Mrs. Turrill insistedshewould take Danny back up to thenursery 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 gripped 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.
Hannah 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, although 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.
“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.”
“Where will we go?”
“Exeter, I think. It’s a sizeable town. Lots of work there, I imagine.”
Becky’s chin trembled. “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 betterhands 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 the feedings 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.
