The Rose of Winslow Street (5 page)

“Don't think I will go easy on you just because you are a woman,” he said. “I have a legal right to this house and I will not move my family from it.”

“That is for the court to decide,” the sheriff said coolly beside her. “Miss Sawyer will identify items she wishes brought from the house until the court renders its decision.”

The giant nodded. “This seems fair,” he said, and pulled back to hold the door open for her. “I am Michael Dobrescu, and I apologize for speaking harshly to you. But do not talk to my children or my sister when I am not here,” he said and held his hand out. Libby thought he meant to shake her hand, but when she extended it, he bowed low and brought it to his lips.

She snatched her hand back. Well
that
was a European practice she was not accustomed to. She was thrown off guard and twisted her hand where his lips had touched. She stepped inside the house, and Mr. Dobrescu followed just inches behind. “I will be watching you the entire time,” he warned.

“Afraid I might steal some of my own belongings?” She scanned the foyer, but it did not look as though it had been ransacked. Her father's coat was hanging where it belonged, the pencil-sharpening machine on the hallway table was unmolested, the draperies were still neatly hung. She marched inside the house to take an inventory as quickly as possible, but then froze in her tracks.

“My painting,” she breathed. There, hanging above the mantel in a place of honor, was her painting of the amaryllis in full bloom. The burnt sienna petals of the flower were wholly unfurled, looking almost too heavy for the elegant stalk that supported the outrageous display of flowering blooms. She took a step forward, mesmerized by the sight of her painting hung on a wall for all to see.

“You own this picture?” the man asked.

“I
painted
that picture.”

“I don't believe it,” he scoffed. “You are a woman.”

Libby whirled around to look at him, but he was utterly serious. “I have been painting since I was six years old. My hand and my eyes are as good as any man's.”

If she'd said a donkey had painted the picture, he could not have looked more surprised. It was comical, actually, but a smile spread across the man's wide face. “My family and I have admired the paintings we have found in this house. Never would I have imagined they were done by a woman. This seems very strange to me.”

Without warning, he grabbed her hand and tugged her across the room. “Come, there is something I must ask you.” His huge legs strode into the study in a few strides, while she had to scurry to keep up with him. To her amazement, he dropped to his knees and slid out a stack of her botanical paintings where she had stashed them under the sofa. He peeled a few back until he found the one he was looking for.

“Here,” he said with a big finger pointing to the plant. “What is the English word for this plant?”

“A squash?”

“Squash?” he echoed. “Do you know where I can find some squash in America? I find this is the only vegetable my children will eat.”

Was he making fun of her? She had come to protect her belongings from a bunch of marauding gypsies, and here he was asking her where he could get vegetables for his children. It was a bit disconcerting, but she would not let him throw her off guard.

“You could ask Mr. Turner down the street if any of his summer squash is ripe yet. He has a greenhouse and it's possible he has some that is ready for harvest.”

His brows lowered. “A man should not feed his children by begging for food. Do you think these neighbors might share some shoots with me? I can grow squash.”

Did he really think he would be in this house long enough to plant and cultivate summer vegetables? “I don't know,” she hedged. “You will have to ask them.”

Mr. Dobrescu pointed to the florid canary-yellow bloom and then the fat green vegetable that was depicted along the base of the plant. “Why did you paint the male blooms at the same time the female blooms are bearing fruit? It makes the picture very interesting, but this rarely happens in real life.”

In all the years she had been painting, no one had ever asked her that particular question. Most people did not even know that squash plants had such a thing as male and female blooms, but he was entirely correct. Both blooms rarely appeared at the same time as the plant was throwing off mature vegetables, simply because the male blooms dropped off earlier in the season. “Botanical illustrators often draw a plant at both the reproductive stage and at the mature stage,” she explained. “It is important to show the seeds, the bud, and the blooms. I always show the face and reverse of the leaves. One of my favorite things about painting is researching the plant before I begin. . . .”

