Page 29 of Lady Maybe

Hannah’s father invited her and Danny to dinner, which afforded Becky a well-deserved evening off. Hannah offered her extra money in case she wished to go out somewhere, but Becky said all she wanted was to nestle in bed with a book and a tin of sweets. Hannah happily supplied both.

How strange it felt to enter her childhood home as a guest. Her father smiled in self-conscious welcome and took Danny into his study, suggesting Hannah see if there was anything else in her bedchamber she wanted.

Walking slowly around her old room felt like visiting a museum of her youth, everything much as it had been when she had moved to the Mayfields’ a few years before. She flipped through a long-forgotten diary and found a faded love letter from Fred. She had lost that Fred, the young suitor, but was so thankful to have kept him as a friend. Next she sorted through the baby clothes her parents had saved, a few of which she would wash and reclaim for Danny—a nightshirt, a woolen coat and cap, and a soft knitted blanket. She also found a brooch of her mother’s—tiny bluebells painted on ivory—and thought it might make a nice gift for Mrs. Turrill, who had mentioned bluebells were her favorite. Finally, she selected a few books to give to Becky, and for herself, a lovely leather-bound edition of the Proverbs, containing the Psalter and the Sermon on the Mount.

Returning to her father’s study, she paused at its threshold. Her heart warmed to see her father pray over the grandson in his arms, and then contort his usually solemn face into comical expressions his congregation would be stunned to see from the pulpit. Danny grinned in appreciative reply.

The maid of all work prepared a simple meal of chicken and leek soup, which Hannah ladled out at table like the woman of the house, her mother’s memory very near. The maid admired Danny, calling him a handsome lad, but Hannah did not miss her surreptitious glance at her bare ring finger.

Back in the lodging house the next day, Mrs. Hurst knocked to announce that Hannah had another caller.

“That solicitor has returned,” she said with a concerned frown. “Are you sure you’re in no trouble?”

“No trouble, Mrs. Hurst.” Not any longer , she thought. Thank you, God.

Leaving a contented Danny in Becky’s care, Hannah went down to speak to James. She wondered what errand had brought him this time—and if this would be a business or personal call.

In the sitting room, James stood fidgeting, twirling his hat brim in his hands. As soon as he saw her, he blurted, “Have you heard the news?”

She blinked. “Which news?”

“About Marianna?”

Hannah held up a “wait” finger. Knowing Mrs. Hurst would eavesdrop if she could, Hannah closed the door firmly behind her. “Go on.”

“She has been tried in a criminal court and found guilty of bigamy.”

Hannah stared at him, incredulous. “No ... I can’t believe Sir John would expose her so publicly.” Queasy disappointment churned within her at the thought. “In his letter, he said he would not seek punishment.”

“Sir John did not. Mr. Fontaine himself was the plaintiff, the ‘injured party,’ whose wife married another man.”

“Unbelievable...” Hannah slowly shook her head. “Marianna must be livid. Did Sir John testify?”

James nodded. “He was summoned, so yes, he did. But reluctantly.”

Sir John was here in Bristol, Hannah realized, and yet he had neither called on her nor visited Danny. Feeling suddenly weary, she lowered herself into a chair.

Mr. Lowden continued, “Marianna got off lightly, considering the charge. She managed to lay most of the blame at her father’s door—her father who is conveniently dead. She isn’t to be transported or even imprisoned—”

“Thank God,” Hannah interjected.

“Only to sit in the Redcliff Hill stocks for three hours.”

Shock washed over Hannah. “The stocks? Marianna?”

“Yes. I thought you’d be glad.”

Hannah shook her head. She felt no such vindication. Did he know her so little? “Glad? Never. Poor Marianna.”

“Poor Marianna? After what she tried to do to you?”

“I know, but...” Her words trailed away as the image of pampered, beautiful Marianna formed in her mind—sitting in the stocks in one of her fine gowns. Alone. The object of scorn and humiliation.

James unfurled his pocket watch. “In fact, she should be placed in the stocks about now.” He clicked his watch shut and asked, “You do realize what this means?”

Hannah rose suddenly to her feet. “It means I must go to her.”

“What? No. I meant, what it means for Sir John.”

But Hannah’s mind was not on Sir John. It was on Marianna. “Please let Becky know I’ll return when I can.”

She rushed from the house. Vaguely, she heard James calling for her to stop, or at least let him hail a hansom cab for her, but Hannah paid him no heed. She ran past Queen’s Square, crossed the bridge, and made haste up Redcliff Hill. By then, her sides ached and she panted with exertion.

