Chapter 12
I never found Nin again that day.
Honestly, I didn’t expect to, seeing how he’d disappeared on me before.
Our conversation rattled me so much that I hurried to get back inside the manor, confused and paranoid.
But if I was worried Voss might somehow know that I’d been walking in the garden alone, he gave no indication that he did, not in his mood—which was cheerful, if distracted—and not in his words.
In fact, he insisted that I meet him in the foyer near the Artemis and Apollo statues in lieu of coming to his quarters for his morning vitals check the next day. He had a surprise for me.
So after a restless night of bizarre dreams, I readied myself the next morning and slipped downstairs by way of the servants’ stairs for a quick breakfast. I’d finally sealed and addressed my letter to Sister Helen, so I’d brought that along to drop into the mail collection box outside.
But when I finished breakfast and headed back into the foyer, Voss was already waiting for me.
Instead of wearing hunting clothes, he was dressed in an elegant blue greatcoat, no barking hounds. “Nurse Molly,” he called out to me as I approached. “I’ve got the coachman waiting for us outside. Will you do me the honor of accompanying me into town?”
Leave the manor?!
Well, that was a surprise. I’d spent a good deal of my restless night rehashing everything Nin had told me in the greenhouse, and I wasn’t exactly sure I believed everything he’d said, but my gut said he wasn’t a threat to me.
Were my instincts wrong? Because if I could leave the estate, I wasn’t a prisoner like he claimed. “I’d love to go,” I said, and then remembered my letter to Sister Helen. “Oh! Would it be okay if I mailed a letter in town?”
“Of course, my dear,” he said, gesturing for me to follow him through the front doors. “We’ll swing by the post office.”
The relief I felt was so potent, I felt my shoulders relaxing. The mail service could be counted on to deliver through rain, sleet, or snow. If I could just be patient, Sister Helen would receive my letter, be sufficiently shocked by its contents, and send someone out here.
Thank you, Mammy, I thought with renewed hope as I followed Voss to the waiting carriage with its black steeds. I knew you’d help me any way you could.
The coachman did not look up from the reins when we approached.
Sun was already clearing away the morning fog as Voss held my gloved hand to help me into the back of the carriage, like I was a proper lady.
He took the bench seat opposite mine. When he knocked on the carriage wall, the four black steeds began pulling us forward, down the pebble driveway.
Mr. Hoffmann stood at the big black gates, tipping his hat to us as he held one gate open. The obelisk border circled the front of the house, so much closer to the manor here.
I held my breath as we approached the gates, a quick flash of fear making my fingers grip the edge of the bench cushion. A moment later, I felt warmth on my hand and was surprised when I looked down to find Voss’s bare hand resting atop my glove.
A gentleman didn’t touch a lady without asking.
Then again, I wasn’t much of a lady.
“Why are you worried?” he asked, his face open and eager. “I hope you’re not thinking about that poacher we spotted at the goat pasture. Rest assured, when you’re with me, nothing can happen.”
As he said this, the carriage neared the front gates.
Voss’s hand pressed down harder on mine, and as I tried to pull away, he slipped his free hand into the pocket of his greatcoat.
And quite suddenly, I became irrationally afraid of…
what, I didn’t know. I thought I might’ve been afraid because Nin had told me to fear the aegis border.
The carriage passed through the big gates. Then, a few moments later, it crossed the border of stone obelisks.
An ache pounded inside my neck. The same ache that I’d felt the first night in the manor.
Oh, I really began to panic then, and I tugged harder under Voss’s aggressive grip. But just as quickly as the ache had begun, it halted.
Nothing.
No pain—had I imagined it? Wanted to feel it?
It didn’t matter anyway, because the carriage rolled forward.
There was nothing remarkable about the aegis border nor the gates.
No danger in sight. The horses merely picked up speed as we headed down the path I’d originally taken with Mr. Hoffmann to get to Riverbend Manor.
I wasn’t a prisoner here.
Had Nin been wrong, or was he lying to me?
I didn’t know the answer. But even though everything seemed to be fine now, and my anxiety was waning, when Voss finally released his grip and tried to pat my hand, I quickly squirmed away, making an excuse about not sleeping well.
“Of course, my dear. I’m sorry if I scared you with that grip of death—I was feeling quite nauseated. It happens now and then with my illness, you know?”
