The Rose of Winslow Street (31 page)

He drew alongside her, caution still shadowing his face. “They are also good roses for perfume,” he said. “The petals are densely packed, so you can get a lot of oil from them.”

She ambled across the path and leaned over one of the Provence specimens and inhaled.
Clinical . . . be clinical about the fragrance
, she warned herself.
Don't allow the panic to set in.
“It has a bit of honey in the scent.” She leaned closer and breathed deeper. So many layers of fragrance here. “It has a clean scent. Very bright.”

“Yes. It will make for a lighter perfume,” Michael said. Normally, when he spoke of blending scents, Michael was full of excitement, but for now he was scrutinizing her as if he expected her to snap at any moment. His concern was understandable, but unnecessary.

She nodded. “I suppose it makes sense to be diversified,” she said. “If a pest takes root in the Gallica roses, perhaps the Provence roses will survive.”

He quirked a brow. “Now you are thinking like a good farmer.”

There was cautious optimism in his tone. What a lion this man had been in defending her all this time, but she could not hide behind his strength forever. He needed to know she was ready to be set free. “That is the plan, Michael.”

They walked through the lush blooms for over an hour. They discovered tea roses in a neighboring field, as well as a strain Mirela had never seen before. Michael said it was a Darius rose, a cultivar originally from China. As the sun sank lower in the sky, the weight of fragrance in the air seemed to get even stronger. With each new cultivar, she sampled the fragrance and tried to dissect the layers of fragrance. She would not allow panic to intrude into these thoughts. A woman destined to grow roses needed to be as clinical and discerning as Michael. She could be happy here. There would be days when darkness would still haunt the edges of her mind, but God had given her all the tools she needed to battle those dark memories.

The early evening sun sent shadows lengthening across the fields when she cast Michael a blinding smile. “I could not be certain until I walked among these fields, but now I know. The roses will be no problem for me, and I think it is time for me to introduce myself to the sisters.”

Michael could scarcely believe it, but the woman known as Mother Alma was still alive. In her eighty-sixth year, she was ill and beginning to fail, but still firmly in charge of the convent.

Turk and the others were waiting outside the gates, as Michael was not certain of the protocol for men or children inside a convent, but the nun who ushered them to this spot seemed to have no quibble with his presence. The young redheaded nun introduced herself as Sister Madeleine. She took their names, asked them to wait in the sparse foyer, and went to inform Mother Alma of their presence. She warned them that the mother was often ailing and might not be able to see them for some time.

“It is so quiet here,” Mirela said. Her voice echoed against the stone floor and unadorned wood walls. They sat on a plain oak bench in the nearly empty foyer of the main building. The only ornamentation was a table with an icon of the Virgin Mary, flanked on either side by small arrangements of freshly cut roses.

They heard Sister Madeleine's return before they could see her. A rapid clatter of footsteps echoed down the halls as she came running toward them. Sister Madeleine was out of breath when she burst into the room. “Mother Alma wishes to see you right away! When I told her a Dobrescu was here to see her, she began to cry. Come quickly!”

Mirela caught her breath and grabbed his hand. He was stunned at the iron strength in her slim hand as she tugged him down the arched hallway in pursuit of Sister Madeleine. They soon came to a rough-hewn door with a tiny cross embellishing the front. Sister Madeleine gave a little tap, then opened the door.

“Your visitors are here,” she said.

The room was dim except for the fading sunlight streaming through an arched window. The room was sparse, with only a single cot and a table in the corner where the light from the window illuminated stacks of papers and open books. An ancient woman sat in a chair before the table, looking at the two of them with joy shining from her face. She started to rise from the chair, but when her gaze locked on Mirela, the strength drained from the old woman and she sank back down again.

Mirela rushed to kneel at the woman's feet. “Mother, I have brought the treasures from the holy convent with me. My uncle kept them safe for you.”

The old nun was trembling as she folded Mirela's hands within her own. “You have Dobrescu eyes,” she said with a wobbly voice. “I have waited so long for this moment, but I always knew you would come someday.”

Michael felt dizzy as he watched the scene playing out before him. Never had he seen Mirela look so radiant as when she knelt at the woman's feet. He could sense the energy flowing between the withered hands and the smooth, unblemished skin of his sister. It was almost as though the old woman was bestowing power on Mirela. Mother Alma murmured a prayer of thanksgiving, and then a traditional Romanian welcome.

The nun's eyes were watery with tears when she turned to look at him. “And who are you?”

Suddenly, the months of traveling in the wilderness weighed down on him. He was exhausted down to his very bones and it was hard to keep standing on his own two feet, but he had accomplished what he had set out to do. He swayed a little and had to reach out for support against the wall. “I am Michael Dobrescu, and this is my sister, Mirela. Constantine was our uncle. We have come a great distance to meet you.”

