Honor's Players - By Holly Newman Page 0,6

thankful to have made his escape without having to stand up with the young debutante and knowing he left behind a pleased yet exasperated Lady Amblethorp.

“Adroit, as usual,” a dry voice at his side murmured in the wake of a rustle of silk and a waft of French Musk perfume.

“Sally! Your humble servant.” St. Ryne bowed to Lady Sally Jersey. As one of the vaunted patronesses of Almack’s, there was not much going on in town she missed. It was on his tongue to inquire of his prey, desiring a woman’s summation on the situation, but her nickname of Silence—for everything she was not—gave him pause.

“And you are an impertinent pup!” she said rapping his hand with her fan. “Sally indeed.”

“A thousand pardons,” St. Ryne raised her hand to kiss it. “I have been told I received a surfeit of sun on my trip to Jamaica, and it has left me with an addled mind,” he explained lightly.

Lady Jersey pulled her hand away quickly though a little smile lifted the corners of her thin aristocratic lips. “Trip! A euphemism for escape. I know. But who trifled with his health by that remark?”

He laughed. “The day of the duel for such stupidity is past. I’ll save that for the young bucks and old goats. If you must know, and I can tell by that gleam in your eye you’ll have it out of me, it was Carlton Tretherford.”

“Bah!” she snorted, waving her arm in dismissal. “The man has more hair than wit. That’s one randy old goat who thinks to stay amongst the bucks. Look at him over there after this year’s jewel of the Marriage Mart.”

“La Belle Helene.”

She eyed him shrewdly. “Do you seek to join the ranks?” she asked, slowly unfurling her fan and waving it languidly before her.

“Acquit me, madam. I choose more sprightly game.”

Lady Jersey laughed. “You would or else you'd have one of Lady Alicia’s protégés. Do you have someone in mind?” she asked archly.

He merely smiled.

“Oh! I know you’ll not say and I’m wasting my breath ask.” She closed her fan with a snap. “Be off, you arrogant jackanapes,” she commanded petulantly.

St. Ryne bowed again, leaving an amused and exasperated Lady Jersey staring after him.

He had almost made his way to La Belle Helene and her tail when out of the corner of his eye he saw the older girl. She was standing between a pillar and a tall vase filled with large white roses. He recognized her immediately from Freddy’s description but was surprised she did not appear the glittering shrew of his imagination. She was dressed all white in a ridiculously childish muslin gown trimmed with pink rosettes. By its appearance it was a gown more suited to her sister. Lady Elizabeth would appear to better advantage in dark, vibrant colors. She was turned toward her sister’s coterie, her face related, almost devoid of all expression, yet St. Ryne felt sure he noted an odd trace of sadness in the fine set of her mouth and the expression of her golden eyes fringed with coal-dark lashes. He knew then she was not one of Lucifer’s angels as Branstoke had described her; more like a lost and confused child lashing out to protect herself, her temper giving her the strength not to shatter into a thousand pieces. Child? Nay, young woman for that was not the figure of a child, he thought, looking her over with a practiced eye.

Coming up on Freddy Shiperton, St. Ryne hooked his arm in his.

“Oh, there you are. Wondering if you’d show. Shocking squeeze, you know,” Freddy said over his shoulder, his eyes never leaving the object of his adoration.

St. Ryne objectively studied Lady Helene Monweithe for a moment. He granted she was a diamond of the first water and deserving the sobriquet La Belle; yet every season saw another more lustrous than the last. These jewels had never engendered interest by him in all his years on the town. It was as if in having beauty, they suffered some deficit of character, and whereas character lasts while beauty fades, he’d come to value its coin above beauty. He was amused to note that like the jewels before her, she had the requisite harridan by her side.

“Who’s the chaperone?” he asked Freddy, pulling him out of his worshipful reverie.

“Huh? Oh, Lady Romella Wisgart, her mama’s sister. A very starchy sort.”

“She seems to favor Tretherford,” St. Ryne observed, watching a small by-play of words and smiles.

Freddy snorted. “Tretherford’s a toady,