Читать книгу The One Month Marriage - Judith Stacy - Страница 12

A brisk knock and the door easing open brought Jana fully awake. She pushed herself up, holding the bedcovers over her breasts, and tossed her dark hair over her shoulder.

Brandon? Her heart thumped harder, jolting her. Was Brandon entering her room? Last night she’d forbidden him to enter and he’d respected her wishes. But now at dawn, had he changed his mind?

Jana squinted across the room and blinked the sleep from her eyes, bringing into focus the figure of a young woman, not her husband, entering her bedchamber.

“Abbie? Is that you?”

“Yes, Mrs. Sayer. Good morning,” the maid replied crossing to the bed.

Jana sat up, genuinely pleased by something in this house for the first time since her arrival.

“Good gracious,” Jana said, “I can’t believe it’s really you. You’re still here?”

Abbie smiled, a warm familiar smile, looking equally pleased. “Yes, ma’am. I’m still here. After all this time.”

“But—how? Why? I thought you’d be long gone.”

The young woman—not much older than Jana—had been her maid when she’d first arrived here as Brandon’s new wife. Abbie didn’t look any different, dark curls barely contained in her white cap, gray uniform with crisp apron, a pleasant smile on her face. Abbie had been Jana’s lifeline, at times, during that tumultuous period.

“I thought I’d be let go for sure, after you left,” Abbie confided. “But Mr. Sayer wouldn’t have no part of it. He said I was to stay. For when you got back.”

Jana’s stomach twisted into a knot. “When I…got back?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Abbie assured her, bustling about the room, picking up the clothing Jana had left on a chair last night. “I’m truly sorry, ma’am, that I wasn’t here when you arrived. My aunt, she was feeling a bit under the weather, so I was visiting with her. Charles, he sent for me, told me to get back here straightaway.”

“It’s all right, Abbie,” Jana said. “I managed well enough for myself last night.”

Abbie turned to her, Jana’s dress folded across her arm. “It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Sayer. Truly, it is.”

“Thank you, Abbie,” she replied, climbing out of the bed.

“Does this mean you’re staying?” she asked. “This time?”

Jana could have been insulted by Abbie’s question, offended by her impertinence. But Jana liked her. They’d become more than employer and maid in the past. Jana could use Abbie’s allegiance—and confidence—this time, as well.

“I wanted a divorce, but Brandon insisted we give our marriage another chance,” Jana told her. “I decided we should do just that…and see what happens.”

Abbie cast a pointed glance at the bed, the covers still tucked in neatly at the bottom, barely disturbed. But she said nothing as she headed for the large redwood closet.

With the first rays of morning sunlight 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 to be 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 doorway, her breath suddenly catching. The view of her husband was nothing to be ignored either.

Brandon sat at the table turned out quite nicely in a dark blue suit, snowy shirt and deep red necktie. His wide shoulders and broad chest couldn’t be hidden beneath the cut of the cloth. His big hand and long fingers grasped a fork as his attention shifted back and forth between the two newspapers laid out on the table beside his plate.

And why had she denied him entrance to her bedchamber last night…?

Jana quickly banished the thought and entered the breakfast room.

“Good morning,” she said, a little surprised to hear the effortless cheer that lightened her voice.

Brandon’s gaze jumped to her and quickly ran the length of her, head to toe. He flushed slightly, making her more than pleased with the forest-green dress she’d selected for the morning.

He rose from his chair, catching the linen napkin in his lap before it fell.

Was he glad to see her? Jana couldn’t tell.

“Good morning,” Brandon said, watching her carefully, cautiously almost.

A moment passed and finally Jana said, “I thought I’d join you for breakfast.”

“Well…” Brandon glanced at the two newspapers on the table. “You know I always eat breakfast alone, but well, if you’d like to it’s fine…this time.”

He rounded the table and pulled out a chair for her at the opposite end. For a few seconds she thought he was staring at her backside as she lowered herself into the seat, then dismissed the idea. Her imagination, surely.

A maid entered the room, greeted her and poured coffee as Brandon resumed his chair and his reading.

Another long moment passed in silence after the maid disappeared. The clock in the hallway ticked.

“I see you’re reading two newspapers?” Jana ventured.

Brandon looked up. “The Times and the Messenger,” he said and turned back to his reading.

Jana fiddled with her spoon. “I thought it would be nice if we hosted an informal supper.”

Brandon looked up again, a frown on his face. “A supper?”

“Yes, so that I can get reaquainted with—”

“You know I like the house quiet.”

Jana shifted in her chair. “Yes, but since I’ve been away, I thought a small supper would be a good way—”

Brandon pushed out of his chair, then folded and tucked both newspapers under his arm. “When I come home in the evenings after a busy, sometimes difficult day, I want things quiet. I don’t like suppers and that sort of thing, and you know it. I don’t know why you’d even suggest it.”

“But—”

“I’m going to the office.” Brandon stopped in the doorway. “I notified that decorator, the one who was here before, what’s-his-name, that you’re ready to resume work on the house.”

Jana’s eyes widened. “Mr. McDowell?”

“Whatever.” Brandon dismissed the name with a wave of his hand. “He’ll be here today.”

“But—”

Brandon walked away without another word, without listening, leaving Jana with a familiar knot of dismay coiling in her stomach.

After a moment, she went up to her room, fetched her hat and handbag, and left the house. At the corner of West Adams Boulevard and St. James Place, she boarded the trolley, paid her nickel fare and spent the day with her aunt.

She was at the house again that evening, well before the designated six o’clock hour. Not that it mattered. Jana passed the time in the one and only decent sitting room until shortly after seven when she ate supper alone, her only company an occasional servant and the ticking of the hallway clock. When Brandon arrived home just after eight, Jana was on her way upstairs.

She turned on the bottom step, watching as he gave Charles his bowler and satchel. After what must have been a long, trying day for him, Brandon still looked fresh…handsome.

Jana silently reprimanded herself for having the thought.

“I received a telephone call from Mr. McDowell today,” Brandon said to her.

“And good evening to you, too,” she countered.

He didn’t notice. “McDowell told me he came by the house but you weren’t here.”

“That’s correct.”

“I told you he was coming by.”

“I’m aware of that,” Jana said. “But, Brandon, I don’t like—”

“I expect things to get back to normal.”

“Back to the way they were?”

“Certainly,” Brandon told her.

Jana stood on the step a moment longer, gazing at him, fighting off a dozen storming emotions.

“You really have no idea at all why I left, do you,” she said. It was a statement, not a question, because she knew without a doubt that he was completely ignorant on the subject.

Brandon just stood there, staring, looking confused, as if trying to understand where her comment had come from, why she’d said it.

When he came up with no response, Jana knew she’d gotten her answer after all.

She turned her back on him and climbed the stairs.