The Rose of Winslow Street (12 page)

Regina looked as coolly beautiful as ever, a broad-brimmed straw hat framing her face as she carried the basket into which Libby and Tillie deposited the berries. Ever since she was a child, Libby had been coming to this stretch of road leading away from town, where the blackberry brambles were dense and thriving. She reached through the scratchy leaves to pluck out the ripest berries.

“Careful not to touch my dress, honey,” Regina purred as Tillie emerged from the bushes with a handful of sticky berries clutched in her palm. “That dark juice on your fingers will stain and never come off.” Regina was resplendent in a milky-white gown with tiers of fabric flouncing from her waist. Carefully holding her skirts away from the bushes, Regina refrained from the berry picking, but watched as Libby showed Tillie how to spot the ripest berries, the glossy fat ones that had turned fully black.

“I wish you could have seen Mirela,” Libby said. “Something about her demeanor made it seem like she did not fit in with the rest of the family. I would give anything to know your take on the situation. Somehow I think she may be the most dangerous person in that house.”

If Lady Mirela was a fraud as her father suspected, Regina would be able to discover it. Regina had been trained since birth in the right turn of phrase, posture, comportment. Everything from the proper tying of a hair ribbon to the correct way to rise from a chair was second nature to Regina, and she would know how to spot an imposter. It was possible that her father and Mr. Auckland would succeed in proving Michael was not the duke's son, but what if that was all a clever diversion? What if the real danger was from Lady Mirela?

She was surprised by Regina's response. “If she is the daughter of a duke and was forced to hire servants to impersonate a male heir, I rather admire her. Doesn't it strike you as shamefully unfair that the old Cossack's will specified the oldest
male
heir? Why shouldn't Lady Mirela rewrite the rules so that she can establish a life for herself in America?”

Libby's hand stilled. Only the droning of a few insects filled the silence as she pondered the question. Libby had never had any grand ambition for herself, but Regina had firsthand experience with being excluded from a dream simply because she was a woman. Regina's wickedly sharp mind would have made her an excellent attorney. What must it be like to have a desperate craving for something one was forbidden to pursue?

“I would like to know more about this Lady Mirela. Perhaps I could accompany you to deliver the jam,” Regina offered. “I love a good mystery.”

Libby shook her head. “They keep her so tightly guarded I don't think there is any way you could meet her.”

“Perhaps that ought to tell you something. If she is an imposter, they may not think she can be trusted to stick to the story.”

“Or she may truly be ill. If you could have seen the expression on Michael's face when he talked about what she had done . . .” The hollow look of despair on Michael's face was haunting.

“So he is
Michael
, is he?” Regina strolled forward, a cat that had just spotted a juicy partridge. “Did you know you blush when you mention Michael Dobrescu?”

Libby refused to rise to the bait. She reached a little higher into the bush to pluck some sun-drenched berries from the top of the bramble. She handed one down to Tillie. “Try eating this one, honey. The berries that get the most sun are always the sweetest.”

Tillie popped the berry into her juice-stained mouth and her eyes widened in surprise. “This one
is
better!” she agreed. Libby nudged the girl to the opposite side of the bush, where the full strength of the western sun had sweetened the berries.

“Mrs. Gallagher says he is a handsome man, in a rugged sort of way,” Regina continued. “And I suppose he must be lonely, if he is a widower. Although now that he has someone to make his children blackberry jam . . .”

Regina was perfectly charming as she dangled the sentence ripe with innuendo, but Libby had plenty of experience in sidestepping her sister-in-law's verbal swordplay. She maintained a calm expression as she dumped a few more berries into Regina's basket.

“Each time I deliver food to that house, they fling the door wide open and invite me in. And I have learned more during those visits than Father has in his endless hours of fruitless speculation around Jasper's kitchen table.” She stretched to reach higher in the bush, but the dappled sunlight breaking though the tangle of leaves made it difficult to see.

