Until the Dawn (18 page)

The next morning, she took extra care in the kitchen. Quentin seemed to dislike her company, but she could show him a little compassion through the preparation of a delicious meal. The doctor’s instructions for calcium-rich foods dictated her menu. She made a hearty rice pudding, liberally laced with cream, brown sugar, and a dash of cinnamon and vanilla. Rice pudding was what her mother had always made when Sophie was feeling poorly, and it pleased her to be able to serve the wonderfully comforting dish to Quentin. She toasted cheese atop slices of crusty bread with a hint of garlic.

As usual, people began tipping their heads into the kitchen while she cooked, lured by the aromas wafting through the house. She shooed them away, determined to serve Quentin first.

Nickolaas refused to be shooed away. “The scents from this kitchen have me on the verge of weeping.”

She smiled, lifting a pitcher and pouring milk into a tall glass. “If you stir the rest of that cream into the rice pudding, it will be ready. Then we can get our patient served, and you can eat right afterwards.”

“It is a bargain,” he said with a courtly bow.

A few days ago, Sophie would have been mortified to be directing such a wealthy man as though he were kitchen staff,
but nothing was quite normal in this house. They had no servants—only bodyguards. They had no women—only men who had outlived their wives and daughters.

She sighed as she loaded up the breakfast tray. She couldn’t solve the problems of the Vandermark family that had been decades in the making, but she could at least serve a healthy breakfast.

Quentin grimaced when Sophie entered his room.

Every ounce of his body hurt, and she was the last person on earth he wanted to see. In addition to the typical pain from his leg, his skin was swollen and ached from dozens of bee stings. The sheets were pulled up to his chest, but his damaged leg lay naked and propped on a pillow above the sheet. A towel-wrapped chunk of ice covered the worst scars, but the entire length of his leg was lumpy from where the muscle and diseased bone had been removed. His brutalized leg was none of her business, and it was humiliating to be seen like this.

“Not a pretty sight, is it?” he said in a flat voice.

Sophie averted her gaze as she leaned over and set the tray on the table across Quentin’s lap as if he were a child. “I’ve brought you breakfast. Your grandfather helped me finish the rice pudding.”

“Thank you, but I’m not hungry. Please take it away.”

Waves of depression were coming fast and hard today, the suffocating waters closing in over his head, and the only thing he had left was a slender thread of pride.

“I think you’ll feel better if you eat something,” Sophie said cheerfully. “Shall I fetch Pieter to come dine with you? It always seems so lonely to have no one to eat with. We can pull up a table alongside your bed. Or your grandfather and I can join you, would that be nice?”

“Miss van Riijn, your voice is irritating to me under the best of circumstances, but today it is excruciating. I’m asking for a little peace. If you would please leave, I will be eternally grateful.”

He turned his face to the wall, finding it impossible to keep looking at the soft kindness in her face without cracking. Anguish of the soul was so much worse than physical pain. A searching, scorching emptiness filled him, and he was helpless to understand why or how to battle it. And why should he? His son hated him, and the only friends he had in the world were paid servants. The melancholic void expanded, blotting out whatever scraps of happiness were left in his world. He didn’t want to break down in front of Sophie. Not Sophie—anyone but her. It would be the final humiliation.

“Would you like the toast first, or the rice pudding?”

“I would just like a little privacy,” he said, ashamed of the tremor in his voice. He couldn’t cope with her today, not with this suffocating despondency weighing on him. He wasn’t even well enough to get out of bed to escape her.

He grit his teeth, praying she’d leave before he was unmanned. Someone like Sophie could have no conception of the gloom that smothered his entire world. To his horror, his bottom lip began to shake.

“For pity’s sake, just leave,” he managed to choke out. He was running out of time before he was completely humiliated in front of her.

“Sophie, perhaps we should leave,” his grandfather said.

“Nonsense,” she replied. From the corner of his eye, he saw her dip a spoon into the bowl. “Rice pudding can make anyone feel better, don’t you think? Come, I’ll feed you.”

He snapped. He grabbed the bowl from her and hurled it against the wall, narrowly missing the Gainsborough painting. The bowl shattered into pieces, splattering gobs of rice pudding that dripped down the wall.

Sophie gasped. “That painting belongs in a museum, and you came two inches from ruining it!”

Despair washed over him. Now he was behaving like the child she’d been treating him as, but he couldn’t breathe with her in here. He sagged against the pillow, wishing for an oblivion from which he’d never awaken. He covered his face with his hand, desperate not to be seen.

Nickolaas intervened and pulled Sophie toward the door. “Perhaps this would be a good time to step outside for a nice walk, shall we?”

She wasn’t giving up. “No! I want to know why he would do something so hateful, so—”

“That wasn’t a request, Miss van Riijn.” His grandfather’s voice carried a note of steel, and apparently it worked. Quentin heard a swish of skirts, and the door shut quietly behind them.

The sun was bright as Sophie stepped outside, Nickolaas close behind. It was embarrassing to be shouted at like that, but she’d done nothing to be ashamed of. They started down the path toward the front gates of the estate, the green scents from the herb garden filling the air. It didn’t take long for Nickolaas to get to the point.

“I think it might be best if you stay away from the house for a few days.”

