“Thank you for staying.” If he could have moved his arm, he would have taken her hand and kissed it. “If I could bow, I would. As it is, I’m not up to even nodding, but you may take my abject gratitude as read.”
Concern reappeared in her cornflower blue eyes. “How weak are you?”
He told himself admitting the truth wouldn’t hurt—not to her. “Extremely.”
“You lost a horrendous amount of blood, so that’s probably not surprising.” Her frown grew more definite. “Sanderson said he’d be back as soon as he delivered some lady of her baby, but until then I don’t even know if we should feed you.”
“At the moment, I’m not sure I can even swallow—not food, anyway.”
“Perhaps we can try some water, and if you can manage that I’m sure Mrs. Perkins will have some broth prepared.” Mary glanced at the mantelpiece clock, blinked, then stared. “Good Lord! It’s eleven o’clock already!”
Collier chose that moment to snort himself awake. He looked across the room—and came out of his chair on a highly unprofessional cry of delight. Immediately recollecting himself, he bowed and apologized profusely, although his beaming smile didn’t dim in the least. He concluded with, “I’m just so relieved to see you awake, my lord.”
“And compos mentis,” Mary dryly observed. She met Ryder’s eyes as he glanced up at her. “You appear to be in full possession of your faculties.”
He grinned; facial expressions, at least, were within his ambit. “You’ll be pleased to know that my mind is unimpaired.”
“Can I do anything for you, my lord? Can I fetch anything?” Collier fussed eagerly at the foot of the bed.
“Water,” Mary answered. She pointed at the pitcher on the table beside the bed. “Fresh water would be preferable.”
“Yes, of course.” Collier swooped on the pitcher and bore it off, delighted to have something to do.
“And let the others know I’m back from the dead,” Ryder called after him, “and tell Pemberly to send Sanderson up as soon as he appears.”
“Yes, my lord!’ Collier left with a spring in his step.
Ryder inwardly shook his head. “You’d never think he’d spent all night asleep in a chair.”
Looking up, he found Mary regarding him steadily. “They’re all very devoted to you.”
He managed the hint of a shrug. “They’ve been with me, as they say, boy and man.” But now Collier had gone, he could ask some of the questions banking up in his brain. “The two who attacked me—I left them in the alley.”
“Sanderson realized you’d want to investigate when you woke, and told Pemberly to take in the bodies and store them somewhere.”
“Good man.” Now for the trickier question. “What arrangements—”
The sound of the front doorbell pealing reached them; Collier had left the door ajar.
“Ah! That will be my parents.” Mary started for the door; glancing back she said, “They’ve been away for the last few days and were due home this morning. I sent them a note explaining where I was and why, and asked them to come as soon as they could and”—reaching the door, she gestured—“lend me countenance, so to speak.”
She whisked through the door even as, lids rising fully, he called, “No, wait!”
When she didn’t reappear, he swore, mostly at the weakness that prevented him from going after her and stopping her from doing something no lady ever should, namely rushing down the stairs of a single gentleman’s abode without being certain who was about to be admitted through the door.
Feeling drained by even that degree of exertion, falling back against his pillows, he mentally grimaced. “Pemberly will reach the door first. He’ll see her and order her back.” He tried to imagine it but couldn’t see anyone—much less his loyal, devoted, and in the current circumstances no doubt immensely grateful staff—ordering Mary to do anything. At least, not successfully.
But there was nothing he could do. Heaving a sigh of resignation, he sank deeper into his pillows, thinking words he’d never thought he would. “Pray God it is her parents.”
Raventhorne House was every bit as large and impressive as St. Ives House, just a block north in Grosvenor Square. Mary hurried along the corridor that led to the massive gallery about the grand staircase, noting with approval the trappings of luxury she’d been too distracted to notice during the night. Thick Oriental carpets in jewel tones muffled her footsteps; the walls were richly paneled in dark wood and hung with paintings large and small in ornate gilded frames. The well of the front hall was lit by a circular skylight high above. Reaching the gallery, she glanced over the wooden balustrade and saw Pemberly pacing in stately fashion across the black-and-white tiles, heading for the tall front doors.
