Until the Dawn by Elizabeth Camden Page A

my grandfather more than I can ever repay, and he’s rarely asked me for anything. I won’t turn him down now.”
    “Perhaps the best way to show your loyalty would be to stop him from making a terrible mistake.”
    He gave a wry smile as he turned back to his notebook. “I’m not sure someone as cheerful as you can ever understand, Miss van Riijn. The people in my family often suffer from fits of melancholia so profound it can become hard to even breathe. My grandfather has dragged me back from the precipice of despair more than once.”
    She looked away, for she did understand grief. When Albert sickened and died, she had been devastated. It was only her faith that kept her anchored in the real world when a part of her wanted to follow Albert into the grave, but Quentin was an atheist. The world was surely darker for someone like him.
    “When my wife died, I was ready to give up,” Quentin continued. “Pieter was a baby, and I had responsibilities, but it didn’t matter to me. Rumors reached my grandfather that I wouldn’t leave my room, that I’d quit bathing, that I neglected Pieter . . . all of which was true, by the way. My grandfather appeared with three tickets to board a steamer to sail to Egypt, convinced that standing at the pyramids could somehow cure me. He said the pyramids were the source of an ancient, mystical energy convergence that might spark healing.”
    “That doesn’t sound very Christian.”
    Quentin’s laughter was so sudden it took her by surprise. “No, my grandfather is not a Christian. Over the years he has dabbled in Buddhism, Shamanism, Transcendentalism, even the rites of the ancient Druids. Utter nonsense, but that’s just the way he is. In any event, he dragged me from bed and put up with my foul temper the entire journey across the Atlantic. And the trip was priceless. Pieter was only a year old, but the three of us saw the desert in all its vast, arid beauty. There is something about baking in that hot sun that started to get through to me, and I was able to finally breathe again.”
    He tossed down his pencil. “Look, my grandfather is a difficult and eccentric old man, but he is the only family I’ve ever known. My parents and older sister were killed in a hotel fire when I was an infant. The only reason I survived was because I was in a different wing of the hotel with the nursery maid. Nickolaas raised me from the cradle. It wasn’t easy, and we rarely get along . . . but he has saved me time and again. And if he wants me to tear down Dierenpark, that is what I will do.”
    The resolve in Quentin’s voice was unshakeable, and appealing to him would be pointless. What she needed to do was figure out why Nickolaas Vandermark wanted the house destroyed, and how was she to do that? The elder Vandermark was a famous world traveler who was rarely in the United States. Pieter had told her only this morning that while living with Nickolaas they’d visited Stonehenge, the Acropolis, and the old Moorish castle guarding the Strait of Gibraltar.
    “Where is your grandfather now?” she asked.
    He shrugged. “I have no idea. Probably off in search of the golden fleece.”
    “Would Mr. Gilroy know? He seems quite knowledgeable about everything and very generous with his time.”
    “So you’ve fallen under Mr. Gilroy’s spell, have you?” Quentinasked, a hint of humor back in his voice. “You’ll need to watch out for that, as Mr. Gilroy is an unabashed spy for my grandfather.”
    She must not have heard him properly. “He’s a what ?”
    “Mr. Gilroy is a spy,” he repeated. “I certainly hope you didn’t share any heartfelt secrets, because if you did, that information is already on my grandfather’s desk.”
    The blood drained from her face, and she felt lightheaded. Oh heavens, she had spilled her heart out to Mr. Gilroy! Everything about her humiliation when she’d fallen for Roger Wilson’s flattery and gifts, and Marten’s betrayal only six days