Murder at the Breakers

by Alyssa Maxwell

  “It’s just me this time, Brady.” I hurried the few feet to him and threw my arms around him. “Oh, Brady . . .”

  Before I could get any coherent words out, I dissolved into tears. Brady just stood there supporting my limp weight against him while I dampened his shirtfront. He patted my back and rested his chin on my hair.

  “It’s all right, Em. I knew it was a long shot. Hey, I’ve had a pretty good run all in all, so no regrets. Just tell Mother—”

  I picked my head up. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m done for, right? They’re taking me to Providence for the trial, and then—”

  “No, no! It’s over, Brady! You’re free. We did it. We did it!”

  “We did?” His hands found my shoulders and he set me at arm’s length.

  I could hardly contain my peals of laughter. Anyone on the other side of the door must have been certain I’d lost my mind. Brady surely was, judging by his baffled expression. “It was Adelaide. She killed Alvin Goddard . . . and Jack and . . .”

  “My God . . .”

  My mirth abruptly ceased. “Oh, Brady . . . I can hardly believe it, either. I have so much to tell you. Sit down.”

  We pulled two chairs close and sat facing each other, our shoulders huddled, hands gripped tight, as I plotted out Adelaide’s trail of mayhem. The murders, the attempts on my life. When I finally stopped talking a thick silence fell over us. Brady’s face had gone sickly pale. His hands trembled in mine.

  Finally, his colorless lips parted. “I don’t want you ever taking risks like that again, Em. Nothing is worth all that. Not even me.”

  I sat back a little and shook my head. “If you weren’t looking so ghastly, I’d smack you right in the head for that comment. As it is, you are worth it, Brady. You’re my brother—”

  “Half brother,” he corrected me with the faintest beginnings of a grin.

  “Brother,” I insisted. “You and I hail from the same hardy old Newport stock. We stick together.”

  He nodded, made a fist, and tapped it gently against my chin. “Even so. Next time—”

  “Are you planning a next time?”

  “God, no! The only thing I’m planning is some decent food and a good long sleep in my own bed.” He wagged his eyebrows and cocked his head. “And to start searching for new employment.”

  “Maybe not. I’ll speak with Uncle Cornelius—”

  “There’s no way he’ll take me back.”

  “Aunt Alice might be able to sway him.”

  “Not after what I did. Forget it, Em.”

  “Well, there are more Vanderbilts where they came from.” I thought for a moment. “You know, Alva Vanderbilt might need a secretary or a steward to help her run Marble House. She’d probably hire you just to stick a thorn in Aunt Alice’s side.”

  It was true. Alva Vanderbilt was married to, yet soon to be divorced from, Uncle Cornelius’s brother, William. She and Aunt Alice had always maintained a fierce rivalry. Why, if it hadn’t been for Alva building Marble House, Aunt Alice would never have had The Breakers rebuilt on such a monumental scale. With resentments already running high, the divorce proceedings had relegated Alva to the position of persona non grata among the rest of the family.

  “Yes,” I said with a nod, “I do believe Alva might be willing to help us out, Brady. But, come on. Not only can you walk out of here a free man, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

  I flung the office door wide, grasped his hand, and practically hauled him out behind me. In the entrance to the lobby, however, I pulled up short and Brady collided softly with my back. “Where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “The man who helped me uncover the truth, of course. Derrick Anderson.”

  “Oh, you mean Andrews.” Brady came up beside me and viewed the empty lobby. “I saw him through the doorway as they brought me in from the cells. He was more or less hovering by the street door. I waved, but he didn’t seem to see me. Anyway, looks like he’s gone now.”

  I turned to him in surprise. “You know Derrick Anderson?”

  “It’s Andrews, and sure, we’ve met. He’s all right. So how’d you meet him, Em?” He smiled a bit devilishly.

