They were both poised, nerves tighter than drum skins, reined, teetering on that sexual brink . . .
Then with a last, small thrust, he was there. Embedded within her, filling her completely, the head of him nudging her womb, the heaviness of his sac brushing her sensitized skin.
This was what made her his, but equally it made him hers.
Lips curving as much as the overwhelming tension would allow, she whispered, “Thank you.” Blindly reaching for his head, sinking her fingers into his hair, she raised her head a fraction, whispered against his lips, “Now let go,” and kissed him.
Passion erupted. Held back for so long, it raged unrelenting, unforgiving. It whipped them along, harder and faster, whirling them through the age-old dance and straight into the flames and the fire.
Up, and higher, harder, and yet more furiously needy, they gasped and raced, driving for the peak, the ultimate pinnacle of intimate joy.
Their hearts thundered; their breaths came in raspy pants. Locked together, striving together, they yearned and stretched, reached and sought.
She was as caught as he, as subject to the passion they’d unleashed, yet she was aware and was with him, much more so than the first time, able to sense and feel, know and appreciate the turbulent power they’d evoked. Provoked.
Physical and ephemeral; even as they gasped and clung, she felt his hands on her, felt his awareness of her, felt how through his body he spoke to her, through hers, through her senses.
No words could breach this plane, could encompass this elemental reality.
Making love could, and did.
She tightened around him and they raced on through the searing wonder.
And in a heady rush of pounding joy they found that pinnacle, their oh-so-desired destination, without pause leapt past and on and flew.
Tension imploded. Sensation, molten and scalding, erupted and flashed outward from where they joined, flooding their veins, sinking deep into their flesh.
They shattered. She screamed; he roared.
Ecstasy speared through them, broke them, wracked them.
Caught by her own primal contractions, she felt him stiffen in her arms, felt the heat of his seed pulse deep within her.
She surrendered. Felt him do the same.
And ecstasy’s benediction flooded them, a blessing so richly sensuous it brought tears to her eyes and made her cling.
To that moment, so fleeting, so precious.
Then it faded, as it always would, yet even as she let go and, with him buried deep within her, connected beyond the physical, sank into satiation’s sea, she knew that it—that moment of ultimate intimate communion—would always exist, would always be there, waiting for them, forever a part of them.
Satisfied beyond measure, lips gently curved, she let bliss draw her into its embrace.
Ryder slumped on top of her, too wracked to move.
Too wrung out to think, to even care.
The danger had been there—and he’d fallen.
His last conscious thought before he surrendered was: Is this how it feels to be conquered?
There were only seven more days to their wedding—and those passed in a blur.
The morning after Henrietta’s nuptials, Mary found herself plunged into preparations for her own. Ryder had brought her back to Upper Brook Street in the small hours; sated and deeply content, she’d tumbled into her own bed, but her mother roused her early—much earlier than she’d hoped—to remind her that they had a fitting for her bridal gown that morning.
As the same modiste had so recently made her gown for Henrietta’s wedding, the fitting was more an opportunity for her aunts, her cousins’ wives, and some of the females of the next generation to ooh and aah over the fine Flemish lace and pearls, layer upon layer of which made up the delicate bridal gown.
Lucilla and Prudence, Demon and Flick’s eldest daughter, had stars in their eyes. “You look like a fairy princess,” Prudence said.
Viewing herself in the modiste’s cheval mirror, Mary had to agree. The gown played off her relatively small size and also her coloring. When the modiste set the fine veil in place, to Mary’s surprise, her eyes looked huge. Pools of pansy-blue.
The rest of the day passed in a whirl of female family interactions. With time so short, everyone claimed a role, parts they were eager to play.
Mary met Ryder at a ball that evening; while she’d thought to join him in Mount Street later, he suggested that, with the wedding only days away, perhaps they should simply wait. He waved languidly. “Rather than unnecessarily sneaking around.”
