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Suddenly embarrassed, Elizabeth stood up to remove the voluminous apron, startled to find St. Ryne’s hand on the material, helping to lift it over her head. Silently he took it from her and laid it on the table, then offered her his arm.

“My lady?”

Elizabeth leveled a studying gaze on him, then instead of placing her fingertips on his arm, she hooked her arm in his.

Pleased, St. Ryne drew his arm closer to his body then reached out to cover her hand with his other.

Though Elizabeth’s color was high, she fought to maintain a coolness she was far from feeling.

Mrs. Geddy, watching from beside the table, smiled approvingly. From all the Viscountess said, it had not been a love match, but if she didn’t miss her guess, it was turning into one for both, though they were still too stubborn to recognize it.

“You were saying something about Tunning before,” Elizabeth said calmly as he led her to the newly refurbished drawing room.

“Yes, I was, but right now I find I don’t wish to continue.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He seated her on a small sofa. “Please don’t do that.”

“Do what? Justin, I must tell you, you are not making much sense.”

“Don’t freeze up on me, and I find I must disagree with you, my love. I think for the first time I am making perfect sense.”

St. Ryne swiftly sat down next to her, taking her hands in his. “You once said I was making a mockery of tradition, and you called our marriage a miserable alliance. You were correct, and my actions, I am ashamed to admit now, were deliberately cruel. I would like the opportunity to start over.”

“You want our marriage annulled?”

“Good God, woman, no! I want us to put the past behind us and see if we might not be able to make some of those happy memories Mrs. Geddy spoke of.”

Elizabeth withdrew her hands from his clasp.

“I—I don’t know. As you said, you were deliberately cruel, and it became my understanding that this was to be strictly a marriage of convenience.

I will admit I fail to see to whose convenience the marriage is; nonetheless, it is my understanding one may set up certain rules in such relationships and live by them.

You may go your way and I go mine.” The color rose in her cheeks, but she went on.

“I suppose you will one day wish for an heir and it will be my—my obligation to provide you with one; however?—”

“Shall you hate that so terribly much?”

Her face drained of color then grew brighter again, “—however, I will not stand in your way if your heir is some by-blow of a lightskirt that you choose to recognize as your own,” she finished steadily.

“You haven’t answered my question, Bess, my love. Would you hate bearing my child so much?”

Elizabeth rose to place some distance between herself and St. Ryne.

“I really haven’t considered it,” she said, though inside she knew that was a lie.

Thoughts of St. Ryne and their children haunted her dreams at night along with memories of his shattering kisses and visions of his hands running lightly over her entire body.

“Will you consider it?” He came to stand behind her, inches separating their bodies.

“If you would like.”

“May I also ask you to smile now and then?”

“What an odd man you are,” she said in a strangled voice.

He studied the curve of her graceful neck and the casual hairstyle that was threatening to slip its pins. He smiled. “Just blame it on the hot Jamaican sun.”

She turned to look quizzically at him, only to be met by an enigmatic smile. “I’m afraid this conversation has degenerated. Perhaps it would be best if we talked later. If you’ll excuse me, I have some more tasks I’d like to complete before tea.”

St. Ryne watched her leave with mixed feelings.

He could have desired a more hopeful response from Elizabeth, but he did note that the ice had not returned to her voice.

Perhaps if he investigated Tunning, he’d get her to thaw toward him—not but what the only thing he expected to find Tunning guilty of was a sense of overweening superiority.

He rubbed his hands together in anticipation as he walked toward the estate room.

Locked!

He at first wouldn’t believe it. It must be sticking, he decided, placing his shoulder to the door to give it a good shove. Soon, however, he was forced to admit with chagrin that the door was indeed locked against him as it had been to Elizabeth.

“Atheridge!” he bellowed like a wounded bear. “Atheridge, where are you?”

“Here, my lord, right here. Is there something I can do for you?”

“Yes, bring Mr. Tunning’s head up here on a platter.”

Atheridge blanched. “My lord?”

St. Ryne rolled his eyes heavenward. “Preserve us from nodcocks,” he muttered. “You don’t happen to have a key to the estate room, do you? I thought not, for you told Elizabeth you didn’t. Send for Mr. Tunning, for I’d like to see him as soon as possible.”

“Today, my lord?”

“If possible—now move it, man!”

