Page 47

...And where two raging fires meet together,

They do consume the thing that feeds their Fury.

I n the course of the succeeding four days, Lady Elizabeth Monweithe made a concerted effort to be absent from her home for the greater part of the day.

She shopped at Harding, Howell and Company in Schomberg House, resting to partake of tea and sweetmeats in their first floor restaurant; patronized the new Soho Square shopping bazaar, where the stalls were run by female relatives of soldiers lost in the Napoleonic wars, as a means of income; browsed through Hatchard’s bookshop in Piccadilly; duly admired the artifacts to be found in the Egyptian Hall; visited the Royal Menagerie at Exeter ’Change; strolled through the Botanic Gardens; and spoke of an intent to visit an exhibition at the Royal Society of Arts in Somerset House, only to be told the exhibitions would not begin again until May.

For the first two days, when she returned to her home feeling tired, dirty, foot-sore, and irritated, her casual question of callers was met with the usual list of her fair sister’s coterie.

By the third day, she had begun to wonder if the Viscount had set spies after her, and so knew not to call.

By the evening of the fourth day, her temper was very uncertain, and there existed an unfamiliar pain around the region of her heart.

Her explorations of the city’s shopping haunts and marvels would, on another occasion, have filled her with delight and awe.

But such was the determinedness of her efforts that her maid was sadly heard to say to her peers below stairs (as she soaked her feet) that her mistress had taken leave of her senses, and muttered darkly as to the causes for her mistress’s queer start.

On the morning of the fifth day, Lady Elizabeth remained at home—her manner pugnacious, her attire elegant—half willing, half defying the Viscount to make an appearance.

He did not. For once, Lady Elizabeth acknowledged as she stared broodingly out her bedroom window into the small garden at the back of the house that gave way onto the mews, someone had fought against her infamously rigid guard and had managed to score a hit.

She knew from the first moment she saw St. Ryne standing before her that he personified the embodiment of her closely held and jealously guarded dreams. Sadly she wished she could have returned his comments with gay and witty sallies designed to entrance.

But she could not. She could only cut because it was safer to strike the first blow than to leave oneself open for the populace to destroy.

He told her he would come to call and to ask her papa for his consent to marry.

Lady Elizabeth twisted uncomfortably in her seat.

He had not. She leaned her face against the cool glass, her breath misting before her.

She frowned heavily as her temper mounted.

She’d show him, she thought. She’d show him she didn’t care a jot whether he claimed her.

She groaned. Why was she even thinking such thoughts?

Marriage was not for her. It left one too vulnerable and—and out of control.

The whole situation was entirely too ridiculous.

She was merely being made the butt of some joke, most likely spurred by a bet in one club or another.

At that sickening thought, her anger soared once more, and with a very unladylike oath, she sprang to her feet, twirled, and flounced out of the room with a swish of her skirts.

The upstairs maid saw her, and shook her mob-capped head slightly as she resumed dusting the picture frames in the hall.

The Viscount St. Ryne had not made an appearance at the Monweithe residence the next day, nor in the succeeding days, because he was not in London to do so.

Early the next morning, following that fateful rout at the Amblethorps’, he directed a couple of portmanteaux be packed for a visit of indeterminate duration, horrifying his valet with his expressed wish of traveling alone, and dispensing with that gentleman’s daily service.

He ordered his horses put to his carriage, and while waiting, told his people quite casually that he was off to tour his holdings.

In all truth he was, but with an express purpose in mind.

He was looking for a particular type of holding.

His perusal of William Shakespeare’s famous play had sparked a flame of commitment and determinedness every bit as strong as Elizabeth’s avoidance, yet his approach was with casual excitement, in the spirit of attending a particularly rousing sporting event.

Though he could not envision himself wreaking havoc at table or in the bedchamber, as Petruchio had, he could attempt to find a holding, as disreputable as possible, to which to carry his bride.

This proved no easy task; he soon discovered his personal wealth and the loyalty of those he employed precluded shabbiness and dirt, and he came to realize the condition of his library in London to be an exception.

