Hannah faltered. “I ... hope so. I don’t expect the Parrishes to forgive me, but yes, I hope God will. After all, He forgave a man who not only committed adultery, but who also schemed to have the woman’s husband killed so he might marry her.”
Marianna’s eyes narrowed. “Who told you that? Mr. Fontaine did not try to kill Sir John.”
Hannah gaped at her. “Why do you assume I was speaking of Mr. Fontaine?”
Marianna looked away, disquieted at last.
Hannah thought again of the rash letter Fontaine had written. Had his threats been genuine? “I was speaking of King David,” Hannah said. “Not Mr. Fontaine.”
“Of course you were, I knew that.” Marianna turned to go, then looked over her shoulder, eyes glinting. “Go back to your prayers, Hannah. Futile as they are.”
Hannah tried to hold Marianna’s gaze, but shame and guilt forced her eyes to the floor. Head bowed, she could only kneel where she was, listening to the retreating footsteps of her accuser.
A few moments later, Hannah felt a hand on her shoulder. She stiffened, then relaxed when she heard Mrs. Turrill’s earnest voice.
“Up with you, my girl.”
Hannah’s legs were numb from kneeling so long, but Mrs. Turrill helped her rise and turned her toward the bed.
“Sit.”
Hannah complied. Head still bowed, she saw only the housekeeper’s skirts and the toes of her boots as Mrs. Turrill stood before her.
“Now look at me.” Gentle fingers lifted Hannah’s chin.
“I heard what that woman said to you, but she is wrong,” she began. “God will forgive you. True, some people may not. And knowing you, my girl, you will struggle to forgive yourself. But God will. He already has, if you’ve asked Him for Jesus’s sake. We have all of us erred one way or another. Your wrongs are some thumpin’ great whoppers, I admit. But nothing is too big for God. No pit we dig for ourselves too deep. He is already reachin’ a hand down to you, ready to pull you up.”
Hannah looked at the woman through tear-blurred eyes. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because He told us so. In the Scriptures. You yourself mentioned King David, did you not? And look at the many blunders he made. Bigger than yours even, I’d say. Yet God calls him a man after His own heart.”
Hannah nodded, then whispered, “But He also allowed David’s son to die, as a consequence.”
Mrs. Turrill nodded soberly. “Yes, my dear. God does not promise to remove the consequences of our sins, at least not in this life.”
Fear prickled through Hannah at the thought. She squeezed Mrs. Turrill’s hand and went to find her son.
Chapter24
James Lowden was disappointed he’d been unable to find irrefutable proof that Marianna Spencer Mayfield still lived. But with the newspaper article, his friend’s report, and continuing rumors hanging over his client’s head, he could not dismiss the possibility—or the gut feeling—that she was alive. Nor could he dismiss the second part of his mission: to begin gathering evidence toward divorce. He hated everything about that assignment.
He went to London to begin his undertaking. There, he heard the rumor that Fontaine had become engaged to an heiress, but found little evidence about him and Marianna. He went to Fontaine’s last known London lodgings, and there learned from the landlord that Mr. Fontaine had given up his rooms and returned to his home in Bristol. So James sent a brief report to Sir John and then returned to Bristol to continue his inquiries there.
He began by calling on their friends and neighbors. And while gossip and innuendo abounded, he found little solid evidence and no one, beyond his friend, willing to testify that he or she had seen Marianna alive, or seen her and Fontaine together in a compromising situation.
This left James feeling both frustrated and relieved.
He received a note at his office from Sir John, urging him to continue the search and letting him know he had returned to Bristol alone. At that news, James felt more relieved yet.
The day of the hearing arrived. At the appointed time, Mrs. Turrill took Danny and Becky home with her to the cottage she shared with her sister. Mrs. Turrill had thought Hannah should take Daniel along to the hearing, to show the precious lad that had motivated the deception in the first place. What better justification could there be?
“The baby will rouse sympathy for your cause, my dear,” she’d said.
But Hannah feared Danny might somehow be taken from her, seized right there during the hearing and sent to a foundling home, never to be seen again, so she refused to risk it.
Hannah rode in the back of the doctor’s cart, driven by Dr. Parrish with his wife beside him. Edgar and Lady Mayfield rode in a gig behind them, probably to guarantee she didn’t jump off the cart and run away. As if she would go anywhere without her son. At the thought, Hannah shivered from more than the damp morning air biting through her shawl.God, please protect Danny.
A short while later, the vehicles passed through the gate of Lord Shirwell’s estate and around to the back of the manor where grooms and stable boys hurried out to help with the horses. Hannah followed Edgar to an impressive library, which Lord Shirwell evidently used as an office to conduct parish business and his magisterial duties.
