborough. All we can do is help you to see all of your options and then stand back and allow you to decide.”

  “It doesn’t always feel that way. In fact, it rarely does.”

  “No, you’re right. We’re all bound by our circumstances. It’s just that some circumstances come with greater possibilities than others. You need to bear that in mind.”

  She let go a long, heavy sigh. The lacy ruffles hanging over the bed fluttered and a warm, fuzzy body arched itself against my ankle. Bits of fur penetrated my stocking to tickle my leg.

  Consuelo looked down and opened her arms. “Here, Muffy.” The cat bounded up into her lap, its sweetly flat face tilted lovingly up at its mistress. Consuelo bent over the creature and rubbed her nose in the fur between its tufted ears. I reached out and stroked the bushy, snaking tail.