It was in his mind, after an exhausting whirlwind tour of his holdings flung throughout the southern portion of England, to perhaps purchase a suitable property from some impoverished member of society, when fortuitously he found his choice honeymoon home for Elizabeth.

Furthermore, it was, to his delight, located only a scant two hours outside London.

It was called Larchside, a prosaic enough name for what was a minor property in his holdings.

It had passed—heretofore unwanted—into his hands shortly before his departure for Jamaica.

The estate had been willed to him by Sir Jeremy Redfin, a distant relative, who ignominiously departed this world after falling down the main staircase in a drunken stupor, breaking his neck.

Sir Jeremy had lived as a recluse the last five years of his life, after his youngest son and only surviving offspring died fighting a duel in Ireland, over an accusation of tampering with a horse’s saddle by placing burrs under it prior to a race.

This was an accusation that St. Ryne, remembering his cousin, could readily believe.

Consequently, the estate generating the tidy sum of 10,000 pounds per annum, was allowed to go to wrack and ruin due to repair deferments.

The greater portion of the estate was tied up with the banks; therefore, when St. Ryne drove up to the red brick, higgledy-piggledy-styled manor house, covered with ivy, he saw ill-tended grounds, lack of paint, and even a broken window on the second floor.

When no groom or stable hand came running to take his horses, St. Ryne tethered his team to a scraggly bush, glad it wasn’t his fractious grays, yet wondering how this job team would deal with a stray paper or dead branch blown across their path.

He frowned, and for the first time, a small chink appeared in his confidence in his chosen course.

He turned from his team to study the house before him, as the badly weathered oak door creaked open on rusty hinges.

A skeletal apparition of a man with drawn tight skin stood in the doorway.

“This be private property, so you’d best get back in that fancy rig and be off with you.”

St. Ryne raised his eyebrows in a haughty manner designed to depress pretension. He drew off his driving gloves, slowly mounting the steps before the house. His unknown employee stepped backward nervously, his hand on the heavy door as if to slam it in St. Ryne’s face.

“And just whose property might this be?” he inquired silkily, slapping his gloves in his left hand.

“This here’s the property of the Viscount St. Ryne,” came the shrill reply.

“Precisely, and I do not tolerate disrespect from any of my employees.” He smiled wolfishly as the man stumbled backward into the hall, and he followed.

“Beg pardon, your lordship!” the man gasped.

“I meant no disrespect! We do at times get strangers coming by trying to make trouble, and we’ve had no word of your coming.

” The man would have babbled on, but St. Ryne silenced him with an impatient wave of his hand as he surveyed the hall.

Most of the furniture was draped with Holland covers, on which dust was thick.

The walls showed scorch and soot marks from cheap candles, and the drapes looked as if a mere touch could shred them.

On the whole, everything was drab and gray, and St. Ryne couldn’t have been more pleased.

A boyish grin split his lips as he turned back to his employee.

“Your name, please,” he commanded.

“William Atheridge, if it please your lordship. My wife and I, we were butler and housekeeper to Sir Jeremy, milord.” He scurried to a doorway under the stairs. “Mae! Mae, come here!” he called, then scurried back to St. Ryne. He bobbed again. “She’ll be here presently, she will.”

“What are you fratch’n about now?” came a high, gravelly voice from the direction of the stairs.

Both men turned toward her voice, and St. Ryne found himself facing a dour-faced woman with deep lines bracketing her mouth, who was as stout as her husband was thin. Her eyes narrowed slightly when she saw an unknown gentleman in the hall, then her mouth stretched out into a travesty of a smile.

“Milord, this is my wife, Mae. My dear, this is the Viscount St. Ryne," he said, stressing the name.

Mae Atheridge approached them and bobbed a curtsy, her eyes sliding sideways to meet her husband’s.

“How do you do,” St. Ryne said absently, giving her only a cursory glance before dismissing her from his mind, his attention centering once again on the house. “So, Atheridge, as I’m here, what do you say to a tour of this holding of mine?”

Atheridge blinked rapidly. “Of course, your lordship. This way, please,” he said, gesturing his hand forward.