Though it was likely an oddity that had captured him with her in a photograph. And that it had ended up in a book. Knowing Opa, he had taken great delight in that. No wonder the page was marked. Peter nodded again.
Miss Gresham was flipping through the pages. “I’m making a stack of the books I ought to read once I’ve brought a bit of order to the place. It seems the most efficient way to go about it, though that does mean I’ll have no answers for you for quite some time as to what brought your family to England. It may take weeks just to sort through them. If that’s acceptable?”
Another nod. Peter’s gaze drifted back to his desk. Family connections . . . they could be quite long-stretching. Reaching out into unexpected places. What if . . . what if Locryn weren’t the first James to make his way to this village? It had been, after all, a drawing he’d found at the end of the last book that had spurred him to South America. Peter hadn’t paused to think where the drawing had come from. But what if it was a relic of the father Locryn could scarcely remember?
“. . . if you prefer.” Miss Gresham stepped into his line of sight again, brows lifted into a facial question mark.
He had missed something. And hardly cared. A connection to his father deep in the Amazon—that was pure gold. Peter had been wanting to work in more about the James family, and this was a perfect way to do it. He stepped around Miss Gresham and reached for paper and his favorite fountain pen. He must record this thought before he lost a few of the strands blowing about in his mind like those cobwebs in a sudden draft.
LJ’s vat–30 y bf? 40? 1860/7
“. . . if you think that would work better. Or I could . . .”
Should it have been before Locryn’s birth or after? He scribbled down that question too, in his abbreviated shorthand that combined English and German and what Gryff always called “Petese.” No one else ever understood it—which was rather the point.
“Which would you prefer, Mr. Holstein?”
Peter glanced up solely because she had stepped into his space and now looked at him with a clear demand for an answer. The elder Mr. James could have . . .
“Mr. Holstein?”
“Would you s-stop . . . stop talking? P-Please.” He closed his eyes to shut her out and latch hold of the idea floating around. He had dropped a hint about Mr. James in the last book, The Final Journey. That was what the final journey alluded to—that of Locryn’s father. He had thought it was to Africa, that was why he had gone there in Journey. But what if it hadn’t been? What if he had come here, to the Amazon? The new adventure that had taken Locryn and Thomas to South America at the end of the book had seemed to have nothing to do with the late Mr. James. But it could have.
He could even be here still. Alive.
No. That might be too heavy-handed. Bringing characters back from the dead was quickly becoming cliché. But Locryn could think it. Hope it.
Fear it.
Fear it? He jotted that down too. Why would Locryn fear finding his father? A question to ponder. It could add depth.
He followed a few more random trails of thought, wrote them down, and then rubbed a finger over his neck when it itched. With half a start he realized Miss Gresham was standing exactly where she had been a minute—five minutes?—ago, staring at him.
No, not staring. Drilling her gaze into him as if to prepare a hole in which to put the dynamite that would remove him from her path.
Or perhaps he had been reading too many American railroading stories.
He cleared his throat and shuffled to the side a step. “F-Forgive me, Miss . . . Miss Gresham. You w-were say . . . saying?”
She pasted on a smile so sweet it made his teeth hurt. And so false he had to wonder if she had a trunk of them in her mind’s closet, just ready to be pulled out and put on like a costume. “No need to apologize to me, sir. I will refrain from bothering you with questions in the future. I shall simply do as I see fit.”
She spun on the heel of her pump and marched back toward the door to the library, which still stood open.
Peter chuffed out another locomotive-Father breath and took a step to block her path. “I d-did not . . . did not m-mean to . . . to . . .” He clenched his teeth together and held up a finger, strode back to his desk and the never-ending pile of blank paper. It took him only a minute to put down his explanation in neat, precise English that his tongue refused to grasp.
But when he turned again, she was gone and the library door closed.
Of all the . . . she was his employee, if only for a few weeks or months. She could have a bit of respect, could she not? Was that so much to ask?
He yanked open the library door and felt a bit like Locryn as he stormed in. Fearless. Strong. In the right. Or thinking he was in the right, anyway, even when he was quite clearly wrong. And as Peter’s vision was slammed with those eternal stacks of books, he could hardly help but think that he may indeed be in the wrong just now.
It was too much for one person on her own, without even the right to come in and ask questions of her employer. Too much to expect that she would have no need for guidance.
Blast. Rather than approach her where she was picking up books from a stack and slapping them into new stacks in rapid succession, he headed for the table and her pen. He scratched out the quick missive he had just written at his own desk and replaced it with a better one. Or what he hoped was a better one.
For half a second he considered just leaving it there for her to look at when she was finished steaming. But that was the coward’s way out. Instead, he wove through the teetering towers and held it out.
She ignored him.
He gave it a wave.
She turned to a new stack, presenting her back to him.
Another chuff very nearly slipped out. But she had a point. Had someone ignored him as fully as he had ignored her, he would be offended too. So instead of a huff, he loosed a breath heavy with apology, if she had the ears to hear it. “Miss G-Gresham. P-Please.”