Despite his fatigue, Michael was filled with a profound sense of well-being. The peace of God's presence surrounded them and he knew his task had been accomplished. The mission that began more than a year ago in a tiny Romanian village was finally fulfilled.

A
ll Libby needed from the general store was a single gallon of paint to complete the repair of the demolished chimney. She wanted to get the paint and hurry home, hopefully avoiding the neighborhood gossip that swirled around her like a plague of locusts whenever she stepped out of the house. Yet the moment she set foot on Main Street she was surrounded by a flurry of covert looks and whispers. Did these people have nothing more fascinating to occupy themselves with than her nonexistent love life? Still, she had to admit that Michael Dobrescu had given them plenty of ammunition. It was not everyday the illegitimate son of a Romanian duke descended into town in such a spectacular fashion, courted the local spinster, and then disappeared just as dramatically.

The store owner, Mr. Robbins, leaned across the counter. “Is that the perfume the Romanian made for you?”

Heat flushed her face. Those three ounces of perfume had been more powerful than a barrel of nitroglycerine to keep the flames of gossip burning. Oddly, it did not bother her that everyone knew of Michael's unusual gift of custom-blended perfume. Every morning, when she opened the bottle and was surrounded by the dazzling fragrance, she could not suppress a helpless grin. “Yes, it is,” she acknowledged.

Rachel Spencer, the prettiest of the young girls at the local school, slid a little closer. She pretended to be inspecting the horse bridles, but Libby heard the telltale sniffing and knew exactly what the girl was doing directly behind her back. Miss Spencer's mother was not so shy. She walked right up to Libby and leaned over her.

“Well, that's a rather nice scent, isn't it?” It was disconcerting when Michael Dobrescu used to follow her about sniffing her hair and her skin, but now complete strangers were doing so as well. She expected Michael's arrival any day, for which she felt a curious sense of anticipation mixed with dread. Would he still feel the same way about her? She could hardly voice her concerns to anyone, as the entire town seemed to be waiting with bated breath for the return of the curious Mr. Dobrescu. People had begun teasingly referring to her as “the duchess,” which was ridiculous, because Michael would never be a duke, and they were not even officially engaged. It was all a bit premature.

Libby nodded to Mrs. Spencer. “Thank you, ma'am.” She paid for the gallon of paint and waited for her change, tapping her toe impatiently as the little bell over the front door heralded another customer. She cringed when she spotted Roger Kraft, the prodigy who'd won first place in a math contest for the entire New England region. If she could collect her change and reach the door without making eye contact with the boy, she might be able to avoid another embarrassing encounter.

But it was not to be.

“Miss Sawyer, Miss Sawyer,” a breathless Roger said as he blocked her exit. “Do you know where they are? Have you heard any news?”

When school opened last week, the teacher showed the students where Kentucky was on the map. He made a great game of charging the older students with graphing out a potential route for the Dobrescu clan, estimating the mileage and the rate of speed, and predicting where the travelers would be on any given day. He even declared that a barrel of cranberry candies was going to the winning team. In the classroom, they hung a map upon which each team moved their tacks to mark where they believed the Dobrescus were. One team estimated that the Dobrescus should have easily completed a roundtrip by now, but Roger insisted they had at least another few days of travel time. She took comfort in Roger's superior mathematical abilities and prayed he was correct in his assessment that Michael was not yet overdue.

“I'm sorry, Roger. It has been a while since I have had a letter, so I can't really tell you where they might be.”

Mr. Auckland had warned her that Michael's letters would get very sporadic as he got farther west. There were no train tracks laid through the Appalachian territory he would be traveling over, and mail delivery would slow to a crawl. Still, it had been almost two weeks since she had heard anything, and it was worrisome.

Roger looked a bit deflated. “Oh. You'll tell me if you hear anything, won't you?”

“You'll be the first to know,” she said wryly.

“Thanks!” He reached inside a glass jar for a string of licorice and put a penny on the counter. “Nice perfume, by the way,” he said as he scampered out the door.

“We are in desperate need of help,” Mother Alma said. “The roses are healthy, but we are overwhelmed during the harvest. Every year a third of our crop is wasted because we can't get the petals distilled fast enough.”

They were sitting on the terrace of the convent's main building overlooking a panoramic view of the rose fields. Michael pondered the problem as he scanned the terrain. Rose petals should enter the distilling process within hours of being picked, and this required a carefully choreographed deployment of laborers. There was no room for error. In Romania, he operated the stills around the clock until the oil had been successfully extracted.

