Until the Dawn (10 page)

After breakfast, Quentin retreated to the orangery, a splendid building added to Dierenpark in the early nineteenth century. Built mostly of glass panes enclosed with gothic white arches, it was capable of keeping trees and plants flowering throughout the year. It was located only a stone’s throw from the main house, and from the kitchen window she watched Quentin cross the short distance to the orangery. It was a slow journey. His entire body tensed each time he put weight on his damaged leg, and twice he paused to catch his breath.

What was his interest in the orangery? Whatever it was must be important for him to make the painful journey. As she cleaned the kitchen, she saw no one else join him, and it would be an excellent time to speak with him in private. Now that they had established a modicum of civility between them, a direct conversation would be the best way to understand his motives for tearing down the house.

She headed to the orangery as soon as the kitchen was tidy. Inside, he sat on one of the benches near the potted lemon trees, scribbling in a notebook. She knocked on the door, waiting until he bid her to enter. The air was warmer inside, perfumed by the scents of citrus, lavender, and viburnum.

“How long has this orangery been here?” he asked.

“I think it was added by Karl Vandermark,” she said. “Sometime in the 1820s, I suspect.”

“Hmmm.” He sounded entirely displeased as he went back to scribbling in his notebook.

“Why? Don’t you like it? Most people love the orangery.”

“I didn’t know about it,” he said. “All this glass will be a danger during the demolition process. So no, I am not particularly dazzled by this orangery.”

“Mr. Vandermark,” she began hesitantly, “can you tell me why you wish to tear down Dierenpark? Your family’s history of benign neglect seems to have served everyone quite well. And if you no longer wish to carry the financial burdens of the estate, why don’t you simply sell it?”

He didn’t even bother to look up from his notebook as he continued making notes. “My grandfather wants the land turned back to its natural state. Some kind of nonsense about healing the land and beginning anew.”

“But why?”

He gave a snort of derision. “Who knows why eccentric old millionaires do anything? He wants the building torn down, so that’s what will happen.”

“Your grandfather was the boy who found his father floating dead in the river, right?”

He folded his arms across his chest, watching her through speculative eyes. “
Found
his father in the river? That’s a kind word for it. Most people think he killed Karl Vandermark in order to get his hands on the family fortune that much sooner.”

“I don’t believe it. He was only a child.”

“He was fourteen,” Quentin challenged. “Old enough to pull it off.”

“I still don’t believe it.”

Although plenty of people in the village did. The Vandermarks’ insistence on privacy only fueled the wagging tongues. After the tragedy, a team of lawyers immediately surrounded fourteen-year-old Nickolaas until his estranged mother came racing back from Europe to drag the boy to France and away from the reach of the American justice system. Over the decades, Nickolaas refused to speak of what had happened to his
father, and rumors filled the void. Sixty years later, a cloud of suspicion still hung over the old man.

Not that it mattered. Sophie merely needed to know how to stop Quentin from demolishing Dierenpark. “But why you?” she pressed. “How can you let yourself be drawn into something so irrational?”

His pencil froze. His face suddenly seemed haunted, possibly the saddest expression she’d ever seen.

“Because I am loyal,” he finally said. “I owe my grandfather more than I can ever repay, and he’s rarely asked me for anything. I won’t turn him down now.”

“Perhaps the best way to show your loyalty would be to stop him from making a terrible mistake.”

He gave a wry smile as he turned back to his notebook. “I’m not sure someone as cheerful as you can ever understand, Miss van Riijn. The people in my family often suffer from fits of melancholia so profound it can become hard to even breathe. My grandfather has dragged me back from the precipice of despair more than once.”

She looked away, for she did understand grief. When Albert sickened and died, she had been devastated. It was only her faith that kept her anchored in the real world when a part of her wanted to follow Albert into the grave, but Quentin was an atheist. The world was surely darker for someone like him.

“When my wife died, I was ready to give up,” Quentin continued. “Pieter was a baby, and I had responsibilities, but it didn’t matter to me. Rumors reached my grandfather that I wouldn’t leave my room, that I’d quit bathing, that I neglected Pieter . . . all of which was true, by the way. My grandfather appeared with three tickets to board a steamer to sail to Egypt, convinced that standing at the pyramids could somehow cure me. He said the pyramids were the source of an ancient, mystical energy convergence that might spark healing.”

“That doesn’t sound very Christian.”

Quentin’s laughter was so sudden it took her by surprise. “No, my grandfather is not a Christian. Over the years he has dabbled in Buddhism, Shamanism, Transcendentalism, even the rites of the ancient Druids. Utter nonsense, but that’s just the way he is. In any event, he dragged me from bed and put up with my foul temper the entire journey across the Atlantic. And the trip was priceless. Pieter was only a year old, but the three of us saw the desert in all its vast, arid beauty. There is something about baking in that hot sun that started to get through to me, and I was able to finally breathe again.”

He tossed down his pencil. “Look, my grandfather is a difficult and eccentric old man, but he is the only family I’ve ever known. My parents and older sister were killed in a hotel fire when I was an infant. The only reason I survived was because I was in a different wing of the hotel with the nursery maid. Nickolaas raised me from the cradle. It wasn’t easy, and we rarely get along . . . but he has saved me time and again. And if he wants me to tear down Dierenpark, that is what I will do.”

