Toward the Sunrise (17 page)

“Tea?” Florence asked, lifting the copper kettle. The scent of Earl Grey filled the kitchen as Sophie began slicing a loaf of
ontbijtkoek
, a Dutch sweet cake spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.

Mr. Vandermark kicked out a stool from beneath the work table and twisted around to sit. His teeth clenched as he rubbed his knee, but he ignored the basket of blueberry muffins Florence pushed toward him.

“And what is
your
role here?” he asked, piercing Sophie with narrowed eyes.

She hedged. Apparently none of them had noticed the weather station on the roof, and now wasn’t the time to discuss it. “My mother was the cook here before she died. There really isn’t need for a permanent cook anymore, but I’ve always loved cooking, and Florence lets me use the kitchen to prepare a few meals for the staff each day. I also do a little baking now and then.”

He reached inside his coat and then threw a packet of Dutch cookies on the counter. “Are you responsible for those?”

Her mouth went dry. She wasn’t the only one to sell goodies to the tourists who stepped onto the pier each morning, but Sophie’s baked goods were always the most popular. She sold cookies and sweet cakes to the vendors who manned the stalls near the pier and then gave the proceeds to her father. That money had paid for the town’s only telegraph station.

“I am, but I haven’t done anything wrong,” Sophie said. “I don’t use Vandermark money for the ingredients, and there is no crime in selling food to hungry travelers.”

“Then let me outline the
crimes
for which I have evidence,” he said in a clipped voice. “The servants at Dierenpark have participated in exploiting my home as an obscene tourist attraction. You have fueled malicious slander about the tragedies in my family. You have used this house in a manner I never authorized. You’ve done nothing wrong? Miss van Riijn, let me count the ways. Your wrongs surpass the depth and breadth and height a soul can reach. . . .”

His ability to mangle the immortal sonnet of Elizabeth Barrett Browning would have been amusing if she weren’t so intimidated by him. She forced her voice to remain calm.

“I’ve never met someone who can take one of poetry’s most remarkable passages about the purity of love and twist it into embittered screed on the spot,” she said.

He quirked a brow, and for the first time, she saw a gleam of respect light his handsome features. “We all have our talents,” he said dryly. The flash of humor was fleeting. His face iced over again
as he fired another question at her. “How many tourists have you allowed into my house?”

“We don’t allow tourists inside,” Sophie said, wincing at the memory of telling Mr. Gilroy that on special occasions some tourists were welcomed in. Mr. Vandermark rose from the stool and stalked down the hall leading to the parlor where they relaxed once their daily chores were finished. It was an impressive room, with a bank of windows overlooking the river and a fire burning in the brick fireplace. A table beneath the window was full of antiques—a large delft platter from the seventeenth century, a silver soup tureen embellished with arching dolphins for handles, even a few candlesticks from a medieval monastery. At the front of the table was a small card printed in Sophie’s own handwriting.

Please don’t
touch
.

It was proof they had allowed visitors into the home.

Mr. Vandermark stiffened as he glared at the note. He picked it up and carried it toward her, leaning heavily on his cane as he approached.

“If you allow no visitors, which of the servants need a reminder such as this?” he asked in a tight voice.

Heat flushed her face. She needed to confess what they’d been doing, but there wasn’t an ounce of compassion or kindness in his expression. “On rare occasions we invite a select type of visitor—”

He cut her off. “And
on
rare occasions
I believe the staff at Dierenpark are conspiring to violate every principle of loyalty on earth. You’re fired. You’re all fired. You have ten minutes to get off my property, and don’t ever come back.”

Sophie flinched. This estate was her refuge, her paradise on earth.

Mr. Gilroy stepped out of the shadows. “Quentin, perhaps we should wait . . .”

Sophie held her breath, praying for a reprieve. Mr. Vandermark seemed to sag and weaken as he hobbled toward a kitchen stool, easing onto it with a grimace. His face was ashen and drawn in pain. Perspiration beaded on his forehead, and when he dabbed at it with a handkerchief, Sophie noticed his hand trembled. Perhaps it was her imagination, but it seemed he was barely ahead of an avalanche of pain and sorrow gathering behind him. When he finally spoke, his voice was devoid of anger.

“Loyalty is important to me,” he said with an exhausted, hollow tone. “I need to make this house a safe place for my son, and I don’t trust any of you. It is clear that the misuse of Dierenpark has been occurring for decades. I want you out of here. The lot of you.”

Behind her, Emil let out a mighty whoosh as though he’d been punched in the gut. Emil had lived his entire life on this estate. How was he going to get his wife and three children out in the space of ten minutes? Where would they go?

But even worse was Florence. The old woman had crumpled into a chair, her head sagging on her hunched shoulders. Florence had lived most of her life in this house. She started to quietly weep.

Sophie blanched as two of the fearsome men lumbered toward her. Instinctively, she stepped back. She’d never had such menacing glares directed at her, and it was intimidating.

“All right,” she said quietly, picking up her cloak and folding it over her arm. “You’ll find plenty to eat in the larder, and there is firewood on the back terrace. I’ll help Florence collect her things, and we will be on our way.”

But she would be back first thing tomorrow morning. There had to be a way to defuse the acrimony simmering inside Quentin Vandermark, and she just needed a bit of time to plan her attack. Her weapons wouldn’t be menacing bodyguards or seething anger. She wouldn’t fight on his level. But that didn’t mean she intended to surrender. The real battle would begin tomorrow morning, and she wouldn’t be put off easily.