She passed St. Mary’s, its churchyard enclosed by a thick hedge, and there, just outside its gate, the stocks. Double stocks, but only one occupant. Hannah’s heart twisted at the sight. Lady Mayfield—or was it Mrs. Fontaine?—sat on the muddy ground, ankles pinned in the low stocks, scuffed slippers listing on her small feet. She stared blindly ahead as passersby gawked or hurried their children away.

A small crowd began to gather, jeer, and taunt, and Marianna scowled, snapping at them with words Hannah was too far away to hear and likely better off spared.

As she walked closer, a boy of nine or ten reeled back with a rotten apple and took aim. Noticing, Marianna covered her face with her hands.

Hannah lunged forward and grabbed the boy’s arm. “No! Remember, let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

“Ain’t no stone, miss. It’s an apple.”

“Don’t.” Hannah held his gaze, then released him. She lifted her skirts and tiptoed through the mire left by last night’s rains. Marianna had yet to see her, but Hannah was close enough now to hear her quiet sobbing.

Hannah rounded the stocks, accidentally kicking one end as she stepped behind them. The reverberation startled Marianna and her eyes darted open. Her arms shot up to ward off a projectile or a blow. For a moment she gaped at Hannah, a frown line between her brows.

Hannah tensed, imagining the proud woman would rebuff her.

“Come to gloat?” Marianna asked.

“No.”

“Why are you here, then?”

Hannah swept her skirts to one side and sat on the ground beside Marianna, aligned with the second set of holes.

“I am here to stay by you. To be your companion through this.”

“Ha.” Marianna’s scoff lacked malice. In fact, her chin quivered.

Ignoring the damp seeping through her gown, Hannah looked out at the uncertain, shuffling crowd, silently daring any of them to throw something. Praying no one would.

She glanced over and saw Marianna’s lips twist bitterly. Even as they trembled.

“I ought to tell you to go away,” she said, voice cracking. “That I don’t need you.” Tears filled her eyes. “But I am too weak. I can’t bear this on my own.”

Hannah held her gaze and slowly shook her head. “You don’t have to.”

Jogging onto the scene, James glimpsed Anthony Fontaine leaning against a tree some distance from the stocks. As James passed by him, Fontaine laid a staying hand on his arm. “Leave them.”

James scowled. “I am surprised at you, Fontaine. This is beneath even you.”

“She might have been hanged, sent to prison, or worse. This is nothing.”

“To a woman like Marianna Spencer?”

Fontaine shrugged. “It will be good for her to be knocked down a peg or two. She holds an altogether too-high opinion of herself.”

For a moment James stood where he was, torn between wanting to rush over and help Hannah up, and not wanting to be seen interfering. It would not help his professional reputation. He eyed Fontaine again. “What will you do now?”

“I leave for America in three days’ time.”

James reared his head back. “America?”

“Yes. I’m ready for a fresh start.”

“You’ll leave Marianna, then?”

“Heavens, no. She goes with me.”

James felt his brows rise. “Does she indeed? After this?”

Fontaine nodded. “Yes. She is my wife after all.”

“And she has agreed to go?”

“Not yet. But I know her well. She thinks she has lost me. Suddenly I have very great appeal.” He lifted his chin, gazing at Marianna with confidence. “She will go with me.”

James studied the man’s profile and asked quietly, “Do you regret it? Going along with the scheme in the first place?”

Keeping his focus on the stocks, Fontaine considered. “I wanted the money, and knew she didn’t love Sir John. I didn’t think I would mind.” He inhaled deeply. “But I was wrong.”

James turned and looked again at the stocks.

Across the distance, Hannah met and held his gaze. Solemnly, she nodded once, and then looked back at Marianna.

James waited one minute longer, then turned and walked home alone.

Later, after Marianna’s release, Hannah returned to the lodging house, cleaned herself up, and changed. She made sure Becky and Danny had all they needed, and then went back out. James had mentioned that Sir John had been called on to testify. She assumed—or at least hoped—he was still in Bristol. She wore her lovely berry-colored dress and spencer for confidence. Would he receive her? If so, would it be eagerly or reluctantly?

She walked to the house on Great George Street—Sir John’s Bristol residence. A place she had lived as Marianna’s companion before they’d moved to Bath. The place Danny had been conceived.

She swallowed hard at the thought and hoped she would not be met by a sneering, lascivious Mr. Ward. She was thankful anew to have avoided that man’s clutches in the past.

As she walked up the steps to the front door, she felt her palms perspiring within her gloves and prayed silently, Thy will be done....

She rang the bell and was relieved when Hopkins, the elderly butler, opened the door.

