As Death Draws Near by Anna Lee Huber Page A

row of buttons, she inhaled deeply, as if facing the inevitable. “I was raised Roman Catholic, if that’s what ye mean.”
    It was indeed. “By your granny?”
    She reached in to begin tugging at the laces of my corset. “Aye. An’ my mam.”
    I allowed my posture to sag as the pressure holding my spine upright was released. “Are you still?”
    Another slight hesitation. “I s’pose so.”
    â€œBut you’ve always attended St. Cuthbert’s in Elwick with the other servants and my family. And St. George’s in Edinburgh,” I argued, trying to understand.
    â€œBecause it wasn’t possible to attend mass. All o’ the mass houses were too far away. And it simply became habit to go wi’ the family once we moved to Edinburgh.”
    I pulled my arms from the sleeves of my carriage dress and corset, allowing the gown to pool on the floor as Bree whisked away my corset, and I pivoted to look at her. Her expression was tight, her cheeks flushed with chagrin.
    She shrugged. “I ken it goes against what I was taught, but I reckon the Lord dinna mind where I go, so long as I does.”
    She turned away to deposit my corset on the table and retrieve my nightdress, shaking the folds loose. I knew how I was supposed to react, that I should be shocked and horrified that my maid was a Catholic, but I couldn’t seem to summon such a response. I knew Bree. I knew her heart—or at least, I thought I did—and it was good.
    Ever since I was a child, we had been taught that Catholics needed to be saved from themselves. That they were superstitious and beholden to immoral traditions, and loyal only to the Pope. That the only way they could be a goodBritish subject was to convert. But Bree had never seemed any less loyal or more superstitious than most of the Anglicans and Protestants I knew. And neither had the reverend mother or Mother Paul.
    Perhaps I was supposed to berate her, to scold her for her sinful ways and demand she convert or else be dismissed. I knew any number of ladies who would have done so, that their husbands would have insisted upon it. But I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it. Maybe this was a failing on my part. Maybe it was a fault I would be taken to task for at heaven’s pearly gates. But it was a risk I was willing to take seeing as the alternative option seemed far more harmful. I would certainly have difficulty embracing the faith of a people who rebuked me and then forced my conversion, and I couldn’t imagine Bree was any different.
    I remembered how our cook at Blakelaw House used to harangue me and my siblings with Bible verses whenever she witnessed or heard of us misbehaving. As a young child, I was made to feel horribly guilty, but when I grew old enough to recognize some of the verses and the manner in which she was misusing them, I all but ignored her. She’d done no good but to rile us and make us determined not to become sanctimonious hypocrites.
    That memory brought me up short as Bree dropped my fine linen nightrail over my head, making me recall something else my maid had confided in me. “Is that one of the reasons Cook beat you?” I asked softly.
    Dark recollections swam through the depths of Bree’s brown eyes. “Aye.”
    I clenched my teeth against the desire to curse. Bree had worked as a kitchen maid at Blakelaw House for several years before being promoted to upstairs maid and then my lady’s maid half a year ago. Unbeknownst to my father and me—when I had still lived there before marrying Sir Anthony—the cook had tormented her, eventually almost beating her to death with a rolling pin. My father had fired the cook and seen that Bree’s injuries were taken care of, butthe damage had been done, despite Bree’s assurances to the contrary. I had seen the way she shrank from quick movements, much the way I did, but for a different reason. The sound of a