The Rose of Winslow Street (6 page)

Before she could reply, Michael Dobrescu came down the steps, barely restrained fury burning in his eyes. He put his face close to hers and glared. “You may look inside Mirela's room,” he said. “Do not speak to her, do not look at her. She is fragile and I will not have her upset.”

Although his words told her she could look in Mirela's room, his eyes said he'd prefer she throw herself into a pit of fire and suffer a miserable death. She stood a little straighter and followed Mr. Dobrescu up the stairs. The woman was using Libby's own bedroom, so why should she feel awkward about looking inside? If anyone was the interloper, it was Mirela.

Mr. Dobrescu quietly tapped on the door before opening it. He murmured something in Romanian, then stepped aside to let Libby look into the room. The way he hovered in the doorway, blocking the opening with his arm, made it apparent she was not welcome to go inside.

From his description of his sister's fragility, Libby had expected the woman to be bedridden, but she was fully dressed and perched on the seat of the windowsill.

This girl could
not
be Michael Dobrescu's sister. Impossible. She was too tiny and delicate. With glossy black hair and flawless ivory skin, she looked like a fairy princess.

“Hello,” the girl said with a smile. “Michael said you used to live here?”

Libby did not know how to answer that. The kindness in the girl's eyes made Libby doubt she intended any insult by implying this was no longer the Sawyers' house. “Yes,” Libby stammered. “We are taking an inventory.”

Sheriff Barnes attempted to step inside the room, but Mr. Dobrescu shifted his weight to block him. “You can see everything from where you are,” he growled.

Libby remembered something curious the young boy had said after he opened the door. She looked at the dainty young woman sitting with the poise of a queen in the window seat. “Are you Lady Mirela?” she asked.

Before she had even finished the sentence, Mr. Dobrescu whirled around to face her, spreading his arms across the doorway with a mighty smack and blocking her view of the room. “I told you not to speak to her,” he snapped.

Libby flinched at the ferocity in his voice. Every instinct was screaming to turn and flee, but she could not allow this man to bully her. “That is the second time I have asked someone their name and you tried to take my head off for it. I cringe in terror of what you will do if I dare ask what they had for lunch.” Despite her bravado, the intensity of his stormy blue glare was disconcerting, and she felt herself wilting beneath it.

“Is there anything in that room you require?” It was not a question, it was a demand for her to finish her business and leave. He probably used that tone to intimidate serfs into quivering fear all over Eastern Europe, but rather than turn and flee, Libby stood straighter.

“I would like to meet Lady Mirela,” she said calmly. With a little dip she slipped beneath his outstretched arms and stepped inside her own bedroom.

Lady Mirela was stifling laughter behind her hands. “Oh, you are very brave!” she said. Her blue eyes sparkled with wit and intelligence.

“Very brave or very fool—”

Before she could finish her sentence, the giant barged in and began forcing her backward, but then something amazing happened. The young woman raised her hand and Mr. Dobrescu immediately froze, obeying the girl's wordless command. “She seems harmless enough,” Mirela said. Strange, the girl spoke only a few words, but the note of authority was apparent to everyone. Mr. Dobrescu stepped back to the doorway, almost like a footman obeying a queen.

Libby's gaze traveled over the bedding, the furniture, the surface of her bureau. Her belongings were exactly as she had left them. She pulled open the door of the wardrobe to see her clothing hanging in its proper place, without anything belonging to Lady Mirela tucked inside. There did not seem to be a single personal possession belonging to Lady Mirela in this room at all. In fact . . .

Libby swiveled around to stare at the girl. The white blouse and simple brown skirt Mirela was wearing belonged to Libby.

“I see you have made yourself at home with my clothing,” she said coldly as she looked pointedly at the blouse and skirt.

“These clothes belong to you?” Lady Mirela looked crushed, and Libby felt like she had just stepped on a butterfly. “I'm so sorry,” the girl stammered. “I have no clothes except the dress I fled in and it needed to be washed.”

Libby gasped as two hands clamped around her waist. In a mighty heave Mr. Dobrescu hoisted her into the air and spun her around as he carried her from the room. So tightly did he clasp her, Libby could not even draw a breath.

“I told you not to speak with her,” Dobrescu snapped. He kicked the bedroom door shut, then tossed Libby back on her feet. The hallway whirled and she braced her hand against the wall to regain her balance.

