4
QUENTIN SCRUTINIZED THE TRAPPINGS in the formal parlor. Altogether, there was probably a million dollars’ worth of artwork, silver, Turkish carpets, and imported furniture in this mansion, and his grandfather was convinced the curse would somehow survive unless it was all destroyed, which was an obscene waste. The old man was growing more paranoid and irrational with age, but loyalty drove Quentin to carry out his grandfather’s wishes to the letter. After all, he owed Nickolaas a debt that could never be repaid.
He wandered to an identical room on the other side of the entrance hall. In the home’s glory days, these rooms surely hosted lavish balls and splendid gatherings. Just looking at the portraits gracing the walls was testament to the long line of generals and merchant princes in his family’s history. Their faces were somber, grim even, but weren’t all portraits from that era gloomy? Something about those faces staring at him was disconcerting, as if they knew what he intended to do. Would they approve? Even in the seventeenth century, the legend of the Vandermark curse had begun to haunt their name.
In the kitchen at the rear of the house, he could hear Pieter and his governess bickering about dinner. Mr. Gilroy had driven into town this afternoon to buy food and hire a cook but had returned with only a sack of groceries. Apparently, cooks were scarce in New Holland, and Quentin had ordered the governess, Miss McCarthy, to do her best preparing the food for their evening meal.
It wouldn’t rival what Sophie had cooked for them this morning, which smelled so good he’d been hanging on to his seat by his fingernails to stop from lunging across the table and devouring everything in sight. He was a rational man who controlled his baser instincts, and everything about Sophie van Riijn rubbed him the wrong way. She was too cheerful. Sunny. People like that had no conception of what the real world was like, and he’d survive on apples before he’d eat a morsel of food she cooked.
“We’ll have bread and cheese for dinner tonight.” Miss McCarthy’s voice sounded from the kitchen. “I won’t risk our lives by trying to light the fire in that stove. We’ll just have to wait until your father hires a proper cook.”
“But I’m hungry,” Pieter whined.
Miss McCarthy’s reply was too soft to hear, but Quentin hoped she wouldn’t tolerate that sort of petulant behavior. Pieter had grown soft and spoiled while living with his grandfather, and it was time for the boy to grow up and start acting his age.
Quentin moved closer to the kitchen to listen in. Miss McCarthy was trying to tempt Pieter with the fresh fruits and vegetables Mr. Gilroy brought from town. “These carrots are perfectly fine eaten raw. And the mushrooms, too. There’s plenty to eat.”
“I don’t eat mushrooms,” Pieter said. “They spring up overnight where the evil fairies dance in circles on the lawn. If you come too close, the fairies will trap you inside and you’ll never get out.”
Miss McCarthy laughed. “How right you are! My grandmother used to say that if you run around the fairy ring nine times, it confuses the fairies and the people trapped inside can get away.”
Quentin stalked into the kitchen as fast as his bad leg allowed. After months trying to undo the damage done by Nickolaas, the last thing he wanted was a silly governess reinforcing Pieter’s irrational beliefs. He stood in the doorway to the kitchen, and the governess looked up in surprise.
“Miss McCarthy, you may collect your belongings,” he said bluntly. “Mr. Gilroy will provide you with two weeks’ severance pay, and then you will be escorted back to New York. Tonight.”
“Did I do something wrong?” she gasped.
“You were warned that my son often indulges in harmful superstitions, and that when he voices them you were to require him to say that if he can’t see it or touch it, it is not real. You have not done so. I will inform Mr. Gilroy of your imminent departure.”
There was no need. Mr. Gilroy was leaning against the doorframe on the opposite side of the kitchen, watching the incident with disapproving eyes. It didn’t matter. If Mr. Gilroy didn’t like it, he could quit.
Which might be a good thing. It was hard not to like Mr. Gilroy, but the man was nothing more than a spy for his grandfather. Mr. Gilroy didn’t even bother to deny it anymore, but Quentin tolerated it because if he got rid of the butler, Nickolaas would figure out how to slip another spy into his household who might do considerable damage before Quentin spotted him.
