Honor's Players - By Holly Newman Page 0,52
groom will be here soon, but these beauties need attention now.”
“Me, my lord? Coo! There’s nothing I’d like better!” Excitement was writ large over the young man’s face as he stroked the neck of one of the pair. “I’ll do a good job, I swear to you!”
St. Ryne maintained an air of gravity. “Do you like horses, Thomas?”
“More than anything!”
“Hmm.” St. Ryne descended from the carriage and approached the man. “Better than being a footman?”
Uncertainty captured Thomas’s face. “Well, sir, I mean, my lord, being a footman ain’t bad, especially for my lady, but—”
St. Ryne laughed but when he spoke, his tone was sympathetic. “It’s not the same, though, is it?”
Thomas shook his head, then remembered himself. “No, my lord.”
“Don’t look so glum. My man Grigs is due here within the hour. Tell him I said you’re to have a trial.”
Thomas’s lean face lit up again like a beacon. “Thank you, my lord! I’d best get cracking. I don’t want Mr. Grigs’s first impression to be bad. Excuse me, my lord!”
St. Ryne watched him lead the horses away before he mounted the stairs. It suddenly occurred to him that his wife might not be pleased with his meddling in her disposition of servants. He shook his head ruefully, another sin to atone for.
It was his desire to change the direction of his relationship with Elizabeth, and he knew that it might not be an easy proposition. Nevertheless, he felt confident that his newly discovered love for his termagant wife would guide him to gentle wooing. It was as though the scales had fallen from his eyes and a blind man made to see. Though he had laughed at society for failing to see the parallels to William Shakespeare’s play, he was equally guilty of failing to see Elizabeth’s true nature. No, worse yet, of failing to act upon the gentleness and fragility he did glimpse.
He massaged his brow as he stepped into the hall, pondering his course of action. It was his nose that first alerted him to the extent of the changes within. The house smelled of fresh paint, polishing oils, and strong soap. He lowered his hand and looked around the hall, well satisfied. A smug expression, as if he were solely responsible, spread across his features. To an extent he felt he was, for he had taken to wife the woman who was capable of rendering such miracles in a short amount of time.
He spotted Atheridge coming out of the door under the stairs. “Atheridge! Where is my wife?”
“Oh, my lord! You startled me. We had no word of your coming.”
“I sent none. My wife, please?”
“In the library, my lord. Let me announce you.”
“In my own house? Hardly.” He strode down the hall to the library door, rapped once softly and before waiting for a response, walked into the room.
Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave . . .
—Act IV, Scene I
Elizabeth sat at the desk, a sheaf of papers before her and a quill in hand, determinedly deceiving herself with the motions of busy employment. Unfortunately, rather than the columns of numbers and their calculations to ascertain the fabric yardage necessary for the drapes and hangings in her bedroom, her hand seemed more inclined to absent circles and squiggles bearing, with some little imagination, all the character of a field of flowers.
Now that she was intimately acquainted with the condition of Larchside, she spent considerable time at the desk planning the manor’s refurbishment. She’d spent the morning choosing the fabrics for various rooms from the samples the linen drapers supplied. Most of the work was being done in their London workshops, but Elizabeth had decided to have her room done locally. Mary informed her there were women in the village who could sew a neat seam and could use extra money, for signs indicated a harsh winter to come. It would also, they decided, nicely sabotage Tunning’s effort to distance her from the local people. Elizabeth smiled briefly. She and Mary were fast becoming as thick as inkle weavers, much to the Atheridges’ chagrin and Tunning’s rage.
A bold line slashed across the page as her smile faded. St. Ryne had absented himself for a full week now, and she was beginning to feel restive. It wasn’t so much that she missed him as she missed the strange feelings he had introduced in her breast. She found herself contemplating different scenarios for a repeat of those ephemeral feelings. Then a sudden fear would grip her for