Mary wondered, but acquiesced and let him go. For that night.
Through the next two days, she, Louise, Honoria, Patience, and Alathea, aided by all the others, repeated their tasks from the previous week, arranging for flowers, food, wine, music. The seating in the church and at the wedding breakfast. The schedule, the carriages, the additional staff to be drawn from the family’s various households. Yet because this wedding was to be a massively larger affair, those tasks, while essentially the same, assumed the nature of a military campaign, one the Cynster ladies flung themselves into with unanimous alacrity. Mary’s aunt Helena and Therese Osbaldestone established themselves as the final arbiters of all things, the ultimate major generals of the massed troops.
Footmen constantly ferried notes between the various houses—directions, questions, suggestions, and more.
It was a giddy time, and courtesy of several soirees and must-attend balls—it being the height of the Season—three nights passed before Mary had a chance to refocus on Ryder. On he who would be her husband.
She’d seen him every evening, had attended the soirees and balls on his arm, yet Ryder in public was a very different proposition from Ryder in private, at least for her. In public, he could and did direct their interactions, using his experience and resulting expertise to counter any too-willful move she made. In private, she could hold her own, but through those days she never had him in private for long.
From Stacie—who, everyone had agreed, should be Mary’s second attendant—she heard that Ryder had immersed himself in estate matters, including preparing his several houses to receive his new marchioness. When interrogated, Stacie admitted to being asked her opinion on several issues regarding the latter, but she refused point-blank to divulge further details.
Mary decided she was willing to allow him such secrets, but that evening when he accompanied her and her mother home, and he and she were left alone to say their farewells in the front hall, she trapped his gaze and simply said, “An hour from now.” Then she smiled and gave him her hand.
He held her gaze for a long moment, then took her hand, bowed, and kissed her fingertips. “As my lady wishes.”
He met her at the window and took her to his home, and the hours that followed were a reckless and undeniably abandoned repetition of their last engagement. Much to her relief. Between them, all was, indeed, proceeding exactly as she wished.
After seeing her home, Ryder retreated to the rumpled wreckage of his bed, stretched out upon it, and considered the trap in which Fate had snared him. Mary was all and everything he wanted in his bride—and more; it was the more he hadn’t expected to have to grapple with.
Indeed, that more, he was increasingly certain, was the price he would have to pay . . . for having all the rest. For being blessed with all the rest. Being allowed to seize and keep all the rest.
Sleep eluded him. Driven by some incomprehensible impulse, as early as was acceptable he called in Upper Brook Street and all but abducted Mary for a drive in the park. He tooled her around the Avenue and let her tell him of all the last-minute arrangements; when he returned her to her parents’ home—she was due for a final fitting of her bridal gown, which, apparently, he was not allowed on pain of death to see before she walked down the aisle—her glowing smile and th
e light in her eyes . . . somehow soothed him.
Calmed the restless beast inside.
Returning to his house, he threw himself into his own preparations, into overseeing the final touches to the changes he’d directed be made. Then there were meetings with Montague, then later with Rand and Kit, and subsequently various entertainments with the male Cynsters, and others with his close friends, Sanderson included.
Knowing him so well, David asked how the wound had stood up. To what didn’t need to be stated. Ryder informed him that his handiwork had come through with flying colors. At which everyone around the table smirked.
“I’ve a good mind to wear black.” Lavinia glowered into the mirror in her boudoir. “It would be a fitting declaration of how I view this match.”
Claude Potherby sighed and folded the news sheet he’d been perusing. “Sadly, I can assure you it wouldn’t be seen in that light.”
“Oh?” Brows arching, Lavinia swung to face him. “How would it be seen?”
“As a revelation about you, my dear—which I really don’t think is what you would wish.” Claude waved languidly. “Of course, that’s assuming you made it into the church, and weren’t bundled out and back into your carriage by some Cynster.” He paused, as if considering the image, then shook his head. “I really wouldn’t risk it if I were you.” He met Lavinia’s eyes and smiled. “Besides, my dear, surely you’ll reap a greater revenge by looking your best, and you know black doesn’t suit you.”
