Death on Beacon Hill (15 page)

“Your mother seemed pleased by his interest in you,” Nell said. “His and Martin’s.”

Emily snorted with amusement as she lit her cigarette. “I grew up with Martin. We’re the same age, and we always had lots to talk about. But can you honestly picture me as the wife of a minister?”

“No, I suppose not.” Nell smiled. “But what about Isaac Foster?”

“If I were willing to marry and give away all my rights and freedom and money, I suppose he’d be as likely a candidate as anyone. But I’m not like Cecilia. All I can think about is traveling and writing about traveling—and perhaps even getting some of my pieces published. All Cecilia can think about is pretty baubles. She’d barter away her very soul for a rock if it glittered brightly enough. She’s got diamonds and rubies from Harry, baroque pearls from Jack Thorpe—he was her first fiancé, the one who died—and sapphires from the second one, Felix Brudermann.”

“The Austrian?”

Emily nodded. “A lady is supposed to give the jewels back when the engagement ends, but Cecilia held on to all of it—even those sapphires, which had been in Felix’s family for generations. He’d spent every penny he had putting them into new settings for her.”

“Every penny? I’d heard he was a nobleman.”

Emily reached over to take the glass of sherry back from Nell. “There’s nobility and then there’s nobility. We Americans tend to assume that anyone with a title is rich and powerful and refined, but if you spend a little time in Europe, you realize that’s just not so. Take Felix. His full name is Felix Jaeger Ritter von Brudermann. Sounds impressive, but the truth is, he’s just the penniless youngest son of a...well, it’s the Austrian equivalent of a knight or a baronet. He has nothing—no land, no education, no trade, and not the remotest hint of a personality. He’s handsome as sin—that’s about all he’s got going for him.”

“It didn’t bother Cecilia that he was poor?” Nell asked.

“Why should it? When she marries, whomever she marries, she’s to receive a ridiculously huge dowry, a lavish trousseau, a five-thousand-dollar wedding gown from Worth, a chateau in the Back Bay, complete with furnishings and staff, a Landau with horses, a six-month European honeymoon... All of which, including Cecilia herself, will be under the legal control of her husband upon her marriage. Felix was nothing more than a gold digger. My father knew it—he’s no fool. It took over a year for him to agree to the marriage.”

“It sounds as if Felix would have come out way ahead on the deal,” Nell said.

“Not by Cecilia’s standards. When she was preparing to announce her engagement, she informed everyone that, after her marriage, she was to be referred to as Lady Brudermann, in the British tradition.”

“But she was marrying an Austrian.”

“A niggling detail. She insisted she was going to be a baronetess—which is actually a lady who holds a baronetcy in her own right, but she had no interest in hearing that. Oh, and Felix was to be called
Sir
Felix.”

“Good Lord.”

“She had the Brudermann coat of arms put on rings, brooches, writing paper, wax seals, sheets, towels, handkerchiefs...let’s see...tablecloths, napkins, sterling flatware...oh, and four dozen place settings of custom Meissen china. The day she broke it off with Felix, she came out here with the china and a sledgehammer and smashed it all to bits.”

“Why?” Nell asked. “I mean, why did she break it off, not why did she smash the china.”

“Because even a grasping, shallow creature like Cecilia has her pride. Once it came out about Felix and Mrs. Kimball, she was fit to be—”

“Felix and Mrs. Kimball?” Nell sat upright. “When did this happen?”

“The affair?” Emily shrugged. “I gather it had been ongoing for some time. The rather dramatic—or shall I say melodramatic—disclosure of it to all of Boston society occurred the evening of my parents’ annual ball, not half an hour after the official announcement of Cecilia and Felix’s engagement.”

“That’s when Mrs. Kimball showed up, I take it.”

“Oh, you should have been there. How deliciously scandalous. She strutted in wearing the most ostentatious gown you’ve ever seen and swept through the ballroom like the belle of the plantation. I had no idea who she was at first. Half the men were trying to squirm out her line of vision lest she greet them a bit too familiarly, especially the married men. Thurston was with her. I understand they were hardly ever seen apart.”

“Were they lovers?” Nell asked.

Emily looked at her for a moment, then burst out laughing. “Oh, my dear, no. He’s a Molly-boy—a real flamer.”

It took Nell a moment. “Oh, you mean...a sheelah.” It was what Duncan had called them.

“I never heard that one.”

“I think it might be Irish.”

“Sheelah...hm...” Emily puffed contemplatively on her cigarette. “I really did admire her panache. And her nerve. And the fact that she didn’t care one little tiny bit what any of those stuffy goldfinches thought of her. She’d set out to create an uproar, and that’s just what she did. Cecilia was upset because she’d gotten lavished with congratulations and so forth after the engagement announcement, and then suddenly no one was paying attention to her anymore—it was all about Virginia Kimball. That was bad enough, but then Mrs. Kimball walked right up to Felix, never mind that Cecilia and I and a number of other people were all standing ‘round, and said something like...” Emily cleared her throat and, in a rather poor attempt at a southern accent, said, “‘Felix, dear boy. You left your pocket watch on my dressing table the other day. I would have brought it if I’d known I was going to see you.’”

“She didn’t.”

“She most assuredly did. The whispers began immediately. It was like this...hiss of insects floating in a wave from one end of the ballroom to the other. Cecilia was apoplectic, of course. Felix denied and denied and denied, but his face was purple, and you just knew he was lying. I never laughed so hard in my life.”

Emily handed the glass back to Nell, but it was empty. Nell took it and set it on a little iron table between the two chairs.

“Cecilia broke it off with Felix right after that. I don’t think she would have really minded so much about him and Mrs. Kimball if he’d only kept it under wraps, but being humiliated like that in front the whole world—well,
her
whole world... It was more than she could bear. She was screaming, weeping... Harry comforted her. He must have done a workmanlike job of it, because from that moment on, they were an item.”

“How did Felix take it?” Nell asked.

“He was inconsolable for a couple of weeks. He’d wasted fifteen months, and the family sapphires, wooing an heiress—and her father—only to have it all blow up in his face, thanks to the bit of goods he’d been riding on the side. He came ‘round to the house quite a bit at first, still denying and denying, but Cecilia held firm, and finally he seemed to get the picture. But the past two nights, he’s shown up here raving about how Cecilia should take him back now that Mrs. Kimball is dead.”

“He actually said that?”

“Did I mention he’s something of a mutton-head? He seems to think her death has wiped the slate clean. Cecilia, needless to say, begs to differ. The footmen throw him out, but it takes three or four of them.” Emily crushed out her cigarette.

“Brady told me that Fiona went to work for Mrs. Kimball around the beginning of May,” Nell said. “He said you got her that job.”

Emily closed her eyes, seeming to sink into the chair. “Did you ever do something with such devastating repercussions that you would have given anything—a year of your life, ten years—if only you could take it back?”

“Yes,” Nell said, thinking of her marriage to Duncan.

“I did suggest to Fiona that she go to work for Mrs. Kimball, and I wrote a letter of reference for her. I’m as responsible for that lady’s death as if it had been I who’d pulled the trigger and not Fiona.”

Leaving aside for the moment the question of Fiona’s guilt, Nell asked, “How did it come about, your recommending her?”

“Virginia Kimball’s maid had quit suddenly, so...” Emily shrugged, her expression distracted.

“Did she place an advertisement?”

“Hm?”

“Mrs. Kimball—did she advertise for a new maid? I’m just curious as to how you happened to find out that she needed one.”

“Oh.” Emily lifted the glass of sherry and, finding it empty, set it back down. “I’m not sure,” she said as she withdrew her cigarette case from her pocket again. “I can’t recall.”

Nell let the silence grow heavy as Emily lit the cigarette and flicked out the match. It was Detective Cook’s old trick: Ask a leading question and keep your mouth shut.

Finally Emily said, “Someone must have mentioned it to me,” through a blossom of smoke.

Nell nodded, waited.

“Or I overheard something. You know...idle chatter.” Emily looked away as she drew on the cigarette.

“I suppose you thought Fiona would be happier working for Mrs. Kimball?” Nell asked.

