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

He refocused on her eyes and found them spitting sparks.

“That was . . . was . . .” She was lost for words and appeared staggered by the fact.

“Insupportable?” he offered. “The biggest piece of impertinence you’ve ever been subjected to?”

“Yes! Exactly.” Eyes—could blue burn?—locked with his, she drew in another fulminating breath. “And if you recognize that—”

“You needed deflecting.”

“What?”

“There’s absolutely no point in you tearing after Rand. You’ll only scare him further and send him fleeing into the night.” He smiled lazily down at her, knowing full well just how that would affect her. “Much better you sharpen your talons on me—I can take it.”

She blinked at him; she hesitated—clearly battling the impulse—but then surrendered and asked, “Why talons?”

“Eagle. Think emperor.” He held her gaze. “You’re just a touch imperious, you know.”

She snorted and looked away. After a moment—a moment in which he sensed through his hold on her, through the tension in her lithe frame, that the soothing sway of the dance had finally reached her—she muttered, “You can talk.”

“Indeed. I can.” He drew her a fraction closer as they eased into a turn. “Like recognizes like, as they say.”

The rest of the waltz passed without incident, verbal or otherwise.

He wondered if she had any idea how clearly the fact that she was plotting and planning showed in her face.

At the end of the dance, he very properly released her, bowed, then raised her from her curtsy—and waited to see what next she would do.

“Thank you for the waltz.” She glanced around. “If you’ll excuse me?”

He let her turn away before inquiring, “Wither away, flower?”

Both inquiry and epithet earned him a darkling look. “The withdrawing room, if you must know.”

He inclined his head. “I’ll see you later.”

As she resumed her march through the crowd, he heard her mutter, “Not if I can help it.”

His grin was fueled equally by anticipation and delight.

Mary did, indeed, make for the withdrawing room; it was the only place she could think of where she could be sure of gaining a few minutes of assured privacy in which to think.

Thinking while circling the floor in Ryder’s arms had proved impossible; no matter how valiantly she’d concentrated, her senses had constantly suborned her thoughts, seducing them with a type of scintillating delight, leading to unhelpful considerations such as how much more ensnared by the dance she was when she waltzed with Ryder, and conversely how ho-hum the experience had been with Randolph.

Such thoughts were irrelevant; Ryder was infinitely more experienced than Randolph, which was a huge point in Randolph’s favor. Sitting before a mirror, she pretended to tidy her perfectly tidy dark curls and determinedly wrenched her mind from its sensual dallying and refocused instead on her most immediate goal: Gaining more time alone with Randolph—preferably in a setting where he would be at ease—while simultaneously avoiding Ryder.

Of those connected aims, avoiding Ryder was the most important; regardless of what she might openly acknowledge, much less wish, he truly did distract her to the point of forgetting what she was about.

She dallied in the withdrawing room long enough, she judged, for him to have grown bored and, hopefully, been distracted by someone else. Finally emerging and returning along the corridor to the ballroom, she stepped through the archway, paused to glance around—and felt long fingers close about her elbow.

Before she could protest, Ryder said, “There’s a discussion raging over there about that book, The Yellowplush Papers, by that fellow Thackeray. I thought you might find it of interest.”

Which, of course, diverted her instantly. Allowing Ryder to lead her to a large group that included some of the more erudite personages in the ton, she told herself it was merely a pause in her campaign—and a worthwhile one at that. She’d heard of the work, a fictional memoir, and had been intrigued.

She and Ryder were welcomed into the circle with murmured greetings and polite nods, although the principal interlocutors, Lord Henessey and the Honorable Carlton Fitzsmythe, barely paused in their verbal exchange to acknowledge them.

The debate, centering on the value of such works as a mirror for society, shifted back and forth, but, to her ears at least, seemed to have no real starting point, much less any sense of end.

After a time, Ryder murmured, “It seems that it’s the fact that the work purports to be this Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush’s memoirs that’s exciting most interest.”