Regina followed, helpfully holding forth the basket. “I think it is kind of charming, your friendship with Mr. Dobrescu. You've never really had a serious suitor, have you?”

Truly, it must have been difficult for Regina to have kept those claws sheathed all morning. Libby plucked a few more berries from the tall branches. “No one will have me, Regina,” she said good-naturedly. She turned around and flashed her sister-in-law a wink and a smile as she deposited the berries in the basket. “My illiterate stupidity, of course.” Regina had a bad habit of dancing around Libby's shortcoming, but if Libby beat her to the punch it was amazing how quickly Regina backpedaled.

“I am simply suggesting that you could exploit this little friendship,” Regina said. “The man seems to have a modicum of trust in you, and perhaps you could probe for more. Find out what skills he has. What he lacks. I think your time in the house would be far more productive spent on those kinds of questions rather than hunting down those silly old drawings you did for Professor Sawyer.”

“Those drawings mean a great deal to my father.”

“Well, in all likelihood they are gone forever,” Regina said. “Dobrescu probably burned them for kindling; you can't put that sort of thing past a gypsy.” Regina popped a blackberry into her mouth, careful to lick the dark stain from the tips of her fingers before turning a smile on Libby.

“I wish you would not call them
gypsies
,” Libby said. “Those sorts of words leave scars.”

Regina raised her brows in innocence. “Why of course!” she agreed. “And I want you to know that if you have a fancy for Mr. Dobrescu, I will support you one hundred percent! I think it would be sweet for you to find someone of your own, and perhaps the two of you will be very well suited.”

Libby maintained the tight smile on her face and watched Tillie trudge forward with another handful of berries for the basket. “I think we have enough blackberries now, sweetie,” Libby said. “Do you want to help me make the jam? I'll let you lick the spoon when we are finished.” Tillie's eyes lit up and she jumped with abandon.

“Can I, Mama? Please, please, please?”

Regina reached down to stroke a curl away from the girl's forehead. “Of course you can, sugarplum. We need a nice large batch of jam for Libby to use as ammunition, don't we?”

T
he next day, while her father and Mr. Auckland set out to look for answers at the Library of Congress, Libby went back to the house on Winslow Street, carrying a basket with blackberry jam and seeking answers of her own. Her father's admonition to stay away from the Dobrescus was still ringing in her ears, releasing nervous butterflies in her belly. She had always been an obedient daughter, and disobeying a direct order made her feel like she should be put up against a wall, blindfolded, and shot at dawn. Still, she was convinced this was the right thing to do. Before walking to the house, she had stopped at the bakery and purchased two loaves of bread, as well as some cheese and two quarts of milk.

She walked up the stairs of the front porch and raised her hand to knock on the front door, but paused when she heard voices inside the house.

Eavesdropping was such a terrible habit, and she ought to have been ashamed, but Libby did not feel the least bit guilty as she angled a little closer to the door and held her breath, trying to decipher the words. They would probably be speaking in Romanian, and it was unlikely she would learn anything really juicy, so she shouldn't feel guilty, right?

It was one of the children speaking, enunciating words slowly and carefully in English. Her brows rose in surprise as she recognized the words.

“‘. . . and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, can long endure. . . . '”

The Gettysburg Address? Like any girl born and raised in New England, the words were engraved in Libby's heart, but she was surprised they would hold any interest for people from Romania. In halting, heavily accented English, the young voice continued to speak the words that resonated so profoundly in American history. The young voice struggled over some of the trickier words, but Michael patiently repeated the correct pronunciation and made both children say it properly. The boy continued to recite the Gettysburg Address, and it would be wrong to interrupt when it was obvious how hard the child was working. She waited until he recited the final profound statement.

“‘. . . and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.'”

“Well done, Andrei!” Michael's voice boomed. “Your turn, Luke.”

Now was her chance. She knocked and heard an immediate scurry of little feet rushing to the door. When they flung open the door, she was relieved by the sight of two healthy and bright-eyed boys.

