Introduction

Top-Notch Dramatic Historical Romance from a Rising Star

A volunteer for the newly established Weather Bureau, Sophie van Riijn needs access to the highest spot in her village to report the most accurate readings. Fascinated by Dierenpark, an abandoned mansion high atop a windswept cliff in the Hudson River Valley, Sophie knows no better option despite a lack of permission from the absent owners.

The first Vandermark to return to the area in sixty years, Quentin intends to put an end to the shadowy rumors about the property that has brought nothing but trouble upon his family. Ready to tear down the mansion, he is furious to discover a local woman has been trespassing on his land.

Instantly at odds, Quentin and Sophie find common ground when she is the only one who can reach his troubled son. There's a light within Sophie that Quentin has never known, and a small spark of the hope that left him years ago begins to grow. But when the secrets of Dierenpark and the Vandermark family history are no longer content to stay in the past, will tragedy triumph or can their tenuous hope prevail?

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Excerpt

Chapter One

The Hudson River Valley

Summer 1898

“That’s where the body was found, floating facedown in the river,” an ominous voice intoned. “He was stone-cold dead.”

Sophie sank behind the blackberry brambles to avoid being seen by the people ambling down the old pier toward the shore. She had hoped to take advantage of the river’s low tide to gather oysters but had paused as a tour guide led a group of sightseers closer to the infamous spot in the river. The village needed the income from the tourists, and it would be best not to have the wild splendor of the spot spoiled by the sight of a local girl gathering oysters. She scooted a little higher up the hillside to remain hidden behind the bushes.

Every morning, steamboats left the bustling city of New York, only forty miles downriver but a world away from the primeval splendor of this isolated inlet in the Hudson River Valley. The steamboats always stopped so the tourists could admire the famous vista looming just behind Sophie, where one of the oldest mansions in America looked like a medieval fortress perched on the edge of the harsh granite cliff. Dating all the way back to 1635, when Dutch settlers arrived in North America, the gloomy sight of the Vandermark mansion had dominated this windswept cliff for centuries. Built of rough-hewn stone with steep gables and rambling wings, it had the grandeur of a Renaissance painting.

“There wasn’t a scratch on him,” the tour guide continued. “Karl Vandermark was in the prime of life, and no one could explain what caused his death. Was it murder? Suicide? The Vandermark curse? Karl Vandermark was one of the richest men in America and beloved by everyone in the village. It’s been sixty years since his body was found on this very spot, but there are still no answers.”

Sophie sighed in resignation. Why was everyone still fascinated by the Vandermark death so long ago? Perhaps it had something to do with the foreboding appearance of the Vandermarks’ mansion, which had been made famous by painters and photographers who couldn’t resist the gothic appeal of the isolated estate on the edge of a cliff. Named Dierenpark after the old Dutch word for paradise, the mansion was a familiar sight to tourists from all over the world.

The steamships usually stayed for only an hour, just long enough to let the visitors stretch their legs and buy a few trinkets from the stands set up near the Vandermark pier. In a few minutes, the sightseers would reboard the ship and be on their way farther north up the river.

It was an unusually large group of sightseers this morning. Most of them clustered around the tour guide at the base of the pier, but there was a group of ominous-looking strangers gathered close to the base of the cliff.

Marten Graaf was the most colorful of all the tour guides who led visitors up the river, and he was in fine form this morning, layering dark excitement into his voice as he told the tale directly to a young boy he pulled aside to point to the infamous spot in the river.

“The dead man’s son found the body,” he said. “Young Nickolaas Vandermark was only fourteen years old when he found his father floating in the river. Legend says the lad never got over it, but others suspect that the boy killed his own father, for he inherited forty million dollars the day his father died. There was no sign of foul play, but what would cause a healthy man to keel over in the prime of life? No one ever dared accuse Nickolaas Vandermark directly to his face, but something very bad was afoot. All the Vandermarks have come to terrible ends, and most of the folks around here think it was the Vandermark curse.”

Even from a distance, Sophie could see the young boy Marten was speaking to flinch and withdraw. Most tourists loved the spooky tales about the old mansion, but this boy seemed unusually apprehensive.

