Lady Maybe (13 page)

How earnest, how sober her expression.

“My goodness,” he said with a half grin. “I am only leaving for a week. I shall see you again.”

She blushed, and ducked her head. “Of course.”

Chagrined to have embarrassed her again, he pressed her hand. “But I thank you. Your well wishes mean a great deal, especially considering we got off on the wrong foot together.”

She gave him a regretful little grin, but then lowered her eyes once more.

Unable to resist, he lifted her hand to his lips. He pressed a kiss there, lingering a second too long for propriety but not caring. What did a woman like her care about propriety anyway? Or was that only with a certain other gentleman?

“Good-bye, Mr. Lowden,” she said.

His gaze locked on hers, then she slipped her hand from his.

“We shall just say ‘until we meet again,’ all right?”

She formed an unconvincing smile.

Why did he feel that she was saying good-bye for good?

T
he next day, Hannah read another chapter to Sir John. She glanced over at him, lying flat, staring at the ceiling, eyes open. Being a tall man, his heels extended past the end of the bed. He seemed to be listening, but it was difficult to gauge his reaction or how much he understood.

Did he even remember giving her this book for Christmas two years ago?
The History of Sir Charles Grandison
was the only gift she’d received, save a length of ribbon from Freddie. It was not unusual for an employer to give a few coins or a token gift on Boxing Day, but one so personal and thoughtful? Unusual indeed.

When she’d unwrapped it, he’d explained, “I know you enjoy novels. I don’t read many, but this is a favorite. The main character is a good, honorable man one actually admires.”

Like you,
she remembered thinking at the time. But she was a clergyman’s daughter, and knew better than to covet another woman’s husband, so she had endeavored to stifle her admiration for the man. And for the most part, she had succeeded. It helped that he gave her no encouragement.

Remembering those feelings now made her feel almost disloyal to Marianna’s memory. Regardless, she still thought him a good, admirable man. Even now. After everything.

A quick knock sounded and Mrs. Turrill came into the room,
Danny in her arms. Hannah laid aside her book and quickly rose to intercept her, but the housekeeper was already approaching the bed, angling Danny toward Sir John.

“Look who I have here.”

Sir John slowly turned his head toward them.

“Now, you know who this fine handsome lad is, don’t you?”

Sir John stared, slack-mouthed. His head moved left, right, in the slowest of shakes.

“Why this is Master Daniel. And if you don’t recognize him, I shouldn’t wonder, growing so fast as he is.” She looked from Sir John to the child and back again. “Is there not a marked resemblance, I ask you?”

Hannah held her breath.

Again, Sir John’s head turned side to side.

“He looks like his mother of course, but also like his father,” Mrs. Turrill persisted. “Don’t you see it?”

Here it comes. . . .
Hannah thought, fidgeting nervously.

Sir John’s gaze shifted to her. He rasped out his first word since the accident. “No.”

Her heart pounded. What had she expected?

She felt Mrs. Turrill’s uncertain gaze on her profile. The woman obviously sensed something amiss. Hannah wondered if she guessed what it was. If only she could brush it off with a smile, and say easily,
“Sir John has always insisted Danny takes after my side.”
But she couldn’t do it. The lies she had told had begun to rot and stink and sicken, and she could not bring herself to utter another to this dear woman.

Hannah stepped near the bed and held out her hands to take Danny, but the housekeeper kept hold of him, her smile unnaturally bright. “How good to hear your voice, Sir John.”

Mrs. Turrill insisted
she
would take Danny back up to the nursery for his nap. “You go on with your reading. It seems to
have helped Sir John already, for has he not just spoken? That is good news indeed.”

Not for me
, Hannah thought. It was only a matter of time now. . . .

She stood there, uncertain what to do as Mrs. Turrill left, shutting the door behind her. Longing to flee the tension in the room, Hannah turned from the bed, but Sir John snagged her arm.

