The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh (Cynster #20) - Stephanie Laurens Page 0,54

met his eyes, then nodded. “Yes. I believe granting such leave will be in everyone’s best interests.”

Her faint emphasis on “everyone’s” gave Ryder an instant’s pause. He knew the Cynster ladies by repute and, as far as possible, had steered clear of them. But from those of his peers who circled within their orbit, he’d learned enough to view them with healthy respect.

He inclined his head to both Mary’s parents. “Thank you.”

Turning his head to meet Mary’s gaze, he held out his hand, making every endeavor to mask the effort that cost him.

She hesitated for only a heartbeat, then walked forward and laid her hand in his—and gently bore his hand down until his arm rested on the covers and he no longer had to expend strength to support it.

Closing his fingers around hers, looking into her lovely eyes, he fought to screen the sudden surge of primitive possessiveness that flashed through him, but he was fairly certain he failed.

Yet she held his gaze steadily; despite what, standing so close with her gaze trapped in his, he suspected she could see, he sensed not the slightest tremor in the fingers trapped in his.

The traditional, conventional words were there, on his tongue; he’d rehearsed them while dressing. Yet he left them unsaid. Between her and him . . . he wanted more. “Clearly this is not as I would have had it, but, as you know, it is what I wanted, what I intended at some point to ask of you. But Fate has intervened and brought us to this moment without allowing us the customary time to get to know each another. To understand each other. So in what is, after all, one of the most important decisions in life, you and I have to, are being forced to, take each other on trust. And so we must. In return for the trust I hope you will accord me, I vow that I will place my trust in you—that I will work with you to make our future life, the one we will share, all that it might be.” He paused, then, his gaze unwaveringly fixed on the cornflower blue of her eyes, drew breath, and said, “So what say you, Mary—will you take my hand and go forward by my side, as my marchioness, as my wife, and make our life, create from our shared life, all we wish?”

Mary was trapped in his eyes, but not lost, not overwhelmed; she could see his intent, clear and unshielded, could discern the powerful drive behind it, even if she couldn’t as yet guess from whence it sprang. He wanted her as his wife; he had from the first. She knew beyond question that he meant every word, those of today, and of the days past—all he’d ever offered her on this subject. “Yes.” She heard herself say the word, recognized and acknowledged that it came from somewhere deeper than her rational mind. Accepting that, she nodded, more to herself than him, and affirmed, “Yes, I will be your marchioness. Yes, I will be your wife.”

His lips, those wicked, sinful, compelling lips, slowly curved. Even though his muscles shook, he tried to raise her hand; smoothly, she lifted it, allowing him, helping him, to carry it to his lips.

His eyes, sharply intelligent, glinting with subtly screened desire, held hers as he set the seal on their pact and pressed a kiss to her fingers.

Possession was stamped on his features.

She read the confirmation that shone in his eyes.

Mine. You’re mine.

“This is an unmitigated disaster!” Lavinia, Marchioness of Raventhorne, raged before the fireplace in her boudoir.

The only other occupant, Claude Potherby, sat at his fashionable ease in the wing chair angled to the hearth and watched Lavinia pace. He was too wise in her ways to say anything just yet. Inured by long acquaintance to her histrionics, he left her to rail unimpeded. In days past, he would have been styled her cicisbeo, a longtime confidant, although in his case never a lover. Once, it was true, he had aspired to the more intimate connection, but that had been long ago—before Lavinia had turned from him to so eagerly throw herself into an arranged marriage and the marchioness’s shoes she still wore.

Yet to his cynical surprise, his devotion had proved both durable and persistent; despite being taken for granted for more decades than he cared to count, he was still there, still listening to Lavinia’s ravings—still quietly amused by her unending, ceaseless quest for