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

Glancing up, she arched a brow. “With more than a grain of salt?”

“Ouch.” He had to desist while they chatted with the next couple waiting to offer their felicitations and archly marvel at how he and she had managed to reach an understanding without any of the gossipmongers, let alone the grandes dames, realizing they had formed an attachment. Which reduced him to all but whining as the pair withdrew, “Do we have to do much more of this?”

She cast a swift glance at her mother; earlier Ryder had seized a moment to pay his respects. “Perhaps”—glancing around, confirming there were no others immediately about to pounce, she gripped his arm—“we might stroll.”

“Excellent idea.” Closing his hand over hers, anchoring it on his sleeve, he immediately stepped out. “Perhaps if we’re ambulatory we won’t be such easy targets.”

He glanced down at her—and discovered she was studying him, her eyes faintly narrowed.

“I didn’t expect you to turn up here. Are you sure you’re strong enough to weather this?”

He grinned. “Quite.” He felt a trifle guilty over the pleasure he derived from the concern filling her eyes. He held up a hand, palm out. “I swear I won’t overtax myself. There—will that do?”

She made a huffing sound. “I suppose it will have to, but I warn you I expect to enjoy my engagement waltz, and I won’t be able to if I have to hold you up through half of it.”

He laughed. When she arched a haughty brow at him, he waved. “The image was just a little too much.”

She pinched h

is arm. “You know what I mean.”

Still chuckling, he patted her hand. “Never fear—I swear you’ll have an engagement waltz to remember.”

“Very well.” She tipped up her chin. “Just as long as you don’t forget.”

He resisted the impulse to assure her he wouldn’t, not now she’d made such a point of it, and instead devoted his energies and talents to the twin tasks of steering them clear of those trying to catch up with them through the crowd, wanting to wish them well while simultaneously trying their hand at extracting more details of their unexpected romance, and amusing her, which in turn amused him.

Although Fate had determined that they would wed without benefit of any real wooing, he saw no reason not to claim the days until their wedding to give her what he could of the moments her saving his life had denied her.

They strolled and talked, teased and laughed, and occasionally stopped to chat with others.

Somewhat unexpectedly, he enjoyed the hours—principally because he knew she did, too. He’d known she was direct, that she didn’t often bother with guile, but the openness she displayed in interacting with him was something he was growing to treasure.

They reached the end of the evening in pleasant accord. After handing Louise, then Mary, into their carriage, Ryder waved them off, then climbed into his own, smiling to himself as he sank back in the leather-cushioned dimness. Mary had, of course, demanded to be told how he intended returning to his home; that he’d brought his carriage had earned him an approving, if somewhat imperious, look.

As the carriage rolled along, he realized he was still smiling—for no specific reason that he could discern.

Chapter Nine

Three evenings later, Mary sat beside Ryder at the middle of one long side of the massive table in the formal dining room of St. Ives House and, buoyed on a wave of exuberant happiness, surrounded by her family and his, listened as her father, from his place closer to the head of the table, proposed a toast to “the baby of our family in her generation, and the gentleman she will wed.”

With smiles, supportive cheers, and much tinkling of glasses and thumping of the table, everyone raised their glasses high and called in unison, “To Mary and Ryder!” then enthusiastically drank to their health.

Mary couldn’t stop beaming; she was finally here, perhaps not, in the circumstances, at the very end of her quest, but well and truly on her way. This, in effect, was the point of no return; she was now committed beyond recall, and had her ultimate goal front and center in her sights.

She could barely contain her impatience to get on—to press ahead, to take the next step, whatever that might be, toward bringing Ryder, metaphorically speaking, to his knees.

As the noise subsided and everyone returned to their conversations, he caught her eye. “Happy?”

They’d conversed enough over recent days for her to know he meant the question literally and specifically; she reined in her enthusiasm enough to actually consider, then, meeting his gaze, nodded. “I can’t think of any part of the evening thus far that might have gone better.”

He smiled, not his lazy-lion smile but an expression several degrees more personal, and for a moment amid the madness there was just the two of them—a second of privacy within the swirling chaos.

Then Luc, Amelia’s husband, seated a few places to Ryder’s right, called to him and he turned to respond, and Marcus, Mary’s cousin Richard’s son, seated to her left, posed a question, and she turned to answer.

Nearly seventeen, Marcus, dark-haired and blue-eyed like his father, together with his twin, Lucilla, had traveled down from Scotland with their parents for Henrietta’s nuptials. Being able to attend Mary’s engagement ball and wedding, too, was an added bonus in Lucilla’s and her parents’ eyes, but Mary wasn’t so sure Marcus saw dallying in the capital in the same light.

Yet even as she chatted with her younger relative about the sights he’d seen thus far in town, her attention remained in some way linked to, attuned to, the man on her other side.