The resolve in Quentin’s voice was unshakeable, and appealing to him would be pointless. What she needed to do was figure out why Nickolaas Vandermark wanted the house destroyed, and how was she to do that? The elder Vandermark was a famous world traveler who was rarely in the United States. Pieter had told her only this morning that while living with Nickolaas they’d visited Stonehenge, the Acropolis, and the old Moorish castle guarding the Strait of Gibraltar.

“Where is your grandfather now?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I have no idea. Probably off in search of the golden fleece.”

“Would Mr. Gilroy know? He seems quite knowledgeable about everything and very generous with his time.”

“So you’ve fallen under Mr. Gilroy’s spell, have you?” Quentin
asked, a hint of humor back in his voice. “You’ll need to watch out for that, as Mr. Gilroy is an unabashed spy for my grandfather.”

She must not have heard him properly. “He’s a
what
?”

“Mr. Gilroy is a spy,” he repeated. “I certainly hope you didn’t share any heartfelt secrets, because if you did, that information is already on my grandfather’s desk.”

The blood drained from her face, and she felt lightheaded. Oh heavens, she had spilled her heart out to Mr. Gilroy! Everything about her humiliation when she’d fallen for Roger Wilson’s flattery and gifts, and Marten’s betrayal only six days before the wedding.

“I did!” she sputtered. “He seemed so kind and sympathetic . . .”

“Don’t take it too hard,” Quentin said. “Mr. Gilroy is a professional. He’s been on my grandfather’s payroll for a decade. He specializes in ferreting out secrets, gaining unsuspecting people’s trust, and entrapment. Someone like you didn’t stand a chance.”

“But why does your grandfather spy on you?”

“Because we don’t trust each other. Nickolaas Vandermark is as cunning as any Borgia prince, and twice as rich. He feasts on intrigue as though it were mother’s milk. If anything you told Mr. Gilroy is of interest to my grandfather, Nickolaas will have hired a team of private investigators to uncover every detail of your life. He probably knows the color of your undergarments by now. That’s just the way he is. You need to watch what you say around Mr. Gilroy.”

She still couldn’t accept it. Mr. Gilroy seemed so caring, and she instinctively trusted him. “But he seemed so nice . . .”

“That’s because he
is
nice. He is also a man who has amassed a small fortune by working for my grandfather while simultaneously drawing a salary from me.”

It didn’t seem possible that such a genteel man could be so underhanded. “So you are saying that Mr. Gilroy will always put Nickolaas Vandermark first, no matter what?”

“No, I’m saying Mr. Gilroy will always put
himself
first. He is quite clever at playing me against Nickolaas when it suits his purposes. Mr. Gilroy lives by his wits. Don’t give him ammunition to shoot you with, because he won’t hesitate if it suits his purpose.”

“I think that’s terrible.”

Quentin pushed himself to his feet, grasping his cane and using careful steps to close the distance between them. There was no cynical mockery in his face, only a hint of wistfulness as he studied her.

“I worry about you, Miss van Riijn,” he said quietly. “You are simply too sweet-natured to survive very long in the real world. You think that God and Jesus set the rules, but it’s really people like my grandfather and Mr. Gilroy who are pulling all the strings.”

What must it be like to view the world through such a dark glass? Being attuned to God’s presence in the world did not make her fragile; it made her stronger. But how strange that Quentin Vandermark, a virtual stranger with a ferocious reputation, echoed her father’s sentiments exactly. Her father repeatedly tried to block her from anything that might put her feelings at risk, and it was humiliating that everyone underestimated her. She raised her chin a notch.

“I’m not a Ming vase,” she said. “I’ve been knocked down a time or two, and I’ve always survived.”

For some reason, the comment appeared to trouble him. He returned to his bench, all trace of warmth gone from his voice.

“My son
is
a Ming vase,” he said ominously. “Handle him with care, Miss van Riijn, for he is the only thing in the world I treasure, and I won’t let anyone damage him.”

She didn’t doubt it, for she’d already learned from the bodyguards what had happened to the men who’d kidnapped Pieter last summer. After paying the ransom, Quentin hired a team of mercenaries to track the money, hunt down the kidnappers, and bring them to justice. Those who resisted did not survive to make it to trial.

No, she didn’t doubt that Quentin wanted to protect his son. She merely didn’t think he knew how to do it.

6

T
HE
NEXT
WEEK
WAS
EXHILARATING
as Sophie undertook her first professional job, tutoring Pieter and cooking for the Vandermark household. Although she had yet to figure out a way to get Emil re-hired, Florence had returned to her position as housekeeper, a blessing considering the amount of food these men devoured at every meal. It was hard not to be flattered by the enthusiasm they showed as they consumed the meals she set before them each day.

There was nothing magical about her cooking, but she loved sharing the recipes that had been handed down through generations of her family. She used the same roast duckling recipe her grandmother once cooked for her father. As she seasoned the cherry sauce with a dash of cider, she liked to imagine her grandmother looking on with approval. As she rolled out dough to make Dutch cookies, she imagined countless generations of housewives back in the old country, pleased to see their recipes had been remembered and carried all the way to the New World. Cooking these recipes was harkening back to a collective memory, passed down from mother to daughter for
centuries, then shared by their families gathered around the table. Perhaps someday she would have daughters and granddaughters who would make and serve her own recipes. Food was more than just a combination of starches and proteins to fuel the body. It was comfort and celebration and joy.