Until the Dawn (12 page)

The groundskeeper’s cabin was the first structure at Dieren
park, built by the original Vandermark brothers in 1635. Caleb Vandermark soon began building the main house, eventually turning the cabin over to the groundskeeper. Until last week when Quentin had fired Emil, members of the Broeder family had lived in that cabin for centuries. Emil lacked the patience for beekeeping, so Sophie had taken over the task years ago.

Beekeeping required care to establish a mutually beneficial relationship, and over the years it seemed the honeybees had become accustomed to her. She never dropped her guard around the bees and always treated them with the respect they deserved, and in return, they supplied Dierenpark with golden, sweet honey.

Complete concentration was needed to extract the honey, and she welcomed the chance to take her mind off the questionably obtained Vandermark documents her father thought might be the key to saving Dierenpark. While her father might be willing to wade into the legal quagmire, Sophie wished she could merely find a way to live peaceably alongside the Vandermarks, much like she had learned to do with the bees.

Wearing a gauzy veil to cover her face, she waved a smoker beneath the hives to lull the bees into complacency. It was a delicate task to lift each frame and drain the golden sweetness from the honeycomb, but she soon had a small bucket of honey still warm from the hive.

As she approached the mansion with her honey, she spotted Quentin sitting on the front steps of the house, peering into a small mirror while he dragged a razor across his soapy face. It was a little unnerving to see a man at such an intimate moment.

“What were you doing back in the woods?” he asked, distrust heavy in his voice.

“Gathering a bit of honey. We’ve got a couple of eight-frame beehives behind the juniper trees.”

“Bees?” he asked. “You’ve been harboring a colony of dangerous
bees
on my property without permission?”

She supposed it was natural for people to fear things they didn’t understand, but the alarm in his voice made her worry he’d try to dispose of the hives. “Honeybees are a wonderful blessing,” she said calmly. “If you treat them gently and with respect, they are usually harmless. And look around you! None of the apple trees, the cherries, the roses, or the herb gardens could propagate without the cooperation of the bees. They are one of the reasons the plants at Dierenpark have always been so abundantly healthy. And their honey is divine.”

“Miss van Riijn,” he said tightly, “do you actually believe that if you smile for the bees they will not sting you? That you can appease them with the force of your sweetness and light?”

He was mocking her, but yes, she actually did believe it was possible to live in harmony with the bees. “I usually say ‘good morning’ to them whenever I open up a hive,” she admitted. “But I’m not stupid about it. I put them in a drowsy mood by waving a smoker beneath the box for a few minutes. I’ve been doing it for years.”

“And you’ve never been stung?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been stung a few times, but I survived. I really do believe that if a person treats all living things with respect, eventually the enemy will soften and we can all live together in peace.”

She looked him directly in the eye, the veiled challenge obvious. Since arriving in New Holland, Quentin Vandermark had banished the servants, fired his governess, and threatened to demolish a cherished landmark, all without patience, understanding, or bothering to ask anyone’s opinion. He was a smart man and knew exactly what she was implying. His eyes glinted with cynical humor.

“Then heaven help you,” he said brusquely. “One of these days the world is going to clobber you flat.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in heaven,” she teased.

“I don’t. It is an expression of sympathy for a naïve woman who thinks the world is populated by benevolent enemies and friendly bees.”

She smiled as she stepped around him and up onto the landing. “I’m sorry, Mr. Vandermark, even your surly words can’t dampen my mood today.” After all, the morning was dawning bright and clear, the scent of jasmine perfumed the air, and she was going to bake a delightful honeycake this afternoon.

No matter what, she was going to try kindness to soften Quentin. If that didn’t work, perhaps her growing affinity with Pieter might buy her some goodwill. Or three hearty meals a day. It would take time and patience, but she intended to establish a rapport with Quentin, just as she had done with the bees.

But it wasn’t going to be easy. She returned home that night to find her father grim-faced and holding a letter for her.

“You’ve had a message from the Weather Bureau,” he said as he turned the note over.

A trickle of anger awakened as Sophie read the letter.

We have been informed your station needs relocation due to improper installation on private property without the owner’s consent. Please select a new location immediately and re-read the manual for station volunteers. Unauthorized intrusion on private property is a violation of the bureau’s standards and will not be tolerated.

She’d never been reprimanded by the Weather Bureau before, and it hurt. A slow burn began to build, for this was Quentin Vandermark’s doing. The man had a lot of nerve to tattle on her, especially given that she was using Weather Bureau equipment to mentor his son. Even worse, this did not show her in a good light for persuading the government to build a climate observatory in New Holland.

Why did he dislike her so much? Although Pieter and the bodyguards appreciated her presence, Quentin found endless fault with her. He criticized the way she sang in the kitchen, the happy faces she drew with icing atop her spice cookies, even the way she skipped up and down the staircases.

It was one thing for him to be rude to her face, but she couldn’t let him damage her reputation with the Weather Bureau. She wasn’t going to let him hobble away like he typically did whenever she was in his presence. Sometimes a person had to stand up to a tyrant. Sophie would much rather bake her enemy a nice blueberry pie and soften him with kind words, but she’d been trying that ever since the Vandermarks arrived, with little to show for it.

