Hannah laid her hand over Mrs. Turrill’s. “You were right.”
A short while later, Marianna summoned Hannah down to the bedchamber she had occupied these many weeks. Inside, Hannah’s valise and a second case lay open, nearly packed. While Hannah stood in the doorway, Marianna insisted the maid dump it all out again. She wanted to make sure Hannah took nothing that didn’t belong to her.
Hannah cringed. She hadn’t packed many of Marianna’s things, and none of her finest, but she had taken spare undergarments, a nightdress, a spencer, and a few simple gowns.
Marianna plucked one of her gowns and the pink-ribboned nightdress from the pile. “These are definitely mine.”
The maid, Kitty, gaped at her. “Is she to have no nightdress, my lady, or even one spare gown?”
Hannah was impressed with the girl’s courage, though she feared she might lose her place because of it.
“My things were lost,” Hannah said, hoping to defend the maid, and her own actions as well.
Marianna hesitated, then tossed the gown and nightdress back into the valise. “Very well,” she snapped. “If she has worn them, I don’t want them.” Her eyes glinted. “Unlike some people, I have no interest in wearing another woman’s clothes. Or her name.”
Marianna held out her hand. “But I will have my ring back.”
“I wasn’t going to take it.” Hannah gestured across the room. “It’s there on the dressing table, along with your lover’s eye.”
Marianna turned and snatched up the small brooch, quickly pinning it to her frock. “The painting isn’t John’s eye, you know. It’s Anthony’s. Fickle though he is, he belongs to me, and I tohim. He’ll remember that soon enough and come back for me. He always does.”
She tried to slide the ring onto her finger, but it caught on her knuckle. It no longer fit her as it once had. Nothing else from her old life did either, in Hannah’s view.
Marianna forced the ring into place at last. Her quick look of triumph fell to a frown. “Now I shall never get it off again....”
Hannah turned and quit the room, leaving Marianna tugging at the band. Carrying the hastily repacked valise in one hand and the case of Danny’s things under her still-splinted arm, Hannah trudged upstairs to a small spare room beside the nursery, leaving Marianna to claim the large, fine bedchamber for herself.
The next morning, Mrs. Turrill carried breakfast up to Hannah in the spare room and helped her dress. As she finished, she gave Hannah’s shoulders a warm squeeze and said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I am praying for you, my dear.” Then she hurried away to attend Marianna while Kitty and Ben hauled cans of hot water for the woman’s bath.
Hannah tidied the counterpane on the narrow bed and was about to walk over to the nursery when Dr. Parrish knocked on the doorframe, his head down.
“I’ve only come to remove your bandages.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
Tentatively, he stepped inside and set down his bag on the dressing chest without looking her in the face.
As he snipped away the stiff bandages, he kept his distance, coming only close enough to perform the task quickly, and refusing to meet her gaze. Gone were his friendly openness, his warm eyes, his eager, lengthy chats.
Hannah’s heart ached to see it. She whispered, “I am sorry, Dr. Parrish. Truly.”
His hands hesitated only a moment, then he gathered up the spent bandages and his bag and turned away without a word.
At the threshold he paused, his back to her, and murmured, “So am I.”
Hannah spent most of that day in the nursery with Becky and Danny, hoping to avoid Marianna. Mrs. Turrill kindly brought up their dinner on trays as well.
That night—the night before they were due to see the magistrate—Hannah knelt beside the narrow bed, hands clasped, eyes closed in prayer. Behind her, the door creaked open. Startled, she swung her head around.
Marianna stood there on the threshold, smirking. “See the contrite sinner on the eve of her destruction. Beseeching God for deliverance. You have a lot to atone for, have you not? A child out of wedlock, impersonating another man’s wife, lying, stealing, and fraud—trying to foist off your child as Sir John’s heir. And those are only the things I know about. Did you also sleep with Dr. Parrish to win him to your cause? Is that why his wife despises you?”
“No!” Hannah stared at her, feeling a noose begin to tighten around her neck and the hearing had not even begun.
Marianna crossed her arms. “I see what you’re thinking. You think it hypocritical of me to point a finger at anyone else. But I am not guilty of half of what you have done.”
Hannah blinked, stunned to realize Marianna might be right. How had she allowed it to happen? That she, Hannah Rogers, should be guilty of more wrongdoing than the infamous Marianna Mayfield?
Marianna shook her head, eyes alight in apparent amusement. “Do you really think God will forgive you, after all that?”