“The house has been empty since Karl Vandermark’s death,” the guide continued. “A lawyer swooped in to take the young lad away, and not one Vandermark has set foot in the house since. They didn’t take a stick of furniture or even a change of clothing for fear the curse would travel with them. Their clothes still hang in the closets; the papers are stacked on the desk as they were when the family fled all those years ago. Everything inside the house is exactly the same, like it’s frozen in time. That house has been sitting empty for sixty years, with only a few servants to keep the place from being plundered for the treasures still inside.”

“Why don’t they sell it?” a sightseer from the back of the group asked.

“Who would buy such a house?” Marten burst out, startling a flock of crows into flight. The crows rode a wind current high above the cliff, where they wheeled around the mansion, their raucous cries echoing on the wind.

“Anyone who spends too much time in that house is likely to be tainted by the curse, as well,” Marten continued to the spellbound tourists. “The first groundskeeper died when he stumbled over a rake. The next died after his joints took on a disease that twisted his body so he could barely walk. Even now, the housekeeper who tends to the inside of the house has turned into a hunchback. And the girl who brings them food each day? Well, she was the prettiest lass in the whole village, but the curse has tainted her, too.”

Sophie blanched, stunned that Marten would draw her into the spooky tale told to the tourists. Mortification flooded her as she shrank even farther behind the blackberry brambles and prayed Marten wouldn’t spot her. She wouldn’t put it past him to point her out, just like any another attraction on today’s trip up the river.

“Oh yes, even Miss Sophie van Riijn, who spends only a few hours each day in the house, has been afflicted,” Marten continued. “She’s had three fiancés and every one of them came to a bad end. The last one died just a month before the wedding. His lungs seized up so bad he could no longer draw a proper breath of air. Now no man in the village will come within a yard of Miss Sophie for fear of the curse.”

Sophie averted her eyes, wishing she could block her hearing, as well. It was infuriating that Marten was exploiting Albert’s death this way. Her heart still ached for Albert, a kind and gentle man who never put any stock in the curse. They had been planning a life together, and Sophie had such hopes for becoming a wife, a helpmeet, and a mother. Instead, she helped tend Albert during his final painful months.

If he were alive, Albert would tell her not to let the rumors dim her spirit, but to go out and find another man to love. But it was getting hard. She was twenty-six years old, and her string of broken engagements might be an intriguing tale for the tourists, but it was a deep and unrelenting ache for her.

“Did he go to a doctor?” The timid boy’s question broke her dismal train of thought. “The one with the bad lungs? Did he go to a doctor?”

“Well of course he did!” Marten exclaimed. “He was dying, boy. The curse had gotten ahold of him and there was no hope. The man was a goner.”

Even from a distance Sophie could see the boy’s eyes widen in horror, and she ached with sympathy. This boy appeared to be terrified and, oddly, it seemed he was alone.

Sophie stood. She’d rather stay hidden than risk being pointed out as the tragic victim of three failed engagements, but she wouldn’t let Marten terrorize a child in order to boost his tips. Her skirts brushed through the cattails as she made her way to the sandy shoreline and straight to the boy’s side. The tour guide looked stunned to see her, and a guilty flush stained his cheeks.

“Ease up, Marten,” she muttered as she passed him and drew the boy aside. He was a handsome lad, no more than eight or nine years old, with dark hair and enormous gray eyes that remained locked on the house at the top of the cliff. He barely reached her elbow, and she crouched down to be on eye level with him.

“There now,” she soothed. “You know that man is just spinning tales in hopes of getting more tips, don’t you? There’s nothing to be frightened of.”

“It looks like a scary place to live,” the boy said tightly.

Sophie laughed. “But you don’t have to live there, right? Tonight you’ll go home with your parents and sleep safe and sound in your own bed. Everything will feel better once you’re home, don’t you think? What’s your name, lad?”

“Pieter,” he said. “Pieter spelled with an I.”

“Pieter with an I! What a fine Dutch name, just like the saint. Even when he was afraid, St. Peter was a good man, wasn’t he? There’s no shame in being a little scared now and then.”

The boy’s gaze remained riveted on the mansion. His lower lip wobbled, and tears pooled in his eyes, on the verge of spilling over. This sort of trepidation seemed unnatural. Something was wrong with this boy.

“Come now, what’s got you so upset?” she asked softly. “It can’t all be about that silly old house. I always feel better when I talk to someone about what’s worrying me. You can tell me anything. I promise not to laugh.”

The boy glanced over her shoulder, and she turned to follow his gaze.

Oh dear . . . they were being watched.

