Affair of Honor Read Free Page A

under the circumstances, but not necessary. I’m sure I’ll sleep very well after all the excitement, and it’s getting so late…”
    “But I might not sleep well at all. Come in, Brenna Llewellyn,” he commanded ever so softly, holding the door politely.
    Brenna, not knowing what else to do, walked resentfully inside.
    “Have a seat. I’ll get a couple of glasses.”
    She watched, narrow-eyed, as Ryder moved into the kitchen with that gliding way he had, and then she turned around to glance automatically at the books lining a nearby shelf. Force of habit, she thought dryly. Always check out a stranger’s bookshelf first. With a creature as enigmatic as Ryder Sterne, a person could use a few clues to his personality!
    The array of paperbacks on the top shelf produced an ironic expression in Brenna’s amber eyes as she reached up to pluck out a volume. Exactly what she should have expected, she decided, perusing the lurid cover, which portrayed a raffish male firing a wicked-looking gun at a cluster of obviously evil types who, in turn, seemed bent on murdering the hero and the sexy blonde clinging to his left biceps.
    It was the sort of sleazy, category stuff usually labeled men’s adventure fiction, Brenna told herself disdainfully, unaware of how her mouth had curved downward until Ryder’s gentle voice came from across the room.
    “That’s not the worst of it, I’m afraid,” he told her as if he’d just read her mind. “I not only read it; I wrote it.”
    “What?” Startled, Brenna glanced back at the paperback cover. “It says the author is Justin Murdock.”
    “A pseudonym.” Ryder set down the two glasses of brandy he was carrying, making room for them among a clutter of archery texts on the old brass-bound trunk that served as a coffee table. He sank smoothly into the depths of a couch that displayed a genteel shabbiness suitable for a mountain retreat and held out one of the snifters. “Here you go. Don’t worry, it’s good. I never let my heroes drink anything but the best.”
    “I’m impressed,” Brenna drawled, accepting the bell-shaped glass and sipping obediently at the very excellent brandy. Cautiously she sat down across from him in a padded rattan chair.
    “Impressed by the brandy or the books?” he asked pointedly.
    “Both.” Damned if she was going to let him put her on the defensive.
    “But it’s not exactly your kind of fiction, right?” He smiled.
    “Not exactly. But who am I to argue with success? I take it you are rather successful at it?”
    “Very.”
    “I see. Well, congratulations.”
    “And now that we know my line of work, it’s your turn.”
    Brenna sighed, her lips tightening unconsciously as she met his steady gaze over the rim of the glass. “I’m an assistant professor of philosophy at a small college in the San Francisco Bay area.”
    He said nothing, but something akin to amusement flickered in the silvery eyes.
    “You find my career humorous?” Brenna challenged in a tone as dangerously gentle as any he could have used. Damn it, she’d been through enough this past week concerning her career! She didn’t have to hear it mocked on top of everything else!
    “Your career seems a little at odds with the memory of that cat burglar who came crawling through my window half an hour ago!”
    “There was a time, Mr. Sterne,” she returned, lecturing with an acid sweetness, “when the philosopher was also expected to be a person of action!”
    “But probably not illegal action. At any rate, you’ll have to admit that in the modern era the majority of academic types live in the ivory towers of their institutions of higher learning and seldom emerge to face the real world. Unless you want to count those suitably dramatic moments when they sally forth to face the menace of television cameras in the name of a fashionably radical cause,” he added reflectively and then shook his head. “No, I don’t think you can count those moments. They hardly