Honor's Players - By Holly Newman Page 0,4

a grin or erupting into a short bark of laughter.

A little more than an hour later his butler entered and quietly set a small table by the fireplace. St. Ryne ignored him until he’d finished, stood aside, and cleared his throat respectfully.

“Thank you, Predmore,” he acknowledged, his eyes intent on the lines before him. “Be so kind as to have Cranston lay out my evening dress.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“That is all. No, wait,” St. Ryne said, glancing up briefly as that worthy turned to leave. “There is dust on top of my books.”

Predmore blanched. “My apologies, my lord. It will be attended to.”

The Viscount nodded absently and resumed his writing. “You may go.”

Predmore bowed and left the room to search for Mr. Cranston, milord’s valet, and afterward to have a few choice words with a certain footman whose duties included maintaining milord’s library. Predmore had been with St. Ryne for nine years, ever since the young man had set himself up in London, much to the Countess’s annoyance. Predmore enjoyed working for his lordship but knew he brooked no difference for the rules he set.

As heir to the Earldom of Seaverness, St Ryne had been immediately feted and courted when he came to London. Too much so, to Predmore’s mind. He’d witnessed an open and curious young man with a ready wit and dry humor slowly jaded by a fawning society. The cynical man who remained drifted seemingly untouchable. His one refuge, his library, which if he so chose, was inviolate to the outside world, off limits even to his mother, the formidable Countess of Seaverness. She, to give her her due, respected his independence, if only for a short while.

Predmore shook his head as he mounted the stairs. It did not appear his lordship’s sojourn to the heathen lands had been auspicious. He, at least, he decided righteously, could be certain the Viscount would find nothing further to disturb his comforts at home.

Sometime later, the Viscount St. Ryne sat sprawled in a large dark blue wing chair by the fire, the substantial remains of the stuffed game hen offered by his household to tempt his appetite pushed negligently away from the place set before him. He idly twirled his wineglass between strong tapering fingers. He gazed with heavily lidded eyes out the window of his library into the street below. It was dark and the wind was driving rain against the glass. There was little activity besides the occasional closely shuttered carriage with wildly swinging lanterns and hunched coachmen. The Viscount scarcely noticed the rain and wind; he was lost in his own brooding thoughts and stared unseeing at the vista before him.

Dressed soberly in a chocolate-brown jacket and dove pantaloons, someone passing him by when he walked in town might mistake him for a clerk unless they chanced to glance at his face or note his bearing. No clerk ever strode with such arrogance and pride in every step. His visage was not remarkable; he was neither excessively handsome nor ill-favored. His expression was arresting, however, and if one happened to be favored with a smile, one would note how it lit his face and how his eyes danced with some secret mirth. In form he was of average height and weight. This did not dissuade the dandies from envying him, for his coats needed none of the padding currently in vogue to minimize physical shortcomings. The Viscount’s hair was disheveled, though not due to the careful artifice of the windswept look currently popular with young aspirants to fashion. A couple of dark locks fell forward to curl over his brow and catch the light from the tall candelabrum at his elbow. His arresting features were now marred by a pronounced scowl that drew his thick brown brows together creating deep furrows in his forehead and turning down the corners of his mouth.

Back only a sennight after a year away, and already his mother was haranguing him to choose a bride. It had been her efforts to put one or another of her new protégées before him as perspective brides that had driven him away. That, and the ceaseless fawning he received from debutantes and matchmaking mothers. He should have realized his return would herald renewed activity on the Countess’s part, particularly as she was flush with success from marrying off his cousins last season. She now considered herself a triumphant matchmaker. Thankfully his parents were leaving within the week for a protracted stay in Paris, and not scheduled