Victoria was smudged and covered in dust and grime for several days as she explored the main house from the attic to the basement, where centuries of detritus was stored in boxes and chests. Every day she watched and waited for Turov to leave, but she’d had many close calls with the master of the vineyard as well as his employees. She wasn’t barred from the house. Far from it. There was a library she’d been invited to use and the kitchen was always open for her to graze or order a tray of tea or snacks brought to the cottage.
But she was sure she was the only guest who crept around trying vintage skeleton keys in every locked door. She hadn’t really expected to find a wing of rooms filled with evil monks. But she had hoped for clues to point her in the direction of where Turov might hold his prisoners.
Mostly, she’d intruded upon memories of days gone by.
She had discovered that none of her keys fit the lock on Adam Turov’s office door or the door of his apartments...the most likely place for secrets to be found.
It was late afternoon by the time a vacuuming maid had caused her to give up on locked doors for the day. She’d almost exhausted the doors her keys would unlock anyway. She’d asked for tea in the rose garden and the cook had been happy to oblige because she’d made very few requests so far.
Once Victoria had washed her hands, she discovered the cook had even asked some of Turov’s men to carry a chaise longue and a small table into the clearing in the center of the garden where an ivy-covered arbor provided shade. It was a spot that would have been perfect for a fainting Edwardian woman who needed to loosen her corset and guzzle some tea after a long morning of social calls.
Victoria sat in her dusty jeans and smudged flannel shirt and put her feet up. In spite of the thick rosebushes all around her, she was able to eye several buildings in the distance that might be worth investigation.
“Your hair in the sunlight rivals the roses,” Turov said.
She looked from the buildings with a start. The intensity of his blue eyes rivaled the Sonoma sky, so vivid against the white clouds and green surroundings that his gaze made her chest ache.
But she wouldn’t tell him that.
She wouldn’t tell him how exploring his house and the memories he’d carefully kept for a hundred years made her itch to reach out and hold him. Even now, though he walked into the clearing in a suit cut so tight and sharp that its tailoring perfectly mimicked his cheekbones and angular jaw.
Untouchable.
But his Brimstone burn said otherwise.
She was exhausted from her search and from the tension of snooping where she didn’t belong, but as he approached she still bit her lip against a song. It was one she didn’t know how to sing. New and different, throaty and sweet, it rose from her gut in a sultry curl like smoke.
“Esther told me you’d asked for tea. I thought I’d join you, if you don’t mind,” Turov said. As he spoke, a man carried another chair into the clearing and placed it beside her chaise longue.
It would be a mistake to have tea with a man who once made a deal with the devil that still burns in his veins.
“Of course. Please,” Victoria said. She didn’t sing.
But she did feel faint when Turov settled close beside her as if they were going to enjoy an intimate tête-à-tête. She resisted the magnetic pull of his blood. She didn’t resist meeting his gaze. She was a terrible spy. He must see her guilt swirling in her irises. Yet she looked because he compelled her to look, not with Brimstone, but with all else she might be able to see. Time. All the things he’d seen and done and endured. How had anyone ever imagined him to be in his late twenties when his eyes were so obviously much, much older than that?
“The tea might take a little while. I made a special request that might take them longer than the usual service,” Turov said.
“I don’t mind,” Victoria said. In truth, her throat was parched, but more from dust and nervousness than thirst. Would he see her smudged appearance and wonder what in the world she’d been up to? “I’ve been hiking. It’s nice to rest.”
He raised a brow. Her wilted appearance could have been caused by a long hike around his estate. But when Turov leaned toward her it wasn’t a leaf he plucked from her hair to hold out to her like a chivalrous offering. It was a telltale fluff of attic insulation.
She reached to take it from his fingers and allowed it to float to the ground where the yellow puff lay in the grass like a shout of accusation.
“The cook’s name is Esther?” she asked. “I noticed everyone calls her by her title rather than her name.”
“I knew her before she was a cook,” Adam explained. “But she’s very proud of her position and has earned the title most proficiently.”
