The Confession

by Beverly Lewis

  Katherine Mayfield, Mistress of Mayfield Manor.

  I stood up, noticing as I headed into the bedroom that Rosie had turned down the coverings on Laura’s bed—now mine. This room, where my first mother had suffered so, where she’d prayed for me, desperately hoping that I might come to her before she went home to Jesus, all of it belonged to me. Everything around me, everywhere I looked. And to think that my dear, prayerful mother had given this wonderful-good place to me boggled my mind!

  Feelings of unworthiness sprang up, but along with that came a sense of anticipation, wrapped up in one trembling bundle. How I missed Laura; how I wished that she’d lived long enough to grow old in her beloved childhood home. That I might’ve come to know her better, share her life, her dreams. I wished, too, that I could find her journal, the one she’d written while I was growing inside her … so long ago.

  “If only Laura were still here,” I said to the darkness. Oh, I was for sure and for certain she could guide me through the maze of my future, because I had no inkling what it might hold.

  Still, I had always pined for such an English life as this. And a truly good part of me could hardly wait for every speck of it to unfold.

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to Kathy Torley for her professional medical assistance, the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Colorado Springs, and June Heimsoth for her research help.

  My appreciation to John and Julie Sullivan—delightful innkeepers of Morgan-Samuels B&B Inn of Canandaigua, New York—for allowing their beautiful, 1810 English-style mansion to be featured on the cover of this book. (Listed in The Innkeeper’s Register, I highly recommend it.)

  I wish to thank Anne Severance, my prayerful editor and friend, as well as Barbara Lilland and Carol Johnson, who offered their faithful editorial guidance throughout the writing process, along with Dave, my dear husband, encourager and friend, and “second eyes.”