After Miss McCarthy was hustled from the kitchen, Quentin glanced at the bowl of freshly washed mushrooms amid the vegetables on the kitchen work table. Limping forward, he scooped one up and popped it into his mouth. The mushroom was raw and flavorless, but he locked eyes with Pieter as he chewed and swallowed. The boy looked mortified, as though Quentin had just swallowed a live goldfish.
“You know what you’re having for dinner,” he said firmly.
Pieter shrank two inches, and his eyes grew wide. “Please don’t make me,” he whispered.
“Mushrooms are a perfectly healthy food. They grow quickly because after a heavy rain they expand with water at a rapid rate, and that’s why it appears they spring up overnight. They are an outgrowth of decayed tree roots, which explains why they grow in circles. It’s science, Pieter. It has nothing to do with fairies or magic or anything else your grandfather told you.”
Three of the bodyguards loitered in the hallway outside the kitchen, waiting for dinner. Quentin pushed the bowl of mushrooms toward Pieter then used his cane to pull the bread, fruit, and cheese to the opposite side of the table.
“When you get two mushrooms down, you can eat anything else you want. Otherwise you’ll go to bed with nothing.”
Pieter’s face froze in revulsion, but Quentin wasn’t going to coddle the boy. He left the kitchen, pushing past the men gathered in the hall.
“Seems a little mean, sir,” Ratface muttered as Quentin passed.
He stiffened. Ratface was the toughest of his bodyguards, plucked straight from the squalid underbelly of New York where he ran interference for Irish street gangs. He’d hired Ratface because he was a sharp-eyed man capable of forecasting the behavior of gutter rats. The Vandermark family was a perpetual target for kidnappers, lawsuits, and blackmailers, and he needed ruthless men to be on constant surveillance. To be labeled mean by a man like Ratface was nothing to be proud of.
But the biggest danger to Pieter wasn’t kidnappers. It was the paralyzing fear that had been planted, nurtured, and reinforced by Nickolaas Vandermark. How was Quentin supposed to undo the damage his grandfather had embedded in his son? Patience wasn’t working. Neither was logic or distance from Nickolaas. When he took custody of Pieter back from his grandfather last month, they both agreed it was best for Nickolaas to be scarce while father and son became accustomed to each other again. The Vandermark name carried vast burdens and responsibilities, and it was his duty to ensure that Pieter would be strong enough to shoulder them. It was unlikely either he or Nickolaas would be alive to see Pieter into adulthood, and it was time for the boy to overcome his childish fears and superstitions.
“If that boy eats a morsel of food before he finishes the mushrooms, you’re all fired without references.”
He slammed the door behind him.
The first thing the next morning, Quentin hobbled outside to sit on the front portico of the mansion, his head leaning against the stone balustrade, his leg stretched out before him. It had been impossible to sleep last night, and he was exhausted as he rose before dawn and staggered outside, hoping the morning air would revive him.
He shouldn’t have been so hard on Pieter last night. The boy had refused to eat a single mushroom and had gone to bed hungry. A little stubbornness from a nine-year-old could be forgiven, but superstitious nonsense was dangerous. Generations of Vandermarks had come of age believing their family was uniquely cursed, and he had to stop any hint of pointless superstitions from taking root in Pieter.
He covered his face with his hand, remorse consuming him. The truth was—and it shamed him to admit it—he didn’t know how to be a good father. Both of his parents had died when he was a baby, and being raised by Nickolaas Vandermark hadn’t exactly shown him the model of a wise and loving father.
The ache in his chest swelled, and he squeezed his eyes against the pain of remorse. All he’d ever wanted in life was to be a solid man and a good father, but he was failing at both.
