“It’s about Birgit,” she interrupted, politely but firmly. “It’s about your daughter.”
This was enough to halt whatever he’d been prepared to say next. Concern flashed in his eyes. “Please explain.”
Only I saw the way Molly’s chest rose, as if she was taking in a breath for courage but also trying to hide it. I thought of her earlier today, her hand trembling in mine, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. It’s too late for me.
I’d tried to prove to her that it wasn’t; that nothing changed the way I felt about her. If anything, I loved her even more, not because her story inspired me to protect her and heal her, but because it had allowed me a glimpse of the incalculable strength of her mind, the diamond-hard quintessence of her soul. It allowed me to see a Molly that I saw rarely—a woman both fragile and fierce, brilliant and yet so impossibly ignorant about herself.
I love you, I thought fervently, trying to send that thought to her, to strengthen her.
And maybe it worked. She let go of the breath she’d held and answered in that same calm but firm voice. “When I first met Birgit, I asked her to consider me a friend. After all, we are both very similar—we were both raised by fathers after our mothers had died. Our fathers were both prosperous businessman. And both of us were deeply loved by these fathers.”
Molly had said the right thing. Van der Sant’s irritation melted somewhat, and he nodded.
She went on. “In addition,
I wanted to extend my protection to her. Birgit is very beautiful and very young and very…untouched. I’m sad to say that I know from personal experience that a man within my own company is drawn to such girls. I worried that Birgit would capture his eye, and I wanted to make sure that he couldn’t bring any harm to her, as he has to me and others. Unfortunately, she came to me this morning to tell me that he has threatened her with the most appalling of arrangements. That she must surrender herself to him or he will publicly slander her reputation. He has told her that if she doesn’t comply with his wishes then he’ll convince you that she’s been dishonest and unchaste.”
“That’s a very concerning allegation,” van der Sant said after a pause.
“I know it is,” she agreed. “And it probably seems unlikely. Outlandish even. Which is why I am not asking you to believe me without proof.” She indicated the corner of the room, where a narrow door was set into the wall, a remnant from a century ago, when this building had been a family house. There was a heavy table placed against it to discourage use, and indeed, it looked like no one had touched it in decades, but a door it remained, and it allowed eavesdropping, provided you pressed your ear to the seam and listened closely.
Van der Sant seemed to grasp Molly’s meaning right away. Color rose up his neck, anger and horror and disbelief. “Are you—is my daughter behind that door?”
His anger didn’t faze Molly. “She will be shortly. The room adjoining us belongs to Frederick Cunningham.”
“Mr. Cunningham,” he said. “He’s the man you were referring to?”
“Yes.”
Van der Sant’s mouth opened and closed at this new piece of information. Molly forged on. “I can understand why you are angry. Why this situation infuriates you. But before you vent your rage on me and before you storm into the next room, I want you to know that Birgit sincerely believes that you would not put faith in her if she came to you. Your own daughter, who adores you and has never given you any reason to doubt her, still thinks that you do not love and trust her enough to believe her story.”
Van der Sant’s neck grew redder, as did his cheeks and ears. “That’s preposterous,” he said, his voice growing louder. “My daughter knows she has my full trust. She should have come to me and not a…strange woman!”
“Think,” Molly ordered. “Would you really? If your daughter came to you and claimed something so heinous about a man you had chosen to do business with? What would you really think?”
Van der Sant seemed ready to yell again, but he didn’t. He met Molly’s eyes instead, his gaze blazing full of indignation, his jaw working as if he were picking precisely the right words to say. But Molly didn’t blink or look away.
“There’s nothing to be gained from lying to yourself,” she said, a bit sternly. “You’re a hard man, Mr. van der Sant. A good man, maybe, but a hard one. Even to your daughter.”
He stared at Molly for another minute, the red slowly receding from his cheeks. He finally dropped his eyes to the floor. “That’s possibly not untrue.” The concession cost him visible effort.
Encouraged, Molly stepped even closer. “Will you please allow us to prove Birgit’s innocence? So we can extract her from this terrible situation?”
Van der Sant was clearly torn. The plan seemed so reckless and terrible at first—even I had felt that way—but under the surface, Castor and Molly had planned for every eventuality. I listened as she explained to him that Castor’s men were shadowing Cunningham until he came to his room, that Castor’s most trusted servant was escorting Birgit here to ensure that she remained safe until she reached her destination. And once both Cunningham and Birgit entered, we would be able to hear through the door if Birgit cried for help, in which circumstance, Castor’s men would break into the room and rescue her.
After the explanations were complete, van der Sant found a chair and sat down, rubbing at his forehead. It was the only fissure in his perfect self-control that I could see, but I suspected that with a man like him, the smallest ripple in his disciplined mien signaled tremendous turbulence underneath.
“I am still troubled that my daughter did not come to me first,” he said, but there was less recrimination in his voice now, less superiority. “But I suppose I understand why she felt she could not.”
Three light knocks on the door. The signal that Cunningham was inside his room. By some unspoken cue, we all quieted, even van der Sant, who seemed as if he still had more he wanted to say.
Not five minutes later, there were four knocks at the door. Birgit was now in the lion’s den.
It made me sick.
Even though Castor and I had been so careful, even though every angle had been thought through to achieve both our goals—keeping Birgit safe and extricating her from Cunningham’s trap without endangering her relationship with her father—it still felt wrong. Wrong and despicable, to let her alone in a room with a man like him.
Van der Sant was standing with his ear pressed against the seam, as was Castor and Julian, but Silas had found his way to me in the middle of the room, where I stood wondering if I should go over there. Silas’s hand slipped in mine, something van der Sant would probably find deeply inappropriate if he were watching, which he wasn’t.