“God, yes.” Emily met Nell’s eyes at last. “She hated it here. My parents can be so stuffy and demanding. Virginia Kimball was many things, but she wasn’t stuffy. I knew Fiona would have to work hard, given that she’d be the only maid, but she’d also be able to be herself. And she’d make more money and have her own room.”

“Weren’t you worried about your parents’ reaction when they found out you’d deprived them of one of their staff?”

“I anticipated it,” Emily said. “With relish—my father’s reaction, especially. To him, the notion of losing a maid to the likes of Virginia Kimball...well, I knew it would rankle him terribly, and it did. I was pretty amused by it all, pretty smug—until I read about the murder. I’d sent Fiona to Mrs. Kimball. What happened there is ultimately my...” She trailed off, her gaze on the house.

Nell turned to see the figure of a man silhouetted in the open French doors—obviously Will, from his height and that characteristic hip-shot stance.

“Ah, there you are, Nell. Miss Pratt,” he said, with a slight bow in Emily’s direction. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“I was just going back in.” Emily rose from her chair and slipped into her shoes with a smile that suggested she knew Will had come seeking a few precious minutes alone with the object of his affections. From the doorway, she said, “I enjoyed chatting with you, Miss Sweeney. I hope we can do it again soon.”

Will closed the door after Emily had passed through it, and crossed to Nell. Still reclining with her legs stretched out on the cushioned ottoman, she drew her knees up and rearranged her skirts so as not make a display of her stockinged feet.

Will sat not on the other chair, but on the ottoman, reached beneath her skirts, seized her feet by the ankles, and laid them on his lap. “I never realized what substantial feet you have.”

“Substantial!” She tried to yank them out of his grasp, but he held on tight.

“Doesn’t bother me,” he said, his hands sliding downward, warm and a little rough through her white silk stockings. “I’ve never been a fan of tiny feet. Large ones look ever so much more capable.”

He kneaded her feet through the lubricious silk, his fingers so strong and deft that Nell melted into the chair, head back, arms limp. A sigh escaped her, so deep it came out sounding more like a long, breathy moan.

“A secret voluptuary, are you?” Will murmured, his voice humming all along her nerve endings. “What an intriguing revelation.”

“Do you never tire of teasing me?” Nell tried once again to wrest her feet free of his grip, but it was a halfhearted effort; he was good at what he was doing, indecently good.

“I tease much less than you think, Cornelia.”

She opened her eyes, but Will wasn’t looking at her. He was leaning down to pick up one of her evening slippers, which he snugged onto her left foot. The right followed, but instead of withdrawing his hands, he wrapped them over her insteps, his thumbs massaging her through the silk.

“A few minutes ago,” Will said, “while we gentlemen were savoring our manly brandy and cigars—noxious combination, by the way, don’t ever try it—my brother Martin asked Mr. Pratt how he’d gotten that black eye, to which Pratt replied that he tripped on his front steps the other day and fell face-first into the iron railing.”

Nell sat up, suddenly alert. “But didn’t Mrs. Pratt tell us—”

“That he fell victim to a basher a few doors down from their house? Why, yes, she did.”

“Why would he tell his wife one thing and his friends another?” Nell asked.

“Watch those wanton assumptions, Cornelia. Perhaps it wasn’t Pratt who told his wife the basher story. It could have been someone else.”

“Which doesn’t explain why there are conflicting accounts being bandied about.”

“No, it does not,” Will said. “But to be honest, what’s of more pressing interest to me right now is the mysterious disappearance and reappearance of the Stonewall Jackson gun. General Jackson carried a Lefaucheux Brevete pinfire revolver—twelve millimeters, which translates to roughly forty-five calibers. If we’re to believe Orville Pratt, it was in his possession until the night of the ball, when it vanished from his study.”

“He apparently thought Mrs. Kimball stole it.”

“He would have been furious at her that night for crashing his ball. That may be the only reason he suspected her. What intrigues me is the gun’s fortuitous reappearance just two days after Mrs. Kimball was killed by a high-caliber revolver. Come.” Will stood and held his hand out.