I did know. My mother had been sick more hours in the day than she’d been well at the end. Was he being sincere in this, in his apology? I wanted to believe he was. “Are you all right now?” I asked. “Do we need to return and get my medical bag? I may have something that can help.”
He shook his head. “No, it never lasts too long, and I am fine now. Again, I do apologize.”
“No apology necessary,” I said, and he gave me a smile.
I tried to return it as best I could. In my head, however, I couldn’t get away from persistent thoughts about Nin’s warnings in the greenhouse, and as much as I wanted to believe him, here I was, proving some of what he’d told me wrong.
I wasn’t a prisoner. I could leave the manor.
Suddenly the letter to Sister Helen inside my shawl began to feel heavy. Maybe I shouldn’t send it just yet. I didn’t have any proof, and I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. Maybe I could find a way to test Voss about other things Nin had told me.
Unfortunately, that proved difficult during our drive into town, because now that the master had recovered from his bout of nausea, his mood warmed considerably.
He cheerfully chatted nonstop, eager to point out various sights along the way.
His property line. The rental tenants that lived in cottages and worked his farmland.
A Dutch church. He told me about his trips overseas to Amsterdam and how different the countryside looked there.
On and on he went. By the time we were rolling down Tarrytown’s main street, I felt drained from all his talking.
“And here we are,” he said, rapping on the wall behind him to signal the coachman.
Finally!
The carriage came to a stop in front of a butter-yellow building with a pretty, gabled roof and a covered porch. The painted sign above the porch read Tarrytown General Store.
Voss helped me out of the carriage, and I immediately felt conspicuous when I noticed suspicious stares from passersby. They were staring at Voss and his big, fancy carriage—gawking like it was the devil’s fiery chariot. Or maybe just the coach of the richest man in town, I told myself.
“Miss O’Rinn, come,” he called to me as he climbed three steps onto the porch of the general store, and when I caught up to him, he opened the door for me while two gossiping busybodies in patched gowns whispered nearby.
I did my best to ignore the attention and stepped into the shop.
Scents of cedar and freshly ground coffee filled my nostrils.
The shop was bustling with patrons who crowded the long, narrow space, shopping for goods beneath woven baskets and wooden sleds that dangled from chunky rafter beams above.
Women in big bustles browsed bolts of calico fabric on offer at a glass counter to my right as morning light streamed in through the windows.
A longer counter stretched the length of the opposite wall, and behind it, shelves were lined to the ceiling with canned goods, tools, guns, cigarettes, and a little medicine.
The store was marvelously alive, and my heart swelled like a castaway’s upon returning to civilization. I had to stop myself from dropping down to kiss the floorboards.
“Busiest place in town,” Voss grumbled as his eyes slid around the lively shop.
Then he turned to me, expression brightening, and said, “I need to pick up my order, but I thought you might want to browse. If there’s anything you require, I will gladly buy it for you.
Just let me know. You’re in my employ, and I want to make sure you’re comfortable at Riverbend Manor. ”
“That’s very kind, sir,” I said, a little surprised. Maybe he was under the spell of the busy shop too, despite his grumbling.
He smiled at me before something caught his eye on one of several small, round tables in the middle of the shop between the two long counters. “Look! New drops…”
A table filled with Dutch “Kandies,” as the small sign said.
I didn’t recognize any of the sweets, not the small waffles filled with caramel, hard candies with herbal scents, nor the “drops” that excited Voss.
However, when he helped himself to a candy from a big jar filled with black, jellied cubes, I recognized the scent well enough.
“Licorice,” I said, turning up my nose.
“You don’t like licorice?” He gasped, as if I’d said I didn’t like living. “You’ve never had Dutch licorice, then. Here, please…”
“No, that’s all right, I don’t—”
“Nonsense.” He held a black square up to my mouth, which felt like an impropriety, especially when I slid my eyes to nearby patrons who were watching us.
Had I taken sweets out of a shop’s candy barrel back in the city and eaten it without paying, I’d have been smacked in the face and held for the police; I guess when you’re rich, you can do whatever you’d please.
But despite everything inside me recoiling from the awful scent of black licorice and his fingers grazing my lips, I opened my mouth and accepted his gift.