Lavinia pursed her lips, but after a moment she nodded. “Yes—you’re right. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
Still smiling, Claude reached for the teapot.
Henrietta’s return to the capital, accompanied by a beaming James, signaled the start of the last stage, the final mad rush to the wedding.
Mary found herself swept up in a whirl of last-minute decisions—what her attendants would carry aside from their bouquets, whether she wished a diamond- or pearl-encrusted comb to anchor her veil, whether she would wear her great-grandmother’s pearls. Beribboned silver horseshoes, pearls, and yes were the answers, but nothing, it seemed, could be decided without the canvassing of wider opinion. She would have expected to feel irritated, impatient of the restraint; instead, caught up in the embrace of her family and close friends, in the love that flowed from all, the clear exposition that her happiness was everyone’s concern made bearing with their interference surprisingly easy.
And if she wondered at herself—at how she’d changed, of how over the last days and, indeed, weeks she’d come to more deeply appreciate her family, warts and all—the few stolen moments she shared with Ryder, quiet exchanges about the arrangements for their life to come, only sharpened that appreciation, emphasizing, as those moments did, that after the wedding she would be . . . moving on.
Leaving her family and starting a new life, one it was up to her—with Ryder—to define.
The challenge stood clear and unequivocal before her when, pleasantly exhausted, she fell into her bed to sleep through her last night as an unmarried young lady.
She woke the next morning to the bright sunshine of the day during which she would walk down the aisle as a bride, with her hero waiting before the altar to take her hand . . . she could barely contain her joy.
Tossing back the covers, she bounced to her feet; already beaming, she rang for her maid.
Chapter Eleven
For all of London, the wedding of the Most Noble Ryder Montgomery Sinclair Cavanaugh, Marquess of Raventhorne, Viscount Sidwell, Baron Axford, Lord Marshal of the Savernake, to Mary Alice Cynster on that bright early summer day in June ’37 was a notable entertainment, with the carriages of the ton overflowing the streets of Mayfair and uncounted nobs and grand ladies in their finery on show for all to see. Those who were early enough to secure the prime vantage spots around St. George’s, Hanover Square, and in the surrounding streets were impressed by the sheer number of the aristocracy attending; the carriages, at times almost stationary on the cobbles, continued to arrive and disgorge their well-heeled owners long after the crowd had imagined the church full.
For the haut ton, the wedding was a must-be-seen-at event, one which would almost certainly rank as the premier social spectacle of the year. While all had noted the recent alliance between the Glossups and the Cynsters, few had anticipated the much more strategically powerful union between the Cynsters and the Cavanaughs. The uniting of two such houses, both with their roots in the distant past and their present wealth and influence beyond question, transfixed the ton in a way little else could; everyone who was anyone wished to be seen to accord the marriage due respect, and, as such an occasion called for invitations to be spread to all associated in even the smallest way with either house—and as that encompassed most of the haut ton—it was no surprise to anyone that the church’s galleries were packed.
For Mary, her wedding day started wonderfully and only improved. The gregariously happy breakfast with her family, including her sisters, sister-in-law, brother, and brothers-in-law, as well as all their children, was followed by the giddy scramble to get everyone dressed and to the church on time. Of course, with her mother and all the other Cynster ladies supervising, not a single thing was permitted to go wrong. As, to exuberant cheering from the dense ranks of onlookers, her father handed her down from the white-ribbon-bedecked carriage, Mary doubted her smile could ever be wider. Doubted that her heart could ever feel so full as she met her father’s eyes, then let him wind her arm in his and lead her up the steps and into the church to where her attendants waited with the page boys and flower girls. Their procession formed up in good order; with stately tread, they approached the big double doors, which were swung open by Martin and Luc, both smiling and encouraging, and then the music swelled and carried them all on down the aisle—to where the man she now recognized as her true hero waited.