The gang of tough men stood only a few yards away, glaring at her with hard eyes. There was only one woman with them, a timid-looking young lady who seemed as anxious as the boy. The half dozen men in the group looked like prizefighters, with massive shoulders and no necks. One of the men wore a fine gentleman’s suit, but he looked no less fierce as he scrutinized her. There was no family resemblance between this boy and the hard strangers. Something was wrong. She turned back to the boy.

“Are you with those people behind me?” she whispered.

He nodded.

“Are they your family?”

He shook his head, and a trickle of ice curled around Sophie’s heart.

“Where are your parents?”

“My mother is dead, and my father went back to the village. My father is really angry.”

A man from the gang of strangers started heading their way. He was dressed in flawless attire, but dread settled in the pit of her stomach as she eyed the man coming toward them. “This isn’t your father?” she asked as he drew closer.

“That’s Mr. Gilroy. He’s my father’s butler. He always watches me.”

Sophie stood, moving to stand in front of the boy. This boy seemed frightened beyond all reason, and if he was in danger, she wouldn’t stand aside.

Mr. Gilroy seemed taller and more daunting as he stood before her. For all his fine clothing and starched collar, a sense of barely leashed power radiated from the imposing man.

“Thank you for comforting the boy,” Mr. Gilroy said in a gentle voice with a hint of a British accent. “I’m afraid young Pieter doesn’t care for ghost stories, and your kindness is much appreciated.”

Had there ever been a more courteous voice? It had a velvety, calming quality that set her nerves at ease.

“You’re welcome. Most of the tourists enjoy tales about the old Vandermark estate, but some of us are more sensitive. Your group is touring the river, I take it?”

There was a slight pause. “Not precisely.”

She waited for Mr. Gilroy to elaborate, but he said nothing. Tourism had been their village’s salvation ever since the Vandermarks had abandoned the estate and closed down their timber mills, paper mills, and iron mines. The fishing and oyster industry had helped fill the void, but even those had collapsed in the past decade.

When Sophie’s Dutch ancestors had come to America in the seventeenth century, the Hudson River was so bountiful that a basket dipped in the river could scoop up striped bass, perch, and bluefish. But all that was a thing of the past now. As Manhattan filled its riverfront with factories, the fish farther up the river died off and the oyster beds failed. Now the village needed revenue from the tourists who flocked to the Hudson River Valley to catch a glimpse of the unspoiled wilderness north of the city.

Sophie brushed back a strand of her blond hair that had broken free in the morning breeze. “Well, I hope you have a nice visit to New Holland. It’s a lovely village, and most travelers enjoy the shops and cafés.”

Pieter kicked the ground, scattering a spray of sand. “My father won’t enjoy it. He never enjoys anything.”

“That’s enough,” Mr. Gilroy said firmly but not unkindly. “Your father has been very sick, but he is doing what’s right. He isn’t doing this to punish you.”

To her horror, the boy’s face crumpled, and the tears finally erupted. “I just want to go home,” he sobbed. “I want to go live with Grandpa again. Please, Mr. Gilroy, please, can’t you take me back home?”

She couldn’t help herself. Never had she heard so much misery in a voice, and she gave in to the urge to console him. Hunkering back down, she slid an arm around the boy’s narrow shoulders. “There now, go ahead and have a good cry if it will make you feel better,” she soothed.

There was something terribly wrong with this boy. He was too old to be blubbering in public, and none of the adults who traveled with him seemed interested in extending comfort.

She looked up at Mr. Gilroy. “Will the boy’s father return soon? If you arrived on that steamboat, I don’t know how much longer it will be here.”

“We didn’t come on the steamboat,” Mr. Gilroy said. “The carriage we arrived in can’t scale the hill, so my employer has gone to the village to get a lighter one.”

She blinked in confusion. “Why do you want to scale the hill? There’s not much up there but the Vandermark estate, and it isn’t open for visitors.”

“It will be open for us,” Mr. Gilroy said.

“No, I’m afraid Dierenpark is entirely closed to the public. It has been for the past sixty years.”

“It will be open for us,” Mr. Gilroy repeated, not so gently this time. A note of steel lay beneath the velvet of his voice.

Oh dear, this was going to be awkward. This wouldn’t be the first group of people disappointed they couldn’t tour the mansion, but it was impossible. The narrow, rutted lane leading up the cliff was treacherous, and even though the Vandermarks had supplied funds to maintain the house and keep it safe from troublemakers, it was in no condition for visitors.