“Good day, Mr. Hopkins.”

His snowy brows rose. “Miss Rogers. What a surprise.”

“No doubt. I ... was hoping to have a brief word with Sir John. Is he at home to callers?”

“No, miss. I’m afraid not. Men from the newspapers have been hounding him since his return. He left as soon as he could after the trial.”

“May I ask where he went?”

He hesitated. “I’m not to say, miss.”

Hannah felt the sting of rejection. “He told you not to tell me?”

“No, miss. Not you specifically. He didn’t want me telling any of those newspaper men.”

“Oh. I see. Can you tell me if he has returned to Devonshire? I promise not to tell anyone else.”

He looked left then right, a twinkle in his old eyes. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me. But it’s a southwest wind that blows, aye.”

Hannah walked back to the lodging house. There, she found Mrs. Hurst and paid up in full, and then returned to her room to pack the last of their things. She left the door open and cracked a window to “air the place after all them dirty baby cloths” as Mrs. Hurst had instructed.

Becky, eager for the journey, hummed as she dressed Danny in the little wool coat and cap to protect him from the damp wind. They would go and briefly bid farewell to her father, and from there, it was only a short walk to a nearby coaching inn.

As she tucked a pair of gloves into her valise, Hannah felt the back of her neck prickle. She started and turned.

There stood James Lowden on the threshold. She’d forgotten she’d left the door open.

She put a hand to her heart. “James, you startled me. You’re not to be up here. My landlady has strict rules about gentlemen callers.”

She managed a wobbly grin, but his expression remained bleak.

“You’re packing.”

“Yes.”

His lips tightened. Turning to Becky, he said, “Would you mind taking Danny down to the sitting room for a few minutes, while I talk to Miss Rogers?”

“Very well, sir.” Becky bobbed a curtsy and carried Daniel from the room. Hannah no longer worried about Becky running off. The girl was far too eager to return to Devonshire and dear Mrs. Turrill.

When Becky’s footsteps faded down the stairs, he set down his hat and asked, “Are you moving to your father’s house?”

“No.”

He flinched. Hands fisted, he inhaled through flared nostrils, eyes squeezed tight. “You are returning to Clifton.”

“Not to the house, but to Lynmouth, yes.”

“To see Sir John.”

“To see Mrs. Turrill,” she clarified, distractedly adding a handkerchief to her reticule. “She’s offered Becky a home with her, and I promised Becky I’d escort her back as soon as I finished here.”

“And are you ... finished here?”

She stilled from her nervous motions of packing and faced him. She took a deep breath and said quietly, “I think I am.”

His mouth twisted. “You would have left without telling me? I don’t know why I’m surprised. You chose him before and I should have known you’d choose him again.”

Hannah wistfully shook her head. “He probably wants nothing to do with me, now that he’s free and clear of Marianna and the whole rotten scandal. I will likely deliver Becky and return empty-handed.”

“I doubt that.”

“I don’t know. But if there is any chance with Sir John, I have to try.”

“No, you don’t.”

“James, please...” She reached for him, but then thought the better of touching him. Of playing with fire. The embers were still there, just beneath the ashes.

She said, “I saw you at the stocks. Your expression. Your distance. And I understood. You must avoid scandal, and that’s what I am. A child born out of wedlock. Impersonation. Bigamy.”

“You had nothing to do with that—”

“I know. But I am a link to all of it. You want to build your practice. Of course you do. And I cannot help you in that. I can only hurt you. If you married me, I would live to see your admiration fade into resentment and regret.”

His face contorted in frustration, and perhaps grief. Though not, she knew, denial.

“But, Hannah,” he protested. “I want to be with you. I could not bear to never touch you again....” He ran his hands up her arms, prickling her skin into gooseflesh. “Don’t go yet. Stay and give me a chance. Give us a chance.”

For one moment, she hesitated. But then Marianna’s duplicitous face appeared in her mind’s eye and her stomach soured.

Drawing a deep breath, she stepped away from him. “No, James. I will not.”

He shook his head, anger flashing in his eyes. “Tell the truth, Hannah. Your concern for my practice, or even for Daniel, is not the real reason you refuse me, is it? You prefer Sir John.”

She allowed her silence to answer for her. She was attracted to James, it was true. But she loved Sir John and had for a long time.

James ran an agitated hand through his hair. “Then what am I to do? Soldier on, and try to pretend there is nothing between us? Carry on as Sir John’s solicitor as though I am not aching to take you in my arms every moment?”

She looked into his eyes, and exhaled a deep breath. “Then perhaps it is time Sir John engaged a new solicitor.”