A Lady’s Secret Read Online Free PDF Page A

a crowded, dirty place at the best of time, Sister. In summer it’s all stink and disease; thus anyone who can flees to countryside or seashore. Are you sure you want to go there?”
    She was wondering, but had to say, “Yes. You go north, then?”
    “To Huntingdonshire, but I’ll linger long enough to see you settled. Where?” he asked again.
    She supposed he couldn’t simply leave her on a London street. “You may take me to a convent there.”
    “Sister Immaculata, there are no convents.”
    “We promised truth.”
    “I speak the truth. We’re a Protestant country.”
    “But you have Catholics. I know you do. And they are no longer persecuted.”
    “Not tortured and executed, certainly, but there are restrictions on them. For all I know there are still laws forbidding religious houses, but for sure, any Catholic lady who wishes to become a nun travels to the continent. Which makes me think—do you have any other clothing?”
    “A spare habit. Some changes of linen. A cloak.”
    “Then we must purchase something. There may be a law against wearing a nun’s habit in England, but of a certainty wearing one will make you conspicuous and even put you in danger of unpleasantness.”
    Petra’s head was spinning. “Unpleasantness?”
    “Catholics are not loved and sometimes mistreated.”
    “That is barbarous!”
    “Is it? Less than twenty years ago a Catholic claimant to the throne, supported by the Catholic King of France, invaded and tried to seize the crown. Memories of the Armada live on, when the Most Catholic King of Spain attempted to seize our country and return it to the rule of Rome.”
    Petra looked down in dismay at her gray habit. What she’d seen as protection might now be her peril? Her courage was shrinking by the moment. Religious persecution was notoriously cruel, and she was not the stuff of martyrs.
    “Lady Sodworth said nothing of this.”
    “Perhaps she simply didn’t think of it.”
    “She never thinks of anything but her appearance. But we had an agreement, she and I. I would assist her with the journey if she transported me to England and advised me there.”
    “And you trusted her?”
    His skepticism stung, but she could hardly respond with the truth, that she’d been desperate.
    “Her title…but when I asked her about aristocratic ways, she was evasive. I think she is not a lady at all.”
    “In some senses you might be right. What’s her husband’s name?”
    Petra thought about it. “She only ever refers to ‘my husband’ or ‘dear Samuel.’ I see now it is all a lie.”
    “Perhaps not. He could be Sir Samuel Sodworth and she would be Lady Sodworth.”
    “A mere knight?”
    He seemed amused. “Most would hardly think it mere. He could be a baron or higher, but I don’t recognize the title.”
    “And you would?”
    She knew the answer before he said, “Yes.”
    Could he provide the knowledge she needed? “You are nobly born, sir?”
    “Right back to the Conquest.”
    “Then why are you a plain mister and she is Lady Sodworth?”
    He settled more comfortably, apparently willing to inform.
    “In many countries, the children of nobles are all titled, and that can continue through the generations, but that’s not the way in England. For example, the younger sons and daughters of a duke have the courtesy title of lord or lady, but that’s not inherited, so their children are plain misters and misses.”
    “That is your situation?”
    He laughed. “The grandson of a duke? No.”
    “But wealthy and nobly born?”
    “Yes. The point is that plain misses and misters can be rich and important in England, and ladies can be upstarts. Many a foreigner comes to grief by not knowing that.”
    Petra nodded. “Thank you.”
    “What else do you want to know?”
    Alas, she couldn’t ask about the person she’d traveled so far to find. She’d not let a stranger close to that.
    “Tell me about the royal court,” she said. “It is the Court of Saint James, I know,