She was rambling, and people always got bored when she started talking too much about painting. She caught herself and craned her neck to look up at Mr. Dobrescu, but he appeared completely engrossed in what she was saying.

This was ridiculous. She was there to collect her belongings, not provide this crude man with a lesson in botanical illustration. “I will take those paintings with me,” she said as she reached out for the stack he had slid from beneath the sofa. Had he found the others she kept behind the bookshelf in her bedroom and in the hallway closet? Her father had always said it would be too vain to hang her own paintings, so she kept them stashed away in the nooks and crannies of the house.

Sheriff Barnes was standing in the arched doorway. “Will you carry these to the carriage for me?” she asked him. “There are others I need to collect.”

“Naturally.”

After passing off the paintings, she strode down the hallway to the closet where the others were stored. Mr. Dobrescu followed her. “Why do you dress like a man?” he asked.

That made her pause. She glanced down at her smart little suit, the one that always made her feel so sharp. “I don't dress like a man,” she denied. “I dress in a clean and respectable manner.” His comment hurt, but she would not retaliate. It would be unkind to comment on the battered leather pants he wore or the strange shirts of his children that fell almost to their knees.

“No, you definitely dress like a man,” he said. “And your hair is so tightly bound . . . like you don't want anyone to see it. All of this looks very mannish to me.”

She could not let him keep insulting her. Long ago she'd learned that if she did not stand up for herself, the belittling could go on endlessly. “So, you don't like my name and you don't like the way I dress or wear my hair. Mr. Dobrescu, is there anything pleasant you can say about me?”

He considered the question. Was it her imagination, or did he just sway slightly closer to her? He closed his eyes and he appeared lost in thought, as though he was struggling very hard to come up with something nice to say. At last, he raised his eyes to hers.

“I like the way your hair smells.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “My hair?” she repeated stupidly.

“Yes.” He leaned forward again and breathed deeply. She took a step back, but the brute followed, sniffing at her in a vulgar display of poor comportment. “I like this scent very much,” he said. “What does it come from?”

“Soap.” She washed her hair with the same soap she used on the rest of her body. Libby wondered if he was making fun of her or if this was his attempt at polite conversation. If so, he was a spectacular failure.

“Could you tell me where I might purchase it?” he asked. “Too many soaps smell like roses, and my sister does not care for the scent of roses. Where did you get this soap?”

She had gotten a whole box of it from Regina, who had ordered it from France. It was obscenely expensive, and when it arrived, Regina decided she did not care for it after all and had given the whole box to Libby. “My sister-in-law purchased it. I'm not sure precisely where she got it.”

“Ah. Too bad,” he said.

She turned into the hallway closet and found another set of her botanical paintings safely stored on the top shelf. When she reached for them, Mr. Dobrescu stepped in front of her and pulled them down for her.

“Thank you,” she murmured, wishing he would not be polite. Accepting his help felt like treason, and he was still standing oddly close to her. And the way he was leaning down . . . He was sniffing her again! She took a step backward and breathed a sigh of relief when Sheriff Barnes returned. She did not feel safe with Mr. Dobrescu's odd fascination with her hair.

“Sheriff Barnes, will you help me with these drawings?” she asked.

“Of course.”

The next two shelves were filled with technical drawings she had done for her father. Most of these were from projects he had been working on several years ago: a machine for threshing hay, a design for a self-propelling fan, even a sophisticated version of an alcohol still. All of them were passed into Sheriff Barnes's waiting arms.

Although the retrieval of her paintings and technical drawings had gone smoothly, the atmosphere changed the moment she tried to go upstairs and inspect the bedrooms.

“Why must you go into the bedrooms?” Mr. Dobrescu demanded. “Just write down what you need and I will get it for you.” He walked over to her father's desk and withdrew a sheet of paper and a pencil. He held them out to her.

She felt her body heating up and glanced away. “I need to see the rooms,” she said. “I can't be expected to remember everything in each room.”

