The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh (Cynster #20) - Stephanie Laurens Page 0,155

understand when they should be sharing their difficulties. She’d well and truly taken the bit between her teeth and thrown herself into the role of his marchioness, into being the matriarch of the family, both immediate and wider, and had already made it plain that she expected any difficulties of any kind to be made known to them—if not to him, then at the very least to her.

He loved her bossiness; what always amazed him was how she got away with it. Most often he suspected it wasn’t that people agreed so much as they surrendered to a patently greater force and gave in. Increasingly quickly. He could see it becoming a habit.

There wasn’t a day when something she said or did didn’t bring a smile to his face—sometimes a smile he hid, but just as often he shared his amusement with her, just to see her narrow her vivid eyes at him, then humph and turn haughtily away.

Having her beside him through the days following Lavinia’s death, helping him to help the others over the hurdles, social and otherwise, had been a huge boon. He honestly wasn’t sure how he would have managed without her.

Together, the six of them had tackled the question of mourning. He and Mary had concluded that, for them, a week’s full mourning, followed by three weeks of half-mourning, would be appropriate; given the widely recognized antipathy between him and Lavinia, anything more would smack of hypocrisy. They’d encouraged Rand, Kit, Stacie, and Godfrey to make up their own minds; in the end, the four had decided on one month of full mourning, and three of half-mourning, and all those who gathered at Raventhorne for the funeral and wake had nodded and approved.

Following the formal funeral at the nearby church and the brief ceremony of interment, the wake, held at the abbey, was, socially speaking, more in the nature of a new beginning; the neighbors who attended made it plain they were doing so primarily to show their support of him and Mary rather than to acknowledge Lavinia’s passing other than it being the end of the past. Everyone clearly looked to him and Mary for a new direction, and to his everlasting gratitude, his marchioness was up to the challenge.

She swept regally through the crowd, dispensing grace and calm and a species of reassurance that was uniquely hers. Those who hadn’t met her before quickly thawed and smiled; those who had been previously captivated were happy to be so again. Watching her delight and manage, manage and delight, he felt reassured himself, content and more that in being there, in managing his household and, as far as he would allow, determining his life, she was in her true element.

Being his marchioness was where she should be; the position was hers—it was where she belonged.

Where she needed to be, for his sake, and hers, and that of so many others.

Throughout the afternoon, she constantly circled, popping up beside him to lay a hand on his arm, to lean close and ensnare his senses while sharing a shrewd observation or comment, and then she would be off again, sweeping on to oversee and direct.

One who had attended the service, the interment, and the wake was Claude Potherby. In light of what Ryder knew of the man’s long-standing devotion to Lavinia, he had sent Potherby a personal note, inviting him to attend. Potherby had come but had remained at the wake only long enough to satisfy social expectations; his role as Lavinia’s confidant had been widely known.

Potherby had looked shattered; he’d aged ten years in less than a week. He’d seized a private moment to ask Ryder whether Lavinia had taken her own life. When Ryder had assured him that her death had been an accident, brought about by an attempt to flee justice, Potherby had nodded and quietly reflected, “She wouldn’t have chosen it, but this end . . . might well have been for the best.” After a moment, he’d added, “For her . . . and for me.” Glancing at Ryder, he’d somewhat ambiguously said, “It’s time I moved on.”

After tendering transparently sincere wishes for Ryder’s, Mary’s, and the Cavanaugh family’s future, Potherby had departed.

Thinking back to that conversation, Ryder had to agree with Potherby’s direction; it was, indeed, a day for counting blessings, and then moving on.

Apropos of which, looking over the sea of heads crowding the abbey’s drawing room, he felt as if he was, at last, setting out unencumbered on the