  Whatever innuendo that look conveyed was lost on me as I processed what I’d just learned. “Andrews . . . ? Not Anderson? Are you sure, Brady? Quite sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Remember when I went with Uncle Cornelius to that regatta in Boston two summers ago? Derrick Andrews was there.” Brady grinned at the memory. “Hell of a sailor. And he can toss down a good bourbon with the best of ’em. Man after my own heart, that Andrews is.”

  “He lied about his name . . . and what else?” I murmured. Then, louder and angrily, “Does he even work for the Providence Sun?”

  “Work for them? Oh, Em, that’s rich. Derrick is Lionel Andrews’s son and heir. He’ll own the Sun someday.”

  And then it hit me. Just a little while ago, when Derrick explained his involvement in this mess, he’s said Suzanne Rockport had asked him to investigate Adelaide. Not hired him—asked him. As in one friend asking a favor of another.

  He knew Mrs. Rockport, was probably a family friend. Because Derrick Anderson—no, Andrews—hailed from the same societal stratosphere. Was probably even one of the Four Hundred.

  “That’s why he left. He knew you’d give him away and end his little charade.”

  Brady just gave me a puzzled look.

  Oh, what wouldn’t I tell that man when I saw him again. I straightened my spine. “Let’s ask Jesse for a ride to your place, Brady. You’ll gather a few things and come home with me to Gull Manor. I’m sure Nanny will love to cook for you.”

  “Now that’s the best offer I’ve had in the longest time,” he replied with a burst of his former enthusiasm. “And no doubt the dear old peach’ll brew me a spot of tea with a wee splash of brandy.

  “Now who could that be?” Nanny muttered as the telephone jangled yet again. It had been ringing all morning for the same reason: friends calling to congratulate Brady on his release.

  Never mind that many of those friends not only hadn’t visited him in jail, but had remained silent rather than stand up for Brady’s innocence. Luckily for them my brother had a forgiving nature and a short memory.

  “I’ll get it,” he said quite needlessly, as neither Nanny nor I had made a move to rise from our chairs in the front parlor. Quickly he crossed into the hall and ducked under the staircase.

  Jesse, sitting on Aunt Sadie’s favorite overstuffed, camelback sofa across from me, grinned. “It’s good to see him out and his old self again.” His smile vanished and he shook his head. “I wish I could have brought you better news today, though.”

  He had come to tell us of Adelaide’s fate. Nanny hadn’t stopped scowling since he arrived. “Convalescent home, bah! There should be a trial, after which she should spend the rest of her miserable days in a dark, dank cell where she belongs. Where our Brady would have ended up—or worse—if Emma hadn’t cracked the case.”

  “ ‘Cracked the case’?” I couldn’t help smirking at her. “Nanny, have you been reading Sherlock Holmes again?”

  She shrugged, but the twinkle in her eye spoke of guilty pleasures.

  “I agree with you, Mrs. O’Neal,” Jesse put in, “and this is officially off the record. But her husband and his sister apparently offered a hefty . . . shall we say . . . donation . . . to just the right political campaign to have the affair neatly tied up as quickly and quietly as possible. Adelaide has been declared incompetent due to a nervous condition and bundled away to an isolated asylum on the Maine coast. They’re calling it a convalescent home, but trust me, Mrs. Halstock won’t be strolling any gardens or soaking in any hot springs anytime soon.”

  “Well, that’s something, I guess.” I lifted the teapot from the low table in front of me. “More tea?”

  Jesse set his cup down and pushed to his feet. “Thanks, but I’ve got to be getting back.”

 
; I walked him to the front door; Brady’s hearty voice echoed at our backs from the alcove as he continued his jabbering over the line. Jesse waved a salute to him and Brady saluted back.

  Jesse turned to me in the open doorway. “I should yell at you, you know. I told you to keep out of it and look what almost happened.”

  “I hear a bit of hesitancy, though,” I teased.

  He pursed his lips ruefully. “The truth is, you’d have made a fine detective, Emma. Just . . . just don’t make a habit out of it.”

  He looked about to say something else, and his expression made some instinct inside me clench. His thought went unspoken, however. An open rig, its top down, rumbled up the drive. Even from the distance I could make out the wide-shouldered figure of Derrick Anderson—make that Andrews—perched behind a dapple gray hack.

