Murder at Marble House Read Online Free

credit?”
    “Uh, no, not yet.”
    “She will.”
    “Yes, I know. But I’m not concerned with that right now. I’m concerned about you, dearest. Tell me what has been happening, but calmly, so I can understand you.”
    I took her hand and led her back to the bed. As we settled ourselves, she gathered up the pen and the book she’d been writing in and set them on the bedside table. Before she’d closed the scarlet velvet cover, however, I’d glimpsed the watery ink splotches staining the page in several places.
    She turned back to me, her eyes narrowing. Even in her distress, she held her back perfectly straight, and I remembered about the rod she was once forced to wear as a child during her lessons—a length of steel that ran along her spine, held in place by a strap at her waist and another around her forehead. I’d been horrified to learn of it years ago; now I was struck by the symbolism of it, of the complete control her mother wielded over Consuelo’s very existence.
    “They’re all plotting, you know,” she said, breaking into my thoughts. “To get the vote.”
    The abruptness of the statement confused me, and I blinked. “To what? Who’s plotting?”
    “Mother and her houseguests. They want women to have the vote and they plan to start petitioning Congress. How can they, Emma? How can they do that while I am up here . . . trapped up here—” Her head went down and a tear splashed the flowered pattern of her skirt.
    Still baffled, I shook my head, though she couldn’t see it, and reached out to stroke her hair. “Consuelo, I’m sorry, but I don’t follow. What has that to do with your engagement?”
    Her head swung up, her moist eyes blazing with anger. “Don’t you understand? Mother is down there with her cronies planning ways to gain independence and political power for women, while at the same time she’s holding me prisoner and planning my life for me. Taking away all my choices. Telling me I’d better hold my tongue and do as she says . . .”
    Or else. She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. The same phrase still rang in my mind from downstairs, though Alva hadn’t come out and said it then either.
    “She treats me as though I’m one of those dolls.” She jerked her chin at the shelves of bisque faces staring lifelessly back at us. “Those wretched, insensible, staring dolls. They’re horrible and I hate them. Mother’s horrible and I hate her. ”
    Part of me wished to agree, at least about the injustice of the situation. Instead, I seized her hands in my own. “You don’t mean that, Consuelo. I know you don’t. Your mother . . .” I drew a breath and tried not to loathe myself. “Your mother wants the best for you. The very best. She may be a bit . . .” I bit back the words vainglorious and misguided, and replaced them with something more diplomatic. “. . . A bit overbearing at times, I’ll agree, but I believe her heart is in the right place.”
    Good Lord. So much for not loathing myself. So much for Consuelo respecting and adoring me.
    She snatched her hands out of mine. “You’re with her on this,” she said flatly. Bitterly.
    “No. Yes. No.” I shook my head and swallowed the growing lump in my throat. “Consuelo—”
    Before I could get out another word, she said, “How can you be? You, who have all the independence in the world. Who may decide each and every day what to do and where to go. Whom you’ll see. Whom you’ll someday marry.” This last came out as a choked whisper that nearly wrenched my heart in two.
    “You’re wrong,” I said, not altogether dishonestly. Hadn’t what occurred that morning between Derrick and me proved my options were limited, that I couldn’t simply do as I pleased whenever I pleased; that so-called independence came with a price, with often painful sacrifices?
    “My life might look appealing to you, but not a day goes by that I don’t sit down with our household account book and decide whether we’ll eat