Chapter One
May 1837
London
“He’s the one you’ve set your sights on?”
Mary Alice Cynster jumped a foot into the air—or so it felt. As her jarred senses reestablished contact with terra firma, fury seared through her. Swinging around, she glared—at her irritating, infuriating, utterly irrepressible nemesis. Quite why Ryder Cavanaugh had elected himself to the role she had no idea, but since a brief encounter at her sister Henrietta’s engagement ball two nights ago he’d been dogging her heels, assiduously transforming himself into a hideously distracting pest.
Before them, the Felsham House ballroom was awash with the crème de la crème of the ton, the silks and satins of ladies’ gowns bright splashes of color against the black of gentlemen’s evening coats. Coiffed heads gleamed, jewels glittered, and hundreds of well-modulated voices rose in polite cacophony.
She’d retreated into the shadows beneath the minstrels’ gallery the better to consider her target. She’d been so absorbed studying him that she hadn’t noticed Ryder drawing near; despite his size, he moved smoothly and silently. As usual, his impeccable, severely styled evening clothes only served to emphasize the fluid strength harnessed within his long, muscled frame. With one broad, elegantly clad shoulder negligently propped against the wall alongside her, he regarded her with his customary, hooded, lazy lion gaze.
Others were often fooled by Ryder’s amiable, gentle giant, lackadaisical air; she never had been. Behind those brilliant hazel eyes lurked a mind as incisive, decisive, and ruthlessly capable as her own.
Yet despite the deflective glamour of his normally impenetrable languid sophistication, from his tone and the fact his lids had briefly risen, his eyes momentarily widening, identifying the object of her interest—by surreptitiously looking over her shoulder—had genuinely surprised him.
Uttering a mental damn!—he was the very last person she would have chosen to share that information with—she fixed her gaze, basilisk-like, on his green and gold eyes. “Go. Away.”
Predictably, the order had no effect; she might as well have saved her breath. Ryder—correctly styled the fifth Marquess of Raventhorne, a title he’d inherited on his father’s death six years before—was widely acknowledged as a law unto himself. There were few gentlemen society’s grandes dames recognized as such—noblemen with sufficient personal power that it was deemed wiser to allow them to stalk through the ton’s ballrooms, drawing rooms, and dining rooms without let or hindrance, as long as they abided by society’s rules, at least well enough to pass. It was one of those unvoiced social accommodations.
Even as she held her ground—and her glare—Mary was well aware of all the aspects of Ryder’s personal power.
At such close quarters, it was impossible not to be.
As if contemplating a curious, potentially succulent morsel, he looked down at her; as she was not only the youngest of the current generation of Cynster girls but also the shortest, and he stood well over six feet tall, that degree of down should have been intimidating, yet she’d never felt intimidated by him. Distracted, thrown off-balance, even mentally tripped to the point of feeling she was somehow falling, yes, but threatened in even the smallest way, no. Then again, she’d known him in passing for as long as she could remember; their families were among the oldest in the ton, and so knew each other in the way such families did.
His lushly lashed hazel eyes had remained unwaveringly fixed on her face, on her eyes. “You can’t seriously imagine Rand will be a suitable husband for you.”
She tipped up her chin, but looking down her nose at him was beyond even her. “I should think it patently obvious that that is a determination I will make for myself.”
“Don’t bother. You won’t suit.”
“Indeed?” She hesitated, but if anyone would know his half brother’s aspirations, Ryder would. She arched her brows and infused sufficient disbelieving hauteur into her tone to, she hoped, tempt him to share. “And why is that?”
While he considered obliging and she waited, she wondered if perhaps denying having any particular interest in Randolph—Lord Randolph Cavanaugh, one of Ryder’s half brothers and the nearest to him in age—might have been the wiser course . . . but when at Henrietta and James’s engagement ball she’d summarily dismissed Ryder, declining an invitation most ladies of the ton, young, middle-aged, or ancient, would kill to receive, she’d unintentionally piqued his curiosity, and just like any feline he’d been, albeit apparently idly, stalking her ever since.
Even though tonight was only the second evening since the engagement ball, Ryder was more than intelligent enough to have divined her purpose. So no, there really was no point attempting to mislead him on that score—he would only grow more diabolical.
As his lips gently curved and he drew breath to speak, she fully expected him to be diabolical anyway.
“Permit me to list the ways.” His voice was so deep
that it was a rumbling purr. “First, allow me to point out that, as the last unmarried Cynster female of your generation, you are regarded as a matrimonial prize.”
She frowned. “That’s the last thing I need, but”—she searched his eyes—“I don’t see why I should be considered so. I’m the youngest, and while admittedly my dowry is nothing to be sneezed at, I’m certainly not a diamond-of-the-first-water or a major heiress.” As, apparently, she had to put up with him, she saw no reason not to pick his well-connected and well-informed brain.
Inclining his head, Ryder bit his tongue against the impulse to inform her that while she was correct in stating that she did not qualify as a diamond-of-the-first-water, that failure stemmed more from an excess of personality than any lack of beauty; she was more than attractive enough—vibrantly and vividly attractive enough—to turn male heads and engage male imaginations, something he’d grown exceedingly aware of over the few days during which he’d been shadowing her, driven by curiosity, pricked pride, and some less identifiable fascination. “You have, however, missed the critical point. You are the last chance for any of the major families to ally themselves with the Cynsters in this generation. It’ll be a decade or more before your cousins’ children, the next generation, come on the marriage mart. Consequently, no matter what you might wish, you are, indeed, a prize in that regard. And, of course, Rand will inherit neither title nor estate.” Unlike him. His eyes locked on hers, he dismissively arched his brows. “Ask any of the grandes dames and they’ll tell you the same. Everyone expects you to marry well.”
