Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Two Years Later
Jack was reviewing ticket sales for the sold-out amphitheater when a disturbance near the parking lot caught his attention. He opened the office window in Reid’s Roost Tavern and strained to hear. It sounded like Alice was having a run-in with someone.
He dropped the clipboard to hurry outside.
Two dozen vendors were setting up for the county’s Apple Blossom Festival that would begin in a few hours.
Was one of them giving Alice a hard time?
She’d been working her tush off for weeks to get this festival organized, and anyone who wanted to speak to her disrespectfully would have to go through Jack first.
He rounded the bend in front of the amphitheater, which would host thousands of people to watch tonight’s country music concert.
The parking lot was straight ahead, where vendors were setting up ice cream trucks, hot dog stands, and all manner of tents where locals would sell art and baked goods.
Competition for a coveted vendor slot had been fierce this year, and it looked like someone without a vendor’s badge had slipped in and was trying to set up a table.
Alice faced the tall, silver-haired man, her cheeks flushed with frustration.
It was Grayson Chadwick, Alice’s father. Ever since he and Alice married eighteen months ago, Jack had been trying to get along with Grayson, but it hadn’t been easy.
“Dad, we’ve sold all the vendor slots, and you can’t sell your book here.”
“Why not?” Grayson barked. “You’ve got three thousand people showing up today, and I’m happy to sell autographed copies of my memoir.”
Retirement didn’t sit well with Grayson. He’d recently published a memoir reflecting on his years as a diplomat and was now setting out neat stacks of books on the table as Maude brought over a box of pens.
Jack stepped forward. “Vendor permits cost two hundred dollars for the day, and they sold out last month. You can’t set up a table.”
Grayson reached into his back pocket and thrust a form at Jack. “There’s my permit.”
A glance at the document showed the free pass Alice issued to her brother so Quentin could gather donations to create a waterfowl rescue center.
It didn’t seem right to charge Quentin a dime for setting up a table.
First of all, Quentin was simply the nicest guy he’d ever met.
Secondly, Jack and Alice owned the Roost and the amphitheater, so they got to set the rules and charge whatever they wanted.
He pulled Alice aside to speak in a low voice. “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in letting your dad piggyback on Quentin’s table, but this is your call.”
He would step in front of a speeding train to make Alice happy, but sometimes that meant yielding to her parents’ quirks.
In the last two years, Jack had established an excellent relationship with his stepmother and two half-sisters, but bonding with Alice’s family was a lot tougher.
Aside from Quentin, they were a fierce lot, but then again, he was nobody’s pushover, so he was learning a reluctant respect for this unconventional family.
In the few moments since they’d taken their eyes off Grayson, Alice’s parents had set finished setting up their card table and draped it with patriotic bunting.
Maude wore a wide-brimmed straw hat trimmed with red, white, and blue flowers, but still managed to look like a hard-bitten general about to storm the beaches at Normandy.
She set out baskets filled with branded bookmarks, mousepads, and candy meant to lure people to the table.
Jack and Alice headed to their table, where Alice handed the vendor form back to her dad. “It’s okay if you want to share the table with Quentin, provided he doesn’t mind. Where is he?”
“He didn’t come,” Maude said. “I set his donation box out if anyone wants to give something to his silly bird refuge.”
“Why isn’t he here?” Alice asked, bewilderment on her face, but Maude only scowled.
“He’s back at home, prostrate with grief and wallowing in it like a tragic poet dying for love. He’s barely eating; no wonder he looks so terrible.”
“Oh dear,” Alice said, her voice heavy with concern. “This is about a woman? I didn’t realize he was seeing anyone again.”
“He’s not. It’s the same old girl,” Grayson said. “He should have gotten over her years ago, but no . . . like an animal that can’t resist ripping a scab off its wound, he keeps watching out for her from afar.”
“When did all this happen?” Alice asked Maude.
“Last week.” Maude leaned forward and whispered quietly to Alice. “He blames your father. He says he’s leaving the country and won’t speak to us.”
Alice grabbed a cheap paper fan from Maude’s basket of freebies and began fanning herself as she met his gaze.
“Let’s head to the Roost,” she said, and Jack guided her toward the tavern. It was cool inside, thanks to the raised ceilings and artfully concealed air-conditioning ducts. In a few hours the festival would begin and the taproom would be standing-room only, but at the moment it was empty.
Reid’s Roost had been open for a year now, and was wildly popular among people willing to pay top prices for the tavern’s historic character.
He had commissioned a master artisan to carve a custom bar from rich, dark oak that perfectly matched the timeworn hues of the original Roost. They served craft beer from local breweries and fine Virginia wines.
The tavern still had the original diamond-paned windows and the immense fireplace that was almost large enough to stand in.
Their footsteps thudded on the old reclaimed floorboards as they headed to the bar. “What’s going on with Quentin?” Jack asked once they were seated on two of the barstools.
Alice kept fanning herself. “He had a great, epic love affair while he was in college, but she left him and he’s never gotten over her.
Something must have happened to dredge it all up again.
I’ll send my parents home with a chicken pot pie for him.