For Ryder . . . in the moment when, standing before the altar of St. George’s, his half brothers to his right, alerted by the organist he turned and saw Mary on her father’s arm, walking slowly, steadily, deliberately to him, a smile of unalloyed delight on her lips, he finally and fully appreciated how cataclysmically his life was about to change.
His heart stopped, then, as his eyes met hers, started beating again, but he would swear to a different cadence.
Beneath the filmy veil, her eyes looked huge, intensely blue, bright, alive, eager, and enthused.
Her gown shifted and swayed as she walked, a delicate, exquisite, fragilely beautiful thing . . . just like her.
Covetousness flared, but his possessiveness was tinged with an unnerving sense of gratitude.
As she slowed and came alongside, he offered his hand and Lord Arthur formally placed her hand in his. His eyes locking with hers, he closed his fingers about her slender digits, and it felt like a new beginning.
They both drew breath, and together turned to the altar.
He barely heard the minister’s words, let alone the hymns. Through the hour-long service, his focus and every vestige of his awareness remained locked on Mary; all else seemed superfluous, irrelevant. Only their vows stood out in his mind; he spoke his firmly, meaning every word, feeling each resonate within him, and heard her give hers in reply, a clear, feminine echo of his own commitment, and felt his world shift, realigning, and, despite his lingering wariness, willingly let go, allowing Fate to turn the key and lock them together as husband and wife.
As the minister pronounced it done and gave them permission for their first kiss as a married couple, as he turned to Mary and she turned to him, their gazes met and held—and he saw himself in the vivid blue, saw the man she saw before her, the man she stretched up to share a sweet, delicate—for them, ridiculously chaste—kiss.
The man she’d accepted as the “true hero” for whom she’d been searching.
He surprised himself by finding a smile to match hers, that it came so easily, then he an
chored her hand on his arm and they turned and faced the congregation—faced their world.
Confidence and more was theirs to claim, strength and purpose and certainty; as with all the self-assurance they both possessed, they walked up the aisle to thunderous applause, he made a conscious decision that, from that day forward, he would be the man reflected in her eyes.
Their journey in an open barouche over the short distance into Brook Street and thence to St. Ives House in Grosvenor Square was marked by cheering, catcalls, and, courtesy of his half siblings, a hail of rice and flowers from the crowds thronging the route.
The same unrestrained gaiety and a species of giddy joy infused the great crowd gathered for the wedding breakfast. The speeches and congratulations flowed like fine wine, bubbled and effervesced like champagne. The wedding waltz, when it finally came, felt like a benediction, a moment when the irrevocable power they’d both that day bowed their knee to shone through the heady whirl and touched them. For those moments, claimed them.
And then, surrounded by a crowd of their relatives, they were being ushered out of the house and down the wide steps to the carriage waiting to take them into the country, to Raventhorne Abbey, to commence their shared life.
Mary’s transparent delight at the prospect mirrored his. She’d changed into a new carriage gown of violet-blue and, with her eyes shining with happiness, her rosy lips curved in unfettered joy, looked even more stunningly striking than usual.
He finally managed to hand her into the carriage, then follow and shut the door on all those cheering and calling out suggestions. Settling on the seat and looking out of the window, beaming and waving to the last, Mary said, “Everyone’s so happy! More than anything else, that’s made this such a wonderful day—I didn’t see one less-than-joyful expression.”
At last the carriage pulled away, trailing the inevitable old boots and—inventively—a spade. Hearing the racket following along the cobbles, feeling flown on the combined good cheer, Ryder smiled, met her eyes, nodded, and let the comment—generally speaking correct—pass unchallenged. He saw no reason to dim their mood by mentioning his stepmother; Lavinia had, of course, been present, but his half siblings and her friend, Potherby, had endeavored to keep her suitably restrained.