“How dare you,” she sputtered, tugging her vest back to a decent position.

“You hold yourself out as some sort of lady,” Mr. Dobrescu said. “I do not like treating women in such a disrespectful manner, but I am not sure about you, Miss Liberty Sawyer. You dress like a man and you act like an idiot.”

It was the wrong word to use. “I am
not
an idiot.”

“You come into a man's home and you . . . you . . .” It appeared he was struggling with the language and getting madder as he could not think of the English term. A flush darkened his face and his teeth clenched as he fought to find the right words. Finally, he landed on a term. “You
tamper
with my family in front of my very eyes? You insult my sister in our home? Yes, that makes you an idiot, Miss Sawyer.”

Sheriff Barnes stepped in between them. “Pipe down, Dobrescu,” he ordered. “You are to keep your hands and your opinion of Miss Sawyer to yourself. I am determined to get this inventory taken and the two of you to cooperate while we do it.”

“Let me help you,” Mr. Dobrescu bit out as he continued to glower at her. “Take her out to the nearest lake and throw her in to see if she floats. Except I think she might like it.”

Libby narrowed her eyes. “What I would like,” she said acidly, “is to have an exorcism to rid my house of a passel of gypsies.”

He blanched. She expected the insult to roll off his tough exterior, but the way he recoiled at her comment was unmistakable. He drew a steadying breath and spoke in a low tone. “I accept your label of me and my men,” he said slowly, “but I will not allow you to insult my children or Mirela. They are innocent, but I fear they may suffer for what I have done. Already I have seen the neighborhood children poking fun at the shirts my boys wear. I know they look strange to American eyes, but I cannot afford to buy them new clothing, and I will not allow you to cast more insults their way. This is what you do when you call them gypsies.”

Libby felt her mouth go dry. Never in her life had she been cruel to a child, yet she had just lashed out and indiscriminately struck at the entire Dobrescu family. She dropped her chin, unable to continue looking at the pain in this strange man's eyes. Despite his atrocious manners and many obvious flaws, he cared for his family.

“I apologize for my comment,” she said on a shaky breath. “Your sister is welcome to wear my clothes if she has none of her own. And I should not have insulted your children. I am sorry.” Her hand was trembling as she adjusted her shirt, still askew from his rough handling.

Mr. Dobrescu nodded, but his face remained grim. “Very well, then. We will take an inventory of this house so you may know we have no ill will toward your belongings. Then I want you out of here.”

They moved in stony silence from room to room as Libby noted which items should be sent to her brother's house for safekeeping. Mr. Dobrescu hovered behind her the entire time. Surely the Visigoths who sacked the Roman Empire were more charming than Mr. Dobrescu.

Libby breathed a sigh of relief when the door of her home closed behind her.

T
he most splendid home in the entire village of Colden, Massachusetts, belonged to Jasper and Regina Sawyer, purchased with the fruits of Jasper's tireless work at the only bank in this prosperous village. Sitting on a solid acre near the town square, the home featured a wraparound front porch and leaded-glass windows imported all the way from Italy. Regina had a wonderful garden that had been called the “Pearl of Colden,” although Libby privately thought of it as the “Pearl of five gardeners, two landscape architects, and one hefty bank account.” Regardless, Jasper's home was a lovely place to stay until the Dobrescus could be extracted from her house on Winslow Street.

Curled into a white wicker chair, she found the idyllic garden was a balm to her battered spirit as she recounted her disastrous morning to her father and Mr. Auckland. “All of them speak English, but they seem very different from us.” Libby stared at a hummingbird flitting among the delphiniums as she tried to pin down what made Michael Dobrescu seem like he stormed out of another century. It wasn't his appearance as much as his comportment. Or lack of it.

“Their clothing was clean, but strange,” she continued. “The men wore tailored coats, but they were made of leather.”

“Gypsies,” her father said scornfully, but Mr. Auckland was not so dismissive.

“A good leather jacket can last for generations,” the old librarian said. “My grandfather fought in the Revolution, and I still have the leather coat that served him well for three years in the back country.”

Mr. Dobrescu's coat looked like it had lasted through three years of target practice, but Libby held her tongue, for as usual, Mr. Auckland was helping to put things in perspective and calm her father's rattled nerves. The town's librarian had been a friend to their family for as long as Libby could remember. It was Mr. Auckland who stood beside her during those painful adolescent years when her father demanded she try harder to learn to read. Convinced that Libby was not applying herself after the teachers and tutors had failed to make headway with her, Professor Sawyer required Libby to sit in the library every day after school and stare at a book for a solid two hours.

