Woman in Black Read Online Free

Wasn’t that what men did? When Rosalie was just nine, her pa had gone out for a pack of cigarettes one evening, never to return. And hadn’t Abigail’s father left Rosalie when he’d found out she was pregnant?
    â€œLike this?” Abigail rearranged the toast triangles in a fan shape. Rosalie nodded in approval, maintaining a careful watch out of the corner of her eye as Abigail spooned homemade strawberry preserves into a little porcelain dish, fragile as an eggshell. Alongside it she placed a small sterling spoon engraved, in worn but still decipherable curlicues, with Mrs. Meriwhether’s initials. The spoon gleamed as though newly minted in the sunlight that filtered in through the curtain sheers. It might have been Rosalie’s own wedding silver for the pride she took in keeping it polished.
    When everything was to her satisfaction, Rosalie lifted the steaming kettle off the stove and poured boiling water over the two heaping teaspoons of Ceylon tea in the Limoges teapot. The final touch was a single pink rose, its petals still beaded with dew, tucked into a sterling bud vase.
    Had Rosalie ever verbally declared her devotion to the Meriwhethers it would have been an embarrassment to all concerned. It was the care she took in anticipating their every need that expressed her sentiments more eloquently than any words. Like Gwen’s breakfast tray, with its attention to every detail, down to the crisply ironed linen napkin tucked into a silver napkin ring. It was Rosalie’s way of letting the Meriwhethers know that she considered them more her family than she did her own kin. Sixteen years ago, they’d taken her in, pregnant and penniless, and when Abigail was born they’d embraced her as well. How could she feel anything but love for them?
    â€œWhy don’t you have something to eat while I take this up to Mrs. Meriwhether,” Rosalie said, hefting the tray with a faint, musical chiming of the porcelain teacup in its saucer.
    â€œI’m not hungry,” Abigail replied in a lackluster tone. Her stomach was still in knots over the encounter with Vaughn, which had left her more confused than ever.
    Rosalie paused to smile at her in a way that made her feel suddenly self-conscious. “It won’t always be this way, you know.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œBoys.”
    Abigail blushed, realizing how transparent she was even as she replied innocently, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
    â€œOh, I think you do.” Her mother’s calm, steady gaze gave no quarter. Clearly she hadn’t missed the way Abigail had been mooning around Vaughn. What she didn’t know was that it had since crossed over into another realm. “But don’t let it worry you. Before long you’ll have them eating out of your hand. And believe me,” she said, her tone turning ominous, “that’s when your real troubles begin.”
    Rosalie’s expression was that of a woman who knew all too well where that kind of trouble could lead. Pregnant at seventeen, she’d been cast out by her deeply religious mother and stepfather and probably would have starved, or worse, if she hadn’t happened into this job. Now, at thirty-four, she professed to be done with men and all their “nonsense.” The one time Abigail had floated the idea of her mother’s getting married one day, Rosalie had scoffed at it. “What do I need with a husband?” she’d said. “Don’t we have everything we could possibly want right here?” She seemed to go out of her way to discourage any potential suitors by downplaying her looks. While still relatively young and pretty, with eyes the color of the aged bourbon Mr. Meriwhether had a glass of every night before supper and thick brown hair shot through with coppery highlights, she dressed like a spinster, in below-the-knee skirts and sensible, low-heeled shoes, blouses buttoned to the