Judith Stacy Read Online Free PDF

beaming in through the heavy drapes, Jana’s room brightened slowly, giving her a good look at the things she’d barely noticed last night in her haste to get into bed.
    She turned in a slow circle, and stopped still in the center of the room.
    Nothing had changed.
    Nothing. Absolutely nothing. All stood exactly as she’d left it fourteen months ago.
    The bed with the pink-and-white coverlet. The cherry furniture. Her dressing table with the carved ivory brush set, the ostrich feather perfume bottles, jars of lotion, powder and creams—all exactly where she left them.
    “Mr. Sayer wouldn’t let us change nothing.”
    Jana turned at the sound of Abbie’s voice. “What?”
    “Not one thing was to be moved. Everything was tobe left exactly as it was.” Abbie rolled her eyes. “And when one of the girls—you remember Rita, don’t you?—when she suggested everything ought to be packed away, Mr. Sayer hit the ceiling.”
    “Brandon became angry?” Jana asked, trying to picture it in her mind. In all their time together, courting and during the three months of their marriage, Jana had seldom heard Brandon raise his voice. She couldn’t ever remember him becoming truly angry.
    “Yes,” Abbie declared, nodding her head. She leaned a little closer. “He fired Rita on the spot.”
    Jana gasped. “He didn’t.”
    “He did.” Abbie nodded once more. “And he wouldn’t let your bed linens be washed, either. Not for the longest time.”
    Jana hardly knew what to make of this. But then, she reminded herself, much about her husband always had been a mystery.
    “I’m glad you’re still here, Abbie,” Jana said, picking up her handbag from the bureau.
    “Thank you, ma’am,” Abbie said, then seeming to sense a change in Jana, stopped her work.
    “You, of all people, understand the reasons I left,” Jana said.
    Abbie nodded. “I do. Yes.”
    “You were a great comfort to me during that time,” Jana said. “I appreciated that.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Abbie replied, frowning slightly, obviously wondering where this conversation was going.
    “You’re employed by Brandon. Everyone here is,” Jana said, waving her hand to indicate the entire house. “But I want to hire you away. I want you to work for me.”
    “But Mrs. Sayer, I do work for you. I’m your personal maid. Everything I do is—”
    “No, you don’t understand,” Jana said. “You’re a good person, Abbie, so I don’t want you to feel your loyalties are divided. I’ll pay your salary myself—confidentially, of course—to you personally. You can have it in addition to whatever Brandon pays you.”
    Jana pulled a wad of money from her handbag and thrust it at Abbie. The maid’s eyes bulged and her mouth sagged open.
    “Take it,” Jana said. “Go on, take it.”
    “But…” Abbie accepted the bills, holding them at arm’s length. “This is too much. Much too much. Mr. Sayer doesn’t pay me near this amount. It’s not right—”
    “Yes, it is,” Jana told her. “You work for me now. All I ask is that you keep this arrangement to yourself. No one is to know, not your family, friends, and certainly not the other servants.”
    “Yes, ma’am, if that’s what you want—”
    “And,” Jana told her, “you are to speak to no one about what you might hear…or see…here in my room.”
    Abbie’s expression darkened. But she nodded in agreement. “Yes, ma’am.”
    Jana sighed with relief. “Thank you, Abbie. Now, I need to dress so I can join Brandon for breakfast.”
    Abbie’s brows rose. “You do?”
    She nodded briskly. “I do.”
    The maid shrugged as if she didn’t understand that either, and set about laying out Jana’s clothes.
    Brandon was already seated at the table, when Jana arrived in the breakfast room. The small, oval room was painted pale yellow and featured windows on two sides to let in the morning sun. The gardens just outside offered a view of blooming flowers and climbing roses.
    Jana paused in the