He still remembered with aching clarity the morning of Pieter’s birth. It was the most perfect day of his life. He’d been in the room for it all, for nothing could drag him from his wife’s side that day. As the time drew near, the doctor ordered him to a far corner and draped a privacy sheet across Portia’s knees, but Quentin watched her face as she labored to deliver the child they both desperately wanted. She’d been so brave, crying out only at the very end when her head rolled back on the pillow as Pieter slipped from her body. Then she started laughing and weeping in joy, Pieter’s cries joining hers.
The proudest moment of Quentin’s life came only seconds later when Pieter was placed in his arms, a tiny, wriggling infant wrapped in a towel and still wet from birth. His little face was wrinkled, his eyes squeezed shut. He was twisting and whimpering in despair, and Quentin’s entire heart split open.
“Hush, baby,” he soothed, rocking the tiny infant against his chest. “Hush now. Don’t you know I would do anything in the world for you?”
And he would. He would lay down his life to protect this miraculous gift that had just been placed in his arms. As if sensing the love radiating from him, Pieter’s muscles eased and his eyes opened, staring up at him with a solemn gaze. Quentin was struck speechless with wonder, the bond growing by the second. Through eyes swimming in tears, he looked to Portia, propped up on the bed, watching them both with an exhausted smile on her face.
Moving to the bed, he sat on the mattress, tilting the baby so Portia could see. “Look at him, Portia. Just look at him . . .” He wanted to say more, but there were no words to describe how happy and proud he was.
Portia reached for the baby, and he set Pieter in her arms. Portia turned her face into the column of his throat. He held her as they both wept for joy, and for that brief moment, he knew that he and Portia would overcome the chasms in their marriage and become a real family.
It hadn’t worked out that way. Portia died before Pieter’s first birthday, and then he broke his leg less than a year later. The descent into sickness and depression had been swift. Not that his life had ever been perfect, but the nascent stirrings of hope had been extinguished by a series of catastrophes. And despair of the soul had proven so much harder than the pain in his body.
Quentin scrubbed a hand across his face, forcing the memories away. The only logical way to proceed was to try doing better by Pieter in the future.
He drew a deep breath and scanned the meadow before him. A stand of ancient juniper trees encircled the meadow, creating a haven within its sheltering rim. The grounds were overgrown, with grasses and wildflowers flourishing in profusion. A pair of butterflies fluttered through the overgrowth. Blackberry vines twined through a fence that protected an herb garden. The call of a meadowlark sounded from a nearby apple tree laden with fruit.
He blinked, realizing this might possibly be the most beautiful place he’d ever seen. There was a tranquility here, made of warm earth and dappled sunlight and a green, soothing scent. It looked like a primeval kingdom, a lost paradise, a memory of ruined perfection.
He’d never been here before, but it seemed oddly familiar, as though he had dreamed it once, or perhaps seen it in a grand painting. It seemed . . . well, magical was the only word he could think of for it.
Which was nonsense. He was here on a mission, not to squander time waxing poetic over a long-neglected meadow. That irksome Sophie person was likely to arrive soon. Pieter would be famished by now, and perhaps he’d have Sophie cook breakfast for them again. He sensed she’d be willing to cook in exchange for permission to keep tending that weather station on the roof.
As though answering his thoughts, Sophie emerged from the dense screen of trees, ambling toward the house with a smile as bright as the morning. Her blond hair spilled over one shoulder in a loose braid, and she carried a cloth-covered basket. A single daisy was tucked behind one ear. Decades of training required him to rise to his feet. It was ungainly, but he managed to stand and brace his cane beneath him before she reached the portico.
“I’ve brought an orange loaf,” she declared with a smile as she halted before him.
His cane shot out and blocked her entrance. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to get up onto the roof.”
“Your powers of foresight have me in awe.” Humor underlay her words and it was contagious, but he refused to give in to the impulse to laugh with her. The orange loaf in that covered basket smelled so tempting it made him weak. It smelled of butter and citrus and endless Mediterranean skies.
“My son is hungry,” he said bluntly.
