Honor's Players - By Holly Newman Page 0,11

to perhaps purchase a suitable property from some impoverished member of society, when fortuitously he found his choice honeymoon home for Elizabeth. Furthermore, it was, to his delight, located a scant two hours outside London.

It was called Larchside, a prosaic enough name for what was a minor property in his holdings. It had passed—heretofore unwanted—into his hands shortly before his departure for Jamaica. The estate had been willed to him by Sir Jeremy Redfin, a distant relative, who ignominiously departed the world after falling down the main staircase in a drunken stupor, breaking his neck.

Sir Jeremy had lived as a recluse the last five years of his life after his youngest son and only surviving offspring died fighting a duel in Ireland over an accusation of tampering with a horse’s saddle by placing burrs under it prior to a race. This was an accusation that St. Ryne, remembering his cousin, could readily believe. Consequently, the estate which before had generated the tidy sum of 10,000 pounds per annum, had been allowed to go into ruin due to repair deferments. The greater portion of the estate was tied up with the banks; therefore, when St. Ryne drove up to the red brick, higgledy-piggledy styled manor house covered with ivy, he saw ill-tended grounds, lack of paint, and even a broken window on the second floor.

When no groom or stable hand came running to take his horses, St. Ryne tethered his team to a scraggly bush, glad it wasn’t his fractious grays yet wondering how this job team would deal with a stray paper or dead branch blown across their path. He frowned, and for the first time a small chink appeared in his confidence in his chosen course. He turned from his team to study the house before him just as the badly weathered oak door creaked open on rusty hinges. A skeletal apparition of a man with drawn tight skin stood in the doorway.

“This is private property, so you’d best get back in that fancy rig and be off with you.”

St. Ryne raised his eyebrows in a haughty manner designed to depress pretension. He drew off his driving gloves, slowly mounting the steps before the house. His unknown employee stepped backward nervously, his hand on the heavy door as if to slam it in St. Ryne’s face.

“And just whose property might this be?” he inquired silkily, slapping his gloves in his left hand.

“This here’s the property of the Viscount St. Ryne,” he said shrilly.

“Precisely, and I do not tolerate disrespect from any of my employees.” He smiled wolfishly as the man stumbled backward into the hall and he followed.

“Beg pardon, your lordship!” the man gasped. “I meant no disrespect! We do at times get strangers coming by trying to make trouble and we’ve had no word of your coming.”

The man would have babbled on, but St. Ryne silenced him with an impatient wave of his hand as he surveyed the hall. Most of the furniture was draped with Holland covers on which dust was thick. The walls showed scorch and soot marks from cheap candles, and the drapes looked as if a mere touch could shred them. On the whole, everything was drab and gray, and St. Ryne couldn’t have been more pleased. A boyish grin split his lips as he turned back to his employee.

“Your name, please,” he commanded.

“William Atheridge, if it pleases your lordship. My wife and I, we were butler and housekeeper to Sir Jeremy, milord.” He scurried to a doorway under the stairs. “Mae! Mae, come here!” he called then scurried back to St. Ryne. He bobbed again. “She’ll be here presently, she will.”

“What are you fratch’n about now?” came a high, gravelly voice from the direction of the stairs.

Both men turned toward her voice, and St. Ryne found himself facing a dour-faced woman with deep lines bracketing her mouth who was as stout as her husband was thin. Her eyes narrowed slightly when she saw an unknown gentleman in the hall, then her mouth stretched out into a travesty of a smile.

“Milord, this is my wife, Mae. My dear, this is the Viscount St. Ryne," he said, stressing the name.

Mae Atheridge approached them and bobbed a curtsy, her eyes sliding sideways to meet her husband’s.

“How do you do,” St. Ryne said absently, giving her only a cursory glance before dismissing her from his mind, his attention centering once again on the house. “So, Atheridge, as I’m here, what do you say to a tour of