Moonshadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

gentle, elfin-like creature known simply as Cook came scurrying from the kitchen carrying a silver tray. With plump, rosy cheeks, and the corners of her mouth turning up in a perpetual grin, she could have just stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Finger-waves covered her head and were held in place by a nearly invisible hairnet. She set the tray on the table and cut her eyes in Janet’s direction.
    “Now you set yourself down and eat a proper breakfast, Miss Janet. You’ve hardly had a decent bite since you’ve been here.” She wagged her finger. “Oh, I seen what you left on your plate last night; didn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive.”
    “Thanks,” Janet said, spreading the napkin across her lap. She lifted the lid on a server filled with fluffy scrambled eggs surrounded by thin strips of tender ham. “Looks heavenly.”
    To the side was a plate of flaky biscuits, still steaming. A trio of crystal bowls held jams and jellies made from fruits and berries from the estate grounds. Growing up, Janet had done her part in the canning process. She had peeled more than her share of apples and peaches and picked many a basket of blackberries. Cook saw to it that nothing at Heather Down was ever wasted. Janet pushed away any evil thoughts of cholesterol or calories or carbs and dug in with great gusto.
    After a breakfast that would bring no further reproach from Cook, Janet again checked on her grandmother. She found that her breathing was more regular and her sleep seemed natural. A hint of color was beginning to return to her cheeks.
    Retracing her steps down the stairs, Janet turned left at the bottom and went out the front door.
    She stood for a moment on the porch. The autumn sunlight felt good on her shoulders and had already begun to warm the air. Along the edges of a nearby juniper bush, silver strands of a web had been tatted into a delicate lace. It seemed that Janet wasn’t the only creature on the grounds that had endured a sleepless night. She grinned. At least the spider had been productive.
    Freshly cut grass clung to Janet’s tennis shoes as she stepped from the porch and across the dew-dampened lawn that spread out before her like a sequined ball gown. She walked down the gentle roll of grounds that sloped away from the house to the lower green. The well-tended estate was indicative of the order insisted upon by the lady of the manor. Demanding only the best performance of herself, she would settle for nothing less from those who served her.
    Janet turned and looked back at the house. Heather Down had been designed and built by Jason Lancaster upon his arrival in America from England. He’d hired a labor force to cut stone blocks from a nearby quarry and paid top dollar to get the best masons possible. Timbers cut from his land were sawn and hewn to his exact specifications. He would have nothing but the best of craftsmen. Once the house was completed, just as he had promised, he returned to England for his intended bride. But the harsh northern winters in America had dealt severely with the delicate Heather, and the weather, coupled with complications from an early pregnancy, was more than the eighteen-year-old girl could stand.
    The baby, a boy named Nathaniel, survived, but Heather was the first to lie beneath the sod of the family cemetery. Jason Lancaster never remarried but spent the remainder of his life amassing a greater fortune and seeing that Nathaniel was properly educated to carry on the family legacy. Nathaniel’s only child, Nathaniel II—which was quickly shortened to Little Nate—was the first Lancaster to enter law school and he subsequently ended up on the bench of the state’s high court.
    Little Nate married a woman older than himself by more than two decades. Gwendolyn Harrington, a spinster and wealthy in her own right, was considered to be past child-bearing years; and certainly at her age to find herself in the family way was—to put it most charitably—in poor