The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh (The Cynster Sisters Duo 2)

The next morning, over her tea and toast, Mary pondered that question with steadily mounting aggravation.

For what seemed the umpteenth time, she replayed their conversations over the past three evenings; she’d asked him, twice, what he was about, and on both occasions . . . he hadn’t exactly answered.

But when he’d challenged her to tell him what she thought his motives were, and she’d laid them out in neat and concise order, he’d agreed she was correct—yet he’d spent the previous evening by her side at a venue where a gentleman of his age should not have appeared unless matrimonially inclined. Although she could have excused his being there on the grounds of protecting Randolph from her, why, once he’d realized Randolph wasn’t there, which he had known even before she’d arrived, had Ryder stayed?

For the music?

Was his desire to hear a perfectly fine but hardly famous chamber ensemble play entirely familiar compositions that strong?

Or had he remained for some other reason?

Mary glanced at the empty chair at the foot of the table, the one her mother normally occupied. If Louise had been there, Mary would have sought her counsel; her mother, she felt confident, would have been able to unravel the complexities of Ryder’s motives in short order.

“They’ll be back tomorrow morning, miss.”

Glancing up, realizing she’d been staring rather longingly at the empty chair, Mary summoned a smile for Hudson. “Yes, I know. They’ll be home before I know it.”

“Is there anything the staff might do for you, miss—in the interim, as it were?”

“No, no.” She waved Hudson to set down the teapot he’d brought in, then lifted it and poured herself a fresh cup. “I just need some advice that Mama will surely be able to provide, but there’s no rush.” Flashing another reassuring smile at Hudson, she concluded, “Tomorrow will be time enough.”

With a bow, Hudson left to ferry her used dishes to the kitchen.

Mary leaned back in her chair and sipped. Unbidden, her memory of the previous night’s conversation with Ryder rolled through her mind . . . she blinked. Teacup suspended in midair, she sat up, replayed the critical passages again, then thought back to the night before and checked . . .

She frowned, an anxiety she’d been avoiding defining coalescing, then escalating.

Given they’d been conversing frequently of late, she could understand, considering his social standing relative to hers and their long acquaintance, that he might have dispensed with calling her “Miss Cynster.” But last night, and even the evening before, other than when he’d wanted to attract her attention . . .

He hadn’t called her anything at all.

He’d spoken to her—and she’d responded—as if . . . they already had some sort of understanding. . . .

“No!” The denial was weak; she repeated it, increasingly strongly. “No. And no!” Lips firming, setting down her teacup, she shook her head. “It can’t be so—I won’t have it so!” Ryder was not, could not possibly be, her hero—not he who was universally acknowledged as the most unmanageable nobleman in the ton.

As she was determined to remain forever in charge of her life—and therefore that of her husband—ergo, Ryder was not the man for her.

But what if he’d decided that she was the lady for him?

The question echoed through her mind as she stared unseeing across the table.

“What the devil am I to do if he has?”

By the time she glided beside Amelia into Lady Bracewell’s ballroom that evening, Mary was confident she’d got herself back on track.

Her track—the one leading to her hero, he who would sweep her off her feet and into wedded bliss.

All she had to do was hunt him down. The necklace and The Lady would take care of the rest.

She’d restarted her campaign by accompanying Penelope, Portia’s sister, on an excursion to the park late that morning. They’d taken little Oliver, Penelope’s firstborn, for an outing in the mild sunshine. While strolling beside Penelope, Mary had surveyed the gentlemen driving their curricles or strolling the lawns, but none had caught her eye. None had drawn her attention, let alone fixed it.

If Penelope hadn’t been Penelope, Mary might have broached the subject of Ryder, but Penelope was more conversant with the behavior of gentlemen millennia old, or if not that, then criminally inclined; any insights she might have to offer would necessarily be questionable.

Mary didn’t need more uncertainty, especially not with respect to Ryder.

From the park, she’d joined Amanda at Dexter House, and they’d driven to Lady Holland’s for lunch, but that had been an all-female affair. And while the drive there and back had given her ample opportunity to consult her oldest sister on the matter of a botheringly persistent marquess, she had, somewhat to her own surprise, balked at raising the subject.

She’d told herself it was because she was trying her damnedest to forget the man. To oust him from her mind.