“Constantine taught me how to lay out the fields for the most efficient use of irrigation,” Mother Alma said from her chair on the terrace. “He provided us with cultivars and recipes for fertilizer. The roses are flourishing, but I don't have enough hands to get the work done. The sisters have other responsibilities that prevent us from making full use of our labor. Last year there was an influenza outbreak during the harvest, and the sisters were busy tending to the sick. We lost more than half the crop. All Constantine could advise for orchestrating the harvest was to have double the normal workforce. In Romania I could do so, but I have never been able to accomplish it here.”

In the previous days, Michael and Mirela learned of the long history between Uncle Constantine and Mother Alma. The elderly nun told them how, in 1835, an earthquake destroyed the buildings of her convent in Romania. The same disaster also ruined their distillation equipment that extracted the rose oil. For centuries, the nuns had supported themselves by selling rose oil, but Alma had no training in engineering, so when their equipment was destroyed, she was helpless to build a new system. Constantine Dobrescu heard of the nuns' dilemma and traveled to their remote convent in the Carpathian Mountains to help them rebuild their distillery. He brought rootstock from the famous Vlaska rose fields to ensure the sisters would have a diversified crop.

“Constantine was a great leader,” Mother Alma said as she sat beside Michael on the terrace. “He taught me how to set goals and inspire others to follow. It is because of him I was able to make this convent thrive.” She nodded to the rose fields, where Sister Madeleine was showing Mirela how the irrigation system worked. Mirela was wearing the simple frock all the sisters wore, and she wore a broad-brimmed straw hat on her head to shield her face from the sun. They had been there for three days, and Mirela had yet to display any anxiety around the roses.

“We have provided free education to hundreds of children,” Mother Alma continued. “We tend the ill and try to inspire the people of this land to live a godly life. My only failure has been that I have not found a woman who has the natural aptitude to lead this convent after I die. I believe your sister has the qualities I have been searching for.”

Michael stood and rested his arms on the railing as he looked at Mirela in the fields. It was true that Mirela was a born leader. She made decisions quickly and decisively. She valued tradition, but was not afraid of change. Never had he seen her so happy as she had been these past few days, but there were other factors to be considered.

“Mirela has an illness,” he said. “I do not know how long she will live after you are gone.”

Mother Alma nodded. “She told me of this. She told me everything that happened to her in Romania and what the doctor has advised her. I do not see any hindrance to her joining us. The course of Mirela's illness is in God's hands. If she is meant to lead the convent, I believe He will make it happen.”

Looking at the bounty of the land before him, it was easy to believe that Mother Alma had been guided by divine providence when she established this convent. This order of holy sisters had been founded by a medieval woman who turned her back on her aristocratic life of privilege. Perhaps it was fitting that a similar woman would follow the same path seven hundred years later to carry on her mission in a new corner of the world. Saint Katerina, Mother Alma, Uncle Constantine . . . and now Mirela Dobrescu. Michael's heart felt like it was swelling inside his chest. How proud he was to have played even a small part in this heritage.

Mirela sensed him looking at her. With one hand bracing the straw hat, she lifted her other arm and sent him a sunny wave, faint traces of her laughter carried on the breeze. Could it be possible that his beautiful sister, who had been raised in a palace and danced with princes in Europe, was destined to live out her remaining years in this secluded convent? It had taken him over a month to get there. Depending on the course of her illness, he might never see her again after he left to return to New England.

And he needed to go back soon. He had promised Libby he would return for her, and already he had been gone longer than planned. Since they began crossing the mountains, only twice had he found a town where he could post a letter to her, and given the sporadic mail system, he could not even be certain those had reached her. He thought of her constantly. When he saw a wild flower, he thought of her. When he smelled wild blackberries in the wind, he remembered her kindness to his boys. He longed to hold her and share the joy of his journey with her.

But when he looked out at the rose fields, so intensely reminiscent of Romania, his soul longed for the familiarity of home. Mother Alma was practically begging him to stay and help her solve the problems with rose oil production. His boys had already made friends with the children of a cheese maker in the nearby town. Turk had informed him that he intended to stay in Kentucky and serve Mirela in whatever capacity she needed.

Most importantly, Enric was no longer a threat to Mirela. Safe behind convent walls, with Mother Alma to vouch for her, no American court would order Mirela back to a sanitarium in Romania.

And that meant Michael was finally free to sell his estate in Romania. The proceeds would be more than enough to buy equipment for making perfume. He could form an alliance with Mother Alma to turn her plain rose oil into magnificent perfume. This land was familiar to his boys, and they would thrive here with other children who did not find their rural ways so strange. If he stayed, he could help Mirela as she transitioned into this completely new way of life.

It would be so easy to stay in this bucolic paradise. Really, there was nothing to stop him.