Even after all these years, Libby loathed the sight and scent of that library, remembering the discomfort of the hard oak chair and the humiliation of sitting at the front table, where everyone in town could observe her pointless struggle. Plenty of unfortunate people lacked the proper schooling to learn how to read, but that was not Libby's problem. With a college professor for a father and countless tutors, Libby seemed to be uniquely dense. Mr. Auckland was the most patient of all her tutors, but even his lessons failed to train her mind to work properly. Conceding defeat after a year of fruitless struggle, Mr. Auckland began looking the other way while Libby sketched or paged through the art books during that daily ritual of mortification at the public library.

If her father ever knew that Mr. Auckland had permitted her that freedom, he never gave any indication of it. The old librarian had been a godsend during these tense few days since returning from the island. He sat at the garden table, casually eating from a dish of Regina's pickled walnuts and serving as a calming presence while Libby recounted her impressions of the people who had stolen their house.

“What about damage?” her father asked. “With all those children I suppose it is too much to hope the house is still in decent condition.”

Libby shook her head. “The only problem I saw was to the drainboard in the kitchen. Somehow it has been cracked in half.” She had noticed the ruined drainboard just before leaving, but did not want to endanger the tenuous peace she had forged with Mr. Dobrescu by asking about it.

“That drainboard was a solid three inches thick! Those children surely did it. They were probably raised in a barn and have no idea how to comport themselves indoors.”

“That is where you may be wrong, Willard,” Mr. Auckland said. “The old Cossack came from a very fine family in Romania. It stands to reason that his relations would be as well.” Mr. Auckland had an encyclopedic memory and loved nothing more than solving a good mystery. The arrival of the Dobrescu clan had been a source of great fascination for him.

“I remember the old Cossack used to wear a fancy uniform with epaulettes and a sash across his chest,” the librarian said. “It looked like the kind of thing a prince would wear for a grand ceremony, but he did not strike me as a particularly wealthy man. He used his entire yard to plant vegetables. He plowed and harvested the vegetables with his own two hands, all while wearing that silly uniform.”

“Probably just a costume,” her father said. “A prop from a group of traveling actors.”

Libby straightened. “There is a girl among them whom they call Lady Mirela. Do you suppose it means anything?”

Mr. Auckland scratched his head. “I will have to look it up. They certainly have aristocratic titles in Romania, although the old Cossack never bragged about a title.”

“Are there any books in the library that would have records of the old Cossack?” Libby asked. “Immigration records or some kind of genealogy?”

Her father rolled his eyes. “Those kinds of foreign records are not kept in a small town public library,” he said sourly.

Libby's face heated with embarrassment. Despite the countless hours she had endured in that library, the books could be written in ancient Chinese for all she knew, but did her father need to shine a spotlight on the fact?

Mr. Auckland's eyes were kind. “The next time I am in Boston I can make a point of looking at some genealogical books that might keep track of European titles. If Mirela indeed has a title, it may be recorded there.”

Libby perked up. “This is all rather fascinating, isn't it?” she asked, unable to keep the excitement from her tone.

“It would be far more interesting if it did not feature my house as the main attraction,” her father said bitterly as he paged through the technical drawings she had brought out of their home. “Where is the grain engine?” he asked.

“It isn't there?” Libby stared at the stack.

The drafting paper crackled as her father paged through the sketches. “None of them are here. I've looked through this stack twice.”

Libby tried to remember the image of the hall closet as she retrieved the technical drawings. It was when Mr. Dobrescu was getting terribly close and sniffing at her hair in that tasteless manner. She had been ill at ease and perhaps she overlooked some of the drawings.

“I will check the closet when we go with the wagon to collect the larger pieces,” she said.

“I'll bet the vagabonds have stolen them,” her father said. “My designs are priceless.”

Libby made no comment. It was true that her father could earn a small fortune if he could ever bring himself to complete one of his designs. Nothing short of absolute perfection would be tolerated from any product Professor Willard Sawyer would show to the world, and if a design was not impeccable, he banished it to the attic and began work on another. Their home was filled to the rafters with devices and machines that were ninety-eight percent complete. Never once had he actually finished an invention and brought it to the market.