“There’s not much to see,” Sophie hedged. “The crows have taken up residence in the east wing and have a nasty habit of attacking strangers. There are some postcards for sale if you are curious about what the Vandermark mansion looks like up close.”

“Thank you, but we will tour the mansion shortly and have no need of postcards.”

Sophie took a step back. The staff hired to maintain the estate had been walking a fine line for decades, and strangers were almost always discouraged. Almost . . . but not always. Any group that traveled with a butler must be people of means, and Sophie sometimes made exceptions for people willing to pay ridiculous sums to take a peek inside the house. The village needed all the revenue it could get.

“On rare occasions, arrangements can be made for a very select type of visitor,” she said. “It takes some time to arrange, for the estate is never open to visitors who arrive unannounced.”

“We’re not visitors,” Mr. Gilroy said in an implacable voice. “We are the Vandermarks. And we’ve come home to stay.”

****

Sophie scrambled up the steep footpath, heedless of the vines and shrubbery that slapped at her skirts as she raced toward the top of the cliff. Rutted with centuries of maple roots and corroded by runoff, it was a treacherous path, but she had to hurry. Mr. Gilroy had told her that Quentin Vandermark, the great-grandson of the man found floating dead in the river, intended to take up residence in the house immediately. Today!

Which was a huge problem. No one had expected the family to ever return, and well . . . over the years, certain liberties had been taken with the house. Mostly by her. Some of it could be hidden, but she’d have to hurry. She hiked her skirts in one hand, using the other for balance as she scaled the hillside with careful steps. With each step higher, the air got sweeter and the leaves grew greener.

Despite the blather told to the tourists, Dierenpark wasn’t haunted. Quite the opposite, in fact. Sophie had no explanation for it, but every square inch of the Vandermark estate bloomed with health and abundance. It seemed like the blossoms were more vibrant, the grass softer and greener, and the fruit grown on the estate sweeter than anything harvested in the village.

A screen of weather-beaten juniper trees provided a windbreak at the edge of the property, sheltering Dierenpark and creating an isolated haven of beauty and peace at the top of the cliff. Built of granite block, Dierenpark was a sprawling mansion with gables, turrets, and mullioned windows. The oldest portion of the house had been built in 1635, but over the centuries, it had been expanded to become a rambling mansion, one of the largest private homes in America.

Tearing across the meadow, she burst through the front door and barreled down the center hallway to the sun-filled kitchen at the rear of the house. It was in the newest part of the mansion, with plenty of windows to let in natural light. A fire burned in the brick hearth, and bundles of herbs hung alongside copper pots dangling over the scrubbed wooden work table.

“The Vandermarks are here!” Sophie gasped, doubling over from her frantic dash up the side of the cliff. “Quick, get the merchandise out of here, and hide everything else.”

Florence Hengeveld pushed herself off the stool where she’d been bagging up Dutch cookies to sell to the tourists. With a face withered like a dried apple and a widow’s hump slowing her walk, Florence had been the estate’s housekeeper for forty years. She was the “hunchback” mentioned by the tour guide. But Florence wasn’t a victim of the Vandermark curse. She was merely old, and old women often had a widow’s hump.

“What do you mean?” Florence asked. “The Vandermarks’ lawyer is here?”

For the past sixty years, the only contact they’d had with the Vandermarks was from a series of attorneys who paid their wages and settled the annual tax bill. So why had the family suddenly returned? Sophie bit her lip, praying they hadn’t heard rumors about the equipment she’d installed on the roof of the mansion.

“They’re here in person,” she said. “Quentin Vandermark and his son. I thought they were living in Europe, but they’re back, and they intend to take up residence today. Their carriage can’t get up the hill, so they’ve gone to get a lighter one and will be here any moment. Quick! Hide anything having to do with the tourists. I’ll find Emil to help.”

“He’s working on the garden fence,” Florence said as she shuffled to a cupboard, dumping the bags of Dutch cookies and shortbread out of sight.

Sophie ran outside, calling for Emil Broeder, a simple-hearted man with a rapidly expanding family, including twin boys and a baby daughter only two months old. He and his family lived in the old groundskeeper’s cabin a few acres away.

She found him repairing the fence that kept deer from plundering Sophie’s herb garden. In short order she dispatched him to the house to hide all evidence of their tourism business.