Libby smiled. “I thought you might like some company.”

Andrei eyed her basket. “Did you bring more jam?”

“Andrei, that is not polite. Invite our guest inside.” Michael sounded better, even if she could not yet see him. After stepping inside and closing the door, she spotted him resting on the couch, his arm still in a sling but the bright flags of red gone from his cheeks.

“Your color certainly looks better,” she said.

“Papa's fever is gone,” Luke said as he tugged on her skirt. “Do you know the Gettysburg Address?” The way he mangled the word
Gettysburg
was simply precious. She could not resist running her fingers through the boy's hair and smiling.

“Of course. It is a great speech.”

“I wanted them to memorize the Declaration of Independence, but it is too long,” Michael said. “We have been preparing for the Fourth of July, and it is important for these boys to know about the greatness of this country.”

Luke pulled on her skirt again. “Joseph bought a turkey. We are fattening him up in the backyard. And we are growing pumpkins for pie. We will have the best celebration ever.”

Libby met Michael's eyes across the room. “Isn't it a bit early to start planning for Thanksgiving?”

Michael straightened and looked confused. “I saw a picture in a book of the American holiday celebration. It showed lots of people dressed in black clothes with turkeys and pumpkins. I thought this is what we are to do on the Fourth of July. Is this wrong?”

If he had not sounded so earnest, Libby might have laughed, but she could see this was of the utmost importance to Michael. “I'm not sure there are any particular foods you should have on the Fourth of July. Everyone has turkey and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, but that does not happen until November.”

Michael gestured for her to sit in the leather wing-back chair opposite him. “It is a good thing you have come to tell us these things. I wish to celebrate these holidays correctly.”

She curled into the chair and watched the children tear through the contents of her basket. “Have you been able to get what you need from the local shopkeepers?” she asked, holding her breath.

“I went to the market with Turk,” Andrei said. “We went to the same places you took us on Wednesday, and no one gave us any trouble.” That did not stop him from plowing through the contents of her basket like a child on Christmas morning. When Luke landed on the box of chocolates wrapped in shiny gold foil, his eyes grew round and he opened his mouth wide, speechless with delight.

When she glanced up to see Michael's reaction to Luke's happiness, she was stunned to see his eyes fastened on her. No man had ever looked at her with that sort of heat in his eyes. Her heart sped up and she skittered her focus away, landing on a faded scrap of newspaper on the coffee table. The paper was wilted and yellowed with age, with a number of creases pressed into the document, as though it had been carefully folded and preserved for many years. She could not read the document, but the strange squiggles and markings above the letters did not look like the English language. She looked up at Michael with a question in her eyes.

“It is the Gettysburg Address . . . written in Romanian,” he said simply.

Her brows lifted in surprise. “I am surprised it is of any interest in Romania.”

Michael lifted the scrap of paper and folded it as carefully as if it were a holy relic. “In 1875 our newspapers printed the Gettysburg Address to mark the ten-year anniversary of the end of the American Civil War. At that time, Romania had been controlled by the Ottomans for centuries. No sooner had the Turks been thrown out of the country than the Russians tried to take control. What is the difference of paying tribute to a sultan or to a czar? I wanted to be part of a country that was governed by and for the people. So yes, America is of great interest to the Romanians. I knew if I survived the wars, I would figure out a way to bring my family here.”

Libby shifted in her seat, wondering if this man was the son of a duke or a servant in league with a clever young lady. Michael's face appeared to be wide and open with no subterfuge lurking behind those dark blue eyes, but nothing he said could wipe out the stark fact that he had barged into her house like a thief in the night. How did that bold act of aggression correlate to the rule of law? “I don't think there is anything in the Gettysburg Address that condones trickery to commandeer another person's property.”

