Family of the Heart Read Online Free PDF Page B

been accepted in this position as a nanny in Cincinnati. They thought she was still visiting Judith in Pittsburgh. And when they learned what she’d done…Oh, they would be so worried. And she didn’t want to cause them more distress. They were already concerned for her.
    Sarah blinked away a rush of tears, walked to the windows and closed the shutters on the deepening shadow of the coming night. How she hated the dark! She shivered and started toward her bedroom, listening to the light pad of her footsteps, the soft rustle of her long skirts. The quietness, the solitude pressed in on her. She stopped, fought for the breath being squeezed from her lungs by a familiar cold hand. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t face the long night with nothing to do, with no weapon with which to hold off the memories. She cast a glance at the sleeping toddler, hurried to the door and slipped out into the hall. There must be a library, or study, or someplace in this house where she could find a book to read.
    Sarah hurried to the stairs, lifted the front of her skirts and started down. Light shone out of an open door on the left side of the small entrance hall below. She paused. The room was only a few feet from the bottom of the stairs, and she had a strong intuition it was Clayton Bainbridge’s study. Would he hear her? She had no doubt it would anger him to find her snooping about his house in search of reading material. Of course, if she asked his permission there was no need for such clandestine measures.
    Sarah descended the last few steps and marched over to rap on the frame of the open door. “Excuse me for interrupting, but—” She stopped, scanned the empty room. It was Clayton Bainbridge’s study all right. Blueprints littered a table. Papers with mathematical equations on them covered his desk with some sort of reference book open beside them. More books were stacked helter-skelter on the thick beam that formed the mantel on the stone fireplace. Her hands itched to straighten them. Instead, she turned back to the hall. The drawing room, where she had been interviewed, was on the opposite side, door open, lamps aglow, inviting one in to its comfort—unless one was a servant, of course.
    Sarah shook her head, turned and walked down the hall toward the rear of the house, retracing the way she had taken that morning. What a strange position she had placed herself in. Whoever had heard of a wealthy, socially elite servant? Perhaps if she wrote of it in an amusing vein to her parents, they would be less concerned with her decision to accept this post. Surely they would understand she had to get away from all the reminders of her loss.
    She halted, glanced at the dining room, now dark and uninviting. But candlelight poured through an open door on her left, tempted her into the yet unexplored room. She paused just inside the door, ready to apologize for intruding and make a hasty retreat. But this room, too, was empty.
    She relaxed and looked around, admiring the room’s slate-green plastered walls, the deep mustard color of the woodwork and window shutters. An old, one-drawer table holding a flaming candle in a large pewter candlestick and a family Bible snuggled into the recess created by the fireplace. A framed needlepoint sampler hung on the wall above the table. Two tapestry-covered chairs sided a settee with a candlestand at one end. She moved to her right, stepped around a tea table and entered a large alcove lined with shelves of books. In its center stood a pedestal game table with a game of Draughts displayed on its surface.
    Sarah smiled, slid one of the pieces forward on the board, moved it back to its starting place. How Mary and James loved to challenge and bait each other while playing Draughts—while doing anything. Her younger sister and brother were fiercely competitive. Who was mediating their clashes of wills now that she was gone from home?
    A sound of footsteps startled her from her reverie. The door in