Macfie rapped on his office door.
“Enter,” he called, sounding as irritated as he felt.
He had every right to be peeved, he told himself. He had been happy with his life as a bachelor, and now it had been upended by his wife. His wife for whom his obsession grew with each tick of the bloody minute hand on his pocket watch.
“The carriage is awaiting ye as ye asked,” Macfie announced. “Along with the cream ice from Claremont’s as ye requested fer Mrs. Decker.”
“Very good, Macfie.” He rose from his desk. No use settling in to work when he could not concentrate on anything but her. “Is the cream ice well packed in ice? It is a rather warm day today, and I do not fancy taking a bucket of milk soup home to Mrs. Decker.”
Macfie inclined his head. “Extra ice, sir. I know how much ye hate tae disappoint yer lady.”
That gave him pause. “How so, Macfie?”
“On Monday, ye asked me tae arrange for five crates of books tae be delivered tae yer house containing all Mrs. Decker’s favorite authors and poets,” Macfie began. “On Tuesday, ye asked for the cream ice from Claremont’s, being that it is Mrs. Decker’s new favorite, and ye were right put out when it turned tae soup on yer way home on account of the ice being puir. On Wednesday, ye asked me tae call upon Mercier and Sons with yer request for the diamond bangle ye wanted made in her honor. On Thursday—”
“Macfie?” he interrupted, more vexed now than he had been before.
“Yes, sir?” asked his stalwart aide-de-camp.
“Shut up,” he said succinctly, for he had heard quite enough. He hardly needed an accounting of all the manners in which he had proven himself hopelessly enamored of his new wife.
Was it her cunny?
Yes, surely that was it.
She possessed a magical cunny. It had cast a spell upon him.
“Mrs. Decker is a lovely woman,” Macfie ventured. “I cannae blame ye, sir.”
Having his most-trusted man describe Jo as lovely yet again did nothing to improve Decker’s mood.
He glared at the man. “Macfie, you do recall the conversation we had concerning your eyebrows, do you not?”
Macfie’s expression went grim. “Ye promised ye wouldnae threaten them again.”
“Let that be fair warning to you, Macfie. I cannot be trusted to uphold my promises. Not when they concern my wife and your eyebrows.” Decker was silent for a moment as he realized how that had sounded. Then, he cleared his throat. “Not that I mean to say my wife has anything to do with your eyebrows, or that she has designs upon your eyebrows…”
He trailed off, realizing he was only digging his own verbal grave deeper by the moment.
“Mr. Decker?” Macfie raised both bushy red brows in question.
“Yes?” it was his turn to snap, his ears going hot.
“I think it is a verra wonderful thing, tae be smitten with yer lady,” the brawny Scotsman told him.
Bloody hell. Now, his cheeks were hot, too. “I am not smitten with Mrs. Decker.”
Right. Who was he trying to fool? He was completely smitten with his wife.
And her magical cunny.
And her ravishing lips.
And her beautiful bubbies, so pale and smooth.
Not to mention her laughter, her smile, her clever sense of humor, those exquisitely responsive nipples of hers…
Glaring at Macfie, he stalked from his office.
“I will not be returning today, Macfie,” he called over his shoulder. “Do not expect me.”
His aide-de-camp’s laughter followed him as he made a hasty exit from his offices.
In the carriage, he found the cream ice as promised—strawberry—and the ice packed tightly around it in reasonably good shape despite the warmth in the carriage. As his driver delivered him back to his townhome on Grosvenor Square—an address so chosen to disturb the peers who looked down their noses at him—Decker told himself he had not spent each of the days since marrying Jo caught up in her.
And then he depleted another few minutes arguing with himself that he needed to find other means of distraction. His club, for instance, which he had abandoned following his nuptials. Yes, he ought to go there. Some time away from Jo would be revitalizing. Restorative. The means by which he could end this unfortunate hold she had upon him.
