The One Month Marriage. Judith Stacy

It was subtle, unnoticeable to anyone who didn’t know him well. Darker eyes, deeper breathing.

      She knew what it meant.

      “Shall we go…upstairs?” he asked, his voice low.

      Jana didn’t answer. He walked beside her through the hallway, up the wide curving staircase, down the carpeted corridor to the suite of rooms they’d occupied as husband and wife.

      Jana opened her door and walked inside, feeling the heat of Brandon’s body behind her. She hadn’t delivered all her conditions for staying yet. She’d saved the last one for now because she intended to deliver it at this time and at this place, so as to leave no question in Brandon’s mind.

      She swung around to face him. “Where are you going?”

      Brandon stopped short in the doorway. His gaze darted past her, then landed on her again, looking slightly confused.

      “Your room is next door, if I recall,” she said.

      He frowned, as if still not understanding. “But this is your room, and here is where we always used to…you know.”

      “Well, there will be no ‘you knowing’ between us,” Jana informed him.

      Color drained from his face. “But…”

      “Not for thirty days, anyway.”

      “Thirty days?”

      “It’s the trial period you agreed to,” she reminded him.

      “Yes, but I didn’t think you meant we couldn’t—”

      “Our lives are too unsettled,” Jana said. “We wouldn’t want to complicate them further.”

      “But—I—”

      “Good night, Brandon.”

      “But—”

      She closed the door in his face.

       Chapter Four

       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,