Murder at Marble House(22)
Jesse ran a hand through his bright auburn hair and flicked a glance to the top of the staircase. “I’d like you to talk to your cousin and ask her the questions I can’t. Would you do that, Emma?”
I couldn’t help chuckling. “Do you really think I have more authority over my aunt than you do? After all, you have the law on your side.”
“Challenging Alva Vanderbilt is not worth the trouble that would inevitably follow. But you’re Miss Vanderbilt’s friend as well as her cousin. Will you please talk to her for me, and let me know what she says?”
The word friend pricked my conscience, but I said, “Of course I will. I’ll go up and see her now, and I’ll call you later from home if there’s anything you need to know.” I grinned. “That’s if I’m allowed to go home. I’m not under house arrest here, am I?”
“As if you would stay put if you were.” He smiled ruefully, then took my hand. “Thank you, Emma.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll talk to you later.”
He nodded and continued holding my hand a moment too long, long enough to become more than a friendly gesture. This wasn’t the first time he’d made such an overture, albeit a subtle one, and now, as then, a sense of awkwardness flooded me. Gently I slid my hand free, careful to keep a smile on my face as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. As if I hadn’t just glimpsed a bit of Jesse Whyte’s heart.
Despite an age difference of some dozen years, he and I would surely have made sense—so much more sense than Derrick Andrews and I ever could. Not only were we both Newporters born and bred, we hailed from the same Point community, whose inhabitants were probably the saltiest and most straightforward of all Newporters. He and I understood each other....
Jesse was my father’s friend as well as Brady’s, and to me he’d always been like an older brother. Could there be more between us? Suddenly his image faded in my mind’s eye while another formed, Jesse’s straight auburn hair darkening to wavy brown, his boyish features strengthening to a square jaw and chiseled profile.
Derrick. Had it been only that morning I’d sent him packing, as they say? After all that had happened in the hours since, it seemed like years ago. Yet it was too soon—far too soon to even consider another. Jesse was my friend, and I was grateful for that friendship, but for now, at least, there could not be more.
As if he read my thoughts, his smile turned wistful, then sad. He left and the footman closed the door behind him. The servant was new to the household and I didn’t know his name; but even if I had, my throat had closed and my tongue ran too dry to allow speech. I wandered into the Gold Room, where the events of this dreadful day had begun, and where I stood leaning with my back against the wall to regain my equilibrium.
Good grief, that made two men in one day I’d sent away disappointed—on top of everything else. Feeling wretched and drained, I pushed away from the wall and made my way up the stairs.
Outside Consuelo’s room I tapped my knuckles lightly on the door. No answer came, so I tried again. Finally, I turned the knob and poked my head inside. Consuelo’s bed lay empty, as did the bedside chaise. A quick glance around the room failed to reveal my cousin. Was she in the dressing room?
“Consuelo? Are you here?” I ventured a few feet inside. “Darling, it’s me . . . Emma.”
Silence.
“Consuelo?” Unease churned inside me. Something felt utterly, entirely wrong about this empty room.
Hurrying down the corridor, I pressed my ear to her mother’s door. The silence within sent me on to the next bedroom, this one draped in rich greens and burgundies—my uncle William’s former suite. Somehow I could picture my cousin seeking solace among her father’s things. The door was open and I came to an abrupt halt on the threshold. “Consuelo, are you in here?”
When no answer came I strode through into the dressing room, but it, too, stood empty. I doubled back, following the zigzagging hallway past the large front bedroom currently occupied by Lady Amelia, reserved for her due to her rank as an aristocrat. Here the hall turned and led to a small sewing room. I barged in, panting, but found no one inside. My concerns spiraled, though I couldn’t quite say why. This was a large house and while my cousin might have been under house arrest of sorts, she was certainly allowed to wander where she wished. The library? But Jesse and I had been standing in the main hall and we never saw her come down the stairs.
It was then I realized that in all the uproar of finding Madame Devereaux, of Clara appearing to be the guilty party, and the police arriving and questioning the rest of us, no one had spared a thought about Consuelo’s welfare. No one had questioned how badly the day’s events might have upset her. No one thought to check on her after we all returned to the house. We had simply assumed she’d seen little or nothing at the pavilion and had returned to find comfort in her dolls and books and the many luxuries to be found in her bedroom.