But by the time his carriage arrived at his home, he found himself clutching the pail of cream ice like a loyal servant about to make a delivery to his mistress. And he found himself imagining where he would find her. The music room? The library? The salon she favored as her sitting room?
He leapt to the pavements before the carriage had reached a complete stop, so eager was he to meet her. Decker did his best not to jog up the walk. He was greeted at the door by his redoubtable butler.
“Where is Mrs. Decker?” he asked without preamble.
Yes, he had lost all his pride. Swallowed it down. He told himself it was his cock doing the talking, this incessant need for her that was driving him to distraction.
“She is not at home, sir,” Rhees told him, utterly devoid of expression.
Not at home?
What the hell?
“Right you are, Rhees,” he bluffed brightly, as if his soul were not dying a slow and hideous death inside. “I had forgotten Mrs. Decker had plans today.”
Plans? She had plans? Where and with whom? She had spoken not a word of it this morning, not after he had made love to her in his bed, not when they had breakfasted, and not before their customary farewell—a lengthy kiss—prior to his departure.
It was not that he did not trust her. Of course he trusted her. And it was not that he did not want her to pursue her own amusements during her day. Of course he did. But it was that…he had expected her to be awaiting him.
And she was not here. Quite the blow, that.
Disappointment suffused him, along with further vexation that he had become so caught up in his wife. Had he learned nothing from his past?
Stupid damned fool.
Grimly, he stalked past his butler, clutching the cream ice like spoils of war.
He was going to eat all the bloody stuff himself.
“You look utterly miserable, darling,” Callie observed, rather unkindly.
“As if you just watched a carriage run over a puppy,” added Lady Helena.
Jo frowned at both of them. “Et tu, Brute? The two of you are supposed to be my friends.”
Callie, Lady Helena, and Jo had gathered for tea at Callie’s home, a long-overdue social gathering in the wake of Jo’s nuptials.
“It is because we are your friends that we are telling you that you look as if you are about to attend a funeral,” Callie said.
“Or as if someone has just drowned your favorite kitten,” Lady Helena chimed in.
“What a grim lot you are,” Jo grumbled. “Cease with your bleak similes, if you please.”
“You ought to be on your honeymoon,” Callie observed. “And yet, you are here in London. Is that the reason?”
Her honeymoon with Decker was something of a bitter subject for Jo. Or rather, the postponement of it was. Their initial plan to attend a yachting regatta in Dover to watch his cutter Athena race had been abandoned when an unexpected collision had occurred with three other yachts. The Athena had been towed back to port and was currently in repairs.
“Of course that is not the reason,” she said. Though it was, perhaps, part of it.
In truth, the opportunity to have Decker all to herself and to escape from London for a week would have been most welcome. In the time since they had wed, they had settled into a routine. And whilst his lovemaking was nothing short of rapturous, it had not failed to escape her notice that her new husband freely gave her the physical connection she sought and yet, the emotional remained decidedly elusive.
“Then what is the reason?” Callie asked, frowning. “Is anyone else famished? I am going to ring for a tray of cakes and biscuits. Is it wrong to suddenly be beset by the ur
ge to eat quail eggs at this time of day? Do not answer that. Tell us what has you so distressed, dearest.”
“I could eat quail eggs at any time of day,” Lady Helena offered as Callie went to the bell pull.
“I am in love with him,” Jo blurted.
Callie turned back to her. “I knew it!”
Was she that obvious? Good heavens, what if Decker guessed at her feelings as well?
“How did you know?” she demanded, her stomach churning at the thought of him realizing the depth of emotions she felt for him.
She was not ready to face that yet. Not ready to confront the possibility he would not return the sentiment. Not now, perhaps not ever.
“You made it quite apparent the day I suggested Helena use Decker to cause a scandal,” Callie said gently, returning to her seat. “That is wonderful, dearest! I know this marriage was a bit rushed, but I am relieved to hear the two of you are in love.”
