The Rose of Winslow Street (8 page)

He cast a dark look at the boys. “Have you touched any of the drawings that are in this house?”

Both boys shook their heads. “You told us to leave them alone, Papa,” Andrei said.

Mr. Dobrescu looked back at her. “It is true I told them not to touch any of the art. I do not believe they would have done so. If you would like, I will go room to room in search of these drawings for you.”

He was standing in front of her, hands on his hips and looking her directly in the eyes. There was no hesitation or prevarication in his voice. She had the sense that he would be willing to dismantle the house board by board in search of the drawings if she asked him to.

Libby shook her head. “I have already searched quite thoroughly.” Every drawer, cubbyhole, closet, and wardrobe had been opened. She had looked beneath every item of furniture where she sometimes stashed the larger pieces. The drawings were not there.

“What are the drawings of? If we see them, we will contact you.”

“The most important drawings are of a combustion engine,” Libby said. “But there are also some missing drawings of a windmill and a greenhouse. The greenhouse has a unique ventilation system on the roof.”

Mr. Dobrescu's face brightened. “Like the greenhouse in the backyard?” At her nod, his grin widened. “I wondered what that strange device on the roof was for. So your father designed this greenhouse himself?”

“Yes, it was quite brilliant.” Some of Libby's fondest memories were in that greenhouse, but after Mama's death the greenhouse had fallen into disrepair. Two years ago Libby had suggested renovating it, but her father had no interest.

“Can you explain how this ventilation system works?” Mr. Dobrescu asked. “I could not get the metal door to open and it is getting very warm inside.”

“You have been inside?” she asked in surprise.

“It was one of the first things we did,” Michael said. “It took some work, but we have it back in operation.”

Libby was stunned. With each passing year she had despaired as she saw the paint curl away from the beams and wood rot infect the posts. Dirt and algae spread across the glass panes until they were completely opaque. What had once been a sparkling gem where her mother reigned in a botanical paradise had morphed into a dingy, sad hulk of a memory.

“Show me!” Libby said.

Michael grinned and sprinted up the front porch steps, through the door, and back toward the kitchen. Libby scrambled to keep up as he led the way through the house and into the backyard, where her eyes filled with wonder.

It was magnificent! Gone were the rotting wood support beams. Freshly painted white panes reached upward, completing the original gothic design of the greenhouse. Glass panels sparkled in the sunlight and Libby felt as if she had just stepped back in time. She walked to the door and stepped inside.

When her mother was alive, this space was filled with flowers in gorgeous hand-thrown pots and ceramic planters. Jasmine and hyacinth had perfumed the air, and from the beams her mother had hung small stained-glass panels that had tinted the light with shades of amber and crimson. Today there were only plain wooden planting frames filled with dirt, sitting on the ground. It was a basic, homespun sight, but that did not lessen the thrill. The warm, loamy scent of freshly turned soil meant that the greenhouse was once again being used to nurture plants to life.

“If I did not see it with my own eyes, I would not believe it,” Libby said. But she was elated. Just being able to walk inside a functioning greenhouse felt like an old friendship had been restored. She dropped to her knees to inspect the planting frames. “Have you already planted something?”

“Night-blooming jasmine,” he said. “I brought the seeds with me from Romania.”

“We have night-blooming jasmine here in America,” she said. “My mother had a bush she kept in the corner of the greenhouse.”

“Not like these plants,” Mr. Dobrescu said. “This is a very rare strain that my father developed. I was lucky to be able to get as many seeds as I did before we had to fl . . . before we left,” he said. His eyes flicked upward. “Do you know how to get the metal door on that ventilation system open? I have tried, but it seems permanently shut.”

Libby smiled. Her father had calibrated the design to automatically open and close depending upon the temperature, but trying to describe the interior workings of the mechanism without showing him was difficult. “If you fetch the ladder from the storage shed, we can climb up and I will show you how it works.”

He appeared surprised by the suggestion. “But you are a woman!”

“I can still climb a ladder. I've crawled atop this greenhouse many times over the years to keep the panels clear of debris.”

It was comical how torn he appeared. He desperately wanted to understand how to operate the ventilation system, but he clearly disapproved of her climbing a ladder. A charming notion of gallantry, but antiquated. She looked out the greenhouse door to the older boy. “Will you fetch the ladder from the shed in the back corner?” she asked.

The boy nodded and took big loping steps toward the shed at the back of the yard. With his light brown hair and broad shoulders, he looked like a miniature version of his father. It was hard to guess the boy's age, but he now seemed older than she'd originally thought.

“Is it my imagination,” she asked, “or is that boy a little larger than he was just last week?”