“Yes, my lord, yes, right away.” Atheridge’s spindly shanks scuffled down the hall.

“Justin, what is all the yelling about?” a perturbed Elizabeth asked as she passed Atheridge in the hall.

She had been in the dining room seeing to the placement of a large epergne on the center of the table when she heard St. Ryne shout for Atheridge.

His tone had convinced her he was doing more than giving orders so she hurried to his side.

The skin around St. Ryne’s lips was white and through his thin veneer of calm, Elizabeth could see white-hot anger.

She shivered slightly. She hoped never to see that type of rage directed at her.

St. Ryne turned almost fathomless dark brown eyes in Elizabeth’s direction as he struggled to capture his anger. “It’s locked.” His voice seethed with suppressed anger.

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows in mock surprise, then burst out laughing.

“I fail to see what is humorous in this situation.”

“No, I daresay you don’t,” she managed to choke out before laughter overwhelmed her again.

St. Ryne shot her a look of reproach that she met with a sunny smile and another little titter of laughter.

“I’m glad to see Tunning is being democratic about the estate room. He doesn’t want anyone in that room, not just me. I wonder what he has to hide?” she asked pointedly, at last harnessing her laughter, though a broad smile remained in place.

A look of consternation and self-disgust swept St. Ryne’s features. “Touché,” he said wryly, giving her a fencer’s salute. “All right, I will accept your reservations on Tunning—but only grudgingly, mind you—and endeavor to do some research on my own. Will that mollify you?”

She eyed him consideringly. “Not entirely, but for the time it will do. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do and you have an interview to conduct. I’ll see you at tea.”

When she walked away, she found herself fighting a compulsion to turn around.

“Atheridge hasn’t returned yet?” Elizabeth poured a bowl of tea and handed it to her husband.

“No, and I can’t imagine what is delaying him or Tunning.”

“Perhaps Mr. Tunning was out at one of the farms or in the village,” she offered.

“Perhaps.” His frown deepened, creating deep furrows in his forehead. “He should have sent Peter to find him. Young legs move faster.”

“You probably intimidated him with your bellowing. I vow he’s never heard the like.”

A reluctant grin lifted the comers of his mouth. “I suppose I was a bit loud.”

“A wounded animal couldn’t be worse,” she flung back, her own sense of the ridiculous sweeping through her.

“Bess, Bess!” St. Ryne said urgently, coming to sit next to her. “Listen to us. We are enjoying each other’s company. Give us a chance!”

She looked at him archly, though her pulse fluttered erratically. “I should hope we could learn to be comfortable with each other,” she said carefully.

St. Ryne’s shoulders slumped and he bit back a scathing retort. “Yes, comfortable. It is more than some have,” he managed to say evenly before returning to his chair. “And where is our treat?”

Elizabeth looked at him quizzically but did not press him. She pulled the top off a silver server. “Right here, and still quite warm.” She handed St. Ryne his plate, laughing at his expression of ecstasy as he took a bite.

“Why is it that this is considered a childhood dessert not suitable once one reaches one’s maturity?”

Elizabeth chuckled as she took a bite. “I don’t know,” she managed to mumble between bites.

“You know, I’d dearly love to see my mother’s face if she were to witness me eating this.”

“Why?”

“My mother is an unusual woman, and that may well be an understatement. She has an arrogant manner one could cut with a knife, and is one of the highest sticklers in the ton, yet she is the clumsiest woman, forever knocking over things and breaking them. Father says she adopted her arrogance as a defense for her clumsiness. If she ignores it, it’s like she defies anyone else to notice it.

She can be damned infuriating. I don’t know how Father can stand to live with her, but in their own way, they do seem to dote on each other, not that Mother would dare display any such feeling publicly. ”

“So why would she react to your eating this?”

“Because she has reached the stage where she has decided I need to become somber, serious, and able to put aside childish things. I must become a paragon of rectitude.”

A trill of uninhibited laughter assailed his ears. “You?” she asked, “a paragon of perfection?”

“So she would have me be.”

“How boring.”

“My thought exactly.”

“At least you have parents who cared. I don’t think my father has ever cared one whit whether I lived or died.”

“Surely you jest!”

“Do I? My father has never forgiven me for killing my mother and refuses, when he can, to recognize my existence.”

“Doing it a little too brown, Bess,” he said severely.