“Not the two of us,” Jo said. “I fear I am alone in my feelings.”
“But the way he looks at you,” Lady Helena argued, “I would be willing to wager you are wrong.”
“I fear not.” She sighed heavily. “He has never hinted at the slightest bit of feelings, and for a man of his reputation…”
“Decker does have a reputation,” Callie agreed, frowning. “However, there is good reason for it, from what little Sin has told me of Decker’s past. Apparently, he had his heart broken quite thoroughly in his youth.”
Ah, there it was. The confirmation of her fears. That another woman had been responsible for his cynicism. And with it came the burning agony of jealousy, so much stronger now that he was her husband. Now that he had found his way into her heart.
“Do you know what happened?” she asked, almost hesitant to hear the answer.
However, if it would enable her to better understand the enigmatic man she had wed, it would be worth the cost to her pride.
“It was all a frightfully long time ago,” Callie said. “There was a lady to whom he had formed a romantic attachment. She hailed from a noble family—the daughter of a baron, I believe. From what I gathered, her father did not approve of Decker, and she eloped with another man. Decker was devastated over it.”
The revelation did nothing to quell the misery swirling within her, along with the uncertainties and doubts.
“I see,” she managed. “That makes perfect sense, of course.”
She knew all too well the bitterness Decker felt toward his noble father. Now, it was clear that the Earl of Graham was not the only source of his demons. She could hardly blame him for feeling as he did, knowing he had spent his life being judged for something that was beyond his control.
“Do not worry,” Lady Helena said softly. “That woman is in his past. You are his present, his future, his wife. Her memory cannot haunt him forever.”
But what if it could? What if the woman he had loved, the lady he had wanted to marry, would forever be the only woman who owned his heart?
“Jo, stop your restless mind,” Callie ordered her knowingly. “Do not, I pray, overthink this. Your marriage is new. Give yourselves time to grow together. Sin was also desperately hurt in his past. The heart can heal and move forward. Indeed, I will be first to attest that scarred hearts love the best.”
She wanted to believe her friend, truly she did. But the doubts remained. And now that she knew about this mysterious lady in Decker’s past, the one he had loved… Jo swallowed, knowing she did not dare continue in this vein of thought lest she turn into a watering pot and ruin the afternoon with her friends.
Instead, she turned to Lady Helena. “Enough about me, if you please. I am certain it shall all untangle itself as it ought. How is your campaign against the odious Lord Hamish going, my dear?”
A mysterious flush crept over Lady Helena’s cheeks. “I do believe I may have convinced someone to aid me in my quest to be ruined after all.”
Suddenly, the flush was not so mysterious.
“Tell us everything,” Callie demanded.
A knock at the door heralded the arrival of a maid.
“After I arrange for my biscuits, cakes, and quail eggs, of course,” she amended, grinning.
Eating cream ice without his wife was, Decker discovered, absolute rubbish.
Actually, everything without her was rubbish.
He was rubbish, too.
What sort of businessman abandoned his offices in the midst of the day, closeted himself in his study, and then mulishly spooned melting strawberry goo down his throat? The pathetic sort.
The rubbish sort.
How many times had he just thought the word rubbish within the last minute?
Too many.
“Rubbish,” he muttered, taking another spoon of Claremont’s cream ice. He did rather think his chef could do better, but Jo had heard about it and had been determined to give the place a try. “Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish.”
“What is rubbish?”
Jo’s soft voice, coming from the threshold, gave him such a start that he flung a spoonful of cream ice on his own waistcoat. Cursing, he extracted his handkerchief just in time to watch the pink blob fall to his trousers, landing directly on his now-rigid cock.
Thank you for coming to attention the moment she appeared, old chap.
How mortifying.
He stood, clasping his handkerchief over the cream ice-covered fall of his trousers.
Well, if this was not bloody ballocks, he did not know what was.