At least she stopped, even if her shoulders remained in a line so rigid he couldn’t help but notice the sharp angles and planes of them. She really was too thin. Even the ladies in London who had waists so small he wondered if they starved themselves had softer curves at shoulder and jaw than she did—and not to be a snob, but a working woman had no reason to aspire to such ridiculous fashions.
But perhaps it wasn’t a choice she made for fashion. Perhaps it ran in her family, as it did in his. He, after all, wasn’t exactly one to judge a person for being overly thin.
And what in the world was he doing staring at her bony shoulder when he had an apology to bumble through? He drew in the breath that he’d leaked out a moment before. “I d-did not . . . did not m-mean to be r . . . rude. I’m . . . I’m s-sorry.”
She spun to face him so fast he nearly backed up a step. Though, really, he had no reason to think she was about to punch him. Sharp as her shoulders may be, she was still a woman of education, which meant some breeding. She wasn’t going to haul off and strike him just for daring to offer an apology.
Probably. And even if she did, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had a fist come at him. There were always boys who wanted to pick fights with those they perceived to be weaker. And stuttering made him appear weaker. Hence why Father had taught him to box—not that he would use such skills against a woman, even if she did throw a punch.
She didn’t. Of course. Though he swore he felt the heat of it when she swiped the letter from his outstretched fingers and read it. Her sharp edges didn’t soften any, and she didn’t even look up at him as she said, “Fine.”
“F-Fine?” She certainly didn’t sound as though she thought it fine.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” She presented her back again.
“Then . . . fine.” Prickly woman. Shoulders like a knife edge and the personality of a pincushion. Peter shook his head and wove his way back to the door. Which he closed not-so-silently, but without the gusto he had a mind to employ.
The smell hit him when he stepped back into his study. Books and pipe smoke and Father. Funny how, just now, the comfort of it condemned him. Funny how all those words written upon paper in here sounded like Father’s voice in his ears. Above all, Peter, we must be gentle. Self-controlled. This is how others see the love of Christ in us.
Peter closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of wisdom. Breathed out a prayer.
He’d never considered himself a man of unbridled temper. He dealt with people all the time, after all, in London. He had no reason to get upset at having to do so here at home, in his haven. Not when he was the one who had invited her to stay.
He headed back to his desk and the page full of Petese. It took him a few minutes to focus his mind on his story again, but it helped to draw out his page from the drawer, to reposition it in the machine, to line it up just so, so that the new letters would be exactly aligned with the old.
His fingers found the keys and picked up his thought from where it dangled upon the page. A few more minutes of struggle through the blackest of caverns. Then, finally, a sliver of silver light shafting down. Not the entrance he had come into the cave through. But he groped his way toward it. Pushed his way up, halfway out.
And there, in the soft strokes of silver moonlight, she stood.
Peter paused, debating how to introduce this woman he’d decided to use. He needed a name too. Should she be South American? Or another ex-patriot like Locryn?
Born there, certainly. It would make Locryn trust her as a guide, and also dismiss her as being beneath him socially—which would prove a mistake on his part. Dorothea? Isabella?
No. His lips twitched up. Something with “Rose” in it. Rosita. He hunched over his typewriter and let the description flow. She stood there with a hand outstretched. He saw Spanish in her face’s angles and planes, and in the long, deepest brown hair that hinted at curl. A few tendrils stuck to her neck where the humidity of the night lured them. He grasped her hand and let her pull him over the lip of the vooga’s opening. Her fingers were thin. Her shoulders, he noted as they bunched up to tug on him, were sharp and bony.
Peter chuckled and kept tapping away.
It served her right.
Six
The words from Mr. Holstein’s ridiculous note wouldn’t leave Rosemary’s mind’s eye.
Forgive me for ignoring you. But I need quiet when I am in my study.
Forgive me if I come off as oafish from time to time. I don’t mean to be. It is just that I’m unaccustomed to sharing my space.
That is no excuse, I know. And I didn’t mean to ignore you so fully. Perhaps we can reach an agreement. If you will honor my need for quiet privacy during most of the day, or when I specifically request it, I will be happy to answer all your questions at set times. Luncheon and dinner are a logical time to plan for these conversations.
Again, please forgive my behavior.
He had the right of it. “He’s an utter oaf. A ridiculous, self-righteous oaf, and I may just lose my mind if this stretches out as long as it looks like it may.” She gripped the bedpost, not because Willa was pulling her corset tight—she wasn’t—nor because she really had to hold on while her gown’s buttons were being done up. But just because she needed to dig her fingers into something, and Peter Holstein’s flesh wasn’t available.
“Well, what do you expect, Rosie? A bloke born and raised in this place—he no doubt thinks the very sun revolves around him.” Willa’s voice contained a bit of calm, a bit of consolation. A bit more amusement than was really called for.
Rosemary stared at the print of the wallpaper until it blurred. “I’m going to enjoy proving him a traitor. I’m going to take his money, destroy his name, and find a way to take his blighted house from him too, whether I keep it or not. Four dashed minutes and thirty-nine seconds! Have you any idea how long four minutes thirty-nine seconds really is? When you’re just standing there like a—like a piece of furniture?”