But the biggest problem was on the roof, and it wasn’t exactly something Sophie could hide. She would just hope the Vandermarks wouldn’t notice until she could smooth the waters. Surely, with so grand an estate, they’d never even notice the paltry structures Emil had helped her erect on the roof, would they?

Because in her long line of failed engagements and thwarted dreams, her tiny weather station on the top of the Vandermark mansion was what gave meaning and purpose to Sophie’s world. In a dying village where economic opportunities dwindled by the year, Sophie was part of a grand, national experiment to create the first system of accurate and reliable weather forecasts for anyone who chose to buy the morning newspaper. She’d never asked permission to install the weather station, but the roof of Dierenpark was now one of three thousand monitoring stations manned by volunteers who gathered climate data in hopes of creating accurate weather predictions that would make the world a safer place for everyone.

And she prayed Quentin Vandermark would not interfere with that.

****

Sophie heard the Vandermarks before she saw them. The clopping of horse hooves and the bumping of carriage wheels across the rocky front drive sounded like impending doom. Florence had put a kettle on to heat, and a bowl of Sophie’s blueberry muffins and a Dutch sweet cake were at the center of the table, still warm from the oven and lending a comforting aroma of sweetened vanilla to the room.

Sophie sat at the kitchen table, rotating a mug of tea between her suddenly icy fingers. Why was she so anxious? They hadn’t done anything wrong . . . or at least, they hadn’t done anything the Vandermarks explicitly forbade them to do. It had been easy to feel like she belonged in this wonderful old house, but all that would change now that the real owners had returned. Sixty years—it had been sixty years—how was she supposed to know they would return with no warning?

Footsteps thudded up the porch steps. She had already unlocked the front door, since it would seem presumptuous to force Quentin Vandermark to knock for admittance into his own house.

He didn’t knock. The front door banged open, and more heavy footsteps clomped on the hardwood floors.

“Where is she?” An angry voice roared through the old house, echoing off the walnut paneling in the grand foyer and hurting her ears.

Sophie sprang to her feet and headed to the entrance hall, where the group of imposing men trudged into the house. Mr. Gilroy passed her a tense smile, but the man whose bellow had shaken the rafters was a stranger to her. He was a slender man who leaned heavily on a cane as he lurched around the entrance hall. With dark hair and stormy gray eyes, his lean face was drawn tight with anger.

“Where is she?” he roared again as he limped toward the formal parlor, raising his cane long enough to strike at the draperies. Dust motes swirled in the air, and she feared the fragile silk might rip and come tearing down.

“Are you looking for me?” she asked calmly. Fighting fire with fire was rarely a good idea, and Sophie refused to do it.

He whirled around, shooting her a scorching glare. “Are you the one who has been telling ghost stories to my son? The one who terrified him so badly we can’t get him out of the carriage?”

His voice lashed like a whip, and he was so daunting it was hard to look him in the face. Even the burly men in the grand foyer seemed cowed.

“Somehow I doubt I’m the cause of the boy’s anxiety, Mr. Vandermark.”

The man’s eyes narrowed as he plodded across the parquet floor to scrutinize her. He would be a handsome man were he not so ferociously angry. With a lean face and high cheekbones, he looked like something straight out of a Brontë novel, and apparently he had the temper to match.

“Are you the person responsible for turning my home into an obscene tourist attraction? The one selling postcards and cookies down by the pier?”

“My name is Sophie van Riijn. I provide meals to the staff at the house, but I am not on your payroll, nor am I the cause of whatever has put you into a foul mood. I’d be happy to welcome you inside and get you all something to eat and drink. I imagine you are tired after your journey.”

Mr. Gilroy stepped forward, unruffled by the raging tantrum of his employer. “Thank you, Miss van Riijn. We would be grateful.”

Quentin Vandermark acted as though he hadn’t heard. Leaning both hands on his cane, he scanned the impressive rooms on either side of the entrance hall. He seemed particularly fascinated by the portraits of a dozen Vandermark ancestors from earlier centuries, their powdered wigs looking strange to modern eyes. What must this man be thinking as he saw his ancestral estate for the first time? Sophie had been coming to this house since she was a child, but everything was new to Mr. Vandermark. He would need a guide just to find his way through the forty-room mansion.

“If you’ll follow me to the kitchen, we have a kettle warming and some fresh blueberry muffins. I’m sorry we did not know of your arrival or we’d have prepared the dining room. Will Pieter be joining us?”

