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

For a moment, no one said anything, then Barnaby stirred. He met Ryder’s eyes. “Given the situation, while I would rather it wasn’t so, I feel compelled to point out that you need to stay alert.” Barnaby’s eyes shifted very briefly to Mary, then returned to Ryder’s face. “If someone went to all that trouble to hire two men to kill you, then in my experience it’s unlikely that after a single failure, they’ll stop. It’s much more likely that they’ll try again.”

An instant passed; Mary looked from Ryder to Barnaby and back again. Then Ryder inclined his head. “Thank you. I’ll bear that in mind.”

Mary inwardly frowned. Bear what in mind? She got the distinct impression that the last part of the conversation had turned masculinely oblique.

Before she could think of how to press for clarification, Barnaby distracted her with a message from Penelope, and then an observation about his heir, young Oliver.

Simon trumped that with an anecdote about his two, also very young children. Mary had to hide a grin; it was truly amazing how fatherhood affected men like her brother, like Barnaby—and presumably, like Ryder. Something to look forward to; her grin blossomed into a smile and she shot a glance at him.

He felt it, met it; his eyes studied hers briefly, and she suspected he read her thoughts reasonably well, for he arched a brow at her.

But then the musicians started playing the wedding waltz, and the crowd eagerly drew back to give Henrietta and James the floor.

Mary watched her sister revolve in James’s arms and had no trouble at all discerning the love that flowed between them. It was there for all to see, given shining life in the gaze they shared, in the way Henrietta’s lips softly curved and her whole countenance glowed. Equally definite love shone in James’s expression, not intent any longer but focused in that particular way that signaled to any who were sensitive to the sight that his entire life was now Henrietta’s, devoted to her, committed to her and to the life they would establish and share.

With my body, I thee worship.

That was what the wedding waltz signified. They’d made the vow earlier, but this—this was the physical expression, one that brought tears to many eyes and a soft smile to the faces of all those watching.

Mary blinked, and realized she, too, was smiling, but beneath the joy for her sister and her new brother-in-law welled a determination that she, too, would have that. Precisely that.

A wedding waltz like that was what she wanted.

Simon had left to find Portia; Barnaby had gone to hunt for Penelope.

Ryder gripped Mary’s elbow, bent his head, and murmured, “Time to join them.”

“Indeed.” Keeping her smile appropriately gentle, keeping her determination screened, she allowed him to lead her forward and turn her into his arms, and together they stepped into the swirl of family members joining the newlyweds on the floor.

Ryder was grateful for the waltz; it gave him something with which to satisfy, however temporarily, the hungry beast prowling within. To soothe and distract that inner self from the concatenation of provocations all prodding him in one direction.

As they swirled down the floor and with her usual abandon Mary gave herself wholly to the dance, he drank in the sight—and clung to his façade of sophisticated and languidly bored lion of the ton for all he was worth.

He’d spent the last two days lusting after her with a sense of utterly blinkered need he couldn’t recall feeling for any other woman, much less after he’d had her beneath him. After a first engagement, normally several days, even a week, would pass before he would feel any impulse to a repeat performance.

With his bride-to-be, he’d been plotting a repeat engagement while he’d been taking her home—and he wasn’t at all sure if that was an encouraging sign, or, instead, a portent that should have him backpedaling. Fast.

Regardless, his now thoroughly focused inner self wasn’t at all interested in stepping back. And Barnaby’s suggestion that anyone taking another tilt at him could harm Mary, too, had only escalated his burgeoning need to have her safely under his paw.

Sleeping safely beside him. Sated and drowsy and . . . as happy as only he could make her. That was how his inner self saw things, and in that it wouldn’t be moved.

He’d never felt the smallest iota of possessiveness toward any of his previous lovers; even though he excused his newfound compulsion on the grounds that she was destined to be his wife, he still felt oddly off-balance. A tad uncertain as to where their interaction was leading him; it wasn’t down a path he knew.

Yet regardless of how he rationalized, whether the reason his instincts saw her as different was due to her more willful, challenging character or because said instincts already deemed her his, the impulse to seize and hold remained, and more, continued to grow; against his expectation, the waltz did nothing to allay it. Much less slake it.

The music slowed, then ended; they swirled to a halt and he bowed, she curtsied, then he raised her, tucked her hand in his arm, and they resumed their strolling.

The afternoon wore on, until, laughing and joking, the bulk of the company clattered down the stairs to see a radiant Henrietta and a proud James off on the beginning of their journey as man and wife. Rice was hurled, comments and recommendations flung, then James handed Henrietta into the waiting carriage, climbed in and shut the door, and the beaming coachman cracked his whip, and they were off, trotting smartly along the side of Grosvenor Square, and then out along Upper Brook Street.

“Wiltshire?” Ryder turned to Mary, one step higher than he on the steep front steps.

She nodded. “They’ll be back in five days, in time for our wedding, but they wanted to start where they intend ending, so to speak, and that as soon as they could.”

He arched his brows. “As impatient as you?”

She met his gaze. Held it for an instant, then softly said, “I seriously doubt that’s possible.”

The opening was there; he took it. “In that case . . . leave that window open tonight.”