Her giggle had him raising his head. Her laughter was, as always, infectious. He found himself grinning at her, his levity joining in with hers. She closed the door behind her and moved toward him, infallibly elegant. She wore a gold silk gown embellished with embroidered scarlet leaves and lace sleeves. The line of abalone buttons running from her neckline to her hem was particularly inviting.
He wanted to pluck them open, one by one.
“Were you eating cream ice without me?” she asked as she approached, bringing with her the luscious scent of orange blossom and jasmine.
“Yes,” he admitted.
Her smile did nothing to make his rampant erection abate. Her hands settled on his shoulders. “How could you?”
Before he could answer, her lips were on his. Lush, full, tender. Kissing him. He opened beneath the tentative thrust of her tongue. Damnation, she had learned a great deal since that first kiss they had shared in his carriage. He ought to know a surge of pride at having been the only man to tutor her. Instead, he resented himself. For he had been the architect of his own demise.
Falling deeper beneath her spell. Venturing into hazardous territory indeed. The sort from which there was no return.
But it was a hell of a thing to stand in his study, kissing his wife, whilst clutching a sticky, cream ice-laden handkerchief over the cockstand tenting his trousers. He cupped her face with his free hand, his mouth responding to hers, scarcely able to stifle his groan of raw need.
Would he ever get enough of her?
Unlikely.
She was the first to break the kiss, tipping her head back, her honey-brown gaze searching his. “Strawberry from Claremont’s?”
Her question wrung another surprised laugh from him. “You could taste it?”
“I could.” Her lips twitched. “But also, Rhees told me I would find you here, and that you had a bucket from Claremont’s accompanying you.”
To the devil with the butler for tattling on him. He ought to give him the sack. Decker would if he did not like him so damned much.
“I am afraid I made a mess of myself,” he said wryly. “Eating cream ice without you is not the same, bijou.”
“You did indeed make a mess,” she agreed, her gaze lowering to his besmirched trousers and the handkerchief covering the stain. “Let me see the damage, if you please.”
He swallowed. Now was not the time for his wife to see the effect she had upon him at all times of the day. There was something about his cockstand hiding behind a
strawberry cream ice stain that felt ridiculously puerile.
“There is no need for that,” he reassured her. “I will go and have a change of trousers. I have already decided I shan’t be returning to my offices today. There is hardly any sense in strutting about in my businessman’s weeds, is there?”
But his minx of a wife had knelt on the carpets before him, her gaze scorching him as if it were a touch. “I insist, Decker. Do not be silly. What will the servants think if you are to go strutting about the household with a stain in such a place? At least allow me to help you blot it dry.”
Hell. She could not possibly know what the sight of her on her knees before him did to him. Nor how badly he wanted her to tend to first his trousers and then his aching prick. How much he wanted to slide between her supple lips, to watch his cock disappear in her dainty mouth.
He was a filthy, bawdy man.
But his wife did not appear to mind. She was preoccupied with taking up his handkerchief and shooing away his hand.
“Josie,” he protested, prompted by the faintest stirrings of whatever shreds of honor he possessed.
For there was no disguising what had been going on beneath that cursed scrap of linen. Her eyes darkened, her sooty lashes lowering. Her lips parted. Above the modest neckline of her gown, he saw her swallow.
“Oh dear,” she said, her voice a low, throaty rasp. “You are dreadfully messy, are you not, sir?”
How was it that the mere act of her calling him sir was enough to make his ballocks draw tight? He would have spoken, answered her. Mayhap, he would have heeded his honor and stepped away. But she began moving the ruined handkerchief over his equally ruined trousers.
And as she did so, she massaged his cock.
Just the way she knew he liked.
He inhaled. “What do you think you are doing?”
“Cleaning you, of course,” she said, slanting him a deceptively innocent glance from beneath her lowered lashes. “I fear the cream ice soaked through. I must make certain you are not all sticky.”
Lady Wallflower (Notorious Ladies of London Book 2) Page 19