The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh (Cynster #20) - Stephanie Laurens Page 0,154

orders to give, and then all of you are coming home with us to the abbey.”

She’d used her marchioness’s voice and was entirely unsurprised that no one argued.

Dawn was painting its first pale streaks across the eastern sky when Ryder followed Mary into their bedroom.

Mary heaved a gigantic sigh. “Finally, it’s over.”

They’d spent the last hours sorting everyone and everything out as well as they could. Rand, Kit, Stacie, and Godfrey had been gathered in by the abbey staff, led by Mary herself. As Ryder’s half siblings often visited, they had their own rooms; wrung out, they’d retired as soon as their quarters had been made ready. “I just hope,” he said, “that the others can sleep.”

“Hmm.” Mary glanced at him. “Do you foresee any difficulties with the two stable hands over Snickert’s death?”

He shook his head. “Lavinia, through Snickert, had offered them a small fortune to help him do away with us—they know how close to the gallows they stand.” He hesitated, then admitted, “If Lavinia hadn’t died, then Snickert’s death would pose more of a problem, but as she has, and the stable hands know that, then . . .” He exhaled. “I think—hope—that this will blow over without anything that might damage the others socially coming out.”

“How much detail do you need to give of the manner of Lavinia’s death?”

“Officially, not much—just that she died of an accident. Death through misadventure, which is true enough. Given the staff at the Dower House rallied around, and will deal with the body and the undertakers tomorrow—no, today—other than organizing the funeral itself, there’s very little more that needs to be done to set this matter to rest.”

“To lay Lavinia to rest, and free her children.”

“That, too.” Looping an arm about Mary’s waist, Ryder drew her with him to the window.

They stood there, leaning against each other, watching the dawn break across the sky.

Eventually, Mary stirred. “A new dawn—a new beginning.”

Ryder glanced at her. “Not just for us, but for the other four, too—for the Cavanaughs.”

Meeting his gaze, Mary smiled. “For the Cavanaughs.” Catching both his hands in hers, she backed toward the bed, towing him, unresisting, with her.

“Continuing in that vein”—halting beside the bed and releasing his hands, Mary pressed close, stretched up, wound her arms about his neck and looked deep into his hazel eyes—“I believe we should fall into this bed, and do what we can to make certain of the next generation.”

Ryder’s lips slowly curved, then he laughed, swept her up in his arms, set his lips to hers, kissed her—and tipped them both onto the bed.

They bounced.

Mary shrieked, then laughed.

Then fell to as they wrestled each other out of their clothes, as they paused, both caught by the lancing sensual jolt as skin met naked skin, only to be filled with piercing pleasure as hands caressed and stroked, lovingly, worshipfully tracing now familiar curves, reclaiming, possessing anew—familiar yet never before so poignant.

Their eyes met—and in the blue, in the hazel, dwelled the same knowledge of comprehension and capitulation, the rock-solid certainty of what, through the tumult of the night’s events, they’d embraced, shared, and owned to.

Openly. Directly. Without guile.

Without any screens to shield them from each other they came together on a shared gasp, in a moment of shining clarity caught their breaths, then she drew his lips to hers, and he bent to her, and they let their passion and the power that fueled it rear like a wave—let it roar in and take them, let it sweep them away.

Let desire and need and hunger coalesce into a fire beyond their control.

Let the indescribable joy of being alive—of having cheated death together, of having survived together to come together like this, in wonder and in hope, in commitment and in reverence—flood them.

Sink and submerge them, meld and fuse them until they were one.

In love and in passion. In joy and in ecstasy.

In hope and in surrender.

To all they would be, to all that would come, to all they would create together.

Chapter Seventeen

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Lavinia’s funeral marked the end of a lost era for the Cavanaughs. Ryder was determined that from that point onward, with no Lavinia attempting to create schisms between him and her children, the five of them—with Mary to guide them—would become, or grow into, the sort of family they’d all yearned to be for so long.

It would take time and a degree of learning, but they had time, were more than willing, and had Mary to help them