She giggled, which more or less admitted she was doing just that. But then she asked curiously, since she had come upstairs early, "Did Amy finish the journal tonight '
"Yes. Amazing gift my grandmother had. I prefer to think it was just incredible good guessing on her part, but who's to say for sure?"
"My, I did miss a lot, didn't I?"
James nodded. "You'll want to read it for yourself, if you can manage to get it away from Jason. I've a feeling he has someone else he'd like to have read it first, though."
"Molly?"
James chuckled. "So you noticed, too?"
"The softening of his edges whenever she's around? Who could miss that?"
"Just most of us," he replied dryly.
"DID IT GET FINISHED TONIGHT?" MOLLY ASKED WHEN JASON joined her in her bed that night.
"Sorry, did I wake you?"
She yawned and snuggled up close to him. "No. I've just missed you these last nights, so I tried to stay awake tonight. Didn't think I was going to manage it, though. I was just nodding off."
He smiled and pulled her close. He'd had no chance to talk to her since that journal had been unwrapped. She'd been asleep these last few nights by the time he came to her, and gone in the mornings, she rose so early. Nor, with the house so full, was there much chance to find her alone during the day to have a few private words.
And the subject of the journal wouldn't be discussed by the rest of the family, at least not in front of the servants, which they all considered Molly to be—with the exception of Derek and his wife, and now James, who knew the truth about her, that she was Derek's mother, that she'd been Jason's only love for more than thirty years.
So Molly wouldn't know yet what was in the journal. However, she couldn't help but know that the family had all been camped in the parlor for three days, hearing it read. She had appeared in the doorway several times to shake her head over the fact that they were all still there.
"I want you to take the day off tomorrow and read it for yourself," he told her.
"Take the day off? Don't be silly."
"The house will get along fine without you for a day, m'dear."
"It won't."
"Molly," he said warningly.
She mumbled, "Oh, all right. It could wait until after the holidays, when the house isn't so full, but I'll admit to a certain curiosity about that journal, after having it in my possession for most of my life, yet not knowing what it was."
He sat up abruptly. ''Most of your life? When did you find it? And where?"
"Well, I did—and I didn't. What I mean is, it was given to me when I was but a child of four or five—I can't remember which. I was told what to do with it, and when to deliver it, but not what it was. And I must confess that it was so long ago, Jason, that I put it away with some old things of mine and completely forgot about it ever since. It's been up in your attic all these years, with my old childhood things that I have stored there."
"But you finally remembered it?"
"Well, no, and it was the strangest thing, how I found it again," she admitted.
"What do you mean?"
She frowned to herself, remembering. "It was when I first started fetching the Christmas decorations down from the attic. The sun had been out most of the day, which had caused the attic to be quite stuffy and warm, so I opened one of the windows up there, yet it didn't do much good other than let in a little cold air, since no breeze was stirring, and wouldn't have come into the room anyway, with only the one window open—or so I thought, Yet just when I was heading toward the door with my last load for the day, this great gust of wind tore through the room, knocking things all over the place."
"You'd left the door open, to account for such a strong cross breeze?"
"It was no breeze, Jason, it was a very Strong wind, which didn't make much sense to begin with, when it hadn't been a bit windy that day. But no, the door was closed, which is why I found that wind so strange, least I did afterwards, when I had time to think about it. At the time, though, I was too busy picking the things up that it knocked over. It was when I came to this large folding Oriental room divider, that had fallen over on a stack of paintings, jarring several out of their frames, that I noticed my old things. I still didn't recall the journal, though, and
wouldn't have bothered to look inside that old trunk of mine, except, well ..."
Her frown got deeper. He almost shook her, to get her to finish.