Victoria didn’t mention that Esther was at least seventy years old. The rosy-cheeked, wrinkled woman had twinkling eyes and a spring in her step in spite of her age. She seemed years from retirement. She’d noticed that Adam was warmer to his people than most wealthy men. Did he remember what it was like to be less than he was today?
“She’s been the heart of my home for many years. I’m sure you’ve noticed the air of abandonment in much of the house. Esther’s kitchen is the exception. Before my mother died, she was also like Esther—strong, but all heart. My mother’s name was Elena. She was born of the sturdiest stock. Her hands were calloused because she kept them in the dirt. That’s what I remember most about her. The scent of soil and green and growing things. The scent of her roses,” Adam said.
Two men carefully carried the firebird tea service into the rose garden on a silver tray. Esther must not have trusted one alone with the task. They each held one end of the tray as if they carried a great and precious burden. The extra time must have been spent washing the pot, cups and saucers until they gleamed. How frightening it must have been for the cook to be asked to take on such a task.
“It’s beautiful,” Victoria said. Tears burned at the back of her eyes and her throat tightened. Her voice was huskier than usual. She had disturbed Elena Turov’s sitting room without permission and now Adam Turov had the firebird tea service brought into the sun for the first time in decades...for her.
“The service was a gift from my father. My mother loved the firebird fairy tale. She was one to hold on to the old ways and old tales. Russia was settled by Slavs in the early sixth century. It’s from these ancestors that the Slavic firebird tales were passed down to us from generation to generation. My father gave her this fairy tale in so many ways. He said she was his firebird because she had escaped the Russian Revolution and taken flight to America,” Adam said. “She would have loved your hair. The flames in it. She only grew scarlet roses because she said they reminded her of the firebird’s flight.”
Adam stood to pour the tea. When he handed her a cup and saucer she was very careful to keep her hands steady. The tea was piping hot in spite of its journey from the house. Her host wasn’t as calm as he appeared. This offering was significant. As a former opera singer, she understood myth and metaphor. She understood symbolism. But she didn’t begin to understand the complexity of this man who had lived so long with damnation burning and burning at his heels.
“It catches fire in the sun,” she said, lifting her gilded cup up so that the sunlight hit the firebird’s tail.
Adam’s cup rattled against his saucer.
“Everything does,” he responded when he had settled the delicate porcelain in his strong hand.
Did this firebird tea in the rose garden mean that her affinity had seduced him? And why did that idea make her cringe?
As she sipped from the vintage porcelain cup decorated with its lovely gilded bird that was more legend than reality, her own emotions were even more elusive than a bird sought by princes and principalities.
She was supposed to get close to Adam Turov. Her stolen keys were worthless if she couldn’t discover what they unlocked. The trouble was that she had gotten closer to him in the last few days as she pilfered through all of his memories and personal treasures from a hundred years of life and love.
She wanted to enjoy the tea in her firebird cup as a generous offering of burgeoning attraction from a man whose kisses she craved. She didn’t want to plot his downfall.
Victoria watched Adam sip his tea quietly surrounded by the roses his mother had planted. And then she thought of Michael guarded by a hellhound and a daemon nanny while she struggled with tea and roses.
She didn’t have the luxury of enjoyment or the freedom to appreciate the attraction that burned between her and Turov.
* * *
He had lived forever and a day, but Victoria D’Arcy would be the death of him. He’d survived the burn of Brimstone so long that he’d forgotten there were worse burns. Like words spoken lightly that cut like swallowed shards of glass. He played with fire. Not only the way his blood bubbled and boiled with need for Victoria’s kiss, the song of desire she’d yet to allow herself to sing for him—he allowed her to search for his prisoners with no interference.
He served the daemon king to earn back his soul, but he also served to bring the Order of Samuel to hell where they belonged. Victoria was a song that woke him from decades of sleepwalking; a song he wasn’t free to taste.
Victoria D’Arcy couldn’t be allowed to interfere with that mission. Not only because he brooked no interruption, but also because she was very wrong to believe that freeing the monks he’d captured would protect her son. He knew Malachi. The corrupt man could not be trusted. If he was interested in Victoria’s son, he wouldn’t rest until the child was in his clutches.
