Promise Me This Read Online Free

as soon as I can.”

    The next morning Annie placed her hairbrush inside her carpetbag. She’d long dreamed of going away with Owen, of leaving Aunt Eleanor and Hargrave House forever. But she’d wanted a new life, not an enforced holiday with strangers. There had to be a way to make Owen stay until he could afford for them both to go. And if it required every ounce of tears and wheedling she possessed, she would use it to change his mind. She’d seen Aunt Eleanor use those feminine tools with great success.
    But when she descended the stairs, she overheard the widow’s whispers.
    “I’d offer you to leave the darling girl here, Mr. Owen, but you know it might get back to Miss Hargrave, and then where would my brother be? No one can tell her mind till she’s spoken it, and it ain’t always laced with kindness, now is it?”
    “No, Mrs. Woodward. I’m sorry to say it is not.” Annie heard Owen’s sigh beyond the wall. “I hope our being here overnight does not cause either of you trouble.”
    The widow clucked her tongue. “She’ll never know that much.”
    “I hope I’m doing the right thing.” Annie could hear Owen tapping a pewter spoon against the table. She crouched on the stairs and leaned her head against the railing to better listen.
    “Of course you are, sir! You can’t be staying there, stuck up like her pretty plaything, can you? It ain’t fitting for a man, is it?” Annie heard the widow’s crumb brush swat table crumbs onto her tray. “I seen it with your old dad, God rest his soul. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead; no, I don’t. But he should have done just what you’ve done and, better yet, what you’re fixing to do. He should have up and left the old—!” The widow Woodward stopped abruptly. “I didn’t mean that, sir. At least I didn’t mean it unkindly as it sounds.”
    Annie smiled in spite of herself.
    “No offense is taken, Mrs. Woodward. I needed to hear someone say it aloud.” Still Owen tapped his spoon.
    “That’s all right, then.” The widow plunked dishes onto her tray. Annie heard her totter toward the kitchen. She must have turned. “If you don’t go now, Mr. Owen, you’ll be stuck here forever—you and Miss Annie, too. It would suffocate the life out of you, just like it did your poor father. And you’d not be wanting that old spinster’s life for your darling sister. That’s just what she’d make her into—a miniature of her mean and miserable self. Mark my words.”
    Annie felt the heat rise up her neck and face. She grasped the stair railing and pulled herself to her feet as the kitchen door swung closed, swatting at tears that insisted on coming, tears that had nothing to do with feminine ploys. She could not ruin Owen’s life by guilting him into staying in England. An ocean was little enough to separate him from Aunt Eleanor. She could not do to him what Aunt Eleanor had done to Father. How she would manage with her beloved brother an ocean away, she didn’t know. But creeping back up the stairs, she determined to try, for his sake.

“Owen?” Annie stood an hour later, carpetbag in hand, outside the widow’s gate. Determined to retain her composure, she lifted her chin. “Who will tend their graves when we’ve gone?”
    Owen smiled, and his smile lifted Annie’s heart. He took the carpetbag from her, then dug into his pocket. “This very morning we shall pull the weeds and cultivate the tops of the mounds. We’ll sow all the seeds we have.” He cupped Annie’s palm and trickled tiny seeds of promise into its curve. “We’ve more than enough to cover both. They’ll bloom this summer, then come again next year, and every year, even without us.”
    “Won’t they be lonely?” Annie knew her chin quivered, but she blinked back tears.
    “I believe Mother and Father are dancing this day in heaven, if truly they can see us.” Owen clasped her shoulders. “They never would have wanted either of us in that house. You know