“Hence the orange loaf. It’s got dried cranberries and a vanilla glaze.”
His stomach started to growl. “We will require another round of scrambled eggs like you made yesterday. Mr. Gilroy has already purchased the ingredients. After you make breakfast, you may have access to the roof.”
She hesitated. “It is important that I gather the data at the same time each morning. All the volunteers are asked to take their readings before nine o’clock. The data is more meaningful if it is standardized. I’ll go take the weather readings then get breakfast started.”
He conceded, more out of respect for science than any kindness on his part. He did not want to stress his leg so early in the day, so he lowered himself to sit on the front step. It annoyed him that she felt free to sit beside him.
“What do you do with the data once you collect it?” he asked.
“There is a telegraph machine at my father’s hotel, and he wires it to the Weather Bureau. In exchange, the town gets free weather predictions for the Hudson Valley wired to us each evening.”
“But what do you get out of it? You’re the one who is doing all the work.”
She answered without hesitation. “I get immense satisfaction. It is a privilege to be a part of this endeavor. Last year there was a week of terrible storms upstate and we were notified of a flood heading our way. Farmers were able to move their livestock to higher ground and get their hay inside well ahead of the storm. Without that warning, thousands of cows and sheep would have drowned.”
“And you do this for free,” he pressed.
“We all do it for free.” She said it like he was the simpleton, not she.
“Then you are being taken advantage of. If the warnings issued by the Weather Bureau saved the valley’s livestock, you ought to be compensated. The system will only work on goodwill for so long before it breaks down.”
The music of her laughter rivaled the birdsong in the distance. She uncovered the basket, the warm scent of the buttery cake rising from within. “Would you like a slice of orange loaf? I baked it even before I knew you intended to haggle over access to the roof like a real robber baron. People aren’t always motivated by money. Sometimes they do things just to be kind.”
She tilted the basket toward him. The cream-colored loaf was drenched in a vanilla glaze and flecked with bits of dried fruit and lemon zest. His mouth watered. He hadn’t been hungry until she’d started waving that basket in his face. He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes.
“So you consider yourself kind, do you?”
“I hope so.” She seemed a little miffed he wanted nothing to do with her fancy bread and withdrew the basket.
Her naiveté was appalling. People like Sophie van Riijn smiled while allowing the government to exploit her goodwill, and that kind of gullibility annoyed him. He couldn’t deny there was something appealing about her, even as he was exasperated by her foolish benevolence.
A worm dropped onto his lap from the portico above and he reared back, brushing it onto the steps in disgust. He used his good leg to kick it farther away, but Sophie swooped in, laughing as she plucked it away from harm.
“Goodness, don’t tell me you’re frightened of a little caterpillar,” she said, holding the wiggling green and yellow worm between two slender fingers. He’d never seen a woman gladly handle an insect before, and it was a little humbling.
“I assure you, ma’am, it takes more than a caterpillar to alarm me.” No man who had allowed his leg to be broken, rebroken, and submitted his body to a live vivisection ought to be squeamish about such a thing. “Just toss it aside,” he said grimly.
She carried it to a cluster of wildflowers and set it on the ground. “It’s a monarch caterpillar,” she said as she rejoined him at the portico. “They eat milkweeds, so he will be fine over there. I always love watching the caterpillars go through their transformation every year. They are truly a miracle of nature.”
They were a pest and annoyance, especially when they dropped on unsuspecting people without provocation, but Sophie seemed to have an endless supply of patience and goodwill. Perhaps he could put that cheerful nature to good use.
“Can you tell me what causes thunder?” he asked.
“It’s an acoustic shock caused when air gets superheated by a burst of lightning. Why?”
“I was curious about what you’d say.”
Pieter liked Sophie. She was soft edges and soothing tones and radiant warmth. Pieter was accustomed to rejecting anything Quentin had to say about science and the rational world, but what if the message came from Sophie?
