Ryder glanced at her. “Not just for us, but for the other four, too—for the Cavanaughs.”
Meeting his gaze, Mary smiled. “For the Cavanaughs.” Catching both his hands in hers, she backed toward the bed, towing him, unresisting, with her.
“Continuing in that vein”—halting beside the bed and releasing his hands, Mary pressed close, stretched up, wound her arms about his neck and looked deep into his hazel eyes—“I believe we should fall into this bed, and do what we can to make certain of the next generation.”
Ryder’s lips slowly curved, then he laughed, swept her up in his arms, set his lips to hers, kissed her—and tipped them both onto the bed.
They bounced.
Mary shrieked, then laughed.
Then fell to as they wrestled each other out of their clothes, as they paused, both caught by the lancing sensual jolt as skin met naked skin, only to be filled with piercing pleasure as hands caressed and stroked, lovingly, worshipfully tracing now familiar curves, reclaiming, possessing anew—familiar yet never before so poignant.
Their eyes met—and in the blue, in the hazel, dwelled the same knowledge of comprehension and capitulation, the rock-solid certainty of what, through the tumult of the night’s events, they’d embraced, shared, and owned to.
Openly. Directly. Without guile.
Without any screens to shield them from each other they came together on a shared gasp, in a moment of shining clarity caught their breaths, then she drew his lips to hers, and he bent to her, and they let their passion and the power that fueled it rear like a wave—let it roar in and take them, let it sweep them away.
Let desire and need and hunger coalesce into a fire beyond their control.
Let the indescribable joy of being alive—of having cheated death together, of having survived together to come together like this, in wonder and in hope, in commitment and in reverence—flood them.
Sink and submerge them, meld and fuse them until they were one.
In love and in passion. In joy and in ecstasy.
In hope and in surrender.
To all they would be, to all that would come, to all they would create together.
Chapter Seventeen
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Lavinia’s funeral marked the end of a lost era for the Cavanaughs. Ryder was determined that from that point onward, with no Lavinia attempting to create schisms between him and her children, the five of them—with Mary to guide them—would become, or grow into, the sort of family they’d all yearned to be for so long.
It would take time and a degree of learning, but they had time, were more than willing, and had Mary to help them understand when they should be sharing their difficulties. She’d well and truly taken the bit between her teeth and thrown herself into the role of his marchioness, into being the matriarch of the family, both immediate and wider, and had already made it plain that she expected any difficulties of any kind to be made known to them—if not to him, then at the very least to her.
He loved her bossiness; what always amazed him was how she got away with it. Most often he suspected it wasn’t that people agreed so much as they surrendered to a patently greater force and gave in. Increasingly quickly. He could see it becoming a habit.
There wasn’t a day when something she said or did didn’t bring a smile to his face—sometimes a smile he hid, but just as often he shared his amusement with her, just to see her narrow her vivid eyes at him, then humph and turn haughtily away.
Having her beside him through the days following Lavinia’s death, helping him to help the others over the hurdles, social and otherwise, had been a huge boon. He honestly wasn’t sure how he would have managed without her.
Together, the six of them had tackled the question of mourning. He and Mary had concluded that, for them, a week’s full mourning, followed by three weeks of half-mourning, would be appropriate; given the widely recognized antipathy between him and Lavinia, anything more would smack of hypocrisy. They’d encouraged Rand, Kit, Stacie, and Godfrey to make up their own minds; in the end, the four had decided on one month of full mourning, and three of half-mourning, and all those who gathered at Raventhorne for the funeral and wake had nodded and approved.
Following the formal funeral at the nearby church and the brief ceremony of interment, the wake, held at the abbey, was, socially speaking, more in the nature of a
new beginning; the neighbors who attended made it plain they were doing so primarily to show their support of him and Mary rather than to acknowledge Lavinia’s passing other than it being the end of the past. Everyone clearly looked to him and Mary for a new direction, and to his everlasting gratitude, his marchioness was up to the challenge.
She swept regally through the crowd, dispensing grace and calm and a species of reassurance that was uniquely hers. Those who hadn’t met her before quickly thawed and smiled; those who had been previously captivated were happy to be so again. Watching her delight and manage, manage and delight, he felt reassured himself, content and more that in being there, in managing his household and, as far as he would allow, determining his life, she was in her true element.
Being his marchioness was where she should be; the position was hers—it was where she belonged.
Where she needed to be, for his sake, and hers, and that of so many others.
Throughout the afternoon, she constantly circled, popping up beside him to lay a hand on his arm, to lean close and ensnare his senses while sharing a shrewd observation or comment, and then she would be off again, sweeping on to oversee and direct.