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

She’d hoped she hadn’t been that transparent, but . . . “Collier, Ryder’s gentleman’s gentleman, remained with me in Ryder’s room throughout the night. But both Collier and I eventually fell asleep, and we didn’t wake up until”—she glanced at the clock gracing the massive mantelpiece—“about an hour ago. That was when we realized Ryder had woken, and although he’s extremely weak, he’s as well as he could be given the circumstances.” She paused, drained her cup, and set it on its saucer. “That’s when the doorbell rang, and I thought it was you and came rushing down . . .” She met her mother’s gaze. “Only it wasn’t you but Ryder’s stepmother, and she’d brought Lady Jerome and Mrs. Framlingham with her.”

Louise frowned. “How very odd to be sure. Why on earth would Lavinia have brought those two with her to call on Ryder?”

Mary blinked. Until then, that question hadn’t occurred to her, but Louise was right; it was odd. After a moment, she shrugged. “For whatever reason, she did—and all three ladies saw me on the stairs.” Setting her cup and saucer on the table, she waved at her ball gown. “Dressed like this. Hurrying down Ryder’s stairs at eleven in the morning.”

Her gaze on Mary’s face, Louise sat back. “Oh, dear.”

Arthur frowned. “Don’t see what the problem is—the boy was at death’s door, and his man was there, too, and the doctor will explain—”

“No, dear.” Holding up a staying hand, Louise shook her head. “You forget. This is Ryder Cavanaugh we’re talking about. No amount of physical impairment will serve as excuse.” She met Arthur’s eyes. “Trust me, he would have to be dead—pronounced dead—for the ton to accept such a tale. And even then there would be gossip.”

Arthur bristled. “But the doctor—”

“Is a close friend of Ryder’s from his Eton days.” Mary shook her head. “Mama’s right—no amount of explaining would have sufficed, and to give the devil his due, Ryder instantly understood that.”

Louise tipped her head, regarding Mary quizzically. “So what happened?”

Mary dragged in a breath. “I raced back to Ryder to warn him, and even though he could barely move he insisted we set our stage, concealing his injury as revealing it would do no good, and instead making it appear that we’d been . . . well, doing exactly what those three ladies would think anyway—then when they burst into his room—”

“They didn’t!” Louise looked scandalized.

Mary nodded grimly. “They most certainly did—or at least his stepmother did. The other two hovered in the corridor.”

“And then?” Arthur growled.

Giddiness threatened; Mary hauled in another breath. “Then Ryder declared that he’d offered for my hand the previous night, and that I’d accepted, and that therefore my presence in his house, in his room, sitting beside him on his bed, should be of no particular interest to anyone.”

“Well!?

? Louise stared at her.

Frowning, Arthur stared at her, too, but more in the sense of puzzling something out.

A short silence ensued, then Mary shrugged. “I had to go along with it, of course.”

Louise blinked.

Arthur stirred. “Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Last evening, Ryder informed you he wants you as his marchioness. You discussed the matter but left it unresolved. And then because of a succession of events, during which neither of you behaved other than you ought, this morning you and he wind up engaged.”

Mary considered, then nodded. “That sums it up nicely.”

Shaking his head admiringly, Arthur muttered, “I’d heard the boy has the devil’s own luck.”

Mary bit her tongue. Her father was a Cynster male; she really couldn’t have expected anything else.

Several seconds ticked by, then her mother, who had been studying her, leaned forward and laid a hand over hers, currently tightly clasped in her lap. Looking into her eyes, Louise asked, “How do you feel about this?”

Meeting her mother’s gaze, Mary searched for the right words among her whirling thoughts . . . in the end, the truth was all she had. “I don’t know.” She glanced at Arthur, then looked back at Louise. “When I stepped onto Lady Bracewell’s terrace before we spoke, I thought I did, but now?” Slowly, she shook her head. “Now, I simply don’t know.”

And she didn’t understand how that had come to be—didn’t comprehend how or why her emotions had risen up as they had, with sufficient strength and unruliness to derail her will and divert her from her rational, logical, self-determined path.

She’d known where she’d wanted to go—and yet she’d ended up here, for all intents and purposes engaged to Ryder Cavanaugh.

The very last man she would have chosen as her husband.

Yet over the past days, her emotions—normally so quiescent and amenable, forever subservient to her will—had been . . . growing. Swelling, rising, in a burgeoning tide of nascent turmoil.

From irritation, through being charmed, through the sensual magic, the allure of waltzing in a way she never had before, to her acute reaction to Ryder’s possessiveness, entirely understandable yet never provoked to such a degree by anyone else, all capped by her response—so complex and unexpected—when he’d declared his intentions, further complicated by his unnervingly astute offer of accommodation, all immediately trumped by the indescribable horror of finding him dying.