Honor's Players - By Holly Newman Page 0,44
fists that impotently pounded the chair arms. She wanted nothing so much as to scream her frustrations at the top of her lungs. She could not, however, afford to let Tunning hear of her immature behavior via the Atheridges. Ah yes, the Atheridges, Tunning’s spies. It would not do to show any sort of weakness to them. She must get her tears under control, her breathing regular, make it appear she was totally unmoved by the scene in the library, for she’d wager they’d know of it.
She leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes, willing each muscle in her body to relax. What was she to do? She still was without servants and now, and she distrusted Mrs. Atheridge wouldn’t poison her deliberately versus accidentally as her current cooking ability threatened to accomplish. There seemed to be many decent people in the village for all who came to help at Larchside had been good folk. How could she find others to assume permanent positions in her household? Who would know everyone in the area?
Her eyes flew open. The vicar! A vicar would know his flock. Perhaps he even knew some of the skeletons rattling around, like Tunning and the Atheridges. No doubt he would be expecting her to make a duty call anyway. Perfect. Tunning could not rant and rave at suggestions from a man of the cloth.
“Oo-oo,” Elizabeth mouthed silently, a devilish light glowing in her eyes. Tunning was about to receive the first comeuppances at her hand and if she played her cards right, he could not complain to St. Ryne.
The next morning, Elizabeth felt beset by locusts. Not only did tradesmen and craftsmen arrive to push and pull for her attention, but also her trunks of personal belongings arrived. So busy was she that it wasn’t until nearly teatime before she could slip away to trek down to the village and the little stone church she had seen the day before.
A brisk fifteen minute walk brought her to the rectory and moments later she found herself in a cheery little parlor facing a kind-looking white-haired gentleman.
“I am delighted, simply delighted by your visit. My oh my, are we now to discover our sleepy little village in the guidebooks as one of the country seats of a Viscount, heir to an Earldom?” he teased. A tittering laugh followed his words, and Elizabeth could not help but laugh with him.
“I wouldn’t know, sir, what these publishers deem interesting.”
“Oh, anything for a shilling, my dear, anything at all,” he assured her, his watery blue eyes fairly bulging.
“And what’s anything for a shilling, Father?”
Elizabeth whirled around to see a well-set-up gentleman in modest attire standing by the door.
“Ah, David, there you are. Let me make you known to our new lovely patroness, the Viscountess St. Ryne.” He turned back to Elizabeth. “This scapegrace young gentleman is my son, David Thornbridge.”
Elizabeth heard the warm pride in the vicar’s voice and her eyes pricked with tears. Oh, to have a father with such sensibilities! She willed the telltale moisture away and gracefully extended her hand.
“My Lady,” young Mr. Thornbridge murmured with just the correct degree of deference in his tone as he made his leg.
Elizabeth was impressed. She inclined her head slightly. “You are not, Mr. Thornbridge, a man of the cloth like your father?”
“No indeed, my lady. I am a manager with Waddley Spice and Tea Company in London.”
“Ah, I have heard of them.”
“They are very successful, my lady.”
Elizabeth’s eyes danced merrily. “To be sure.”
Not for the world would she divulge to this serious gentleman quite how she knew of Waddley’s. The Honorable Mrs. Cecilia Waddley, sole owner after the death of her husband, had been born the Honorable Miss Cecilia Haukstorm, granddaughter of a Duke, niece of an Earl. She had virtually been sold into marriage to the highest bidder to pay her father and brother’s prodigious gambling debts. Though she had been cut off from society at her marriage, her widowhood saw the doors reopen to her, for not even the highest sticklers continued her omission from their invitation lists. She was a delightful ninny hammer, though given to blue megrims, vapors, and sundry other ailments she swore were constantly threatening to take her life from her. Her dramatic highs and lows were considered by society to be as entertaining as Elizabeth’s own tantrums had been. No doubt they were filling her place to a nicety.
“You are lucky to get time away from your ledgers and