2

“I’m scared of the dark.”

Quentin tensed but wouldn’t let frustration leak into his voice. “I know you are, Pieter, but we’ll find the candles soon and light up the entire house. Come sit beside me.”

They were in the kitchen, where the sunset filled the room with an eerie pink glow. Pieter was sullen as he flung himself onto the bench, and Quentin winced when the boy accidentally kicked his bad leg. Pain shot up from his shin, through his knee and thigh, finally hitting his spine. Dizzying pain swamped him, but he let no sign of it show before Pieter. “Mr. Gilroy has gone on a hunt for some lanterns,” he said as soon as he could deliver the sentence in a normal voice. “We’ll stay here until he finds them.”

Although it would be a good idea for Pieter to learn how to confront the dark sooner rather than later. There were no goblins or ghosts looming in the shadowy corners, but Pieter’s imagination was likely to conjure them up at the least provocation. Pieter had been sleeping with a small light in his room ever since the incident last summer, and nine-year-old boys shouldn’t need such crutches.

He ran a hand through Pieter’s silky hair, leaning in to kiss the boy’s head. Raising this child was the most important responsibility of his life, and so far he’d been failing. Coddling Pieter’s fears hadn’t worked. Neither had the parade of specialists and physicians hired by his grandfather. The only thing they had yet to try was forcing Pieter to directly confront his fears, and Quentin’s time to pull the boy back onto a solid footing was growing short.

Because frankly, Quentin probably wasn’t going to be alive much longer. His leg was getting worse with each operation, and his last doctor had warned he probably had no more than two years before his body finally failed him. How was he to raise this boy to manhood when the time was so short?

The day had been a catastrophe from beginning to end. For months he’d been preparing Pieter for this day, trying to erase the ominous tales Pieter had heard from his grandfather about the family curse and the haunted mansion that was the cause of it all. Pieter had become
convinced he was destined to fall victim to the string of bad luck that plagued their family with each generation. The boy had wept a little this morning when he’d realized today was the day they’d be moving into Dierenpark, the mansion his grandfather had taught him to fear. Quentin had taken the boy onto their hotel balcony that overlooked Central Park and carefully explained there was no curse haunting their family. It all sprang from the jealous ramblings of people who took delight in the misfortunes of rich people. It had taken almost an hour, but Pieter finally relaxed enough to be willing to leave the hotel.

Then there were the problems getting the carriages up the hill. When Quentin went to town to arrange for another carriage, some morbid tour guide filled Pieter’s head with dark tales that aroused every one of the boy’s old fears. Then Quentin had stupidly fired the servants before he’d learned where the food, the privy, or the candles were.

At least they weren’t hungry. A pot of stew had been simmering on the stove, and it was an explosion of flavorful seasoning, tender vegetables, and succulent beef unlike anything Quentin had ever experienced. Over the years, he had dined at the finest restaurants in Europe, but nothing compared with that stew. Perhaps they were all overtired and starved, but the moment they tasted the stew it was as if they were eating ambrosia from the heavens. And that Dutch sweet cake . . . with eight hungry men, Pieter, and a governess, each of them got only a single slice of cake, but it was sublime. Tensions had eased, people relaxed, and for a few moments it had felt like he’d made the right decision.

Then the sun started setting and Pieter’s fear of the dark made him realize they didn’t know where the lanterns were. The deepening gloom seemed ominous, but Quentin insisted they remain at Dierenpark even if they couldn’t find the lanterns. This journey to the ancestral Vandermark estate was too important to turn away before their mission was complete.

“There is no reason to fear the dark,” Quentin reasoned. “The earth has rotated away from the sun so that the people in China and India can enjoy the light. There is nothing evil in the dark. In a few hours the sun will be back.”

“Grandpa says that at night goblins come out of the swamps to look for children who got caught outside. They dance around in circles on the lawn.”

“And you believe such things?”

Pieter nodded. “That’s why mushrooms spring up in circles overnight. That’s what Grandpa said.”

Quentin sighed. His grandfather had cared for Pieter for most of the past year while Quentin recuperated following his latest surgery, and Nickolaas Vandermark had planted the seeds of superstition about the family curse into Pieter’s gullible mind. Nickolaas was actually Pieter’s great-grandfather, but it was a mouthful and simply easier for the boy to call him Grandpa. Pieter embraced his grandfather’s endless superstitions far too easily, and now Quentin had to undo the damage.

“Pieter, I want you to repeat after me. If I can’t see it or touch it, it doesn’t exist.”

Pieter did as instructed, his voice heavy with skepticism.

“The world is a predictable and rational place,” Quentin continued. “Science can tell us precisely when the sun will rise and set. There are no goblins lurking in dark corners or hereditary curses that afflict innocent people for no earthly reason.”

“Then why did my mother die?”

Quentin turned away to gather his thoughts. The last thing he wanted to discuss was Portia’s death, sparked in part from her own irrational fears of the family’s curse. He had to wash these poisonous superstitions from Pieter’s mind before they did the same to him. He had so little time remaining to guide Pieter into manhood, and he’d sit here until sunrise if it helped Pieter conquer his fears.

“Your mother died from cholera, not because of a ridiculous curse,” he said patiently. “Repeat after me again. If I can’t see it or touch it, it doesn’t exist.” The world operated on scientific principles, and he would allow Pieter no crutch of superstition in learning how to survive in it.