Mr. Dobrescu's chest swelled with pride. “Andrei grows like an oak tree shaking free of an acorn. I have seen enough food disappear down that boy's throat to feed a whole platoon of soldiers.” The grin on his face was pure satisfaction.

Andrei struggled to hold the rickety shed door open with his foot while maneuvering the ladder through the opening. Several thumps and false starts caused Andrei to set the ladder down and adjust his grip. She was on the verge of offering to help, but Mr. Dobrescu's hand shot out to stop her. “Let Andrei handle this. He will figure out a way.”

It seemed a little harsh when holding the door open would make the boy's task much easier, but the hand on her elbow held her firmly in place. She was about to tell him that such an action was not considered gentlemanly in America, but when she looked up, she was struck speechless by the expression in Mr. Dobrescu's face as he watched his son. It was a look of such overwhelming love she felt the strength leave her knees. Had she
ever
seen a man look at a child with such unabashed pride? Certainly not her own father. Jasper had been close to the perfect child, but not even he earned such a glowing look of approval from their father. What would it be like to have been the recipient of that sort of bighearted affection?

“I got it, Papa!” Andrei said in a voice that was as excited as it would be if he had just scaled Mount Everest. Mr. Dobrescu had been right not to let her interfere.

“Come and set the ladder over here, son.” Libby moved a few steps to clear a space for the ladder, but as she looked around the area, something was not right. Something was missing. Her gaze tracked to her mother's rose garden, and she found nothing but a freshly churned pile of dirt.

Her heart lurched. The garden that had always been filled with vibrant roses was stripped bare and ugly in its blankness. She felt light-headed as she stared at the spot that had once been so beautiful, so treasured.

“Where are my mother's roses?”

Mr. Dobrescu seemed completely unconcerned as he followed her gaze to the plot of dirt. “We don't like roses,” he said bluntly. “We will plant squash instead.”

Had she heard correctly? Squash? Those roses had won awards all across New England. Each summer they bloomed in a riot of color and fragrance, beckoning memories of sun-filled afternoons with her mother. All that had been destroyed in order to grow
squash
?

“You had no right,” she said weakly. This crude, arrogant man had already invaded her home in the most brazen way imaginable, but she was willing to obediently await the court's decision. While she played by the rules, this barbarian compounded his offense by severing the last remaining link she had to her mother. That thin, gossamer thread of joy she had shared with her mother had been ripped up by its roots and destroyed.

“This isn't your house,”
she said through clenched teeth.

“It is until the court rules otherwise. I do not like roses and will not have them growing on my property.” His voice was implacable. Hateful.

She wanted to strike him. She wanted to find something he loved and ruin it before his very eyes. “In a few weeks the court will throw you out of this house, and you had
no right
to tear out my mother's roses. They were irreplaceable.” Her throat clogged. It was silly to be mourning over some dead roses, but she felt so invaded. This man had stomped into her life and taken over everything.

“Did I do something wrong?” Andrei's young voice sounded troubled. His father looked down and spoke rapidly to him in Romanian. Whatever he said caused the furrow on the boy's forehead to ease. He nodded and went inside the house.

Just because the man loved his children did not make him a good father. Libby looked up and struck where she knew she could do the most damage.

“What a horrible father you are,” she said. “You have moved your children into this house and told them it is theirs. You have asked them to pour their hearts and energy into restoring the property, let them grow attached to this house when
you know
they will be evicted from it soon. What kind of man does that to his own children?” The poison-barb found its mark and Mr. Dobrescu's broad, handsome face blanched at her words, but anger was still roiling inside her. She looked at the blank patch of dirt. “You sow chaos and destruction wherever you go. The worst part of it is that your children will pay the price for your recklessness. While you wreak havoc, they will be left to suffer the consequences. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

She turned on her heel and fled from the yard. She would have to rely on Sheriff Barnes to collect the rest of her belongings, for she was too heartsick to remain at this house.

S
heltered by a screen of fragrant hollyhocks and neatly trimmed yew shrubs, Jasper and Regina's garden was usually a haven for Libby, but she was still shaking from her encounter with Michael Dobrescu as she joined her father and Mr. Auckland at the garden table. It was a hot day and Libby rolled a cool glass of lemonade across her forehead.

“It is clear they are preparing to stay,” she said. “They've already begun planting vegetables and some sort of jasmine he seems to think is highly prized.” As the late afternoon sun lengthened the shadows, she recounted the destruction of her mother's rose garden, although the roses did not bother her father nearly as much as the missing designs. Even Mr. Auckland could not calm his increasing agitation. It was a relief when Jasper joined them at the garden table.