Michael's face settled into hard lines. He raised his head and thrust his jaw out. “We are two families who have a disagreement. We both have strong claims to the same piece of property, but rather than argue with guns, we have a court system that is governed by a set of rules. Do you know how lucky we are to have a place where everyone is treated equally? Do you know how
rare
that is in this world?”

Libby did not feel lucky. She felt awful about what had been done to her father, and what was going to happen to the Dobrescus when they were evicted. They had little money and no friends in this country. What would happen to them when the court ruled in her father's favor?

She turned her attention to the boys, eager for anything to wipe away the troublesome thoughts. Luke and Andrei had found her box of jacks that Tillie played with, only the boys were using the pieces to build some sort of tower. “Do you know how to play jacks?” she asked them. When it was clear they did not, Libby joined them on the floor and showed them how to bounce the rubber ball and try to scoop up the pieces.

The boys learned quickly and she delighted watching them scamper to collect the pieces. All the while she felt the heat of Michael Dobrescu's gaze upon her as she played with his children. She had very little experience with men, but there was no mistaking the look of sheer masculine desire in his eyes.

And she quietly savored every moment of it.

“Michael won't like it.”

Turk's voice was adamant, but Mirela knew what she wanted and was good at getting things when she set her mind to it. “Then don't tell him. But I am going up in the attic, and since you are determined to be my watchdog, you are coming with me.”

Mirela issued the order with more confidence than she felt. How could one sound confident when shame pulsed through her body with each beat of her heart? When she tried to circumvent God's will by committing the sin of suicide, it was an act of stunning cowardice unworthy of the Dobrescu name. It was hard to even look Michael in the face. Of all the people living in this house, he had sacrificed the most to make this journey with her. Now she would help him by uncovering the mystery she knew was hidden somewhere in this house.

Besides, her wrists were still too sore to lift anything heavier than a loaf of bread and she needed Turk's strength to properly search the attic. Uncle Constantine's will had summoned them to this house for a reason, and the attic was the only place she had yet to explore. Had he left a message hidden somewhere in this house? Some clue as to why he left Romania so abruptly? Almost three decades after his death, there seemed to be no trace of Constantine left in this strange house. No old Romanian documents, none of his old military medals or uniforms, nothing to indicate that an eccentric man from a rural European village once lived there.

The attic was the only portion of the house no one had explored, and Mirela was certain there must be something up there. Why else would she be plagued with this nagging sensation that Constantine intended them to do something important with this house? There had been a curious line in her uncle's will,
“Only a man of the Dobrescu family will know what to do with this house.”
Her uncle was speaking to them through that document, urging them to do something important, and Mirela needed to discover what it was.

Turk grumbled the entire way up the narrow staircase leading to the dusty confines of the attic. It was sweltering up there, and Turk swiped the perspiration from his face with a handkerchief, then offered it to her.

“No thank you,” she said delicately. Never let it be said that Turk was not a gentleman beneath all that muscle. Despite the sunny afternoon, it was dim beneath the steeply sloped roofline, with only tinted light seeping through the three stained-glass windows. The attic was crammed with stacks of books, old trunks, and pieces of partially finished machinery that had been abandoned beneath the rafters. There was little room to walk as Mirela twisted to navigate through the towers of old boxes.

“What is it we are looking for?” Turk asked, his nose twitching in the stale air.

“I don't know,” she responded. “Anything that seems like it might have come from Romania, or once belonged to Constantine Dobrescu.”

“Why do you suppose the people in this country keep calling him the old Cossack?” Turk asked. “Don't they know the difference between a Russian and a Romanian?”

Mirela shrugged. “There are so many Russians in Romania these days, I suppose it does not make any difference.”

Despite the amount of material to be sorted through, they moved quickly, as it was easy to see Professor Sawyer's stamp of ownership everywhere. She knew almost nothing about Constantine Dobrescu, other than he was raised to be a rose farmer, wanted to join the Church, but family responsibility funneled him into military service. Then, without warning and without explanation, he packed his bags and left for America, never to return.