Free Until the Dawn by Elizabeth Camden

ma’am, it takes more than a caterpillar to alarm me.” No man who had allowed his leg to be broken, rebroken, and submitted his body to a live vivisection ought to be squeamish about such a thing. “Just toss it aside,” he said grimly.
    She carried it to a cluster of wildflowers and set it on the ground. “It’s a monarch caterpillar,” she said as she rejoined him at the portico. “They eat milkweeds, so he will be fine over there. I always love watching the caterpillars go through their transformation every year. They are truly a miracle of nature.”
    They were a pest and annoyance, especially when they dropped on unsuspecting people without provocation, but Sophie seemed to have an endless supply of patience and goodwill. Perhaps he could put that cheerful nature to good use.
    “Can you tell me what causes thunder?” he asked.
    “It’s an acoustic shock caused when air gets superheated by a burst of lightning. Why?”
    “I was curious about what you’d say.”
    Pieter liked Sophie. She was soft edges and soothing tones and radiant warmth. Pieter was accustomed to rejecting anything Quentin had to say about science and the rational world, but what if the message came from Sophie?
    For the first time since arriving at the mansion, a smile curved his mouth. Sophie might be good for Pieter. And Quentin would be willing to put up with her teeth-grating cheerfulness if she could help ease Pieter into a more logical frame of mind. It would be a challenge, but he’d pay her a fortune if she would do it.
    “Aside from letting the government take appalling advantage of you, what else do you do with your time?” he asked.
    The question seemed to hurt her feelings. She looked away and fiddled with the lace at her cuff. “I help at the hotel.”
    “What would it take to get you to agree to be our cook for the next few weeks?”
    A flash of exhilaration lit her eyes, but it was quickly masked. “Well, I’ve never cooked for money before . . .”
    That surprised him. She seemed so competent he’d assumed she must have worked in her father’s hotel.
    “I need more than a cook,” he admitted. “I’ve decided my son would benefit from a course in meteorology, and I’d like you to teach him. Show him the scientific method. How you gather data and pass it on to scientists who use it for research. I’ll pay a great deal in exchange for such tutoring.”
    “You want to pay me to be nice to your son? I’d do it for free.”
    For such an intelligent woman, her repeated willingness tolet people take advantage of her was exasperating. “I don’t like to be obligated to people. I would prefer to set a salary.”
    “You’d want me here every day?”
    “Every day. I will tolerate no superstition. If my son inquires about fairies or goblins, or God or Jesus, I want you to squash the discussion.”
    “You lump God and Jesus in with fairies and goblins?”
    “Yes,” he said bluntly, hoping she wasn’t going to be one of those tedious religious types. “If something cannot be experienced by one of the five senses, it is not real. I won’t have my son instructed in anything else.”
    “Are you . . . ?” Her face flushed and she lowered her voice, so soft he had to lean in to hear. “Are you an atheist?” she whispered.
    She sounded so appalled she might have been asking if he carried bubonic plague. “Yes, Miss van Riijn, I am an atheist. Or as I prefer to think of myself, a free thinker. An intelligent man unfettered by the chains of folklore, superstition, and oppression.”
    She pondered the words as she scanned the meadow before the house. “I’ve always felt my faith liberated rather than oppressed me. Knowing there is a kingdom of God has been very reassuring. I can’t imagine what it must be like to believe we are alone in the world.” Sophie looked at him with a bit of humor in her eyes. “No wonder you’re so grouchy.”
    The laughter began deep in his chest, but he masked it as a cough