Her brother had gone to St. Catherine's Island to retrieve the prototype of her father's combustion engine. Jasper worked insane hours at the bank and she had felt terrible about asking him to go all the way out to the island to retrieve the engine, but everyone agreed that a complicated project might be the only way to help the professor hang on to his strained nerves. With a heavy clomp, Jasper set a canvas bag on the table. “The portable combustion engine,” he said with a weary sigh as he sank onto the chair.

Libby lifted the engine gingerly from the bag to show Mr. Auckland. “You see how small and clever it is? No one else has ever designed an internal combustion engine so light and portable.”

The old librarian poked at the engine. “Very clever, Willard. If you patent it, you can make a fortune.”

Libby bit her lip. Her father's refusal to patent any of his designs had been at the center of more than one pitched battle between Jasper and the professor. As she feared, Jasper immediately pounced on the opportunity. “It does not matter if the engine is not yet perfect,” he said directly to his father. “Get a patent on this thing so you can protect the design. This has the potential to be very valuable, and you can barely afford to maintain your household based on what the college pays you.”

Libby knew Jasper was right. Every year new technological inventions were coming to market, and her father should be protecting his designs by securing a patent. Just last year she had seen an extraordinary windmill that looked remarkably like her father's design, one of the many designs he'd abandoned when it failed to be perfect.

A shiny projection on the side of the engine caught Libby's eye. “Is that a new exhaust valve?” she asked her father. The distinct metal tube was definitely something that had not been on her drawing from earlier in the summer.

“I just added that a few weeks ago,” Father said. “That valve will keep the engine cooler as it runs, meaning it will require less fuel to operate. There are many things I can still do to improve this engine before I bother with a patent,” he said with a sour look at Jasper. The contemptuous way he said the word
patent
encapsulated her father's entire attitude toward his inventions. He did not work for profit or fame; he was seeking absolute perfection before he would allow anything he produced to be shown to the world. There was always something that could be made lighter, smaller, more efficient. These imperfections were a constant source of aggravation, like a grain of rice within a shoe that chafed until becoming impossible to ignore.

“I will begin a sketch of the improved design this evening,” Libby said, anxious to steer the conversation back to their house on Winslow Street. “Jasper, the Dobrescus have begun modifying the house. Some for the good, some for the bad.”

As she filled him in on the greenhouse and the destruction of their mother's roses, Jasper's mouth thinned with displeasure. “I'll ask the judge to order an injunction against any other modifications,” Jasper said grimly. “Not that it will bring mother's roses back or wipe away the insult that has been done to our family.”

Mr. Auckland straightened in his chair. “If it is any comfort to you, sentiment in the town is squarely on your side,” he said. “The current gossip is that Mr. Dobrescu asked his next-door neighbor to remove her rosebushes, and Mrs. Gallagher took great offense. She planted more roses in retaliation. The Dobrescus have begun keeping chickens in their backyard and have a rooster that is bothering everyone on the street. One night a group of neighborhood children threw eggs at the house.”

“Eggs!” her father sputtered. “Eggs thrown against my house!”

The old librarian held his hands up. “Mr. Dobrescu was out the next morning cleaning up, so there is no damage to the house. Just to his pride.”

It should not bother her. The Dobrescus were interlopers who could not be expected to have the welcome mat rolled out for them by the neighborhood. But eggs in the middle of the night? It was not the sort of thing that made her proud.

“What kind of people are they?” her brother asked. “Chickens and roosters? And Libby's description of the planting frames in the greenhouse sounds more like agricultural cultivation rather than pleasure gardening. Are they some kind of peasants who think they can farm in the middle of a residential neighborhood?”

Mr. Auckland shook his head. “I have made some headway on researching the family, and the more I look, the more interesting it becomes. The Dobrescu name is highly respected in Romania. The line goes back for centuries, and the family has been in control of the duchy of Vlaska since medieval times. The Duke of Vlaska controls a huge swath of the land that borders Bulgaria. It is valuable land that has been fought over for hundreds of years. Sometimes the land is taken by the Russians, sometimes by the Bulgarians. Lately it has been under fierce assault by the Ottomans. Always it has been under control of the Duke of Vlaska, who manages to negotiate with whatever invading power is ascendant.”

Libby was fascinated but unable to reconcile how this mighty aristocratic family could be related to the brazen people who had invaded her home. “Do you think the old Cossack, the one who wore a fancy uniform with medals, might have been related to the duke?”

Mr. Auckland leaned back in his chair, his fingers rubbing his jaw as he contemplated the question. “The old Cossack's name was Constantine Dobrescu. It is a name that appears frequently in the duke's family, but it would be impossible to say based solely on the name.”

One of the complications of Constantine Dobrescu's will was that it named his older brother, Enric Dobrescu, as heir. In the event of Enric's death, the house would descend to Enric's oldest surviving son. A curious codicil to the will explicitly stated, “My house
must
remain in Dobrescu hands. Only a man of the Dobrescu family will know what to do with this house.”

