The Rose of Winslow Street

© 2012 by Dorothy Mays

Published by Bethany House Publishers

11400 Hampshire Avenue South

Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

www.bethanyhouse.com

Bethany House Publishers is a division of

Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

Ebook edition created 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-6993-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Jennifer Parker

Cover photography by Mike Habermann Photography, LLC

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

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Epilogue

Discussion Questions

About the Author

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Back Cover

Colden, Massachusetts, 1879

T
he stately houses of Winslow Street looked utterly safe and respectable in the hot summer evening. Mikhail knew all that was about to change.

He surveyed the neighborhood through the carriage window's narrow opening. Immense sycamore trees sheltered the homes, with only the chattering of a few sparrows to break the tranquility of the evening. A trickle of perspiration slid down the side of Mikhail's face and his fist tightened around the club on his belt. Beside him, Lady Mirela remained rigid as the carriage bumped and rolled over the gently worn cobblestones. Everything about this neighborhood spoke of wealth, stability, and decorum. It hardly looked like a place for the pitched battle that was about to occur.

On the opposite bench, his two boys were playing a game of thumb-wrestling, oblivious to the turmoil roiling inside Mikhail, for he had always sheltered the children from the danger and uncertainty that was so much a part of his world. His gaze flicked to Turk. The man's bulk could barely fit inside the tight confines of the carriage. The wooden box cradled in Turk's ham-sized fists looked ridiculously delicate, but the contents of that box were too precious to be jostled with the rest of the family's belongings piled atop the lumbering carriage. The only ornamentation on the box was the elegant brass hinges that held the lid securely closed. Nothing about its plain appearance hinted at the priceless vials stored within.

The carriage slowed to a halt and Andrei looked up eagerly. “Are we here?” he asked, excitement brimming in the twelve-year-old's eyes. Did the boy's voice crack just a bit? It was the second time Mikhail had noticed that husky tone breaking through the childish voice, indicating his son was on the verge of becoming a man. Normally, Mikhail's heart would have swelled with pride at the symbol of his son's impending manhood, but not this evening.

“Yes, we are here,” Mikhail said, forcing his voice to remain calm as he gazed at a stately house, looming three stories tall in the gathering darkness. An elegant wrought-iron fence surrounded the property, but there was no lock on the gate. Embellished with fancy scrolls and spindly bars, the fence was for decoration, not protection. Such a useless gate spoke volumes about the sense of security these people took for granted. His mouth thinned and years of training urged him to wrap his hand around the revolver tucked in his pocket, but he stifled the impulse. Tonight called for clear-headed courage, not brute force. He looked at Andrei. “I want you to stay in the carriage and look out for Lady Mirela. Is that clear?”

Andrei would probably rather look after a hive of bees than stay with the ominously silent woman who accompanied them, but Mikhail gave the boy no choice. “Okay,” Andrei finally said.

Mikhail locked eyes with Turk, the only other person in the carriage who understood the magnitude of what they were up against this evening. “Guard the box,” he said to Turk as he twisted the handle of the carriage. “I will take only Joseph with me. There is no need for too much manpower on our first approach. Tonight, we will rely on the law to get what we want. Force is our last resort,” he said as he stepped down into the street.

The green, woodsy scent of hawthorn trees surrounded him as he emerged from the carriage. It was a good omen, yes? A place that smelled this fine would surely be a safe place to bring his family to live.

The carriage springs creaked and groaned as Joseph climbed down from the driver's seat. Mikhail and Turk were both large men, but Joseph was a giant. Like Mikhail, Joseph wore a coat constructed of battle-worn leather and heavy boots that were just as rugged. Beneath their coats were knives and loaded pistols, and Mikhail carried the same blunt battle stick that had served him through two wars in the Balkans.

“Let me do all the talking,” Mikhail said as they strode up the path leading to the silent house. Reaching through the useless gate, he unlatched the double doors to stare at his home. It was so much more impressive than it appeared in the faded photograph he'd carried with him all these years. The grainy picture could not capture the dramatic contrast between the red bricks and the crisp white trim, nor did it show the beauty of the three stained-glass windows gracing the top story of the house. There were no lights burning behind the windows, and the long evening shadows meant it would be dark inside the house.

Mikhail's and Joseph's boots thudded on the wooden planking as they mounted the steps of the porch. Mikhail slid to a window and peered through the delicate lace draperies that did nothing to shield the interior of the house from prying eyes. He would have to fix that once the house was his, but he could not be concerned with such trivialities now. The well-being of his entire family depended upon the next few minutes, and Mikhail's eyes narrowed as he peered inside.

His breath caught, and he could not believe his good fortune. Dustcovers draped the furniture, making the pieces look like ghosts in the vacant room. The fireplace was closed off with a wooden screen, and there was no sign of life inside the home. Relief surged through Mikhail as he made the sign of the cross over the front of his body.

“Slip around back and make sure no servants are home,” he whispered to Joseph. Mikhail stepped away from the window, noting the spider's web stretching across the upper corner of the front doorframe. By the time Joseph returned, Mikhail was confident that the house had been vacant for some time.

“No one home,” Joseph said quietly. “The house looks closed up for summer.”

Mikhail removed a stiletto from his boot and began working the lock. “Then the house is ours. Go get the others.”

At another time he might have been more careful with the task. He could have picked the lock, but he needed to get his family and the precious wooden box inside quickly. With a turn of his wrist he wrenched the lock from its moorings and pulled it free. A musty odor seeped from the house the moment he opened the door, but that did not stop the rush of triumph that flooded his veins as he stepped inside.

