Yvonne Goes to York by M. C. Beaton Read Free Book Online

she had not particularly minded before. She had been too grateful for the work. But the horrible Lady Abbott had made her feel small and shabby and undistinguished.
    ‘Such a pushing, vulgar creature, that Abbott female ,’ said the marquis meditatively, looking around the gloomy faces. ‘’Tis said her father was in trade.’
    All the bruised egos turned to him like flowers to the sun. Hannah began to laugh. ‘Did you but mark her daughter’s outrage after she had manufactured that swoon only to recover in the arms of Benjamin?’
    The others laughed as well and, in one brief fleeting moment, the odd assortment were united by a communal dislike of the high-handed Lady Abbott.
    But then Monsieur Petit remembered his mission and reflected that the presence of this marquis was becoming increasingly irritating. He was obviously well known, and no innkeeper on the road would forget their visit. Mr Ashton covertly studied Yvonne. She was a neat piece of work, he thought, fiddling with a goose quill to prize a recalcitrant piece of chicken from between his teeth. He rather fancied himself as a ladies’ man. Perhaps he could flirt with her, dazzle her, and so make her blind to any danger. So ran his conceited thoughts while the object of them looked around the stable security of the dining-room of this English inn and became more determined than ever to ask help of Miss Hannah Pym. This was not Paris, where one learned quickly not to trust anyone but a few close friends, and menace lurked around every streetcorner. She felt a pang of envy for the marquis. He was eating neatly and deftly, looking relaxed and amused. He was handsome and burnished and tailored to perfection. She did not believe his tale of poverty. He was armoured by birth and fortune and looks against a world of poverty and danger, snubs and deception. He had only to raise his head and look about him for the waiters to come running, not in the hope of a good tip, but because he was ‘my lord’. The landlord hovered near the table as well, eyes sharp for any sign of slackness on the part of his staff.
    A large log fire crackled on the hearth and the branches of candles on the tables burnt clear and bright. Yvonne felt a lump rising in her throat caused by a craving to be part of this secure world.
    Conversation became desultory, and as soon as the meal was over, they all decided to retire to their rooms. Yvonne was to share a bedchamber with Hannah. Both ladies walked up the shallow polished wooden treads of the inn staircase, a waiter walking before them with a candle to light their way.
    ‘What it is to be in the company of a marquis!’ exclaimed Hannah as they entered what was obviously one of the best bedchambers in the inn. A coal fire was burning brightly, and beeswax candles burnt on the mantelpiece instead of the usual tallow ones.
    Both ladies worked busily, opening their trunks and looking out their night-rail and clean clothes for the morning.
    ‘And now,’ said Hannah in the same matter-of-fact voice she had just been using to praise the comforts of the bedchamber a moment before, ‘perhaps you might enlighten me, Miss Grenier, as to what is going on? I have never found myself among a stranger group of passengers, and there is an air of secrecy, furtiveness and, yes, menace emanating from our Mr Smith and his foppish friend, and I think you know why.’
    Yvonne gave a little sigh and sat down suddenly in a small armchair by the fire and looked at her hands. Hannah waited patiently.
    ‘I was going to tell you,’ said Yvonne at last. ‘I had made up my mind to ask for your help. Mr Smith is in fact Monsieur Petit of the Paris Tribunal. He told me that my father had written to him saying that he, my father, who had turned against the Revolution, was now in favour of it, and wished to return to Paris and help the new regime. He showed me a letter. It is in my father’s handwriting, but I am convinced now that it is an old letter, one sent