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

The morning after Henrietta’s nuptials, Mary found herself plunged into preparations for her own. Ryder had brought her back to Upper Brook Street in the small hours; sated and deeply content, she’d tumbled into her own bed, but her mother roused her early—much earlier than she’d hoped—to remind her that they had a fitting for her bridal gown that morning.

As the same modiste had so recently made her gown for Henrietta’s wedding, the fitting was more an opportunity for her aunts, her cousins’ wives, and some of the females of the next generation to ooh and aah over the fine Flemish lace and pearls, layer upon layer of which made up the delicate bridal gown.

Lucilla and Prudence, Demon and Flick’s eldest daughter, had stars in their eyes. “You look like a fairy princess,” Prudence said.

Viewing herself in the modiste’s cheval mirror, Mary had to agree. The gown played off her relatively small size and also her coloring. When the modiste set the fine veil in place, to Mary’s surprise, her eyes looked huge. Pools of pansy-blue.

The rest of the day passed in a whirl of female family interactions. With time so short, everyone claimed a role, parts they were eager to play.

Mary met Ryder at a ball that evening; while she’d thought to join him in Mount Street later, he suggested that, with the wedding only days away, perhaps they should simply wait. He waved languidly. “Rather than unnecessarily sneaking around.”

Mary wondered, but acquiesced and let him go. For that night.

Through the next two days, she, Louise, Honoria, Patience, and Alathea, aided by all the others, repeated their tasks from the previous week, arranging for flowers, food, wine, music. The seating in the church and at the wedding breakfast. The schedule, the carriages, the additional staff to be drawn from the family’s various households. Yet because this wedding was to be a massively larger affair, those tasks, while essentially the same, assumed the nature of a military campaign, one the Cynster ladies flung themselves into with unanimous alacrity. Mary’s aunt Helena and Therese Osbaldestone established themselves as the final arbiters of all things, the ultimate major generals of the massed troops.

Footmen constantly ferried notes between the various houses—directions, questions, suggestions, and more.

It was a giddy time, and courtesy of several soirees and must-attend balls—it being the height of the Season—three nights passed before Mary had a chance to refocus on Ryder. On he who would be her husband.

She’d seen him every evening, had attended the soirees and balls on his arm, yet Ryder in public was a very different proposition from Ryder in private, at least for her. In public, he could and did direct their interactions, using his experience and resulting expertise to counter any too-willful move she made. In private, she could hold her own, but through those days she never had him in private for long.

From Stacie—who, everyone had agreed, should be Mary’s second attendant—she heard that Ryder had immersed himself in estate matters, including preparing his several houses to receive his new marchioness. When interrogated, Stacie admitted to being asked her opinion on several issues regarding the latter, but she refused point-blank to divulge further details.

Mary decided she was willing to allow him such secrets, but that evening when he accompanied her and her mother home, and he and she were left alone to say their farewells in the front hall, she trapped his gaze and simply said, “An hour from now.” Then she smiled and gave him her hand.

He held her gaze for a long moment, then took her hand, bowed, and kissed her fingertips. “As my lady wishes.”

He met her at the window and took her to his home, and the hours that followed were a reckless and undeniably abandoned repetition of their last engagement. Much to her relief. Between them, all was, indeed, proceeding exactly as she wished.

After seeing her home, Ryder retreated to the rumpled wreckage of his bed, stretched out upon it, and considered the trap in which Fate had snared him. Mary was all and everything he wanted in his bride—and more; it was the more he hadn’t expected to have to grapple with.

Indeed, that more, he was increasingly certain, was the price he would have to pay . . . for having all the rest. For being blessed with all the rest. Being allowed to seize and keep all the rest.

Sleep eluded him. Driven by some incomprehensible impulse, as early as was acceptable he called in Upper Brook Street and all but abducted Mary for a drive in the park. He tooled her around the Avenue and let her tell him of all the last-minute arrangements; when he returned her to her parents’ home—she was due for a final fitting of her bridal gown, which, apparently, he was not allowed on pain of death to see before she walked down the aisle—her glowing smile and th

e light in her eyes . . . somehow soothed him.

Calmed the restless beast inside.

Returning to his house, he threw himself into his own preparations, into overseeing the final touches to the changes he’d directed be made. Then there were meetings with Montague, then later with Rand and Kit, and subsequently various entertainments with the male Cynsters, and others with his close friends, Sanderson included.

Knowing him so well, David asked how the wound had stood up. To what didn’t need to be stated. Ryder informed him that his handiwork had come through with flying colors. At which everyone around the table smirked.

“I’ve a good mind to wear black.” Lavinia glowered into the mirror in her boudoir. “It would be a fitting declaration of how I view this match.”

Claude Potherby sighed and folded the news sheet he’d been perusing. “Sadly, I can assure you it wouldn’t be seen in that light.”

“Oh?” Brows arching, Lavinia swung to face him. “How would it be seen?”

“As a revelation about you, my dear—which I really don’t think is what you would wish.” Claude waved languidly. “Of course, that’s assuming you made it into the church, and weren’t bundled out and back into your carriage by some Cynster.” He paused, as if considering the image, then shook his head. “I really wouldn’t risk it if I were you.” He met Lavinia’s eyes and smiled. “Besides, my dear, surely you’ll reap a greater revenge by looking your best, and you know black doesn’t suit you.”

Lavinia pursed her lips, but after a moment she nodded. “Yes—you’re right. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

Still smiling, Claude reached for the teapot.

Henrietta’s return to the capital, accompanied by a beaming James, signaled the start of the last stage, the final mad rush to the wedding.

Mary found herself swept up in a whirl of last-minute decisions—what her attendants would carry aside from their bouquets, whether she wished a diamond- or pearl-encrusted comb to anchor her veil, whether she would wear her great-grandmother’s pearls. Beribboned silver horseshoes, pearls, and yes were the answers, but nothing, it seemed, could be decided without the canvassing of wider opinion. She would have expected to feel irritated, impatient of the restraint; instead, caught up in the embrace of her family and close friends, in the love that flowed from all, the clear exposition that her happiness was everyone’s concern made bearing with their interference surprisingly easy.