Willa snorted what sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Sounds as though you do.”
“It’s an eternity, that’s how long. While he wrote a bunch of gibberish as if it contained the keys to eternal youth.”
Gibberish that had made her stomach go tight once she’d calmed enough to think of it. The bits she’d glimpsed made no sense whatsoever. What was it? Some sort of shorthand? Or . . . or some sort of coded language?
To whom had that note been written?
Willa must have finished the last button marching up Rosemary’s back, given that she reached for the sash to tie it. “Maybe he’s some great philosopher. Or mathematician. Maybe . . . maybe he’s designing a new automobile.”
Rosemary gave an answering snort. “Or maybe he’s coming up with some secret code for the Germans.”
Willa’s fingers stilled. “But that one isn’t funny.”
“I wasn’t sent here to find a joke, was I?” She let go of the bedpost and turned to the mirror. It was full-length, in a pretty wooden frame that attached at two points to a structure that would let her flip it all the way around, if she wanted. She’d never had a mirror bigger than a sheet of paper before, and those were always cloudy and scratched and made her look like a carnival show.
This one showed her a woman with rage in her eyes but a very nice evening dress draping her just as it should. She smoothed a hand down one of the tiers. They’d bought this silk with what they’d fenced from a pair of diamond earrings last year. Found a bargain on it, but still. It had pained her to spend the money on silk instead of food.
But the silk had aided her in a job six months ago at a ball, at which she’d lifted a necklace that had fetched four times the cost of the silk. Now she was rather sentimental about the deep blue fabric.
Willa stepped into the frame too. Her lips were pursed. “What are we going to do with your hair, Rosie?”
Rosemary reached for the beaded headband she’d picked up for a song a few months before. “Just a chignon and this.” No need to get too excited about a dinner with the Penroses. She gripped the band until the beads dug into her palm. The meal would no doubt be a chore. Worse would be the drive to and from . . . and every meal hereafter, according to that note. “You don’t think he really means we should take every luncheon and dinner together, do you?”
Willa chuckled. “He was trying to be nice, and you well know it. Provide you a set time to ask him questions. Twice a day. Generous of him.”
Yes, generous. To give his hired help two hours a day in his esteemed company—and otherwise insist that if he requested quiet, she give it without argument. What nerve he had, to actually write down that demand. And then have the gall to grant her two meals a day!
It was going to be torture for them both. And no doubt he knew it as well as she did.
“And when the annoyance is high, just think about this.” Willa clapped hands to Rosemary’s shoulders and turned her around. Her eyes were wide. “One. Thousand. Pounds.”
Rosemary grinned. “And strawberries.”
“Strawberries.” Willa slid those eyes shut now and loosed a blissful sigh. “If there are more tomorrow, save me one. I saw some in the village, but they were too dear.”
“I’ll bring you the whole bowl, if there are. Well, perhaps minus one. Or two.”
Willa laughed and gave her a helpful push toward the dressing table’s bench. “Sit. I’ll do your hair tonight.”
Rosemary sat, and they spoke of the usual nothing while Willa brushed and gathered and tugged and coiled and pinned. Which left her mind free to wander—just now toward the wardrobe that stood, formidable and closed, in the corner. She had brought two evening dresses with her, not knowing what occasions she might be expected to attend . . . and rather expecting never to use them. But if she had dinner with Holstein every night, she would have to dress for it, wouldn’t she? Wasn’t that what these families did, donning their best every night?
An utter waste. What if she spilled something on one of her only two gowns? S
he didn’t know who here was in charge of laundry, but she highly doubted Mrs. Teague would take kindly to her adding her own to the mix.
And would two be enough? But it wasn’t as though anyone would expect a woman in her profession to have a bursting wardrobe.
“There.” Willa stepped back and nodded at their reflections in the smaller mirror attached to the table. “You look the part. Are you going to wear those ridiculous glasses?”
She should . . . but the very idea made her ears and nose hurt. “No. If asked, I’ll claim I only need them when dealing with books.”
“Well. I can’t do any more damage here, so I’m going to head back to the village for my own dinner.” To prove it, Willa reached for the hat she’d tossed onto Rosemary’s bed an hour earlier. “I’m thinking I’ll stay a week and we’ll see how you’re doing. If you need me longer . . .”
“I’m sure I’ll be all right.” Tortured, but all right. She could hardly expect Willa to stay here forever. And it would take forever to go through those books. She’d taken to looking in any of them that had pages marked, and a fair number mentioned the Holstein family.
A world she could scarcely fathom. Who really had their name in a book? Really? And photographs of themselves with monarchs? The Holsteins moved in high circles, to be sure.
The question was, did those circles revolve around England or Germany?
“Well then. ’Night.” Willa smiled, wiggled her fingers, and disappeared out the bedroom door.
Rosemary glanced at the clock on the mantel. She still had half an hour before the time when Mrs. Teague had informed her, with narrowed eyes and pursed lips, that she ought to be at the front of the house to await the carriage. Spotting the collection of Melville on her bedside table where she’d put it earlier, she headed that way and took a seat in the plush armchair in the corner of the room.
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