Maid of Honor by Paula Marshall

Author:Paula Marshall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2004-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Jack Chancellor recovered rapidly from his injury. Fortunately for him, nothing vital had been affected and the family coach had been sent to carry him home as soon as he was fit to travel. It was, it seemed, unlikely that he would return to Lord Robert’s service. In his absence his family were trying to arrange a marriage for him with the daughter and heiress of a neighbouring landowner, and he was expected to settle down and learn the management of both of the estates which would one day be his.

He had sent a letter of farewell to Alys which was given to her after his departure. Her behaviour on reading it had been stoic, but later in the day, after dinner, she had suffered her worst attack of vomiting yet. She wandered about Somerset House looking frail and ill—all of which was put down to Jack’s desertion.

Penelope, between semi-secret meetings with Oliver and the demands of the Queen with whom she was reading the classics, was busier than ever until one evening, not long before the court was due to travel to Whitehall Palace, Kat Ashley bustled up to her, exclaiming, ‘Mistress Jermaine, have you come across Alys Belsize lately? No one has seen her since early morning. I know that she has taken lately to hiding herself away, but she has never been missing for so long before.’

Penelope shook her head. ‘No, madam, I have been with the Queen all morning and this afternoon I have been busy embroidering a scarf for my new gown.’

Kat sighed. ‘She was such a good child until recently. You are sure that you have no notion of where she might be?’

Penelope was about to say no when a sudden, unwelcome, thought struck her. It was an unwelcome thought, because if she were to tell Kat of Alys’s and Jack’s use of the room where unwanted furniture was kept, her mistress might not be best pleased with her for having known this and not reported it.

She decided that it might be best to say nothing at all. If she were wrong she would look a fool, and a malicious fool at that. The sensible thing would be to visit the room herself, find out whether Alys was hiding there and tell her that her disappearances had been noticed and that Kat Ashley was far from happy about them.

Kat sighed again, ‘Oh, well, she is sure to turn up when it is time for bed. You seemed to be one of her friends so I thought that you might know what she is doing, but if you don’t…’

More than ever, Penelope thought, when the disturbed Kat had left her, it was essential that she visited the room again. The only thing was that she had forgotten where it was. All that she could do was try to retrace her steps again and hope that they would not lead her astray. In the end, after some wrong turnings, she at last discovered the door to the room which Alys and Jack had used for their rendezvous.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.