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

After gathering them all, Ryder caught Julius’s reins and walked back to her. Halting before her, he lifted one of the metal things from the basket, turning it in his fingers so they both could see. It was about the size of his fist, composed of three long nails twisted about each other.

Mary frowned. “What is it?”

“It’s a caltrop. They were invented to disrupt cavalry charges. This one’s not cavalry-grade—it’s a crude fashioning, but effective nevertheless.” Ryder set it on his palm. “It’s constructed so it sits on the heads, so the spikes stick up.”

Mary shook her head. “How horrible. Just think of the pain caused to the poor horses.”

“Hmm.” Ryder thought more of the pain that might have been caused to her. He glanced at the broken gig, the wooden struts smashed, one wheel caved in, the seat in two pieces, then he raised his gaze to Mary’s eyes. “Let’s turn the roan into the nearest field inside the grounds, then we’ll ride back on Julius.”

She nodded. “Filmore’s going to have a fit when he sees us riding back in, both on Julius again.”

Filmore wasn’t the only one about to have a fit, but his first concern was to get her back within the safety of the abbey.

Later that night, when they lay side by side and watched moonbeams drift across the ceiling of his room, still floating on the flushed tide of aftermath, he murmured, “Perhaps we should go back to London.”

“No.” Mary’s answer was immediate. “I am not letting some blackguard force me out of my new home.”

She lay wrapped in his arms. He tightened them slightly. “I was thinking more in terms of protecting you.”

“I can’t see how . . .” A second passed, then she amended, “Well yes, I can, but if you’re entertaining the notion of leaving me in London in the care of my family, then coming back here alone to discover who’s behind this, possibly by tempting them to make another attempt on your life . . .” Pausing, she drew in a breath, then concluded, “Put simply, you will need to think again.”

Turning in his arms, through the shadows Mary studied his face; from the tension in the big body pressed against hers, she knew she’d guessed his intentions aright. “I’m not quitting your side. We’re married, and in case you’ve forgotten, I vowed ‘to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until death do us part.’ There’s nothing in that about leaving you to face unknown foes alone.”

Ryder heard the belligerence in her tone. “I haven’t forgotten.” He noticed she’d omitted the “obey” from her vows, but . . . he sighed. Admitted, “Keeping you safe is . . . critically important to me.”

She nodded. “And in the exact same way, keeping you hale and whole is vital to me. So we’ll simply have to accept that neither of us is going to back away from this—in fact, we should probably view it as a challenge.”

“A challenge.” His instincts flickered warily, but he had to ask, “How so?”

“Well, once we’ve learned to manage our way through this, we’ll know how to manage through anything that might come.”

Given what he was going through . . . she might well be right. The situation was starting to feel like a baptism by fire.

When he said nothing, she wriggled higher to look into his face, to in the poor light study his eyes. “Trust me,” she said. “I’m right. You’ll see. We’ll come through this stronger—more sure of ourselves together. I’m viewing this as a learning experience—and if you stop to think, you’ll realize you’re inclined to use it in the same way.”

He’d already realized that; as usual, she held the positive up like temptation. There was no real reply he wished to make, so he grunted, drew her down into his arms, and planted a kiss on her curls. “We’ll see.”

After due discussion, Mary agreed to remain within the estate grounds over the following days.

The first two were enlivened by a succession of bride-visits from the surrounding gentry; the ladies had held off for the customary seven days, but now that Mary and Ryder had lived a

t the abbey as man and wife for a full week, the carriages rolled up the drive and the ladies, and some of their husbands, too, called to make her acquaintance.

Caught up in the whirl of navigating the shoals of county allegiances and social rank, less dangerous than those among the haut ton, perhaps, but nevertheless present, Mary almost forgot the incidents that had marred her first week as Ryder’s wife. The visits from their neighbors gave her and Ryder plenty to talk about, to discuss, and in her case to probe and learn; the days, evenings, and nights passed in exactly the sort of pleasant whirl she considered their due.

The following morning saw the last of what Ryder expected in the way of bride-visits, a visitation from Lady Hamberly; the nearest representative of the grande dame set, her ladyship stayed for just over half an hour and appeared to approve of all she saw.

Standing at Ryder’s side on the front porch as they waved her ladyship away, Mary murmured, “What will you wager she spends the entire afternoon writing missives to her peers around the country?”

“That,” Ryder said, casting her a jaundiced look as they turned inside, “is no wager at all—it’s a sure thing.”

Laughing, Mary looped her arm in his and they headed back to the library.

As the possessor of a massive estate and also a significant fortune, Ryder had a near endless stream of correspondence to deal with; Mary sat in the chair and read her book, and in between, when he paused to check on her—to give her at least a little of his time—she grasped the chance to question him about his various smaller estates scattered the length and breadth of the land.

Later in the afternoon, deciding it was time to establish a place of her own, somewhere comfortable where she could retire when he was out or she didn’t feel like sitting in the library, she went on a solo tour of the house, going into the various reception rooms on the ground floor, sitting in this chair and that, but none felt right.

In the end, she tried her sitting room upstairs—and discovered that suited her perfectly. There was something about the way the light flooded in from the windows flanking the writing desk. An armchair sat in the corner to the left of the writing desk and simply beckoned.