Jack’s muscles burned as he powered through another set with the dumbbells, his mind growing more annoyed at Alice Chadwick with every rep. What an irony that college professors, who were so vocal about the plight of the working class, had such preconceived notions about them. She thought blue-collar guys didn’t belong on a golf course? Alice was book-smart, but she didn’t understand men or the world outside her elite ivory tower.
And for some unknown reason, it bothered him. She radiated smooth femininity and artful, quick wit. Her soft, cognac-brown eyes stirred something in him he couldn’t shake, and that annoyed him, too.
Before he left Williamsburg, he intended to earn her respect.
Chapter Eight
Alice took Jack up on his offer to let her prowl around the Roost while he worked on the golf course. The less they saw of each other, the better.
She invited Professor Brandon Tilney to accompany her. Brandon was a plant biologist and he shared her love of history. His ability to estimate the age of wood would be priceless in determining when the Roost was built, but when she picked him up for the drive over, she hadn’t realized he wanted to make a stop at the cemetery.
“Do you mind?” he asked as he squeezed into her Prius, holding a gorgeous bouquet of flowers for his wife’s final resting place. “The cemetery is on the way.”
Of course she didn’t mind. The care Brandon gave in selecting each blossom for the weekly bouquet he set on his wife’s grave was a symphony of symbolism. Clara had passed away three years earlier, yet he carried on a conversation with her through the figurative language of each bloom. Every flower that went into Brandon’s arrangements were chosen to tell Clara a story about his week living without her. He used lilies of the valley when he was feeling low, and crocus blooms when his mood turned cheerful again. The leaves of a fern symbolized confidence, while ivy affirmed his hope for meeting her again in eternal life.
“What are those lovely orange flowers?” Alice asked once she turned her car onto the road.
“Nasturtium blossoms,” Brandon replied, one of his fingers touching a ruffled petal. “They represent triumph after a long battle.”
She raised a brow. “You’ve had a triumph?”
“I learned yesterday that my grant application to continue the dendrochronology lab has been funded for an additional two years. I intend to celebrate the victory with Clara.”
“Congratulations!” Alice said, for winning a federal grant was indeed cause to celebrate. It was especially good news for Alice since dendrochronology, the study of tree rings to learn about the past, might pin down the exact age of the Roost. The fire in 1698 that destroyed the Jamestown statehouse wiped out so much history. The assumption was that the Roost was built shortly before the fire, but Alice had found a few scraps of information in the British archives that made her suspect it was much older.
The cemetery was five miles outside of town, and she parked the car near the front gate. The thick, leaden clouds hovering in the sky were gloomy and wistfully beautiful—the perfect backdrop for a graveside visit.
“I shall only be a few minutes,” Brandon said as he left the car with the lovely bouquet.
Brandon’s tall, elegant frame carefully wended through the headstones toward the well-tended grave near the center. Her friendship with Brandon had always been platonic, although if he’d been twenty years younger, she would certainly have been attracted to him.
Actually,mostwomen were attracted to Brandon Tilney. He was fifty-two years old with a lean, angular face offset by intelligent eyes that always glinted with curiosity. There was an air of refinement about him as he sank to one knee and placed the flowers near Clara’s headstone. As always, he wore flawlessly tailored linen slacks and a blazer, but his attire didn’t stop him from plucking a few weeds to tidy Clara’s resting place.
Such gentlemen were rare in today’s era of loose morality and crass humor. When he bowed his head in silent prayer, she glanced away. The moment seemed too intimate to continue staring at him.
“Thank you, Alice,” Brandon said as he squeezed back into the passenger seat of her compact car. His knees barely fit in front of the dashboard, but that didn’t stop his good-natured smile. “Onward to the Roost and untangling your mystery.”
Anxiety took hold as she turned onto the county road that would take them to the Roost. Hopefully, Jack wouldn’t be there. He scared her. There was a raw, masculine edge underlying everything he did and it felt off-putting. He was too loud, too crass, too confident. He’d flash one of his good ol’ boy grins and let fly a tacky joke with no other goal than to attack the foundation of her carefully curated world.
“A shame about these broken limbs,” Brandon said as she drove through the tunnel of apple and pear trees leading to the Roost. Part of her wanted to point out how the damage was compliments of Jack Latimer’s obnoxious service vehicles, butit wouldn’t be ladylike to cast blame. Brandon was always so polished, so genteel, and she wouldn’t sink into the muck to throw dirt on Jack’s character, no matter how satisfying it would be.
“Jack said he’d be out in the field today, so we ought to have the Roost to ourselves.”
Thankfully, there was no sign of Jack’s pickup truck or the vagrant man who lived with him. Tension unknotted from her neck, and she reached into the back seat for her satchel. By the time she retrieved it, Brandon had come around to open her car door. He even offered his hand to help her out. Alice was perfectly capable of getting out of a car on her own, but she still appreciated Brandon’s old-school manners.
The view of the Roost was completely spoiled by ugly pieces of construction equipment scattered about the woods. The bright yellow tractors were a blight and an ominous warning that the Roost’s days were numbered unless Alice could find something extraordinary here.
By the time she and Brandon carried his equipment indoors, fat droplets had begun spattering the ground. Heavier rain would be here soon, and Alice hurried inside the darkened interior of the Roost. She set her satchel beside Brandon’s tools, then twisted the dial on a battery-operated lantern to light up the room.
It looked like Jack and Doc had cleaned up some. No food had been left out, and the lid on the front-porch trash can was secured by a bungee cord. A sleeping bag had been rolled and stored in the corner along with pillows and a blanket.
Brandon opened a large tool case to reveal wicked-looking implements inside. Drills, augers, and a variety of measuring devices.
She set the lantern on the ledge above the massive stone fireplace. “How can I help you get started?”
“Allow me a few minutes to assess each room,” he replied. “This place has had a lot of modifications and additions over the years, so first I need to find the original timber.”
Alice began taking pictures of the interior while Brandon began his survey. The lintel stone over the fireplace drew her, and she pressed her fingers into the curious leafy mark carved into the top corner of the stone. It was the same marking on the old letter from 1672 she’d found in the British archives. She’d reread that letter so many times it was engraved on her heart:
