She asked that question with surprising calmness. I made sure to answer her in kind. “There may be a connection, Clara. I’m not yet certain.” I opened my purse and removed the folded handkerchief I’d placed there before I left the house. Unfolding the linen, I held it out to her. She came to her feet and moved closer to the bars separating us. “Have you ever seen this flower before?”
Nestled in the fabric were, not the wilted petals I’d found in the pavilion, but the dried—and much more identifiable—sprig from Amelia Beaumont’s jewelry box. Clara squinted to examine it.
“Doesn’t that grow along the cliffs, miss?”
“It does. Do you have any idea how Lady Amelia might have come by this?”
“Well, no . . . She wouldn’t have been able to reach any from the Cliff Walk, I don’t think. She’d have to have climbed down.” She almost smiled at that unlikely scenario.
“Can you think of anyone who might have given her such a flower?”
“Like . . . like a man, miss?”
I nodded.
“Goodness, no. Lady Amelia isn’t the sort of woman a man would give wildflowers to, is she, miss? Any proper suitor would present her with roses or violets or . . . I don’t know . . . properly cultivated flowers. Don’t you think?”
And yet I had found this sprig of rugosa roses tucked intimately away among Amelia’s jewelry. Why?
“Is there anything else you can tell me about her, Clara? Anything at all?”
She scrunched up her features. “Well . . . she cried sometimes. I never actually saw it, but more than once I could tell that her eyes were red and her nose runny. When I inquired she said the ocean air bothered her, but I doubted that, miss.”
Surely with her fading prospects Lady Amelia had reason enough to cry; that didn’t tell me anything new. I waited another minute, but when Clara had nothing more to add, I smiled sadly. “I’ll have to be going now, Clara.” Her features became pinched with what I could only call desperation. “Don’t think you’re forgotten in here. I’m working to find the real murderer and I promise, Clara, I won’t stop until I do.”
How hollow those words must have sounded from the other side of those bars. It was a promise I’d made her previously, yet here she still was. She bowed her head and stared dejectedly at the floor. “Thank you, miss.”
“Oh, and when I leave the guard will bring in a basket of things I brought from home. There are some sweet rolls and blackberry preserves from Nanny, a shawl from Katie, and a blanket and . . . do you read, Clara? I included a couple of books.”
“I can a little, miss. Thank you. Thank Mrs. O’Neal, and tell Katie I said . . .” She hiccupped again. “Hello.”
That evening, a crash followed by a shrill cry sent Brady, Nanny, and me instantly to our feet. I don’t doubt recent events had our nerves in a jumble, or we might not have had such startled reactions. As it was, we tossed down our napkins beside our half-eaten supper plates and hastened to the service hallway with no small amount of jostling once we arrived; there simply wasn’t room for all three of us to fit through the narrow doorway.
I pushed my way through first to find Katie on her hands and knees, frantically reaching to gather up an array of forks, spoons, and dessert bowls—thankfully the little silver ones Aunt Sadie had left me—scattered across the floor. The fruit that had occupied the bowls now decorated the floorboards, slices of apples, pears, dates, and sprigs of fresh mint creating a colorful pattern among the fallen utensils.
“Oh, miss, it’s all gone to ruin!” Sitting back on her heels, Katie pulled her apron up over her face. “You’ll turn me out for certain now!”
Behind me Brady blew out a breath. “Good heavens, girl, it’s just spilled fruit. We thought you were being attacked.”
He remained standing, leaning against a bank of cabinets, while Nanny and I both crouched to clean up the mess. First I pried Katie’s hands away from her face. “Brady’s right, Katie. It’s nothing.”
“All this wasted food, miss!”
“Never mind, girl. It happens. I’ve certainly dumped a tray or two in my lifetime.” The gentle reassurance came from Nanny, who had shown the girl great patience in the months since she had come to work for me.
Earlier that spring Katie had been a frightened, silent shadow intent on hiding from the people and events that had caused her infinite pain: a forced liaison, an unwanted pregnancy, the loss of her previous employment. That her employers had been my Vanderbilt cousins at The Breakers was only half the reason I’d taken her in, nursed her when she lost the child, and given her a position and a place to live. When my aunt Sadie had been alive, this house, Gull Manor, had been a refuge for any woman in need, with few to no questions asked. This, much more than the house, had become her legacy to me. Because of her and what she taught me about the need for women to help each other in any way possible, I could turn my back on neither Katie nor poor Clara.