She would be glad to see her parents, her mother especially; a smile blooming, she grabbed up her skirts and hurried even faster to the head of the stairs.
As she started down, Pemberly opened the door. “Yes?”
“Good morning, Pemberly. We are here to see my stepson.”
Mary froze. Teetering on a tread just below the half-landing, she stared, increasingly aghast as the Marchioness of Raventhorne ignored Pemberly’s valiant attempt to deny her and with an irritated “Do stand aside, man!” pushed past him into the front hall.
Followed by two middle-aged ladies who, heads high, expressions set, reticules determinedly clasped before them, marched inside in the marchioness’s wake.
All three ladies instantly saw Mary. They slowed, then halted.
Their mouths fell open, expressions turning slack with astounded astonishment as they registered who she was . . . and where she was . . .
Breaking free of the shock, Mary swung around and hared back up the stairs.
Heedless of decorum, she raced around the gallery and down the corridor to Ryder’s room.
Flinging open the door, she burst in—startling Collier, at least, who had just finished helping Ryder, now semidecently clad in a nightshirt, sip from a glass of water—then she whirled and shut the door.
She stared at it for a second, then rushed to the bed. “Ryder—”
“I take it that wasn’t your parents.” His expression unflustered, but instead rather cynically resigned, he arched a brow at her.
“It’s your stepmother.” Mary pointed to the door. “She’s coming up here.” As she’d fled, she’d heard an exclamation; as she’d darted into the corridor, she’d heard determined footsteps start up the stairs.
With a put-upon sigh, Ryder looked at the ceiling. “Wonderful.”
“No—it’s even worse.” Mary resisted the urge to grab his arm and shake him. “She’s brought Lady Jerome and Mrs. Framlingham with her!”
Ryder’s gaze snapped to her face. “Ah.” All lazy humor flown, he stared at her for two seconds, then barked, “Collier, help me up.”
Mary would have argued but instead found herself kneeling on the bed, assisting Ryder to shift higher on his pillows. At his orders, Collier helped him raise his left arm, placing his hand behind his head. . . . She frowned. “Why are we doing this?”
“Staging.”
“But why?”
“Because Lavinia is one of those to whom you never show weakness.”
She didn’t understand, but she trusted that he knew what he was doing; he was unquestionably more experienced in this sort of situation than she.
“Help me raise my other arm,” Ryder said to Mary. “Collier—out of sight.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Ryder had intended, between him and Mary, to set his right arm in a similar position to his left, making it appear he was lounging back with his hands behind his head, but he was still so weak, and Mary struggled to push the nearly dead weight of his arm higher—and then he caught the sounds of many footsteps approaching, Pemberly’s protests overridden by Lavinia’s waspish dismissals, and read
justed. “No—leave my arm where it is along the pillows. Sit and face the door. Now!”
Mary threw him a stunned look, but then obeyed.
Leaving her, still clad in her watered silk evening gown from the night before, with her dark curls gently disarranged and becoming color in her cheeks, sitting on his bed within the curve of his arm as he lay apparently relaxed and at his ease.
At eleven o’clock in the morning.
With a last spurt of effort, he managed to shift his right hand enough to drape his fingers over the curve of her right shoulder.
Pemberly entered first, all but propelled through the doorway. “My lord! I tried . . .” He gestured helplessly at Lavinia, who, eyes lit with a conflagration of disbelief and mounting fury, swept into the room.
Lady Jerome and Mrs. Framlingham, arch-gossipmongers and two of the busiest bodies in the ton, hung back in the shadows of the corridor, apparently sensing rather better than his stepmother that barging into his bedchamber without an invitation might just be that one step too far.