It was a lie. Libby's memory was flawless. She could remember the location of every stitch of clothing, where each can had been placed in the pantry, but she would eat dirt before confessing to this crude barbarian why she could not write down the items she wanted retrieved.

Sheriff Barnes came to her rescue. “She has a right to inspect the rooms,” he said. “We are here to verify the condition of the house and everything inside it. This is for your own protection as well as theirs, Dobrescu. We need to go room to room.”

Mr. Dobrescu looked ready to spit nails. “My sister is in the back bedroom upstairs. She is not well and I will not tolerate you invading her privacy.”

“Then tell her to prepare for a brief visit. I want a visual inspection of every room in this house,” Sheriff Barnes said with calm confidence. “I'm sure your sister will find this easier if you cooperate. It would be distressing for her if I had to bring in a half-dozen deputies to assist in the inspection.”

Libby's gaze tracked back and forth between the two men, so starkly different. Mr. Dobrescu was a blunt, forthright man who stood more than a foot taller than the young sheriff. But Sheriff Barnes was being quite clever. He was watching and observing Mr. Dobrescu and altering his approach as he gathered more information. Mr. Dobrescu seemed unusually protective of his family, and the sheriff had chosen a clever tactic by implying the trauma that would come along with a retinue of deputies. She was grateful the sheriff was on her side.

Mr. Dobrescu locked eyes with the sheriff, looking angry enough to bite an iron bar in half. At last, he caved. “Turk! Joseph!” he barked. Two men as large as Mr. Dobrescu entered the room. Libby felt dwarfed, a field mouse amidst lumbering bison. Surely her mother's dainty imported furniture would crack under the weight of these monsters. A stream of foreign babble flew between the men. One man moved into position right in front of her, while the other went to stand in front of a cabinet in the parlor. Before he took up position, the brute picked up a shotgun and held it in his arms while he stood guard in front of the cabinet.

“There is no need for a weapon,” Sheriff Barnes cautioned.

“This is my house and my rules,” Mr. Dobrescu growled. “Stay here while I speak with my sister.” He vaulted up the staircase three steps at a time, causing the glass in the windowpanes to rattle with each pound of his booted feet. She heard every thud as he stalked down the hallway, but the knock on the bedroom door was unexpectedly gentle. “Mirela?” he said softly, surprising Libby with the tenderness embodied in that simple word.

Libby tried not to fidget in the foyer as she was scrutinized by the two mammoth guards. How odd to feel like an invader in her own home. It made her nervous to look at the one in the parlor with the shotgun, so she turned her attention to the man standing directly in front of her, guarding the base of the stairs. He was staring at her without the least trace of embarrassment, but the scrutiny was unbearable.

“Do you speak English?” she blurted out.

“Of course.” And the man's huge face broke into a smile revealing remarkably white teeth. “My name is Raghib, but everyone calls me Turk.”

The man spoke beautiful English and somehow that set her at ease. “Why do they call you Turk?”

“Because I am Turkish.”

She glanced at Sheriff Barnes, then back at the huge guard. “I thought you were all from Romania.”

“Heaven forbid. Have you ever tasted the slop they call food in Romania?” He did not wait for an answer. “I ran into Michael during the Russo-Turkish war when I was wounded behind the lines,” the giant continued. “Michael should have shot me on the spot, because we were fighting for opposite sides, but it didn't work out that way. He stitched up my gut and we have been together ever since. See?” He lifted the corner of his shirt to reveal a hairy belly with a ropy, twisting scar stretching across it.

Libby's eyes widened. She was too young to remember much about the American Civil War, but the casual way Turk tossed off the story made the grisly effects of combat shockingly vivid. Still, she was intrigued.

“Why didn't he shoot you? Isn't it treason to help the enemy?”

“I was wearing this,” Turk said, holding a large silver cross hanging from a chain around his neck. “My mother raised me to follow the Lord, but sometimes it can be hard to be a Christian where I am from. I switched sides and have been with Michael ever since.”