He carried the firebird tea service back to the kitchen once Victoria had excused herself to wash attic dust from her face and hair. Oh, she’d said to freshen up after her hike, but he knew the dust of his house’s nooks and crannies well. Nostalgia was a hobby he indulged only rarely, but it surrounded him powerfully and painfully, always.
Esther met him at the door of the kitchen and he allowed her to take the service from his arms. She’d never known his mother, but she reminded him of her often. She’d also been born in Slovakia although her birth had occurred long after his mother’s, so Esther’s stories were of Czechoslovakia.
“I was happy to bring this out of its case. So sad to see something so beautiful shut away and unused,” Esther said. “The young lady is very like it—I suspect she’s shut herself away. I can almost see the shimmer of a glass case around her when she talks. So careful. So quiet. And I don’t think it’s her natural way.”
“No. I have a recording of her that’s not careful or quiet at all. The fire caused damage beyond her voice, I think,” Adam said. “And the Order has stalked her since she was a child.”
The cook held on to the side of the sink where she’d carefully placed the teapot to wash. Her calloused hands were white-knuckled from her grip.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned the Order,” Adam said.
“They have stalked us all for too long, Mr. Turov,” Esther said with her head bowed and her shoulders taut and stiff. “I know you’ll help her. You always do.”
The words seared him even though the Brimstone in his blood protected him from fire. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to help Victoria D’Arcy without losing a battle he’d waged for a century.
“Always is a long time, Esther. A very long time,” he replied.
The cook who had once been something far fiercer turned to look at him. Her eyes usually twinkled with humor, but now they glimmered with tears. Her cheeks were ruddy, but not from an oven’s heat.
“I have appreciated every second of the normal life you’ve given me. I expect she’d do the same,” Esther said. “But you’re only one man. An extraordinary one, but they are many. Take care of yourself too. Don’t lose sight of your own salvation.”
For a hundred years, taking down the Order of Samuel had been a clear objective in his mind. But that objective had become clouded as soon as Victoria stepped onto the soil of his vineyard. Saving his soul had always been secondary. But there was salvation in her song. One he wasn’t exactly sure how to claim.
* * *
It was much later that evening when Victoria decided to brave the kitchen for a late dinner. She’d washed all the evidence of her snooping from her face and hair in a long, hot bath, but while the soak had eased her sore muscles and cleansed her body, it had also allowed her too much time to think of Adam Turov’s kisses. It had been torturous to watch him sip tea that afternoon. He so composed and she so discombobulated. Perhaps he simply had more practice than she did at keeping secrets.
He should have looked out of place in the rose garden, in his tailored suit that gleamed as darkly as his hair in the sun. He hadn’t. He’d looked perfectly comfortable while she had worried over the yellow insulation he’d found in her hair.
She was surprised to find someone in the kitchen when she pushed open the swinging doors that led from the back hallway into the most beautiful room in the house. The kitchen complemented the house with craftsman elements, like a huge rock wall boasting an open fireplace that was still actually used for roasting on a spit. But it also hinted of a Slavic influence with its mosaic-tiled floors and the red-painted cabinetry. On the door panels of the cabinets were accents of folk art designs in hues of soft blues and greens. There was also a Slavic-style bread oven in the middle of the room made of stone but smoothly plastered with beige stucco. From the ceiling, iron fixtures hung like folksy chandeliers each fitted with a rope and pulley so that the candles could be lit. Stubby chunks of melted wax gave evidence to the fact that Esther still cooked by candlelight when she wished.
Esther was the crowning touch. Even now, well after other servants had left the main house, she sat at a heavy polished oak table in a colorful apron that could have been in a textile museum.
“I wondered if you would venture out for sustenance or if I was going to have to tap on your door with a tray,” the smiling cook said when Victoria came into the room.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to wait up,” Victoria replied. Her face was as rosy as Esther’s, but while the cook’s face was red from constant exposure to the fire of her oven, Victoria’s was red because she’d been caught trying to avoid her host.
