When she didn’t immediately raise her head, a bit of panic took hold of me. The two simply stood there, unmoving, saying nothing until the silence thundered in my ears. Jamie, at least, was grinning, his enjoyment of the occasion apparently not to be dimmed. With her back to me I couldn’t see Katie’s expression, and with all my might I willed her to invite him into the front parlor or the little conservatory at the back of the house—anywhere—but no words came out of her mouth that I could hear.
What an odd sort of friendship. I thought back on what Katie had told me. She’d first met Jamie over the flour bins at the Brick Market. He’d bought barely enough for two loaves of bread, but they’d gotten to talking. Jamie had asked if she knew of anyone hiring a groundskeeper. Later, she would sometimes pass him on the street while going about her business in town, and once they’d met at Forty Steps, a wooden staircase leading down from the Cliff Walk to a platform just above the water’s edge. A bit north of Marble House, it was where Bellevue Avenue’s servants occasionally gathered for evenings of music and socializing.
To look at them now, one would never imagine them socializing anywhere, at any time. Though I suppose the commonality of shopping for foodstuffs did provide a sound topic of conversation, and an evening of frivolity surrounded by one’s peers invited a camaraderie that might not otherwise arise. If only a similar camaraderie would present itself tonight, I thought almost desperately. Katie, speak to the man!
Finally, Jamie gestured over his shoulder, pointing his thumb at the door behind him. “There’s a grand bonny moon out tonight, Miss Dillon. Would you care to walk with me?”
Her breathy response drifted up the stairs to me. “It’s dark out.”
“You can trust me not to let you step astray.” He took the flowers from her and laid them on the side table beside the coat rack. His gaze strayed upward to my shadowy hiding place and I could have sworn he winked. Then he extended an elbow to Katie. “Shall we?”
Once the door had closed behind them I let out a rather long sigh of relief. I ran downstairs to find a vase for the daisies, but just as I reached for them the telephone clamored.
Chapter 16
“I need to speak to Miss Cross this instant!” The voice coming through the telephone line pierced like a darning needle against my eardrum. I whisked the ear trumpet away, yet I could still hear my aunt demanding my immediate attention.
“Speaking, Aunt Alva,” I said calmly and, hoping she would take the hint, quietly. Rarely did she call me on the telephone, so the event of her doing so immediately raised an alarm. Still, nothing would be accomplished through hysterics.
“Emmaline?” Her voice became shriller. “Is that you?”
“Yes, Aunt Alva. What’s wrong?” A sudden procession of fears marched through my mind. “Is it Consuelo?”
“Yes . . . or . . . no, she hasn’t been found, if that is what you’re thinking. But it’s an emergency. Oh, Emmaline, I do believe this dreadful situation has made me ill . . . quite ill. I so need your help. There is no one, positively no one else I can turn to anymore. . . .”
“Aunt Alva, you’re frightening me. Should I send for Dr. Kennison?”
“He’s been and gone. And he said exactly what I already knew. My heart can’t take much more of this strain.”
“Aunt Alva,” I said gently, “is it Lady Amelia?”
“Amelia? Good heavens, no. A shame, that—although why she strayed so far from Marble House I’ll never understand—but no.”
I wondered if it had occurred to Aunt Alva that perhaps Amelia Beaumont hadn’t strayed anywhere, but had been dragged away by force.
“Emmaline, I’m coming right over.”
The call clicked off and I was left to ponder her cryptic words for the next ten minutes.
Dressed like a widow in black bombazine, but with a white fox stole draped round her shoulders, Aunt Alva barreled in the moment I answered her footman’s knock. She pushed past him and nearly shoved me over, but I managed to step out of the way just in time. Both she and the fox, its head still attached to the pelt and dangling against Aunt Alva’s bosom, fixed mournful gazes on me for the span of an indrawn breath.
Then Aunt Alva did something I never could have imagined: She threw herself into my arms. The fox fur tickled my nose and I stifled an emerging sneeze. But my shock could not have been greater. Not only had the woman never set foot in my house before—I don’t believe the notion had ever crossed her mind to socialize with me anywhere but in the luxury of her own home—but I had never seen this indomitable lady in so vulnerable a state.