The Roswell Legacy Frances Statham (mini ebook reader .txt) 📖

your eggs, but Deacon Jones, he’s in the hospital with twenty stitches and a concussion from falling against the church pew. We’re all going to have to chip in to help pay the doctor bill.”

“Maybe Deacon Jones can claim disability from the war, like all the others are doing.”

“What’s that, sir?”

“I was only making a joke, Browne. A very poor one. I’m sorry about the deacon. How much will it cost?”

“Close to fifty dollars. And Crete and me are s’posed to come up with half of it. That was an expensive revival meeting, for sure.”

“Don’t worry about it, Browne. I’ll give you a check to cover your part.”

“I sure am grateful to you. But I didn’t mention it just to get a contribution.…”

“I know you didn’t. But you see, Mrs. Meadors and I couldn’t do without you and Crete for the rest of the summer.”

“I guess not. What with Mr. Jonathan’s wedding coming up and all.”

With Crete’s entry into the dining room, there was no necessity for making further comment.

“Good morning, Major,” Crete said, holding her head down in a penitent pose as she poured the coffee from the silver pot.

“Good morning. Oh, Crete, I let Mrs. Meadors sleep late this morning. Could you send up some tea in a little while?”

Relieved that he’d made no comment on her bandaged face, she replied, “Yes, sir. And I’ll fix one of those new grapefruits that Miss Morrow sent from Chicago, too. She ought to enjoy that.”

Halfway across town, Stanley Quail was also at breakfast. He was tall and erect, with thin lips partially hidden by his bushy mustache. His side-whiskers were equally fierce—to make up for his bald pate, which shone like a polished apple.

Seated at the other end of the table, Cassie tried to ignore the two nauseous-looking eggs staring up at her from her wedding china.

The summer sun had already begun its relentless morning ritual, soaking up any hint of dew or moisture from the air and causing the minute lines in the fine furniture that Cassie constantly fought against. She used beeswax and turpentine on her furniture as rigorously as she used buttermilk clabber for her skin.

At the east window, a ray of sun escaped past the heavy draperies and swept toward Cassie, as if deliberately seeking her out. She quickly held up her hand and turned her head. Stanley said nothing about her excessive aversion to the sun. To him, a few more freckles made little difference, but evidently to Cassie, even one more across her nose was anathema.

He had not married Cassie for her beauty, for she had little. And he hadn’t married her for love, either. A good lawyer on his way up needed more in a wife than the ability to arouse his passions. His mistress took care of that need quite well.

Cassie had met most of Stanley Quail’s requirements for a wife: a good family background, the ability to preside at his table well and to order servants about with confidence. And, of course, to give him a legitimate heir. But there was something else about Cassie that had attracted him. She was just as calculating and ambitious as he was. And with a wife like that behind him, there was no telling how far he could go.

“How are you feeling this morning, my dear?”

“Very well, Stanley. Thank you.”

He knew it was a lie, but he let her pretend.

“Will you be coming home for dinner?” she inquired, speaking of the midday meal.

“No. I’m having a bite to eat with Mr. Campbell at his club.”

Harriet, the maid, brought in a small silver tray with a card on it. “There’s someone at the door waiting to see you, Mr. Stanley. She said it was rather urgent.”

Stanley frowned when he read the name on the card. She shouldn’t have come to the house.

“Please inform the woman that I do not see clients at home. If it’s urgent, I will talk with her at my office in an hour. Here, I’ll write down the address for her.”

As soon as the maid disappeared from the dining room, Cassie said, “Who was it, Stanley?”

He folded the woman’s card and dropped it in his pocket. “Oh, probably some hysterical secretary in trouble. Nothing to bother your brain about this early in the morning.”

“Serves her right, for being in the workplace with men,” Cassie commented.

“My feelings exactly.”

As soon as Stanley left the house, Cassie walked upstairs. She stood at the window, as she usually did, watching her husband stride down the street. With a sense of alarm, she saw a woman suddenly appear and begin talking with Stanley. It must have been the woman at the door.

Cassie bit her lip as she watched the two together. He was smiling and talking with her as if he knew her well. And it didn’t seem to matter that it was right under his wife’s nose.

“I thought I told you never to come to the house, Maryann.”

“But what I have to tell you, Stanley, couldn’t wait until tonight.”

“All right, then. Out with it.”

“I saw Mrs. Meadors in the park yesterday. She wasn’t alone. She’d come to meet another man.”

Stanley was so pleased that he was almost, but not quite, ready to forgive her for coming to the house. He took her arm and moved on down the street until they were out of Cassie’s sight.

•    •    •

Still at the window, Cassie looked down at her burgeoning waist. She felt no maternal love for the baby, only resentment for spoiling her figure and more than likely driving her husband into the arms of another woman, as her mother had warned.

Then she thought of her half sister, Ginna. She took special satisfaction in knowing that the same thing would happen to her, too. The young, handsome Jonathan Meadors would not be one to deny himself while his wife was producing a family for him.

Feeling better about it, Cassie went back to bed. And there she spent the morning, deciding on some subtle way to punish