“The marchioness?” Felicia’s voice had risen to a squeak.
She felt Rand’s gaze touch her face, then his hand settled in the small of her back and gently propelled her forward. “Don’t worry. Mary will take great delight in befriending you. She’s very much one for family.”
Fractionally heartened, Felicia walked forward and composed herself, waiting with Rand at the top of the porch steps with her hands clasped before her and a welcoming smile on her face.
She hadn’t thought of the point until Rand had mentioned the likelihood of his half brother joining them, but there was no denying she would not be considered a good catch—not for Lord Randolph Cavanaugh. She had no real dowry and no particular prospects of wealth or high social connections to recommend her.
That said, she’d been prepared to accept Rand’s assurances that his half brother would welcome her with open arms, but she’d hoped to have time to find her way with the marquess before she had to face his wife.
Felicia felt passingly sure that Lady Mary would take a much dimmer view of a penniless inventor’s daughter as Rand’s choice of wife.
The marchioness was smiling down at her husband, sharing some joke as she leaned her hands on his broad shoulders and he lifted her effortlessly down to the gravel. For a second, as he steadied her, his hands locked about her tiny waist, and she gazed, still smiling laughingly, up into his face as he looked down at hers, the connection between the pair shone so brilliantly, Felicia felt a pang of yearning. And of hope. The marquess and marchioness had, apparently, been married for some years, yet they still looked at each other like that.
Would she and Rand share that sort of connection? Time, she supposed, would tell.
On releasing his wife, the marquess turned to address his men, instructing them to take their horses and follow Struthers, who had appeared to take the gray’s and the Arab’s reins.
Meanwhile, patently eager, the marchioness looked about. She hadn’t spotted Rand and Felicia before; as her gaze landed on them, waiting on the porch, her face lit with a smile of transparently genuine delight. Tossing the train of her habit over one arm, still beaming, she walked quickly toward them.
Deciding that Lady Mary’s delight was most likely occasioned by seeing Rand, girding her loins and stiffening her spine, Felicia, with Rand keeping pace by her side, descended the steps to meet her hopefully soon-to-be sister-in-law.
Lady Mary halted before them. Without even a glance at Rand, her ladyship’s vivid cornflower-blue eyes, large and quite striking, fixed on Felicia’s face. “Good afternoon, Miss Throgmorton. I’m Mary, Ryder’s wife.” If anything, the marchioness’s delighted smile only grew brighter. “I cannot tell you how positively thrilled I am to meet you.” Lady Mary held out her hand; she’d already removed her gloves.
All but blinded by the marchioness’s unrestrained friendliness, Felicia lightly grasped Lady Mary’s fingers—only to have Mary grip more tightly and draw her into a scented embrace. “I truly am so very glad,” Mary whispered in Felicia’s ear, then Mary released her and stepped back, her smile now holding a degree of reassurance.
Felicia couldn’t hold back; she smiled sincerely and more brightly in return, then she recalled herself and bobbed a curtsy. “Welcome to Throgmorton Hall, my lady.”
Mary’s eyes promptly narrowed, although they still gleamed with happiness. “No ceremony among family—and please, no ‘my ladys.’ Just Mary will do.” With a swift grin that banished her mock-sternness, she swung to Rand and stretched up to kiss his cheek. “Rand. So at last, you’ve found your lady.” Dropping back to her heels, Mary looked expectantly from one to the other. “Please tell me I can wish you happy.”
Rand looked at Felicia. Briefly, she met his gaze, then she looked at Mary and admitted, “We do plan to marry, but we haven’t told anyone yet.”
“Excellent!” Mary swooped on Felicia again, kissed her cheek, then linked her arm in Felicia’s and turned her toward the house. “That is such wonderful news!”
Bemused—amused, as she had a shrewd suspicion her would-be sister-in-law intended—Felicia allowed herself to be towed up the steps. Given Mary was shorter than she, once they reached the porch, it was easy enough to keep pace with her, yet as they passed into the front hall, and Felicia indicated the drawing room door, and they continued in that direction, it became clear that Mary favored a much more energetic stride than the languid glide normally favored by high-born ladies.
Flora was waiting in the drawing room to greet their guests. Mary bubbled with effervescent charm. After being introduced to Flora, she turned to Felicia. “I realize you would not have been expecting me. Please don’t go to the trouble of making up a separate room—I’m more than happy to share the room you’ve set aside for Ryder.” Her eyes twinkling, she confided, “I would, regardless.”
Being of an older generation, Flora was faintly shocked, but Felicia found herself smothering a laugh. Mary was nothing like the censorious, hoity lady she had envisioned.
Then Ryder and Rand walked in, and there were more introductions.
Felicia found her hand held in Ryder’s warm clasp as with a lazy smile and transparent sincerity, he welcomed her into the Cavanaugh family. Although his gaze appeared as lazy as his smile, she had a shrewd suspicion his hazel-green eyes saw everything there was to see—and then a bit more.
No matter that Ryder moved slowly and was elegantly dressed, there was no hiding the power in his body—and Felicia received the distinct impression the mind that controlled that power was equally formidable.
Mary and Ryder were a handsome and intrinsically powerful couple, yet they were also assured, confident, and clearly accepted the prospect of Felicia filling the place at Rand’s side. Both made no bones about their approval of her, and she realized the only criterion they had for Rand’s choice of wife was that Rand had freely chosen her.
Her inner uncertainty faded and, under the consistent, persistent warmth emanating from both Ryder and Mary, eventually dissipated entirely, and she relaxed.
While Mary chatted with Flora, the pair comparing their acquaintances to determine if they had any in common, with Ryder, amused, looking on, Rand seized the moment and bent his head to murmur in Felicia’s ear, “Mary is correctly termed a ‘force of nature.’ Unless she wants to do something you don’t want her to, it’s easiest to just let her run.”
Chuckling, Felicia met his eyes. “So it seems.”
Shortly afterward, they were waiting for the tea trolley to be ferried in and Mary was telling Rand, Felicia, and Flora of the latest exploits of her and Ryder’s three children, when a soft cough heralded a purring hum—one Rand and Felicia instantly recognized.
Her eyes widening, she met Rand’s gaze. “William John’s started the engine.”
They leapt to their feet—with Ryder and Mary a mere second behind. “Which way?” Mary asked.