“I just finished baking a batch of pagach bread. You’ll try it and tell me how you like it,” Esther said.
She rose and ushered Victoria into the chair she’d vacated. Her tone and enthusiasm brooked no resistance. Besides, the smell of yeasty bread filled with cheesy potatoes filled the whole room and caused Victoria’s mouth to water. She’d had pagach before, but in the shape of a fancy crinkled-edged pie in a restaurant. Esther brought her homemade pagach to the table on the long wooden paddle she’d used to lift it from the baking sheet in the oven. Her pagach was a circular mound of dough much thicker than a pie pan that had been cooked a perfect golden brown.
“This was worth the wait, yeah?” Esther said as she cut into the pagach with a long knife she’d taken from a hook on the wall near the table. Aromatic steam rose in the air, causing Victoria’s empty stomach to growl.
There was a stack of heavy ceramic plates and a basket of utensils already on the table along with a napkin holder. While Esther served a generous piece of pagach onto a plate Victoria held, she noticed that beside the napkin holder stood a quartet of dolls made from knotted twine. One had a long braid of twine down her back. Another had two pigtails on either side of her head. The last had a tiny peasant bonnet on her head. All three had brightly colored glass beads woven into their strands of twine and dresses as colorful as the one doll’s bonnet. None of the dolls had faces.
“They are wishing dolls. Toys from my childhood. Every time we want for something, we add a bead. Like a prayer. I find that even though I’m too old for wishing I like to keep the tradition,” Esther said. She twitched the braid on one of the dolls.
Victoria chewed and swallowed a piece of heaven. The flavor of cheese and the texture of the creamy potatoes melted on her tongue.
“If one of those beads was for perfect pagach bread, the doll definitely delivered,” Victoria said.
“You make me happy. Eating. Enjoying. I love to see this smile on your face. I live for smiles,” Esther said.
Victoria ate several more bites while Esther went to the refrigerator and poured a glass of milk from a pitcher. The thick white creamy texture could only be whole and Victoria cringed when she realized her late-night snack was going to necessitate an early-morning jog tomorrow. Still, she couldn’t resist. She anticipated the ice-cold treat before Esther made it back to the table. When the cook set the tall glass beside Victoria’s plate, the sleeve of her dress rose up several inches.
Victoria’s fork froze several inches from her mouth and she slowly lowered it back to her plate. Esther’s wrist was badly scarred. Deep ridges cut into her flesh all the way around her arm. The scar was wide, but it had several raised areas that had been spared from the cut of whatever had dug into her skin. Esther drew back and pulled her sleeve into place, but it was clear that the cook had been cruelly bound at one time in her past.
“Eat. Smile. Don’t ask. We don’t talk of some things. It is better to forget,” Esther said. She walked over to a rack where herbs had been hung in bunches to dry in the corner. From the rack, she lifted a small blue linen bag. She brought it over to the table and placed it near Victoria’s plate.
“It’s filled with juniper needles. Helps to rid one of bad thoughts. I keep one nearby always. Another one of our Slavic traditions. My gift to you,” Esther said.
Victoria’s curiosity was at its peak, but she was also empathetic to Esther’s pain. She didn’t want to pry into private nightmares the other woman wanted to forget.
“Thank you. For the bread and the juniper,” Victoria said. She reached for her glass and drained the decadent milk. When she set it back down, she was sure she had a mustache. Esther smiled and her tension eased. “And thank you for the half a mile I’ll have to run tomorrow morning to work it all off.”
They both laughed then and Esther fussed about putting meat on her bones whether she liked it or not. The kitchen was a refuge. She’d known it from the start. Adam had given the kitchen to Esther. He’d given the sun to Gideon. It wasn’t up to her to find out why. She had another mission. But there were more secrets at Nightingale Vineyards than she’d been sent to find. Her job was to unlock the hidden prison and free the monks Adam had captured, but more and more she wondered if unlocking Adam himself would be the true prize.