Lady Maybe Read Online Free PDF

must feel. But praise God, you and Sir John survived and may yet have other children.”
    She was vaguely aware of the doctor sending the woman a cautioning look, warning her not to raise her hopes, but she ignored it. Instead she recalled the dream—the baby in a basket, floating away from her. Had she lost her child? Lost him before he’d ever breathed? Then why did the sound of a baby’s cry ring in her memory as familiar as her own voice?
    Her mind whirled, set free like a globe knocked from its stand and sent spinning across the room.
    Her tears stopped flowing then, and in their place pellets of memory fell like sleet—one stinging shard after another. She gasped aloud, relief and new pain enveloping her. She
had
lost her child. But that did not mean he was dead, did it?
Dear God, no
.
    “My lady . . . ?” Mrs. Turrill asked, eyes wide and worried.
    “I . . . I am all right,” she managed. “Or at least I—we—shall be. I hope.”
    Footfalls hammered up the stairs and Edgar Parrish lurched through the open door.
    “Pa, come quick,” he panted. “The Dirksen boy took a bad fall from the tree in the churchyard.”
    Dr. Parrish stood immediately. “I’ll get my bag. Have you alerted your mother?”
    Edgar nodded. “She’s in the gig already.” The young man glanced at her sheepishly, his face reddening. “Sorry to interrupt, your ladyship.”
    She squinted up at him, confusion returning. “Not at all . . .”
    The doctor turned to Mrs. Turrill. “Please look in on Sir John for me.”
    “Of course.”
    He looked at her and patted her hand. “Now. You just rest, my lady. Mrs. Turrill will look after you and your husband until we return.”
    She nodded vaguely as he turned away. Watching them all go, her mind silently echoed,
husband . . . ?
She had no husband.
    She felt her brow knit and her whirling thoughts snag and snarl at the doctor’s words. Her muddled brain had refused to take it in before. His words, Edgar’s, Mrs. Turrill’s had all seemed like nonsense. As if they were addressing someone else behindher, just out of view. Now her brain abruptly quit spinning and their words, their deferential manner, the fine room, snapped into place in her mind. They thought
she
was Lady Mayfield. That she, Hannah Rogers, was Sir John’s wife.
    —
    That night, Hannah tossed and turned for hours, trying to figure out how the misunderstanding had first arisen and how best to break the news. She dreaded to think how these respectable people would react when they learned the truth.
    When she finally fell asleep, the dream revisited her. Her baby in a basket on shore. She’d meant to return for him directly, but instead lay there, unable to move. The tide was coming in. Closer and closer, lapping at the sides of the basket. A hand reached toward the basket—Lady Mayfield’s hand. But how could that be? Lady Mayfield was in the water, the tide pulling her, dragging her away, her waterlogged gown and cloak weighing her down. Hannah grasped her hand, trying to save her, but the woman’s fingers slipped from hers. Remembering her son, Hannah turned in alarm, but it was too late. The basket was already bobbing away across the channel.
    The dream changed then—fearful imaginings replaced by fearful memory—a scene that was all too real. . . .

    H annah hurried to the old Trim Street terrace house where she’d spent her lying-in, and knocked on the door until the skin of her knuckles scraped raw. Finally, a narrow slit opened and a pair of irritated eyes appeared.
    “Please, Mrs. Beech,” Hannah said. “I need to see him.”
    “Have you got the money?”
    “Not yet. But I will have.”
    “When?”
    “Soon.”
    “You told me that yesterday and the day before, and the day before that.”
    Hannah strived to keep her voice calm. “I know. I’m sorry. Please—”
    “I’m out of patience. When you pay me what’s owed, you may see him. But not before.”
    “You can’t do that. I’m