She gasped and looked down at his hand on her wrist, as surprised as if a crab at the seashore had leapt onto her arm. She blinked and risked a look at Sir John’s face. His expression was turbulent, bewildered, questioning. But angry? She wasn’t sure. He stared into her eyes, and she stared back. When his grip weakened, she pulled her hand from his and hurried from the room.

H
annah avoided Sir John’s bedchamber for the rest of the day. She asked Mrs. Turrill to look in on him for her, claiming a headache—the headache was real, though not the reason she avoided Sir John. She imagined Mrs. Turrill and Dr. Parrish thought it strange and uncaring of her.

While Mrs. Turrill was busy in Sir John’s bedchamber, Hannah went upstairs to see Becky.

“Becky, quietly gather your things. I’ll gather Danny’s. It’s time for us to leave.”

“But I like it here,” Becky pouted. “And Mrs. Turrill says I’m like a daughter to her.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. But Sir John is beginning to speak. Our time here is at an end. I told you we wouldn’t be staying forever.”

“But where will we go?”

“Exeter, I think. It’s a sizeable town. Lots of work there, I imagine.”

Becky’s chin trembled. “But I don’t want to go. . . .”

Hannah forced a smile and patted the girl’s arm. She couldn’t afford for Becky to erupt in a fit of pique. “There, there. Never mind, Becky,” she soothed. “You just lie down and rest, all right? We’ll talk about it another time.”

Becky nodded in relief.

Hannah left her and went down to her room to finish packing. She pulled the partially filled valise from under the bed, tucked a few more things inside, and was about to retrieve the letter hidden in the hatbox when Mrs. Turrill knocked and stuck her head in the door.

“Sir John is asking for you, my lady.”

Hannah’s heart slammed against her breastbone.

“Dr. Parrish is in with him now. Talking quite well he is, too. He wishes you to join them.”

Mrs. Turrill watched her closely. “He also asked that you bring Danny.”

“Did he?”

“Yes, though he referred to him as ‘the child,’ not by name. . . .”

How concerned the woman looked. Had she guessed the truth?

Hannah forced a smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Turrill. Just give me a few minutes to freshen up.”

Five minutes later, Hannah set her packed valise beside her door and went up to the nursery for Daniel. Over her day dress she wore Marianna’s long pelisse, since her own had not survived the accident.

She dressed Danny in the small clothes she had purchased during the journey, and a wool jumper Mrs. Turrill had knit for him. She left all the baby things the Parrishes had loaned her—
clean and pressed—in the nursery. Becky, napping peacefully on her small bed, slept on, undisturbed.

Hannah had decided to leave Becky at Clifton, knowing how attached she had become to Mrs. Turrill and Mrs. Turrill to her. She knew the troubled young woman would be in better hands with the kindly housekeeper than with her. Danny would have to be weaned more abruptly than she’d like. But thankfully, he’d already begun taking a bit of thin gruel and mashed fruit. Becky continued to nurse him, but Hannah had noticed that the nursings did not last as long, and that Danny grew restless and popped off her breast more quickly than before. Yes, the end was near. In more ways than one.

Hannah returned to her room for her valise. She would have to hold it in her good hand and Danny in the crook of her bandaged arm. It couldn’t be helped. She would simply walk downstairs, out the side door, and to the nearest coaching inn. There, using the money she had left from the trip to Bath, she would put as much distance between herself and Clifton as she could.

She stepped across the threshold.
But to leave with no word of explanation or apology?
She hesitated in the passage, pulse pounding. On the left, the stairs and freedom. To the right, Sir John’s bedchamber.

Face him
, a quiet voice whispered in her mind. Her own voice, God’s, or the devil’s, she couldn’t be certain.

I am afraid,
Hannah thought in reply.

As well she should be.

Freed of indecision, she set down the valise and shifted Danny to her other arm. She turned not to unknown freedom but across the landing to Sir John’s bedchamber, to sure condemnation.

She heard their voices before she reached the door, left ajar. Sir John’s low raspy voice now and again responding to Dr. Parrish’s
loquacious one. Were they talking about her? Had Sir John already told him?