Mr. Vandermark tore his gaze from the old portraits. “He is in the carriage with his governess. I don’t want him in the house until we establish the ground rules. My son has had a difficult year and is prone to fits of anxiety. Filling his head with tales of his ancestors floating dead in the river and people turning into hunchbacks from setting foot in this house is going to stop at once. Is that clear, Miss van Riijn?”

“Perfectly.”

“And whoever is selling postcards with photographs of this home will cease and desist immediately.”

Sophie tilted her head. “Artists and photographers have been featuring this house on their postcards for decades. We aren’t responsible for that.”

Reaching inside his coat, he grabbed a postcard and waved it in her face. “This postcard shows the inside of the house. Someone let them in to take those photographs, and I demand to know who.”

Sure enough, the postcard he clenched in his fist was of the drawing room, sunlight streaming through the windows and fresh flowers in vases placed about the room. For scale, a little blond girl stood beside the fireplace, a bouquet of tulips in her hands. The photograph had been taken by her father more than twenty years ago, and Sophie was the little child, but she doubted Mr. Vandermark would recognize her.

“I believe that photograph was taken decades ago,” she said. “I doubt you’ll discover who is responsible. There has been a lot of turnover here at the house.”

“So I gather. Dead people stumbling over rakes and dying of terrible diseases. Such charming tales you tell.”

“Mr. Vandermark, the tour guides on the steamboats are all from Manhattan. If you have a complaint with their services, you will need to return to the city and take it up with them. All we do is tend to the house. Florence has the tea ready, if you’d like to follow me to the kitchen.”

She didn’t wait for a reply, but given the lumbering footsteps behind her, the men followed. Both Florence and Emil rose as they heard the group approach. Emil swept the cap from his head, brushing his straw-colored hair from his forehead with a nervous hand.

“This is Florence Hengeveld, the housekeeper here for more than forty years. And Emil Broeder has been keeping the grounds ever since he took over for his father two years ago.”

“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 face, 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.

Chapter Two

“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 ruined the boy. 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.

It was dark now, and Quentin braced himself for the long night ahead. It seemed that ever since his wife’s death eight years ago, his life had become an endless night of darkness and despair, waiting for a dawn that never came. In a perfect world, he could promise Pieter that their lives would be filled with joy and sunlight. He wished he could teach Pieter that all it would take was integrity and faith to guide them into a safe and blessed world, but Quentin had long since given up believing in fairy tales.

****

By morning, Quentin was exhausted. During the night, Pieter had startled awake at every creak made by the old house. Quentin had tried to explain the effect cooling temperatures had on the expansion and contraction of building materials, but Pieter suspected it was ghosts or burglars. And just when they’d finally settled into a restless sleep, a thunderstorm had rolled through the valley, keeping them both awake until sunrise.

Thunder was one of the many things that terrified Pieter. “If you look in a mirror while it’s thundering, you’ll see a ghost,” Pieter had said in a trembling voice. “Grandpa said so.”

Quentin was bleary-eyed and exhausted as he dragged himself from bed. Pieter had finally slipped into a restless sleep, but Quentin was eager to explore Dierenpark.

The house was comfortable despite its imposing size. As an architect, he could immediately spot the places where some daring ancestor had tacked on a room or wing. The seventeenth-century rooms had low, wood-beamed ceilings and a coziness that came with their smaller dimensions. The rooms added in the eighteenth century had a stiff formality, with plaster walls, high ceilings, and an imposing scale. At some point, an orangery had been attached to the house, and the abundant glass panels captured the sun and regulated the heat to permit growing tropical plants and orchids.

As much as Quentin resented the staff who had been profiting off his family’s tragedies, he couldn’t criticize their care of the house, for the interior was in pristine condition. The bookshelves were filled with antique volumes, their leather bindings cleaned and oiled. The china cabinets displayed silver and crystal, all polished and in gleaming condition. The desk in the library was filled with paperwork that had been untouched for the past sixty years.

After he’d explored most of the ground floor, it was obvious the best place to work was going to be the large parlor adjacent to the kitchen. It was an older room with a low-beamed ceiling and a few settees and tables scattered about. A row of diamond-paned windows overlooked the river. The glass was slightly rippled, as was common of glass from the seventeenth century. The slight distortion made the river below seem to sparkle even more in the early-morning light.