Mr. Auckland confirmed that at the time of the old Cossack's death, the Duke of Vlaska had indeed been named Enric Dobrescu, and his younger brother was named Constantine Dobrescu. Still, such names were common in Romania and they could not jump to conclusions. They would need to do much better research before they could assume any affiliation between the Duke of Vlaska and Michael Dobrescu.

“Perhaps he was a servant in the duke's household,” Jasper said. “He found an old copy of the will among the duke's papers, and rather than being a peasant all his life, he decided to roll the dice and claim the house for himself. If he knew the duke never intended to come to America, there was nothing to stop him.”

Her father's eyes began to gleam. “His name is probably not Dobrescu at all. If I were a betting man, I would say he was a laborer in the duke's household.”

“But what about Lady Mirela?” Libby asked. She stood and began pacing the garden, twisting her hands. “If you think he is a simple servant, how does she fit into this?” Michael Dobrescu seemed oddly protective of Lady Mirela, reluctant to even allow her to have contact with outsiders. Was he shielding her? Or perhaps he was hiding something. Every instinct in her body screamed that Michael Dobrescu was a plainspoken man who was incapable of deception. He seemed too blunt and crude to be related to European aristocracy, but if he was no relation to the duke's family, that meant he was an imposter. Subtlety seemed like an alien concept to Michael Dobrescu, but it was a quality any good liar needed in abundance.

“Lady Mirela is probably a two-bit actress he hired to help him carry off his scheme,” her father said. “He can't fake the polish of an aristocrat, so he brought along someone who can. Simple as that.”

Libby remembered something Mirela had said in that fleeting moment she had been allowed into the girl's room. The girl implied she had only one dress to her name, which undercut the notion she could be a European aristocrat.

Mr. Auckland set a new stack of documents on the table. “I went to the courthouse to see if I could glean any insight into the old Cossack,” he said. “Shortly after he arrived in America, he filed a series of court petitions for a land grant. Apparently there was a convent in the mountains of Romania that had been destroyed in an earthquake. He petitioned the town to grant the holy sisters a plot of free land to reestablish their convent here in Colden. When the town turned him down, he went to the state of Massachusetts to petition for the same thing.”

Her father was studying the papers that Libby assumed were the old Cossack's petition. His voice was mocking as he summarized the form. “It says here he claimed the earthquake was ‘an act of God,' and that it was the sisters' ‘holy destiny' to carry out their mission in America.” Her father tossed the papers down on the table. “Someone ought to have explained the principle of the separation of church and state to the man.”

“Keep reading,” Mr. Auckland said. “Apparently the old Cossack bragged to the court that his brother often granted parcels of land to supplicants who came to him in Romania. That sort of language gives credence to the idea his brother was in fact the Duke of Vlaska.” Mr. Auckland smiled and rubbed his hands together. “I think we need to learn more about the Dobrescu family than our poor local library can provide. I have some contacts at the Harvard library who may be able to help. It will take time, but if these people are related to the Duke of Vlaska, we should be able to unravel this little mystery.”

“This is going to hurt, but I need you to hold still, boy.”

Tears welled in Luke's eyes, but Michael could not stop to provide comfort. Three fat splinters were wedged into the side of Luke's face and they needed to be pulled before the swelling got worse and closed up around them. His fingers were sweating as he pressed the tweezers carefully below the largest splinter, grasped it, and slid it free.

Luke let his breath out in a whoosh. “One down and two to go,” Mirela said as she gave Luke's hand a reassuring squeeze.

Michael was proud of how strong Mirela sounded. The moment the boys came home, bruised and bloodied from a fight with neighborhood children, she had taken charge. She secured the doors of the house, lest the troublemakers return, sent Turk for clean water, and soothed the boys while Michael frantically rummaged through the house looking for medical supplies. Andrei said three of the boys near the end of the street had been picking a fight for days. First had been the egging of their house, then came the taunts about the boys' long shirts. It was the custom in Romania for young boys to wear shirts outside of the pants, almost to the knees. The shirts were too long to tuck into their pants, so his boys had been wearing them as all the children in Romania did.
“Can I borrow your dress? I need something to wear to the ball!”
the Mulholland boy had taken to shouting at his children every time they stepped outside.

Today Andrei had had enough. He was not yet as tall as the Mulholland boy, but Michael had trained both his sons in hand-to-hand combat and Andrei was confident. Andrei toppled the Mulholland boy and was getting the better of him when the other two boys went after Luke, picking him up and throwing him face-first into a wooden fence. Luke's cries were enough to distract Andrei, and they both took a beating before they made their way home.