She looked over her father's shoulder as he paged through the designs. “Come to think of it,” she said, “I don't see any of the drawings for your windmill in there either.”

He shot her an annoyed glare. “Be sure to fetch them all next time you return to the house.”

And there would need to be a next time. Her cat disappeared from Jasper's house within a few hours of returning to Colden. Ivan was one of those cats who felt superior to the human race, regarding every resident of Colden with mild contempt, but he seemed to have a preference for prowling around Winslow Street. Libby couldn't quite put her finger on why she liked Ivan so much. Was it because he was despised by most people in the town, but still maintained a puffed-up dignity? For whatever reason, she wanted that cat back, and she was pretty certain she knew where to find him. The Dobrescus may have temporary custody of her home, but she would not allow them to take her cat.

Michael used his discarded shirt to wipe the perspiration from his face and his bare chest before tossing it back on the grass. The afternoon was hot, but it was the best kind of day. His boys were with him, the sun was shining, and he was close to getting the rickety old greenhouse in working order. The glass panels had all been in good condition, and only the frames on the west side were infected with rot. Michael removed the panels, salvaged what he could, and bought lumber to replace the frames damaged beyond repair. The new frames were on a sawhorse where Luke and Andrei were painting them, a scruffy neighborhood cat curled at Luke's feet. His boys had failed to make friends in the neighborhood, but at least they had the cat for company.

Michael smiled and gave thanks to the Lord for the simple splendor of the day. No man who had been scarred by warfare and spent years away from his family would take a day like this for granted. It had been a week since he'd claimed his house, and his plans were unfolding flawlessly. He could not believe his good fortune when he first saw the rickety greenhouse in the backyard of his new house, for he had a small sack of precious seeds from Romania. The greenhouse meant he would be able to get them cultivated much sooner than he'd originally planned.

“Andrei, come help me nail this frame into place,” he said. His older boy set the paintbrush down and came over to help. “I need you to climb on top of the greenhouse and nail it to the rafters from above.”

Andrei's face lit with excitement at the task and he immediately scrambled up the framing like a monkey swinging from a tree.

“Can I climb up too?” Luke asked.

“Not yet, boy. The frame is not strong enough to hold the both of you. You can go up and nail the next one.” Marie would have been horrified to see her boys climb that high, but that was why it was important to have a father. If the boy fell and broke a bone, it would mend and no permanent harm would be done. His boys needed to grow into strong, capable men, and that would not happen if they were never trusted with more than a paintbrush. He lifted the hammer and a handful of nails up to Andrei. “Hold the spare nails in your mouth so you have a good grasp on the first,” he instructed.

Andrei knew what to do and systematically pounded the beam into place with three well-set nails. Michael was about to help Andrei down when the boy looked to the far side of the yard. His mouth opened and the spare nails tumbled to the ground.

“Someone is watching us,” he said in Romanian.

Michael swiveled around. Standing on the other side of the fence that bordered his yard was a man with a patch over one eye, staring at them. Michael did not move. He just lifted his hand up to help Andrei back down to the ground.

“Go back to painting the other posts,” he instructed the boys before walking across the lawn.

“Hello,” he greeted the man with the patch.

“Afternoon.”

“My name is Michael Dobrescu and over there are my boys, Andrei and Luke. We live here now.”

“So I hear.” The man looked a few years older than Michael, though it was hard to tell since the patch covered a large area of his face and he had pulled his hat low over his brow. “I'm Carleton Gallagher. Lived here for about eight years.”

Michael nodded. “I have lived here about eight days.”

The man named Gallagher looked pointedly at the round scar in Michael's bare torso. “Looks like a rifle ball did that.”

Michael touched the wound. “A matchlock musket,” he corrected, then turned to show his back. “It did more damage on the way out.”

When he turned back around, Gallagher was holding up his arm, revealing a stump below the wrist. “A matchlock took my left hand clean off.”

“And your eye?”

“Shrapnel.”

Michael nodded. He glanced around the backyard and up into the windows of the neighboring houses, but there was no one else who could see into the privacy of his yard. He unbuttoned his pants and pushed them down to expose his hip. He turned around to show Gallagher. “That is a burn from a rafter that fell on me when we were raiding an ammunition dump. I would have burned to death if Joseph had not got it off me in time.”