Mr. Gilroy helped him lay out drafting paper on one of the tables close to the window, and he quickly sank into the day’s work. He bid Mr. Gilroy to send Pieter to him as soon as the boy had dressed for the day.

“Are you sure you want Pieter to help with this?” Mr. Gilroy asked, his tone the embodiment of civility. “He seems a little young to learn the art of demolition.”

“It is important for Pieter to see me at work,” he said. Especially since Quentin had spent so much of the past year trapped in a convalescent hospital like a useless cripple. “I won’t allow my son to join the class of the idle rich. He can chose any profession he wishes, except a life of leisure.”

Despite his illness, Quentin had always been capable of gainful employment as an architect. He could no longer get out into the field to supervise construction, but he had been capable of drafting plans from his sickbed. Now that he was walking again, he’d mentor Pieter in the principles of architecture and scientific reasoning for as long as he could.

He took a sip of lousy coffee. None of them knew how to operate the percolating apparatus in the kitchen, and although Mr. Gilroy eventually got the contraption to work, bitter coffee grounds infused every sip. He took another taste, sucking on the grounds and trying not to laugh. How could two intelligent men be defeated by the simple task of brewing coffee?

A sudden peal of bells shattered the quiet of the morning, making him choke on the coffee. The bells came from a few feet behind him, buried somewhere in the walls. A doorbell? Mr. Gilroy looked equally startled but headed to the front door to check.

“The Vandermarks are not at home,” he heard Mr. Gilroy’s polite voice intone to whoever had the gall to ring their bell at eight o’clock in the morning. With his refined British accent, John Gilroy sounded proper enough to be butler to the queen.

“I don’t need to see the Vandermarks,” a sweet voice said. “I just need to pop up onto the roof for a few minutes.”

It was the voice of the blond woman from yesterday. As much as she irritated him, he couldn’t deny that she was probably the prettiest girl he’d ever seen on either side of the Atlantic. With flaxen blond hair and deep blue eyes, she looked like she ought to be flouncing through an alpine meadow in a flowy white blouse with a lace-up bodice. She had a heart-shaped face and a slim little nose and was the closest thing to an angel he’d ever seen. He’d been an angry brute yesterday, but nothing he’d said seemed to fluster her.

“You’d better talk to Mr. Vandermark about that,” Mr. Gilroy said. “He was quite insistent that the household staff had been severed from employment.”

“But I’m not part of the household staff. I work for the government. And I need to get onto the roof.”

“Gilroy, send her back here!” Quentin hollered from his seat at the table.

A moment later she arrived, sadly minus the charming alpine costume but looking every bit as lovely in a simple gown with her hair in a casual braid worn over one shoulder. It annoyed him to see her looking so pretty first thing in the morning.

“Miss van Riijn, correct?”

“Yes, but everyone calls me Sophie.”

“Fine. You’re fired, Sophie.”

Smiling, she set a covered basket on the table. “I brought some fresh scones. They’re almond.”

“Excellent. Leave the scones, but you’re still fired.” It aggravated him that she found his comment amusing.

“But I’ve never worked for you, so you can’t really fire me, can you?” She drifted closer to the table, gazing through the window with a wistful expression on her face. “I always love this time of day. I like to stand at this exact spot, where I can see the goldfinches playing in the birch trees while I drink a cup of coffee and watch the sun rise. It is a perfect place to gather my thoughts and count my blessings.”

He fought not to roll his eyes. “Miss van Riijn, please be aware that I am violently allergic to your brand of doe-eyed sentimentality. That much sugary optimism spilled into the atmosphere this early in the morning is liable to render us all comatose.”

She cocked her head at a charming angle. “I don’t understand what you just said, but I think it was an insult. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a scone?”

He schooled his face into an impassive mask. It took a barrel of gall to waltz in here after being fired yesterday, and yet she’d slipped past Mr. Gilroy with ease and kept him nattering like a magpie. She was either a master of subversive tactics or was exactly what she appeared to be: a lone, naïve daisy standing in a field, begging to be shot for target practice. He normally did not feel much sympathy for people who exuded bottomless good cheer, but there was something oddly attractive about her. Not that he would let it soften him.

“I’m still waiting for you to explain your entirely unwelcome visit.”

“I need to get up onto the roof to check the weather station. I take measurements every morning, and there was a storm last night, so it’s especially important for me to check the rain gauge right away.”

“A weather station? Explain yourself.”