She made a sound suspiciously like a snort. A smile tugged at his lips; he understood the sentiment.
But then she shook her head. “No. If that were the case, I would have been besieged.”
“Not yet.” He saw no reason not to share the news. “But next Season you will be. You’re only twenty-two, and this year there’s Henrietta’s engagement and her upcoming wedding—major distractions for your family. Matrimonially speaking, no one is looking at you at the moment.” Only him. And he was now intent on stealing a march on all his potential competitors.
Her lips—rosebud pink and unexpectedly lush in such a youthful face—firmed. “Be that as it may, that’s all about what others think, while in the matter of whom I wed, it’s what I think that counts.” Her expression grew even more belligerent. “And in all other respects—”
“Rand will not suit. He’s six years younger than I am, only two years older than you.” As he stated those facts, he realized what one of the reasons she’d chosen Rand as her potential husband was. “And in case it’s escaped your notice—although I’d wager a significant sum it hasn’t—while at twenty-four a gentleman might be mature in body, he’s rarely mature in mind.” The smile he allowed to curve his lips was entirely genuine. “Give Rand time and, trust me, he’ll be just like me.”
Which was precisely the transformation Mary intended to ensure did not occur. Turning away, she resumed her scrutiny of the gentleman in question; he was standing in a group toward the middle of the long ballroom. “In my estimation, Randolph will be the perfect husband for me.”
Aside from all else, Randolph was a significantly milder version of Ryder; if she married Randolph, she was perfectly certain she would be able to influence him to the point of ensuring that he did not evolve into a nobleman anywhere near as lethally dangerous to the entire female sex as Ryder was. Indeed, marrying Randolph could be viewed as doing her gender a signal service; the female half of the population definitely did not need another Ryder. In addition to his physical impact, he was utterly unmanageable.
Fixing her gaze on Randolph, she reviewed his attractions. Unlike Ryder’s golden-brown mane, Randolph’s hair was dark brown, more like his mother Lavinia’s brown locks. While Ryder wore his hair slightly longer so that it fell in intriguingly tousled, windswept locks—a potent inducement to women to run their fingers through the unruly mass—Randolph’s hair was cut in a fashionable crop, neither long nor short, similar to many men present.
Randolph’s shoulders were broad, although not as strikingly broad as Ryder’s, and his frame was long and tended more to the lean than Ryder’s did, but then Ryder was taller by several inches, so the impressive breadth of his chest was in proportion. Randolph was entirely in proportion, too—just on a more mundane, less godlike scale.
That, Mary inwardly admitted, more or less summed up the difference between the half brothers. Not just between Ryder and Randolph, but also Randolph’s younger brothers, Christopher—Kit—and Godfrey. Ryder was the only child from his father’s first marriage; Randolph, Kit, and Godfrey were the sons of the late marquess’s second wife, Lavinia. There was a sister, too—Eustacia, known as Stacie. Mary knew them all socially, but not well; she had yet to learn all she wished given she intended to marry into the family.
She was impatient to get on, to move forward with her campaign to convince Randolph to offer for her hand. She’d spent the earlier months of this Season determinedly examining all the potential gentlemen; once she’d realized Randolph matched her requirements perfectly, she’d turned her attention to poking and prodding her older sister Henrietta into wearing the necklace a Scottish deity known as The Lady had gifted to the Cynster sisters. The Lady was connected to the family via Catriona, the wife of Mary’s cousin Richard. Catriona was a principal, and apparently well-favored, priestess of the deity. Through Catriona, The Lady had decreed that successive Cynster female cousins should wear the necklace to assist them in finding their true heroes. As a group, they’d long ago defined their “one true hero” as the man who would sweep them off their feet into love and wedded bliss. Although initially all had been skeptical of the necklace’s power, it had wrought its magic, first for Heather, then Eliza, then Angelica, and even though she’d persisted in not believing in it at all, most recently for Henrietta.
The necklace of amethyst beads and gold links from which a tapered rose quartz pendant hung had been passed on to Mary; it now circled her neck, the crystal pendant warm between her breasts.
And she believed—with all her heart and considerable will believed—that it would work for her.
But to help matters along, she’d already done her homework, studied the field, and identified Randolph Cavanaugh as her one—the perfect husband for her. All she really needed the necklace to do was to confirm her choice.
She’d received the necklace two nights ago, just before Henrietta’s engagement ball; Henrietta had clasped it about Mary’s throat and she’d been wearing it ever since. The previous evening had been the first opportunity she’d had to speak with Randolph while wearing the necklace; they’d both attended Lady Cornwallis’s soiree, but while she’d spent more than half an hour in the same circle as Randolph, chatting and conversing, she, at least, had sensed . . . nothing specific.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but from all she’d absorbed from her cousins and Henrietta the necklace didn’t actively do anything. It was more in the nature of a catalyst; wearing it would ensure her true hero appeared before her, but she couldn’t count on more help than that. Couldn’t count on any definite sign.
So she was going to have to spend more time with Randolph. If he was indeed her true hero, her undisputed one, then . . . something should happen. Something should ignite.
She shifted, casting her gaze wider, evaluating the ways of approaching him. “How best to do it?” she whispered.