Dr. Parrish turned when she entered. His face lit up at the sight of them. “Ah, here is your family now. Your lovely wife and fine healthy son.”

Clearly, Sir John had yet to disillusion him.

Hannah swallowed. “Dr. Parrish. I am glad you are here. There is something—”

“Always glad to be of service, especially to my neighbors,” the doctor went on. “And I’ve grown quite fond of this lad, I don’t mind telling you. Just look at him. My goodness, what a resemblance.”

“Resemblance to whom?” Sir John asked, voice scratchy from disuse.

Dr. Parrish’s brows shot up. “To whom! That’s a good one, sir. To you, of course. Mayfield nose and all.”

“That’s not who I see.”

It was now or never, Hannah realized. To explain her side, to apologize. Better to confess voluntarily than to wait to be exposed and then try to defend herself afterward.

She began hurriedly, “You see, Dr. Parrish. When you found us in the wrecked carriage and saw only the two of us within, you quite naturally assumed that we were . . . that I was—”

“What a sight it was, too,” Dr. Parrish interjected. “I shall never forget it. What a picture of tenderness amidst tragedy. For even though the both of you were injured and insensible, your wife tenderly cradled your head in her lap.”

Why must the man always interrupt? Hannah took a breath and pushed on. “Dr. Parrish, you are very kind. But it was only the way the carriage landed, the positions the fall thrust us into.”

“The positions
fate
thrust you into!” he insisted. “Do you think such things happen by chance?”

“Fate? Tenderness?” Hannah shook her head, incredulous. “I don’t know how you could find such a scene anything but horrid.”

The doctor sighed. “Well, I had not yet come upon the coachman, who was thrown some distance from the wreck. Nor had we spied the poor creature carried away on the tide.”

Sir John winced. He murmured through a crackling throat, “My fault. All mine.”

Dr. Parrish said, “And your wife suffered her injuries, too, but look how well she has recovered. Her head injury—show him, my lady, if you would. There. I put in the stitches myself and later removed them. I’m no surgeon mind, but there isn’t one for miles, so the missus and I did our best. There will be a scar I fear, but nothing a little carefully arranged hair cannot conceal. And her arm is knitting nicely. She needs to regain the strength of it, just as you will need to regain the use and strength of your limbs.”

Hannah squeezed her eyes shut. It was so tempting not to go on. Not to admit the truth. She exhaled an angst-ridden sigh. “Dr. Parrish, please let me finish. I need to apologize. You misunderstood the situation and I allowed that misapprehension to continue. I am not—”

“My lady,” Sir John slanted her a look. “Are you not well?” He turned toward Dr. Parrish. “Doctor, might her head wound have left her confused? For my wife does not seem herself.”

Hannah stared at him, feeling her mouth sag open. She glanced over her shoulder. Had Marianna miraculously appeared? Was he seeing an apparition? She turned back and met his unwavering gaze. Had his head wound left
him
confused, or . . .? Or what?
My wife does not seem herself.
What did that mean? Was he blind, or off in his attic? But the eyes that locked on hers held a disconcerting, knowing glint. Was he telling her not to reveal her identity to Dr. Parrish? Why should he?

As though for clarification, Sir John asked, “The poor creature carried away on the tide . . .?”

Dr. Parrish replied, “Your wife’s companion. Hannah Rogers.”

Hannah had mentioned the death before, though she wasn’t sure how much he’d comprehended.

Sir John lifted his chin in understanding. “Ah. Of course.”

Dr. Parrish added, “And as sad as that is, we can at least be thankful that you and Lady Mayfield were spared.”

Hannah opened her mouth in one last attempt, but the words evaporated under the intensity of Sir John’s gaze. He reached out and grasped her free hand. It likely appeared a comforting gesture, but to Hannah it felt like a warning.

As if sensing her unease, Danny began to whine and chafe, kicking painfully against her arm.