And on the nightstand, a stack of letters.
Lillian’s heart stopped.
She’d taken Mr. Danforth’s passionate letters out of the top drawer the night before and reread them, as a reminder that she had been loved once, ever so briefly. His rejection, even if it had been of her own making, still stung. He’d been willing to throw away the Frick fortune for her until she’d scandalized him with her past.
She moved toward the door, hoping to encourage Miss Helen to do the same, but Miss Helen was frozen, staring in the direction of the nightstand.
“Is that Mr. Danforth’s handwriting?” Miss Helen asked, stepping closer.
Lillian scooped the letters up and tucked them into the pocket of her skirt. “I was going to add them to your files today. I’ll take care of it later.”
Miss Helen held out her hand. “No. I ought to go back to my rooms and await that ridiculous private detective. I’ll bring them with me and leave them on the desk.”
Lillian slowly pulled them out of her pocket and handed them over, the blank side up.
But Miss Helen turned them over and squinted at the handwriting. “Why is your name on the envelope?”
There was nothing to say, no way to stop her. Miss Helen opened the first one and read it, staring up at Lillian for a moment afterward. Then she sat down on the chair and made her way through each one, her face ashen, the only movement that of her eyes as she read the wretched words of love written on them. Love for Lillian.
Miss Helen finished the last one and then stood, letting them all drop to the floor in a cascade of white.
“It was a mistake, Miss Helen, I’m sorry. I said no.”
“So all this time I thought Mr. Danforth was pursuing me, he was pursuing you?”
“He’s not deserving of you. How could he be? I’m terribly sorry, I tried to put him off.”
“I’m too plain. Is that it? He found me too plain?”
That Miss Helen would turn on herself instead of turn on Lillian at a time like this broke Lillian’s heart. The poor woman had always been found unworthy, her father constantly reminding her that she was not good enough. “Please don’t blame yourself.”
“Who should I blame?” She stepped closer, staring hard at Lillian.
“Him. Mr. Danforth.”
When Miss Helen finally spoke, all of the uncertainty was gone, replaced by a steely voice belonging to the richest unmarried woman in America. “You fooled me, didn’t you? You took advantage of everything I gave you and then you took everything I had. I will take you down, Miss Lilly, for this. How dare you make me look like a laughingstock? I know what you are, now. A treacherous liar.”
She was so close that Lillian could see the thin red veins in her eyes.
“And not only that. You’re a murderer.”
The detective came to Lillian’s room a few hours later and questioned her about the particulars of Mr. Frick’s death and her relationship with Miss Helen, whether she harbored resentment toward the family, what kinds of interactions she’d witnessed between Mr. Childs and Miss Helen. She answered as honestly as she could, relieved that the love letters were never brought up. Miss Helen probably didn’t want the fact that her suitor had been stolen by her private secretary brought out into the light. It would be a private grievance, not a public one.
And she had every right to grieve, thought Lillian, as she watched the sun set over Central Park from her window. The sky put on a show for what she figured would be her last night in the Frick household, a riot of purples and oranges. Tomorrow, she’d be taken to jail and her life would no longer be her own. She’d aimed too high and now it was all crashing down.
Around two in the morning, still unable to sleep, Lillian padded out of her room, down the back stairway, and then along the main corridor on the first floor. In the moonlight, the portraits on the wall seemed to glare down at her in disappointment. She wasn’t sure where she was going, but when she got to the front entry, a movement startled her. One of the footmen—one of the larger footmen—was sitting in the chair to the left of the door and rose as she approached.
He didn’t step toward her but instead moved directly in front of the door, as if he was expecting her to make a run for it.
Which maybe she had been, or at least checking out the possibility.
“Miss Lilly?” he said. “I’m afraid I must ask you to return to your quarters. The Fricks have asked me to not permit anyone to leave.”
“I see.” Lillian pulled her wrap close around her. “We’re trapped, is that it?”
“I don’t know, miss. I’m simply doing what I’m told.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
It certainly wasn’t his fault. Back up on the third floor, a door flew open right next to her, making Lillian jump and cry out in alarm. But it was only Bertha, rubbing her eyes.
“Miss Lilly, is everything all right?” she asked. “I thought I heard footsteps.”
“Oh, dear, you gave me a fright!”
“Everyone’s on tenterhooks.” She spoke in a whisper. “I can’t believe they think someone killed Mr. Frick. It can’t be true, can it?”
Lillian thought of what Miss Helen said right before she spied the letters, about how her father had amassed many jealous enemies. About the long-ago flood that had killed thousands of innocent people. Which meant that more than Mr. Frick’s immediate family had reason to want him dead.
No, Lillian was grasping at straws; shock and lack of sleep had rendered her incapable of clear thinking. The house was impenetrable; no one would’ve been able to sneak in.
“I have some whiskey, would you like it to help you sleep?” asked Bertha, stifling a yawn.
She shouldn’t keep everyone else up; that wasn’t fair. “No, I’m fine,” she said.
They parted, and soon after, Bertha’s snores droned through their shared wall. Lillian couldn’t sleep anyway. She had to figure out who had placed that draft if she wanted to clear her name. No one else was going to stand up for her.
The answer was there, in some behavior or word, she was certain. Something was off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Something had happened the day before that didn’t make sense. But what was it?
She spent the rest of the early hours running through what the family had said at the will reading, how they had reacted, trying to put her finger on what was bothering her, with no luck.
At eight o’clock that morning, overtired to the point of exhaustion, she answered a knock at her door. A chambermaid stood before her. “Miss Helen has asked that you join her in the Fragonard Room in an hour, Miss Lilly.”
“Very well. Thank you.”
She cleaned herself up as best she could, the dark circles under her eyes like smudges of fireplace ash, and entered the room at the appointed hour. How fitting that she be fired, or sent off to jail, or whatever they were planning on doing to her, in the very room where she had first fooled Miss Helen into offering her the job. There, amid the panels where nymphs pranced and lovers blushed, solemnly sat Mrs. Frick, Miss Winnie, Miss Helen, Mrs. Dixie, and the private detective, while Mr. Childs leaned on a wall near one of the windows, an ugly grimace on his face.
Mr. DeWitt rose to his feet, took out his notebook, and addressed Lillian. “I’ve recently learned of a deception perpetrated by you upon the Frick family.”
So Miss Helen had told them after all. Lillian answered before he could go on. “I apologized to Miss Helen earlier, and I apologize to the family now. It was not my intention to attract the attentions of Mr. Danforth, I assure you.”
The last thing she wanted to do was further humiliate Miss Helen, but she had to try to explain. “He pursued me, and for a time I was briefly entranced, but then told him in no uncertain terms that I was not interested. I’m sorry for having hurt Miss Helen so, after all she’s done for me.”