Grateful that the pillows allowed him to keep his head upright, he didn’t attempt to move it. “Thank you, Pemberly.” His gaze on Lavinia, his tone chilling significantly, he continued, “Good morning, Lavinia—I wasn’t aware I had arranged a meeting. To what do I owe this unwarranted invasion?”
Predictably Lavinia’s gaze had swept over him and fixed on Mary. His stepmother goggled; her lips opened and shut several times—which he would have found amusing had the circumstances been different—but then she finally wrenched her gaze to his face and brusquely waved at Mary. “What the devil is she doing here?”
Playing to the audience peering in from the corridor, he sighed gustily in the manner of a man supremely beset by uncomprehendingly obtuse females and lightly, warningly, gripped Mary’s shoulder. “If you must know, last night Miss Cynster did me the honor of accepting my offer for her hand.”
Ryder slanted a fleeting, heavy-lidded glance at his bride-to-be. Via his hold on her shoulder, he’d felt the jolt his words had unsurprisingly sent through her, but although he could only see her profile, he didn’t think any overt shock showed in her face; if anything she seemed to be regarding Lavinia with becoming, somewhat icy, hauteur. Returning his gaze to his stepmother, he continued in the same arrogantly cold tone, “Her presence here should therefore surprise no one, and, indeed, be of no interest to anyone. Your presence, however, has yet to be explained.”
Lavinia could not have looked more stunned. It took her three attempts before she could get her tongue to function. “You . . .” Then her gaze switched to Mary and her fists clenched. “You silly chit! You could have had my Randolph . . .” Lavinia trailed off, no doubt realizing any suggestion that Mary should have preferred Randolph to Ryder was, in ton terms, ludicrous.
Somewhat to his surprise, Lavinia paled, but then hot color surged into her cheeks. Her gaze locked on Mary and her eyes narrowed. “Why, you—”
“Lavinia!” Ruthlessly, he reseized the reins; his strength wasn’t going to last much longer. “You—and your friends—have burst into my home and have erupted into my private chambers without so much as a by-your-leave. I suggest you retreat. Now.” He held her gaze. “Pemberly, please show her ladyship out.”
“Indeed, my lord.” Pemberly didn’t utter the words, but “it will be my pleasure” hung in the air.
Lavinia glared at Pemberly as, with the weight of Ryder’s authority behind him, the butler advanced and took her arm. With a muttered oath, she wrenched it free, cast one last, furious, yet still stunned and reeling look at the bed, then swung on her heel and marched out. Pemberly followed, closing the door behind him.
Exhausted, Ryder fell back on the pillows; his eyes closed all by themselves.
He heard Collier emerge from the dressing room.
An instant later, still beside him on the bed, Mary murmured, “Would you like to lower your left arm?”
“Please.”
Between them, they eased his hand from behind his head and lowered his arm to the bed.
He hated, absolutely hated, being weak. And now, courtesy of his stepmother, he had another battle on his hands. “Collier—get out.”
“Yes, my lord.”
He waited until he heard the door snick shut before drawing in a deeper breath and forcing his lids up, at least enough to see.
Although still sitting on the bed, Mary had shifted to face him. The look on her face, the expression in her eyes as they rested on him, was . . . utterly inscrutable.
That surprised him; until now, he’d been able to read her reasonably well, relatively easily. It hadn’t occurred to him that he might not always be able to, that she might be able to hide her thoughts, her feelings, from him.
A faint line etched between her brows, she was patently considering him . . . as if he was of a species she’d encountered before but was a specimen that broke the mold.
Regardless of what her thoughts actually were, for him there was only one way forward. “I apologize. Unreservedly.” He managed to wave the fingers of his right hand. “That bore no resemblance to how I would have wished to propose to you.”
Her brows arched. She hesitated, then said, “As I see it, you’ve now proposed, and I’ve accepted.”
Understanding the question concealed in her words, he grimaced. “There was no other way.”
