The degree of triumph he felt was ridiculous. “It was entirely my pleasure.”
A spurt of soft laughter escaped her. “We could go on for ages if I tried to cap that, so I won’t.”
“Good thinking.” He started to ease back, to withdraw from the slick sheath still lightly gripping.
Her legs, which had at some point risen to grip his flanks, tightened, along with her sheath. “Must you?”
He looked back at her face; she still hadn’t opened her eyes, but there was not a single tense line marring the madonna-like bliss stamped over her features. “No, but aren’t I too heavy for you?”
She shook her head, dark curls whispering across his pillow. “I feel like Goldilocks. You’re just right. I like the feel of you on me, inside me—I like the hardness and the heat.”
Arguing with that . . . was impossible. With a soft grunt, he let himself back down, not entirely as he had been before, but enough to satisfy her as well as him.
Relaxing again, he settled with his head beside hers, and she resumed her gentle stroking of his hair.
Sensing that remarkably intense satiation rolling back, he mumbled, “I’ll have to take you home fairly soon.”
“Hmm,” was all Mary said. Her boldness had gained her far more than she’d hoped. Her lips curved lightly. “Soon.”
Chapter Ten
“It’s beyond bearing!” Lavinia swept into her boudoir. Tossing her fashionable bonnet across the room uncaring of where it landed, she rounded on Claude Potherby as he followed her in; her color high, she spread her hands in appeal. “Who will rid me of this wretched knave?”
Claude smiled. “Very dramatic, my dear. Sadly, I see no one lining up to do the deed, and if you imagine I might be moved to consider it, do please hold me excused.”
“Hah!” As was Lavinia’s wont when agitated, she fell to pacing back and forth before the hearth. Eyes cast down, she gnawed on a nail. “Did you see that new phaeton of his? It’s the most outrageously dangerous contraption—I’m surprised the Cynsters didn’t raise a fuss rather than allow their darling to be driv
en at such a clip about the streets.”
Having joined Lavinia in the park, Claude had seen the couple of the moment tooling about the avenues. Sinking into an armchair, he inwardly sighed. “My dear, if you’re entertaining any notion that Ryder might lose control of his horses, overturn his carriage, and break his neck, I fear you’ll be disappointed. He’s a highly regarded whip, and while I grant his horses are headstrong, he’s more than capable of holding ’em.”
Lavinia replied with a disgusted sniff.
After a moment, she said, as if reciting a litany, “First, he was born sickly, and everyone, even his doting father, was sure he would die. But he didn’t. Then he went off to school and embarked on every dangerous exploit you might name. And he survived them all. Then he took up with blades and bucks and hunted and whored and raced curricles and mail-coaches and God knows what. Others died, but he never came close!” Dark eyes burning, she kicked at her skirts. “And then he came on the town, and started on his merry way seducing every second lady—you’d think at least one of the small army of husbands he cuckolded would have had the grace to challenge him, but did they?”
Claude converted his involuntary grin into a grimace. “My dear, you really will have to excuse them. As I understand it, Ryder has never given any gentleman cause to risk their necks—and it would be that, you know. He’s a tolerably good shot from all I’ve heard.”
“I don’t care!” In a huff, Lavinia flung herself into the other armchair. “I just want him gone and Randolph the marquess.”
Claude studied her for a moment, then quietly, soberly, said, “My dear, you really must give this up. All you said of Ryder might be correct, but if anything, that should convince you he leads a charmed life. He’s not going to die, and Randolph is not going to become the marquess, and no good ever came of railing thus against Fate.”
“Huh!” Lavinia sulked.
Regarding her critically, Claude quietly sighed. He really didn’t know what he saw in her. Certainly he had no good explanation for why he continued to remain so devotedly by her side.
Rather like a spaniel.
He didn’t see himself as a lapdog, and he doubted others did, either. The truth was . . . Lavinia had become a convenient habit. Remaining by her side allowed him to move in their mutual social circles without becoming the target his wealth would otherwise have made him, and as he’d never been interested in any other woman, the arrangement suited him. It still did. So he waited with a patience that was growing wearyingly thin for her to set aside her impractical dreams and return to real life, and him.
“You know, it’s a very good thing that you insisted that our wedding be a lavish affair.” Mary glanced up at Ryder, standing beside her midway down the St. Ives House ballroom; it was midafternoon, and all around them, the guests gathered to celebrate James and Henrietta’s wedding mingled and conversed. “Given Henrietta and James elected to have a small wedding, and it’s been more than a decade since Amelia and Amanda wed, then I’m sure if we’d opted for a small wedding, too, poor Mama would have felt quite shortchanged.”
Settling his hand over hers as it rested on his sleeve—a proprietary gesture he couldn’t seem to resist and one she didn’t appear to notice, or did and chose to allow—Ryder smiled and, like her, considered those present. Although small by ton standards, the wedding and this subsequent breakfast had overflowed with familial warmth, genial good cheer, and the expectant joy of a new couple devoted to their joint future. Participating had left him even more certain that, on his own quest for a similar future, he was precisely where he needed to be—by Mary Cynster’s side.
As Henrietta’s maid of honor, Mary was wearing a gold gown, rather than her signature blue. Most of her gowns were blue—not just her ball gowns but her day gowns and walking gowns as well—in a variety of shades that either matched or made the most of her eyes.
Which, admittedly, were a striking color.
He wondered whether their children would inherit his hazel or her blue.