  “I’ll see you soon, Emma,” Jesse said, and made his way stiffly to his own buggy.

  As Derrick climbed down I considered shutting the door and locking it. This man had lied to me for no good reason that I could see, except possibly to make a fool of me, to have something to snigger about behind my back. I’d been nothing but honest with him, and the betrayal stung. Probably always would.

  He approached with his bowler in his hands, head slightly bowed. Perhaps his conscience niggled, or perhaps he correctly read the less-than-welcoming expression on my face. “Good morning, Emma.”

  “Mr. Andrews.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  I drew up rigidly. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

  Brady’s voice had gone quiet in the ensuing moments, but now the telephone jingled again. Derrick gazed past me into the house, then looked off to his left. “Will you walk with me?”

  I glared at him for a full five or six seconds. “All right.”

  Our steps crunching on the drive, we circled the house in silence and headed toward the spit of land that jutted out into the ocean. Once there he turned to face me and reached for my hand, but I grasped it primly at my waist with my other.

  “I don’t appreciate being lied to,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Emma. But surely you can understand my need for discretion. I couldn’t exactly arrive in Newport as Derrick Andrews, investigating a man at the request of a family friend. Mrs. Rockport was trying to protect her brother while at the same time avoiding a scandal—”

  “No,” I said.

  “No?”

  “No. Oh, I’ll concede the validity of your argument up to a point, but are you forgetting that you confided in me about your reasons for being in Newport the night I was attacked on the Point? That was the time to tell me the truth—the whole truth of who you are. And yet you continued to lie. Why is that?”

  He started to crush his bowler between his hands, then stilled them. “Because I’d begun to like you,” he murmured.

  “And that’s a reason to deceive me? Why, you ki—” I broke off just before blurting the word kissed. And maybe that was the reason his deception appalled me as much as it did. The man had kissed me, toyed with my emotions, while playing me false. I compressed my lips and stared at the rocky ground between us.”

  “It was stupid of me. But, Emma, the more I learned about you, the more I realized Derrick Andrews was not a man you’d ever think twice about. At least not in the way I’d come to think about you. Derrick Andrews is too rich, too much a part of society, too much like your Vanderbilt relatives. Why, one look at you and a man can see you don’t want to be a society matron like your aunt. You’re too independent, too headstrong. Too daring and full of adventure.”

  I held his gaze and said nothing, challenging him with my silence to change my mind about him; good heavens, hoping in spite of myself he could change my mind.

  “But Derrick Anderson, investigative reporter, is like you, Emma,” he went on after a moment. A plea for understanding turned his deep voice husky. “He works for a living, and he’s as adventurous and daring as you are. He can find pleasure in small moments, in experiences that have nothing to do with capital gains.” He stepped closer, making my peninsula suddenly feel far too small for the two of us. “He’s like you. I’m like you, Emma. I swear it.”

  The sea breezes and briny spray shut out the world around us. Like rocks that are slowly broken down by the tides, I felt my anger ebbing, breaking apart, scattering. He spoke the truth. He had been listening to me all those times we’d spent together—listening well. Getting to know me, and to like me for who I was. The power of that swayed any resolve I’d made to stand strong against him.

  My pride, however, held like the strongest mortar. My Vanderbilt heritage again, I suppose, a legacy I could never quite escape.

  “I suppose I should forgive you after everything you’ve done. It wouldn’t be very sporting of me to hold a grudge, would it?” I smiled good-naturedly and held my right hand out vertically, an offer to shake hands and reconcile. “We can, of course, be friends.”

  “No, Emma, more than that.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t you see? You aren’t Derrick Anderson. You’re Derrick Andrews, and you always will be.”

  “I can offer you so much.”