Sophie paused, stunned by Nickolaas’s statement. “You want me to leave?”

“Not for good, but I know Quentin very well, and you are a hindrance to his recovery. Now, don’t look at me like that; you’re making me feel like I’ve just kicked a puppy. All I am suggesting is that Quentin has a dark soul, and your cheerfulness is like acid to him. Until he is well enough to leave the
sickbed, it would be best if you stayed away. Perhaps in a week you can return.”

She’d never been away from Dierenpark for that length of time. In the past nine years, she hadn’t missed a single day of checking the weather station. Someone else could check it for her, but what if the banishment turned out to be permanent? The thought of leaving this little piece of paradise was too painful to contemplate.

“You won’t hire some other cook to replace me?”

He smiled. “We can survive without a cook for a few days. Besides, Quentin is more likely to appreciate your return after eating bread and cheese for a while.”

She certainly hoped so. She loved cooking for others, but the sight of her mother’s rice pudding spattered against the wall made her want Quentin to live on bread and water for a year.

“I suppose I can ask Pieter to take the climate measurements. He’s been doing it with me for the past few weeks and knows how.”

Nickolaas looked skeptical. “I’m not sure the boy can be trusted with such a task. He’s not a very steady lad . . .”

Sophie had tended that weather station as though it were her firstborn child, and it made her nervous to turn it over to anyone, but the task wasn’t difficult. All it really needed was someone who would dependably take the readings and send them to Washington. “I think it will be good for Pieter to be trusted with such an adult responsibility. One of the men could carry the message to town each morning, couldn’t he?”

Nickolaas gave a concessionary nod. “If you are confident . . .”

The issue of the weather station was resolved, but she still faced the task of persuading Nickolaas to abandon his bizarre compulsion to tear down the house. He’d only arrived yesterday, and this was her first opportunity to begin probing his motives.

“What will happen to the house after the archaeologists complete their work?” she asked.

Nickolaas paused. They had reached the far side of the meadow, and he turned around to gaze at Dierenpark. The grand, stately house looked like it had been sitting in this spot since time began.

The old man’s smile was wistful as he stared at the house. “I’ll ask Quentin to tear it down, I suppose. I want the archaeologists to answer any lingering curiosity about the history of the place before I wipe it off the map.”

“But why?” she pressed. “It’s a beautiful house. People come from all over the state to admire it.”
And the livelihood of
this village depends on it
.

“Those people aren’t Vandermarks,” he said. “Quentin thinks the Vandermark curse is hogwash, but I know otherwise. It has been spoken of in my family for centuries. My father was on to something when he died. He had learned something very upsetting about this house, and in the end, I think it killed him. If I can’t discover the source of the curse, and be confident it has been broken, I will tear the house down. Perhaps that will satisfy whatever gods or demons we’ve offended. If I can snuff out the curse now, perhaps Pieter and the rest of my descendants will be free to live normal lives.”

She shook her head. Her Christian faith prevented her from giving any credence to hereditary curses, but it was plain Nickolaas believed in them.

“Has your life been so very terrible?” she asked carefully. She was walking out on a thin limb here. She had no business prying into deeply personal matters, but if she were to save the mansion, she needed to understand his motivation. “I know your father died an early death, and that must have been terrible for you, but many children lose a parent and don’t assume it is part of a lifelong curse.”

“So you don’t think I killed my father? Many people do, you know.” A hint of amusement twinkled in his eyes, and it was impossible to believe he would joke about this if he were guilty of patricide.

“No, I don’t think you killed Karl Vandermark.”

Nickolaas turned to sit on one of the stone benches angled so one could admire the meadow. “It was difficult after my father died,” he said softly. “My parents had been separated for years, and my mother lived in Europe like a princess. I barely remembered her when she returned to take custody of me. Her main concern was securing her access to the Vandermark coffers, for she had an expensive lifestyle in Paris. She kept me completely isolated from my father’s side of the family who still lived in Holland, but after I came of age, I sought them out and was able to see why she was so contemptuous of them. My mother was a rare spice, and the European branch of the Vandermark family were genuine salt of the earth. She never had use for such people.”

Sophie joined him on the bench, hanging on to every syllable, for she had always been fascinated by the Vandermark history.

“The Vandermarks still living in Holland come from a small village called Roosenwyck,” he continued. “They raise goats and make cheese. One of them has a tulip farm that is the loveliest sight this side of paradise. They have some modest investments that allow them to live in nice country houses and send their sons to college, but they never flourished in the princely manner of the American Vandermarks. No, the Dutch Vandermarks are very different. They work the fields and raise their livestock. Their children are healthy, their marriages are life-affirming. They go to church on Sunday and eat family dinners around the patriarch’s table. They seem . . . happy.”

And that was in marked contrast to the American Vandermarks, with their string of failed marriages, early deaths, and
distrustful natures. The Vandermark curse was only a silly legend, but she knew that few of them had been happy. If given the chance, would they trade their diamonds and silks for the homespun happiness of their European cousins?

“And you think tearing down the mansion will make you more like the European side of your family?”

“It couldn’t hurt to try. Tragedy has haunted my family since the very beginning of their time in America, and Dierenpark is where it all began.”