When she continued to study him—when he continued to have not a clue about what was passing through her mind—he said, “If I might make an observation?”
Raising her brows, she invited him to proceed.
“I rather expected you to be hissing and spitting at me by now—at least ranting and raving a trifle.” Another weak wave. “Perhaps pacing back and forth.” He caught her gaze. “You know, the expected reaction.”
Her lips faintly curved, but she sobered immediately. “I can’t see that ranting and raving will get either of us anywhere.”
He regarded her, wariness growing. “How terribly rational of you.”
That elicited another fleeting grin. “As much as I might be tempted to berate you, I can’t find it in me to be so irrational as to blame you for what just occurred. You had no choice—it wasn’t as if you’d invited your stepmother and her cronies in.”
He managed the tiniest inclination of his head. “Thank you. I assure you that little performance was certainly not what I meant when I stated I intended to work to change your mind.”
She humphed but said nothing.
When she continued to consider him in silence to the point he was growing increasingly concerned about just what plan she was hatching, in an endeavor to tease it from her he sighed feelingly, then said, “I suppose, if I were other than I am, I would make some chivalrous declaration over finding some way of releasing you from the contract in which we’ve just become unintentionally snared.”
Her blue eyes narrowed on his face. “But you won’t, will you?”
Holding her gaze, he shook his head. “No. I had no idea I would be stabbed last night, had no idea you would come along and aid me, had no idea you would remain by my side all night, and I had no hand in bringing Lavinia and her bosom-bows down on our joint heads. And I haven’t reached where I am today without learning to take advantage of every blessing Fate sends my way.” He paused, then more softly said, “So no, I won’t be searching for any way to undo what Fate has seen done.” When she still didn’t react, he went on, “So if you want to find some way out of this, you’re going to have to search for it yourself.”
Eyes fixed on his, all she said was, “Hmm.”
If he could have flung his hands in the air, he would have. Letting his head fall completely back onto the pillows, he looked at the ceiling and baldly asked, “What the devil are you thinking?”
A half minute ticked past, then she replied, “To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure.”
&n
bsp; He frowned, then returned his gaze to her face. “You’re always sure. Of everything.”
“Yes.” Her lips firming in clear disapproval of her unaccustomed state, she shook her head. “But not about this.”
Distantly, the front doorbell pealed.
“And that,” she said, “will be my parents.” Slipping off the bed, she shook out her skirts, then glanced sharply at him. “I’ll go down and explain, and seek their counsel. Then I’ll come back and we can discuss where we stand. Meanwhile, you should rest. Doctor Sanderson should arrive shortly.”
Ryder watched her neaten her hair and generally compose herself, then, head held high, she glided to the door and let herself out.
Once the door shut, he sank back into the pillows and swore some more. Being helpless grated beyond bearing.
By the time Mary reached the gallery, Pemberly had admitted her parents into the front hall. Hurrying down the stairs, she couldn’t remember ever being so glad to see them. “Mama! Papa!”
Louise and Arthur turned toward her. Louise smiled. “There you are, dear.”
Although both her parents took in her appearance—not something they could miss—they welcomed her with encouraging smiles and open arms. She returned their hugs with feeling.
“My dear.” Louise drew away, her expression sobering. “How is Ryder?”
“Recovering, thank goodness. But I fear we’ve had a complication of a different sort.”
“Oh? How so?” Arthur’s expression had turned serious.
Mary glanced at Pemberly. “Pemberly, is there somewhere . . . ?”
Pemberly immediately indicated a door and strode to open it. “The drawing room, miss.”
“Thank you.” Mary led the way in. The room was large, long, and fashionably furnished, but more with an eye to masculine comfort and style. The chairs were well padded, upholstered in green leather, and the sofas matched. After an instant’s pause to get her bearings, she led her parents to the sofa facing the massive fireplace; it was flanked by two large wing chairs, and a low table sat in the center of the arrangement.