Honor's Players - By Holly Newman Page 0,25

a hesitant step into the hall, running a shaking finger over a side table, its surface sticky with grime. She wrinkled her nose at the close, musty smell of the house and the acrid odor of the cheap candles sputtering in their sockets and leaving soot streaks on the wall. At her feet, the colors of what was once a magnificent Aubusson carpet were indistinguishable. A look of horror and disgust captured her features.

St. Ryne noted her reaction with satisfaction. He relaxed, leaning back on his heels. He glanced at the waiting butler. “Is there a fire laid in the library? Good,” he said as Atheridge nodded. “We shall repair to that room for the moment. Be so good as to have Mrs. Atheridge step up here please.”

“Yes, my lord,” Atheridge replied, his thin nose fairly twitching as he backed quickly away. Hurrying toward the kitchen, he scratched his head at the strange homecoming of the Viscount, wondering if Tunning could make any sense of it.

“All right, you have had your joke,” Elizabeth said rounding on him as he closed the library door behind him. “What is it you expect me to do? Faint? Cry? What is your pleasure, my lord?” The title dripped acid. She spun away from him to flick back Holland covers from chairs, coughing at the billows of dust she raised.

St. Ryne watched her in silence, and then a slow smile crossed his face. “But, Bess, this is your home. Did you not see the marriage settlement? A property called Larchside was deeded to you. This is it.”

“This?” Elizabeth gasped out, her eyes streaming from the dust.

St. Ryne nodded, a crooked smile twisting his features to sardonic amusement.

“How dare you! You make a mockery of-of—”

“Tradition?” St. Ryne offered softly as he walked toward her.

Elizabeth took an involuntary step backward, suddenly nervous before the stranger who was her husband. Determined not to show it, her temper flared hotter. “Yes, tradition, if you will. My father, in a mistaken idea of what was in my best interests, negotiated this miserable alliance with you and you have, at every turn, made it a mockery. You, sir, are an insult to your rank!”

“And are you any better?” St. Ryne asked with a laugh. “Like to like, my dear,” he said, cupping her chin in his hand and forcing her to come closer to him and look up at him.

Elizabeth’s eyes blazed at hearing her father’s words echoed. She knocked his hand away. “Swine!” she hissed then turned to continue removing dust covers. Behind her St. Ryne laughed aloud and she cringed at hearing it, knowing she had not the power to put him in his place. He seemed to have an impenetrable hide.

At a knock on the door, St. Ryne turned away from watching his infuriated beauty. “Enter.”

Mrs. Atheridge dourly opened the door. “You sent for me, my lord?” she asked, hesitating briefly before acknowledging his rank in an insolent manner which, though lost on the Viscount, was not on the Viscountess. Elizabeth’s eyes flew open wide then narrowed to study the dark, squat figure before them. Mrs. Atheridge’s gray streaked hair, raked painfully back from her face, emphasized her slab shaped features and beady eyes. The dress she wore was black and of a severe cut, but Elizabeth could hear the rustle of silk petticoats and knew expensive material when she saw it. Despite the stark black color and lack of ostentation in her dress, this squat black beetle seemed oddly at variance with her surroundings.

She schooled her features to an aloofness she was far from feeling in order to study better this second member of her husband’s bizarre staff.

“Ah! Mrs. Atheridge,” hailed St. Ryne at her appearance. “My bride and I,” he said, winking at Elizabeth, “would like our dinner in one hour. We have had a long trip and unavoidably had to miss our breakfast. As you may imagine, we are quite famished.”

“One hour, my lord,” she said, bobbing diffidently. “Though I ain’t serving much ’cause there ain’t much here.”

“Sustenance is all we require. Immediately, however, conduct my lady-wife,” he said, emphasizing wife slightly as he gestured in Elizabeth’s direction, “to her room.” Turning to Elizabeth who stood stiffly behind a chair she had uncovered, he smirked. “Bess, my love, I know you must wish to change out of those wet garments.” He let his gaze slide slowly down her figure, visually undressing her. “There are some dry things in the cupboard upstairs. I believe I have