“It’s very exciting,” Sophie said. “The government has a new agency called the Weather Bureau, and they’ve set up thousands of stations all across the country where volunteers keep track of the climate. After I take the readings, I telegraph the information to Washington, where scientists chart all the data onto huge maps and try to predict the weather. They’ve gotten very good at alerting people when trouble is on the horizon.”

Admirable, but he was still peeved this had been taking place on Vandermark property without their permission.

“What exactly is up on my roof?”

For the first time, she had the good sense to look a little apprehensive. “Just a metal shed to keep the equipment dry and protected from the wind. There’s a barometer, a thermometer, a weather vane, and a rain gauge. I’ll just step upstairs and be a few moments.”

“You’ll do no such thing, other than make arrangements to get that equipment off my roof. It was presumptuous of you to set up a private business in my house.”

“But it’s not a business, I’m a volunteer. There are three thousand weather stations in this country and the government can’t afford to pay us, so we do it for free.”

“Then you’re an idiot. If the government valued your work, they’d find a way to pay for it. I don’t want you tromping through my house every morning, so you’ll have to find another place to work your acts of goodness and mercy. Now get out of here. You’re trespassing.”

A blush stained her cheeks, a sign he was getting to her, which was good. She had participated in a gross misuse of his property and ought to feel at least a little shame.

Instead, it appeared she was ready to challenge him.

“Sir, I have been coming to this house to take climate readings for the past nine years. I have come every single morning without fail. Through ice storms and floods. On every Easter and every Christmas. I came when I had influenza and could barely walk a straight line. I came on the day my mother died and on the day she was buried.” Her voice wobbled a little, but instead of dissolving in tears, she straightened her spine and got stronger.

“Maybe some people don’t understand loyalty,” she continued, “but there are thousands of farmers and sailors who need me to take those measurements and get the data to Washington. They depend on accurate weather forecasts based on something more than irrational and superstitious guesswork. Our predictions are based on a solid foundation of scientific fact. I won’t let a rich, privileged outsider dissuade me from that duty.”

Quentin didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t let a hint of emotion show on his face. He stared at her until she lost a little starch and started to fidget.

“Go upstairs and take your measurements,” he said quietly.

The way she sucked in a quick little breath indicated she was surprised, but she shouldn’t be. If she knew the first thing about him, it was that his entire life was devoted to the triumph of science over superstition and quackery. He knew very little about the Weather Bureau, but if the men in Washington were basing their findings on real data rather than superstition, he would support it.

“Go on,” he prodded.

She flashed him a little smile and darted for the hallway. He clenched his fist, irritated that her smile appealed to him. A girl like Sophie van Riijn probably had healthy young men all over the village lining up for her affections. The last thing she’d welcome was a crippled, embittered recluse who couldn’t stand on his own two feet without the aid of a cane.

The moment the door closed behind her, he glanced at Mr. Gilroy. “Follow her. Find out what’s up there.” view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Marten and Sophie remain friends despite the painful breakup of their earlier relationship. Is it possible to remain friends with someone you once loved romantically, even if they let you down? Why do so few people manage it?

2. Nickolaas looks for spirituality everywhere, but his curiosity rarely lasts long. Do you know people who "shop" for a religion? Is there something worthwhile in sampling other religions? What are the potential problems with it?

3. At the beginning of the novel, Quentin has contempt for all forms of religion based on Nickolaas's erratic spiritual quests. Do you know of people who have soured on religious faith because of an isolated negative experience? What is the best way to respond to such a situation?

4. Sophie loves cooking the recipes that have been handed down to her from generations of her ancestors. Do you have any family recipes you cherish? Is it based on the quality of the recipe or on something else?

5. A major theme of the novel relates to loving all people, not just those we deem worthy of love. What are the practical implications of this in your life?

6. Are there any places where you believe it is easier to feel closer to God? What do you suppose gives such places that quality?

7. Why is Quentin so adamant that his son not become one of the "idle rich"? Do you know of any such people? How did it work out for them?

8. At the beginning of the novel, Pieter believes that his grandfather is the only person who loves him, and he fears his father. Should a parent and grandparent have different roles in a child's life? What are the problems and benefits of such roles?

9. Sophie and Marten were supposed to marry when they were eighteen, and she later admits they were too young to be making that sort of commitment. Is there a right age at which to marry?

10. What sort of future do you imagine for Quentin and Sophie? For Pieter? For Dierenpark?

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