For the first time since arriving at the mansion, a smile curved his mouth. Sophie might be good for Pieter. And Quentin would be willing to put up with her teeth-grating cheerfulness if she could help ease Pieter into a more logical frame of mind. It would be a challenge, but he’d pay her a fortune if she would do it.
“Aside from letting the government take appalling advantage of you, what else do you do with your time?” he asked.
The question seemed to hurt her feelings. She looked away and fiddled with the lace at her cuff. “I help at the hotel.”
“What would it take to get you to agree to be our cook for the next few weeks?”
A flash of exhilaration lit her eyes, but it was quickly masked. “Well, I’ve never cooked for money before . . .”
That surprised him. She seemed so competent he’d assumed she must have worked in her father’s hotel.
“I need more than a cook,” he admitted. “I’ve decided my son would benefit from a course in meteorology, and I’d like you to teach him. Show him the scientific method. How you gather data and pass it on to scientists who use it for research. I’ll pay a great deal in exchange for such tutoring.”
“You want to pay me to be nice to your son? I’d do it for free.”
For such an intelligent woman, her repeated willingness to let people take advantage of her was exasperating. “I don’t like to be obligated to people. I would prefer to set a salary.”
“You’d want me here every day?”
“Every day. I will tolerate no superstition. If my son inquires about fairies or goblins, or God or Jesus, I want you to squash the discussion.”
“You lump God and Jesus in with fairies and goblins?”
“Yes,” he said bluntly, hoping she wasn’t going to be one of those tedious religious types. “If something cannot be experienced by one of the five senses, it is not real. I won’t have my son instructed in anything else.”
“Are you . . . ?” Her face flushed and she lowered her voice, so soft he had to lean in to hear. “Are you an atheist?” she whispered.
She sounded so appalled she might have been asking if he carried bubonic plague. “Yes, Miss van Riijn, I am an atheist. Or as I prefer to think of myself, a free thinker. An intelligent man unfettered by the chains of folklore, superstition, and oppression.”
She pondered the words as she scanned the meadow before the house. “I’ve always felt my faith liberated rather than oppressed me. Knowing there is a kingdom of God has been very reassuring. I can’t imagine what it must be like to believe we are alone in the world.” Sophie looked at him with a bit of humor in her eyes. “No wonder you’re so grouchy.”
The laughter began deep in his chest, but he masked it as a cough rather than letting it escape. He cleared his throat until he could regain his composure and present a straight face.
“Well, this grouchy man is prepared to offer you a salary of one hundred dollars a week for cooking our meals and instructing my son in the basics of meteorology.”
“One hundred dollars?” she gasped.
“One hundred dollars,” he affirmed. It was an outrageous price, but it was worth it if she could make these weeks easier for Pieter. “And your discussions shall be limited to the scientific principles of the universe, kindly omitting mention of catastrophic floods, stone tablets delivered to mountaintops, or snakes offering apples to foolish women.”
As he’d suspected, she looked tempted. People would do anything for money, and she’d pitch her godly principles into the deep blue sea if the price was right. She plucked a strand of grass peeking through the slate tiles at her feet. She methodically shredded the grass to pieces before she turned to face him.
“I won’t deny my religious beliefs,” she finally said.
“So long as you don’t foist them on my son, I’ll be satisfied.”
She smiled, and it was irritating how much her radiant face appealed to him. A girl this pretty and innocent had no understanding of the dark clouds that haunted the world. She had never known pain or fear, and her simplistic belief in God only underscored her naiveté.
“You’ve got a lot of people with you, and cooking for them all is too big a job for one person. And frankly, I don’t think my father would consent to letting me be here without some sort of chaperone. It would be best if you rehired Florence, as well.”
“The old housekeeper with the humped back? She’s too old to be working.”
“She’s tougher than she looks.”
He shifted in discomfort and stretched out his leg, rubbing the failing muscles in annoyance. Just thinking about the old woman made him uncomfortable. “I don’t like being waited on by someone so old and feeble. If she needs money, I’ll give it to her.”