  “Did you not listen to your own words? What you can offer, I don’t want. You can’t escape your society obligations, and I can’t consign myself to a life of balls and soirées. I want to be a newspaper reporter, not the wife of a newspaper owner. I’d much rather live at Gull Manor than an estate like The Breakers. At Gull Manor I can hear the ocean spray against my bedroom windows. The Breakers is set too high and far away from the water’s edge. I want to feel the spray in life, Derrick. I need that.”

  “What makes you think you couldn’t have that with me?”

  “Because of who you are. Right now I’m a novelty to you. Different from all the other girls you’ve known. But novelty wears off. Deny it all you want, but society is persuasive. I’d always be that poor, obscure little Vanderbilt relation, and dear Derrick could have done so much better than her.”

  “To hell with everyone else. I’d never think that way.”

  He believed it. Oh, yes, his certainty shouted from the tension of his fists around his hat brim, the flexing of the muscles in his cheek, the intensity of determination in his eyes. For the briefest moment Adelaide stole into my thoughts. Not the murdering, devious Adelaide, but the defeated, isolated wife who’d been shunned by the society dragons; the Adelaide who, for brief moments at least, had reached out to me as a friend. That Adelaide whispered the truth in my ear, that Derrick Andrews and I were simply not for each other.

  I smiled sadly. “Good-bye, Derrick. Thank you ever so much. But good-bye.”

  I turned away and started toward the house at a brisk stride, damnable tears filling my eyes and blurring the garden around me. Then Derrick brushed past me, and on a lick of breeze I could have sworn I heard, “Good-bye for now, Emma Cross. But mark my words, I’ll be back.”

  Afterword

  The events in this book are purely fiction. However, the story is centered around a key social event of the summer of 1895, that of the reopening of The Breakers after the original, much more modest “summer cottage” had burned to the ground three years previously. The extravagant affair also celebrated the coming out of young Gertrude Vanderbilt, a quiet, introspective girl who felt awkward in her finery and in finding herself at the center of so much attention. She might have much preferred a quiet evening spent with her closest friend, Esther Hunt, whose father, Richard Morris Hunt, had designed her palatial Newport home, as well as many of the other “cottages” lining exclusive Bellevue Avenue.

  Gertrude’s brother, Neily Vanderbilt, did, in fact, dance with Grace Wilson that evening, beginning a courtship that both enraged and dismayed his parents, who didn’t believe the stunningly beautiful Grace, or her family, to be good enough for their son. He would, however, remain undaunted in his intentions toward Grace, even under the threat of being disinherited. Although Cornelius’s brother, William K. Vanderbilt, was a welcome g
uest at the ball that night, due to his recent divorce, his ex-wife, Alva, was excluded from the festivities as the Vanderbilt family closed ranks against her.

  Beyond this, the story and characters are the product of my imagination, though I’ve done my best to keep true to the nature of the times and the people who lived in them. The name Vanderbilt had always had iconic connotations for me, more a symbol of the extravagancies and waste of a bygone age than flesh-and-blood people. What I discovered in my research, however, was a family that was in many ways much like any other, with all of the hopes and disappointments, loyalties and betrayals, love and resentments that arise whenever individuals of differing dispositions and aspirations endeavor to form a cohesive unit. In the end, money and power didn’t make the Vanderbilts any happier, healthier, or more indestructible than anyone else. But as more and more of their faults and frailties, as well as their strengths and talents, came to light, my understanding and my fondness for them grew, until I’ve almost come to think of them as old, dependable friends, who, for a short, glittering time in history, shared the same island home as my husband’s own Newport family.

  Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of Alyssa Maxwell’s next Gilded Newport mystery

  MURDER AT MARBLE HOUSE

  coming in October 2014!

  Chapter 1

  Newport, Rhode Island

  August 1895

  The tide splashed against the boulders at the tip of my property, the spray pattering my face to mingle with the single tear I could not prevent from rolling down my cheek. I stared out over the ocean in an attempt to channel all that great strength and make it my own. The waves, however forceful, didn’t quite drown out the footsteps receding through the grass behind me, and I wrapped my arms tightly around my middle to keep from calling out, from turning and running and speaking the truth that crashed like a thunderous sea inside me.