He turned to watch for the others and his heart swelled at the sight of his son helping Lady Mirela from the carriage. Mirela was not the easiest person to deal with, but his son was behaving exactly like a man should as he held his hand out to the fragile young woman descending from the carriage. His younger son was not so cautious. Lucca took a flying leap down from the carriage, tumbling to the grass on his hands and knees, but springing up with a huge grin as he was liberated from the tight confines of the carriage they had been riding in since leaving Boston. Mikhail squatted down to catch his son as Lucca came flying into his arms.

“Is this our new house?” he asked, gaping through the open front door.

“This is our
home
,” Mikhail said with conviction. He set Lucca down and stood to watch Turk step carefully up the pathway, holding the wooden box as gingerly as if it were made of eggshells. Everyone was exhausted from eleven months of travel. They had traveled over the war-torn lands of the Balkans and endured weeks of misery as they crossed the Mediterranean Sea and finally the mighty Atlantic Ocean. These last few days traveling overland should have been the easiest part of the journey, but knowledge about the pending encounter kept Mikhail on edge. Now that he had taken the house so easily, half the battle had been won.

He looked Lady Mirela directly in her eyes and winced at the anxiety lurking within them. “Never again will we be driven from our land or fear marauders in the night. I will defend this home with my life. You will be safe here.”

Mirela did not respond, just stood in that listless manner of hers, her deep blue eyes looking decades older than her paltry nineteen years.

“Can we go inside?” Lucca's childish voice asked.

It would soon be dark and they needed to get moved in as fast as possible. “You and Andrei go find a bedroom for the pair of you. And one for Lady Mirela as well.”

Both boys scampered inside, racing up the wooden staircase that graced the front hallway. Mikhail would give his right arm if he could siphon off just a tiny fraction of their energy into Mirela's vacant spirit, but perhaps it was still too early for her. Repairing something that had been shattered into a thousand pieces would take time, but patience was not Mikhail's strong suit. If his children needed food, he would kill a stag and drag it home. If his family was cold, he would chop down a tree for wood to warm them, but the dragon tormenting Mirela could not be conquered so easily.

Mikhail's boots clomped loudly against the parquet floors as he walked into the parlor. He pulled a sheet from a high-back chair, the whisper of fabric slicing through the quiet. Dust motes swirled in the air as he tugged another sheet from a table.

Whoever lived here had strange taste. The mismatched furniture and curious portrait above the fireplace were testament to that. The oil painting showed a thin, balding man with a fringe of wild gray hair who was staring straight out of the frame. In one hand the man held a strange contraption of disks and wheels—a gyroscope? Mikhail had heard of gyroscopes but never seen one. The wobbling disks and wheels were used for measuring momentum, but how strange to hold one in a portrait. The man's owlish eyes seemed to glow with delight as he held the gyroscope aloft and stared straight out of the portrait. Possibly the oddest picture Mikhail had ever seen.

The walls were painted a curious shade of pale green and covered with strange contraptions: an oversized compass, an assortment of maps, and something that looked like a mechanical fan.

Turk stood in the doorway, holding the small box in his mighty hands. “Turk, get that box inside and find a safe place to secure it. Stand guard over it and don't leave it for a second. Joseph and I will unload the baggage.”

Three trunks, four satchels, and a single cherrywood box holding four glass vials. Aside from the house he had just claimed, these items amounted to all Mikhail had left in the world. The muscles of his shoulders bunched as he hauled a trunk from the top of the carriage. With a mighty heave he hoisted the trunk over his shoulder, shifting its weight so it sat more securely.

No, these were
not
all his worldly goods. Mikhail grinned as he trudged through the ridiculous gate, carrying his burden. The most precious things in his universe had just scampered up those steps along with Lady Mirela, who was now a part of their unconventional family. He had always liked Mirela, and now that she was under his care, he was determined to see no future tragedy would ever tarnish her luminous spirit.

As the others carried the last of the baggage inside, Mikhail stood on the porch gazing at the broadleaf trees that surrounded his house and shaded the street. The trees were some form of hawthorn, but he had never seen that precise shape of leaf. So many things were different here in America. For one thing, in Romania he would have to chop all these trees down. It was impossible to protect a house from invaders who could skulk behind a profusion of leafy foliage and wide trunks of the trees.

A movement caught his attention. The drapes in the house across the street had just moved. The fabric pulled to the side and the curious face of an elderly woman peeked out at him. Remaining motionless, Mikhail scanned the windows in the other houses up and down the street. Only the old woman behind the drapes and a man trimming a hedge two doors down were watching him. Mikhail forced himself to relax as he adopted a negligent pose and leaned against the doorframe. He smiled and nodded at the woman, as though he had every right in the world to claim this house.

Which he did. The legal documents carefully stitched into the lining of his jacket were proof of that, and soon everyone on Winslow Street would know it. Now that they were safely in America, he would ask Lady Mirela to remove the stitching so he could have the papers ready.

When Mikhail entered the house again, he wished he had not been so hasty when he destroyed the lock on the front door. That would need to be repaired in short order. He closed the door and hauled a heavy walnut table in front of the doorway to provide a barrier overnight, then followed the sound of voices to the back of the house, where Joseph and Turk were in the kitchen. The spacious room was lined with cheerful yellow tile and white enamel equipment that stood in sharp contrast to the battle-ax, club, two hunting knives, and double-barreled shotgun his men had laid on the kitchen table.

“Where is the box?” Mikhail asked.

Without a word, Turk opened a cupboard to reveal the cherrywood box stored safely out of sight.

“We'll take turns standing guard overnight,” Mikhail said. “The neighbors have already noticed we are here.”

The second half of the battle would begin tomorrow, and Mikhail was under no illusions it would go as easily as the first.