“What she needs is to feel useful. She’s only sixty-two and wants to work.”
That was surprising. The old woman looked eighty, not barely into her sixties, but what Sophie said was correct. A vocation was important for sustaining the spirit. There had been times when work was the only glimmer of hope he could cling to when the darkness overtook him. He wouldn’t deny the dignity of work to a housekeeper who had served his family for four decades.
It didn’t escape his notice that Sophie was manipulating him, subtly bargaining for exactly what she wanted before consenting to his plan. “Oh, very well,” he said sourly. “You can bring the housekeeper back.”
“And you will be nice to her.”
“I’m always nice.”
Her laughter rang out over the meadow. Her amusement could probably be heard in Manhattan, but he had no intention of joining in.
“Florence is a sensitive soul. You scared her within an inch of a heart attack on your first day here, so I’d like to assure her that you can be trusted to comport yourself like a gentleman.”
“Save me from the tender sensibilities of women,” he muttered. “They are the death warrant for all logic and reason in the universe.” He looked at Sophie and conceded. “In the future I shall treat Florence as though she is made of hand-blown glass. Or perhaps nitroglycerine.”
She graced him with a blinding smile. “When do I start?” she asked in that annoyingly cheerful voice.
“Now. I’ll go wake Pieter and send him to you on the roof.”
“You aren’t coming?”
It was humiliating that he lacked the ability to climb two flights of stairs, but his physical limitations were none of her business so he dismissed her question. “Pieter will join you shortly. He will be accompanied by a bodyguard.”
Sophie’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “I can assure you no harm will come to the boy on the roof. The widow’s walk is surrounded by a railing and is perfectly safe.”
“Pieter never goes anywhere without a bodyguard.”
“My son will someday inherit eighty million dollars, a fact that is widely known. Last summer he was kidnapped by a team of thugs while I was convalescing after surgery. For nine days he was held blindfolded in a closet while awaiting ransom.”
Sophie sucked in a horrified gasp, her hand flying to her mouth. She finally seemed to grasp that the world was not a cozy dollhouse ruled over by a benevolent Christian father. Pieter had been so traumatized by the incident that Quentin had summoned his grandfather to take custody of the boy. Too ill to leave the clinic where he’d been hovering between life and death following a string of experimental surgeries, he’d trusted Nickolaas to abide by their agreement not to subject Pieter to the rot about a family curse.
“We got him back, but it was a traumatic ordeal from which he still has not entirely recovered. He is afraid of the dark and afraid of strangers. The constant presence of bodyguards helps him feel secure.”
“I see,” she whispered, her lovely face seeming to show genuine regret, which was nonsense. Pieter was practically a stranger to her, and she didn’t need to pretend sympathy. She tossed the pieces of grass away and looked at him with a little more understanding. “I’ll be waiting for Pieter on the roof.”
He managed to stand while she excused herself, but the instant the door closed, he lowered himself onto a step again to lighten the weight on his leg, which had begun to ache.
He needed to eat. If Sophie was going to be their cook, he couldn’t keep subsisting on apples out of irrational stubbornness. Dragging the basket of orange loaf closer, he cut a large wedge and ate with his fingers, too impatient to even carry the basket inside.
He nearly went dizzy from the tangy bread dissolving in his mouth in a combination of sweet, tart, and cream. Were he a praying man, he would thank God he’d completed the negotiation before he ate a morsel of Sophie’s food, or he would have been a puddle at her feet. No wonder Pieter adored her.
He wolfed down the rest of the slice quickly, eyeing the remainder of the loaf as he chewed. This was the best thing he’d tasted in years, and it wouldn’t take much effort to make the rest of that loaf disappear, but he needed to rouse Pieter now, before Sophie was finished with her work on the roof.
As he headed back into the house, he realized that for the first time in years—for a few precious moments while bantering with Sophie—he had been free of the relentless pain that darkened his world.