Moonshadows by Mary Ann Artrip Read Free Book Online

pour, Miss?”
    “Thank you Lettie, but let me do it. You brought two cups. It’s all right for Grandmother to have tea?”
    “Doctor said tea and a little toast and jam would be fine,” Lettie said as she rearranged the teapot and cups.
    Being always considerate, the woman removed the lid from the sugar bowl and turned the creamer so the handle would be convenient for Janet to reach. Satisfied with her efforts, she turned to leave the room.
    “If you need anything else, just let me know. That’s what I’m here for.” Then she left, closing the door behind her.
    “Let’s get you comfortable,” Janet said, easing her grandmother up on the pillows. “I don’t know about you, but I could do with a bite, myself.”
    She positioned the wicker bed-tray in place and draped a linen napkin across the concave chest of the patient. After she poured the tea and set the cup on the cork-lined tray, she spread wild-strawberry jam on bread that was still warm from the oven.
    Dragging a chair from the corner, Janet unfolded the napkin across her knees. Taking a healthy bite of bread, followed by a long swallow of tea, she set the cup down and turned back to the subject at hand.
    “Okay now, out with it.” She looked straight into the aging and watery eyes of her grandmother. “What have you fretted about so much that it’s pushed you into a serious illness?”
    “It’s about the will.”
    “Grandmother, the will’s not important. There isn’t anything that could possibly be on that piece of paper that’s more important than your health.”
    Elizabeth Lancaster gnashed her teeth and set her thin lips in a stubborn line—an affectation Janet was more than familiar with.
    “Janet, please,” she said. “Let me finish.” She unlaced her fingers and strained herself slightly forward. “And show me the courtesy of not interrupting.”
    Properly chastised, Janet sat back in the chair and waited.
    The old lady drew a ragged breath and relaxed her body as if preparing herself for an arduous journey. She took a sip of tea.
    “Now,” she began. “First of all, you have assumed, and rightly so, because you had no cause to believe otherwise, that you are the last of the Lancaster line. You would further assume that, being the last, you would inherit the entire Lancaster estate, minus anything left to the servants and the endowment to the library. Also, there’s an annual grant to the Children’s Hospital that is to continue. Under no circumstances are these endowments to be tampered with. Do you understand?”
    Janet nodded and waited for her to continue.
    “It’s what you don’t know that’s so difficult.” A slight tremor shook Elizabeth Lancaster’s hand as she reached her cup to Janet and motioned for her to remove the tray. “You see, Janet,” she said, then paused to catch her breath, “you don’t know about Etienne.”
    “Etienne?”
    “Your cousin.” Her voice dropped almost beyond hearing. “Isabella’s son.” As she spoke, color crept over her face and flushed her gaunt cheeks. “Isabella’s illegitimate son.”
    Janet took the other woman’s frail hand. “Grandmother, don’t you remember, Isabella died when she was a tot.”
    The pale eyes misted. “No, Janet,” she said, shaking her head. “Don’t look at me as if I’ve lost my mind. You’re probably thinking that I suffered some memory loss during this bout of illness. Isabella did not die.” She paused. “But I suppose, in a way, you could say she did—it was the same thing. She was banished from this house by her father when it was learned that she was to have a child.”
    As her grandmother talked, Janet noticed her bony hands clench and unclench against the bedspread.
    “You remember how he was—your grandfather— always expecting more than most people could deliver. Perfection was not an unknown quality to him.”
    Not unlike yourself , Janet thought, though not unkindly.
    “And Isabella, our beautiful, headstrong