It was time to try a bit of justified outrage.

7

T
HE
FOLLOWING
MORNING
, Sophie found Quentin in Dierenpark’s library, measuring the columns that supported the wraparound gallery above them. It was a long, narrow room with books running the length of one wall and a series of arched windows marching along the opposite side. Quentin’s brooding face was in sharp contrast to the morning light pouring in from the windows as he jotted down the measurements in the small notebook he always seemed to have with him.

“Did you complain to the Weather Bureau about me?”

His pencil froze as he glanced up at her. “I sent a telegram suggesting their illegally installed equipment needed relocation. I also wanted to verify that you were indeed associated with the organization.”

“You think I would lie about that?”

“At the time I did. Now that I know you better, I understand you are perfectly willing to let people exploit your foolishly naïve disposition.”

She squared her shoulders and took a few steps closer. “Don’t you understand that people sometimes do things simply for love?
I know I was in the wrong when I set up that station without permission. I didn’t think the family would ever return, and the station causes no harm, but I still should have asked one of your lawyers and I’m sorry I didn’t.” She paused to catch her breath so her voice would stop shaking. With his complaint to the bureau, he’d done so much more damage than he realized.

“I’ve spent the past year working to get the Weather Bureau to invest in an upgraded climate observatory in New Holland,” she explained. “I’ve done it all on my own without a bit of help or encouragement from anyone. I’ve drafted proposals and circulated petitions. I’ve listened to people tease me for being idealistic and irrational. No one, not even my own father, thinks I have a chance at persuading the Weather Bureau to plant that research station here, but I’ve worked so hard. And in one afternoon, you’ve stained my reputation with them out of pure meanness.” She rarely spoke so harshly, but it didn’t put a dent in the iron expression on his face.

“Why does this mean so much to you?”

How could she explain years of feeling useless and adrift? A man born with the Vandermark name had opportunities showered on him since birth, while people like her had to go find them—and that wasn’t easy in a dying village.

“Because I want to have a sense of purpose in this world.” She should know better than to expose her feelings so freely, for it hurt when he smirked at her answer.

“Odd, it seems like you’ve had a purpose for quite a while.” Grasping his cane, he limped toward the walnut desk on the far side of the library. “Come here. There’s something I want to show you.”

After plopping into the desk chair, he slid open a drawer and tossed a photograph at her. It was the postcard sold to the tourists that showed Sophie as a five-year-old, standing in the grand salon and clutching a bouquet of tulips almost as tall as she.

“My goodness, what a charming little girl you were,” he said coolly, but his eyes were dark with accusation.

Sophie stiffened but didn’t move. She’d been only a child when the photograph was taken and could hardly be accused of wrongdoing, but she didn’t like where this conversation seemed to be heading. “What would you like me to say?”

“Who took the photograph?”

My father.
She had no intention of telling Quentin that. Given his hard-eyed expression, Quentin was out for blood.

“I was five years old. You don’t really expect me to remember, do you?”

He pushed himself to his feet, grabbed his cane, and lurched around the desk in that lopsided gait she was coming to know so well. She felt like an insect trapped in a web as the spider drew closer. Her mouth went dry, and she took a step back, but he didn’t seem angry, he seemed . . . curious.

“The rest of the world may think you are an innocent lamb in the woods, but you are twice as clever as you let on. I doubt anything escapes your notice, despite your wide-eyed innocence. Who took the picture?”

She blinked, surprised at the dubious compliment. “Why should I tell you?”

“Miss van Riijn, the statute of limitations for trespassing on private property has long since expired, so the photographer is in no danger of criminal prosecution. Since you tell me you were five years old, this corresponds with when your father first became mayor of New Holland. A coincidence?”

Any attempt to quibble would only antagonize him. “You know it’s not,” she admitted.

His smile of satisfaction was a wolf’s smile. “My men have learned a great deal about this town and its quixotic mayor. It appears the intrepid Jasper van Riijn set about the town’s salvation while watching how the tourists sailed past New Holland
on their way to the more famous resorts farther north. The Vandermark house was his linchpin to coax them to linger in the village, and he decided to exploit every conceivable angle.”

“Why are you so hostile? Not everyone was born with millions of dollars at their disposal. My father is only trying to protect the town he loves.”

“Then it is likewise perfectly legal for me to initiate a lawsuit for punitive damages against your father. He has two decades of ill-gotten gains from exploiting my family’s ancestral home—”

“But what about the statute of limitations? You just said that photograph was too old to be used against him.”

“For taking the photograph, yes, but the exploitation continued until two weeks ago when I returned and threw out the staff that had been selling photographs of our house and allowing special tours without authorization.
That
I can still sue over. You have been making free with this house for the past twenty years. I’ve learned you grew up playing with the groundskeeper’s children. Playing hide-and-seek in the meadow. Picking our wildflowers and harvesting our oysters. As you got older, you read almost every book in our library.”