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

Several seconds passed in silence, then he fractionally inclined his head. “The most likely culprit would be some gentleman who imagined I had stolen his wife.”

“We thought it was Fitzhugh, but as that seems not to be the case, who else might it be?”

He studied her eyes; unwavering self-certainty, an assurance of who she was, and also who he was, remained steady and strong in her cornflower-blue gaze. She wasn’t rattled; she was focused and, if he judged correctly, just a tad irritated. Not with him but with whoever had had the temerity to disturb her definition of how their life should be.

Be that as it may, he was far beyond disturbed; it was taking fully half his mind to hold back, lock down the clawing need to savage whoever had dared attempt to harm her, to take her from him. And most of the rest of his mental capacity was absorbed with formulating plans to ensure beyond all possibility that she remained safe. That she remained with him; he couldn’t view the prospect of losing her with any degree of calm.

With what faculties he could spare, he racked his brain for the answer to her question. It was the right question, and there ought to be an answer, but . . . finally, he shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. I accept that such a man is most likely behind the incidents, but I don’t know—can’t guess—who he might be.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Well, you didn’t know about Fitzhugh, either—that he might have had cause to imagine you’d stolen his wife. It’s possible there’s some other gentleman who, like Fitzhugh, has been fed a tale by his wife, perhaps to conceal a dalliance with some other rake.”

After a moment, he confessed, “I’m starting to feel that I’m reaping the ill rewards of my previous life—and you’ve been involved because of me.”

She didn’t smile too easily and brush aside his statement; instead, she held his gaze for a long moment—long enough to make him wonder just how much of his mind she could read—then she smiled wryly in agreement, rose, and, before he could join her on her feet, with a swish of her heavy skirts, she dropped into his lap.

Placing a hand on his cheek, she angled his face to hers, met his eyes, and simply said, “Don’t worry. Together, we can overcome anything.” Holding his gaze, she confidently stated, “Together, we’ll work this out.”

“You can’t leave the house.” Halting beside her chair half an hour later, he shut his lips and braced for her arguments.

Mary looked up at him, then arched her brows and looked back at her book. “I don’t want to go out at the moment.”

When he continued to stare down at her—not daring to believe—she glanced briefly up at him. “I told you we’d work this out.”

“I thought you’d agreed not to go outside?” Sudden panic churned in his gut.

“That was yesterday. Today—well, there’s no need to go far from the house. Just the rose garden will do.” Mary looped her arm in his. “You can come to make sure I’m safe. The walk will do you good—you’re far too tense.”

He was starting to believe that Fate had, indeed, arranged their match. Mary wasn’t just more than he’d expected, she was more than he deserved.

Together, we’ll work this out. He’d assumed she’d meant that they’d pool their mental resources in investigating who was behind the attacks, not that they would, together, work on the ways, the precautions, the plans, all the elements of her security necessary to allow him to cope with all he felt.

So he could sleep alongside her and not fear the morning.

He wasn’t about to—had no spare space in his mind to—examine what he felt, if it was rational or even logical, much less define what the so powerful, so dominant, and so utterly demanding emotion that had taken root in his heart and guts actually was, not while she was under any degree of threat.

And to his everlasting gratitude she understood, at least enough to comprehend that his conversion to martinet, to dictator and tyrant, wasn’t something he could control, wasn’t the way he actually wished to act but was instead the result of something he was quite simply helpless to counteract.

Given his temper and personality, and hers, if she hadn’t understood . . . in the days that followed their ill-fated ride, he constantly gave thanks that she could.

If anyone had told him that he would, one day, be grateful that his wife could see into his soul, he would have laughed himself into a stupor.

He wasn’t laughing on the morning she’d determined as the time for her to once again venture beyond the grounds.

Since the disaster of that first ride, she’d remained within the protective cordon he, with the grimly determined assistance of the staff, had fashioned. For the first day, she’d remained inside the house; yesterday, she’d convinced him to walk with her in the gardens. Later, during luncheon, she’d broached the subject of riding again, but when he’d voiced his continuing antipathy to allowing her back in her saddle, she’d regarded him shrewdly, then had nodded and acquiesced—and insisted he allow her to drive herself in the gig on a visit to the nearby village.

Having earlier informed her that the men he’d sent to scour the neighborhood for any sighting of strangers had reported that none had been seen, and more, that none were lingering in the vicinity, he’d lost the ability to cite lurking would-be villains as a threat. Not that that had stopped him from arguing, vehemently, but for once she wouldn’t be moved—and given she had thus far been so accommodating . . .

Unable to assemble sufficient ammunition to quash her notion outright, he’d fallen back on the tactic of agreeing subject to her demonstrating her expertise with the reins sufficient to pass his standards.

She’d smiled and agreed.

How could he have known she had at some point inveigled Simon to teach her to drive?

After she’d tooled the gig about the drive with every evidence of not just capability but enjoyment, he hadn’t been able to deny her the outing.

So that morning, after they’d breakfasted and she’d finished her daily meeting with Mrs. Pritchard, they walked out to the forecourt where the gig stood waiting, a well-conditioned roan, a nice, solid stepper with an exceedingly even temper, between the shafts.

The gig was small, light; it couldn’t carry them both, and given his weight, he wouldn’t have used it himself, even alone. He helped Mary up to the seat, then turned to where Benson held Julius’s reins. Swinging up to the saddle, he picked up the reins, then looked at Mary—met her brilliant smile.