It’s Quentin’s favorite and maybe it will tempt him to eat. ”
Alice baked that pot pie this morning because it was Jack’s favorite, too.
He cradled her hand, knowing how spoiled he was to be showered with Alice’s cooking, baking, and affection every day of his life.
If the chicken pot pie might encourage Quentin to eat something, great.
Wallowing in an old love affair ten years after the fact seemed a little extreme even for a man of Quentin’s soft heart, but Jack wasn’t in a position to judge.
Alice had become the foundation of his life, his partner in all things, and the woman whose kindness and cleverness enriched every day of his life.
He couldn’t imagine a life without her in it.
His gaze strayed to the portrait of William Reid Denby and his wife that had been hung in a place of honor above the fireplace.
Reid lived here at the Roost for a decade without Helga.
He had nothing to remember her by except a disguised portrait and her name cleverly scratched into the upstairs window glass.
Alice had been able to give Reid and Helga the dignity of restoring their portrait to its original state.
A specialist carefully chipped away the gaudy clothes to reveal magnificently tailored Puritan clothing beneath.
Now the world would see Reid wearing a charcoal wool suit with a high-collared doublet and tall leather boots.
Helga’s gown was fashioned from silvery gray fabric softened by a crisp, intricate lace collar that framed her face like delicate frost, her sleeves puffed gently at the wrists.
The gown was stark in its simplicity, yet lovely all the same.
One surprise the restoration expert found was the Denby signet ring on Reid’s hand. It had been painted over to protect his identity, but now was proudly revealed once again.
Voices from outside indicated that the first of the festival goers had arrived.
Most were headed straight to the row of vendors, but a woman with two teenaged children wandered into the tavern.
Their T-shirts from Colonial Williamsburg were a sure sign they were tourists, but Jack gladly welcomed all-comers.
“Is this where they filmed The King’s Redemption?” the mother asked.
Alice hopped down from the barstool and led them to one of the diamond-paned windows. “The outdoor scenes were filmed in the yard right outside this window. The inside scenes were done on a reproduction set over in England.”
The King’s Redemption had just aired its third season, and the flight of William Reid Denby had been incorporated into the plot.
Alice had served as the historical consultant to the scriptwriters, and the production company filmed several of the outdoor scenes right here in Virginia, prominently featuring the exterior shots of Reid’s Roost. He and Alice watched from a distance as they filmed a totally pointless scene of the bare-chested actor portraying Reid as he chopped wood outside the front door.
“Stop drooling,” Jack had whispered to Alice during the filming.
It was a gratuitous scene to ratchet the actor into heartthrob status, and it had worked.
“Was Sebastian Bell ever here?” the teenaged daughter asked.
Alice shook her head. “Sebastian Bell’s scenes were all filmed on location in England because Charles II never came to America.” She leaned toward the girl with a conspiratorial whisper. “I hope that’s not a spoiler.”
“I don’t know much about history, but I like Sebastian Bell.”
“Who doesn’t?” Alice teased as she flashed Jack a wink.
“I don’t,” he replied in a mock growl, even though he had no doubts about where Alice’s heart lay.
By all accounts, Sebastian had remained clean and sober, and still had lavishly kind words about Alice whenever people asked about the curious scandal a few years ago.
Given the success of the third season of The King’s Redemption, a fourth season looked likely, and this one would include the arrival of Helga in America.
The tourists wandered around the interior of the tavern and took a few pictures standing before the portrait.
It was a reproduction painting because Alice insisted the original be kept in the museum, but this was a perfect replica and it seemed fitting to hang it in the house where Reid and Helga once lived.
Alice’s plan to use the tavern to inspire a love of history had succeeded beyond all their expectations.
So far, it had hosted eight weddings, three academic symposia, and thirty thousand tourists who learned the love story of two political refugees who found a new home in the early years of Virginia.
The group of tourists moved toward the bar. “Do you think they were happy here?” the mother asked Alice, who shrugged.
“We haven’t been able to find anything they wrote, but I’d like to think they were. Helga gave up a lot to follow her husband here.”
Jack gazed at the wedding portrait. Rather than the happy smiles typical of today’s portraiture, Reid and Helga’s expressions were solemn, a reflection of their staunch character in a time when it was dangerous to practice their faith.
The year this portrait was painted marked the start of the long and bloody English Civil War and they could have no idea of the trials they would face in the years ahead.
Marriage entailed sticking together for better or for worse.
Reid and Helga had a whole lot of worse, and yet, they endured.
Helga never got her child; Reid lost his inheritance and lived his final years in exile.
Had they been happy? It was impossible to know, but Jack had found happiness here.
As for the legend of Saint Helga’s Spring .
. . Jack never believed in superstitious claptrap, but he couldn’t entirely discount it, either.
He was healthier and happier than he’d ever been.
In October, he and Alice would welcome their first child—a boy they would name William Reid, in honor of the man who had built the Roost so many centuries ago.
Without the Roost, he and Alice never would have met or fallen in love.
The old place had held on through centuries of war and ruin, storms and abandonment.
Now it stood strong once again—full of life and laughter.
It was a haven for him and Alice, where the past was honored and the future was an adventure they would build together.