But that was not his intention this evening.
“Of course, but are you not glad you did?” he could not resist teasing her. “Admit it.”
She cast a nettled glare in his direction. “Why should I be glad you have been withholding it from me and using it as a means of luring me into ruin?”
Lady Jo did not fool him. Despite her quiet exterior, there were untold, hidden depths of passion burning beneath the surface. And neither was she immune to the attraction flaring between them.
The attraction which was blossoming and burning now, in the confines of his carriage.
Decker could not allow her to deny it.
He lowered his head toward hers, bringing their lips perilously near. “If I truly wished to ruin you, I have already had every opportunity. If I had kissed you this afternoon in the music room, you would have kissed me back.”
Her eyes had gone wide again. They were luminous. Glittering.
Beckoning.
Kiss me now, those eyes said.
“I have no wish to kiss you,” those lips said.
Those lips were lying.
He smiled. “Have you ever been kissed before, bijou?”
The flush returned to her cheeks. “Of course! Dozens of times.”
“What were their names?” Decker asked.
Her frown returned. “I beg your pardon?”
“The names of the men who kissed you dozens of times,” he elaborated. “Tell me them.”
So I can plant them facers.
He struck the possessive notion from his mind. He had never been a jealous man. And indeed, he preferred his women to be experienced. To know how to give and receive pleasure without inhibition. Coaching a lover, instructing her…it held little appeal.
Or, at least, it had. Until Lady Jo Danvers and her damned list.
Her mouth tightened. “I will do nothing of the sort.”
“Because there are not any,” he guessed, hoping he was right for reasons he would ponder later.
Or, better yet, never.
“How should you know?” she demanded.
His lips twitched. “Prove me wrong.”
She sighed. “Very well, you beast. I have not yet kissed a gentleman.”
Excellent, said the demon that dwelled within his soul.
“As I thought,” he said aloud.
But before he could pursue the matter any further, the carriage came to a halt. They had arrived at their destination. Lady Jo’s countenance suddenly took on the look of a startled bird. He half-expected her to sprout wings and take flight.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“We are at my home,” he revealed. “We are crossing off item number five on your list this evening: go to a gentleman’s private apartments. You may thank me later, my dear.”
Jo was inside Mr. Decker’s townhome at half past eight in the evening. Alone.
Specifically, she was standing within his library, with its walls of books and array of pictures and sculptures. The art seemed innocent enough, at first glance. It was only when Jo studied it in greater details that she realized the pictures and sculptures all shared a commonality. They were erotic in nature.
The picture before her, for instance, appeared to be an innocent enough image of a gentleman and lady standing before a bookshelf in a library or book store. Upon closer inspection, she realized the gentleman had his hand up the lady’s skirts, and that her intimate flesh was exposed for his touch.
She could not stifle her startled gasp.
“Do you like what you see?”
The dark, low voice at her back had her spinning around to find him offering her a glass of wine.
She swallowed, eying him and the goblet, his long, elegant fingers. His handsome face. “It is vulgar.”
He smiled. “So is your list, my dear.”
True.
She accepted the glass from him. “Yes, but you have this on display in your library.”
“And?” He raised his glass to her in mock salute. “I am accustomed to born-in-the-purple aristocrats imagining me a philistine. Besides, it is my library.”
That was logic, she supposed. It was indeed his library. However, it was simply not done to have art of this nature on display. Goodness, what must his servants think? Or any of his guests, for that matter?
“This is what you enjoy gazing at when you are in search of a book?” She took a sip of her wine, thinking it may relieve the sharp edge of nervousness which had been haunting her from the moment she had been handed up into his carriage earlier. “What must your visitors suppose when they see what you have chosen to grace your walls?”
He gave her an indolent shrug—a gesture she was coming to recognize as his signature. “Who gives a damn what they think? I did not ask to hang it on their walls, now did I?”
What an odd manner of thinking about things he possessed.
It was eerily refreshing. But subversive, also. Many of the men and women in her social circle flouted convention in one way or another, it was true. But none of them—not the most daring of the lot—would proudly display the sorts of pictures Mr. Elijah Decker had upon his library walls.
“Your female acquaintances,” she found the courage to press, “they do not object to the depictions?”
His gaze was inscrutable as it tangled with hers. He was still near enough in proximity that he could devastate her ability to resist him, and she knew it. She treaded on dangerous ground indeed.
“I do not bring female acquaintances here,” he admitted in a low rasp, before taking a long sip of his wine.
She was briefly fascinated by his Adam’s apple moving as he swallowed. Then by his tongue, licking a droplet of claret from his lips.
“You brought me here,” she could not resist saying.
“As promised, I am aiding you with accomplishing each item upon your list.” He took another sip of wine, watching her.
Fire seemed to lick her, from the inside out. She liked his predatory stare upon her, heaven help her. She liked being here, alone with him. It filled her with a wild rush, with a vast sense of possibility. In this moment, suspended from her ordinary life, she was not Lady Jo Danvers, expected to make a proper match and not embarrass her family by causing a scandal. In this moment, she could be as wicked as she wished.
“Thank you,” she said at last, when she could not fathom what else was expected of her.
He shook his head, a smile playing with the corners of his mouth. “Too easy, bijou.”
Jo did not bother to protest the use of the diminutive he had bestowed upon her. “What do you mean, too easy?”
“I told you to thank me later, but I did not say how,” he elaborated, his gaze sweeping over her. “The uttering of two simple words will not be sufficient, I fear.”
Oh.
Surely he did not mean to cross off one of the other items on her list this evening?
A flush crept back to her cheeks. And why did the idea fill her with an incipient yearning instead of the trepidation she ought to feel?
She drank her wine, swallowing hard. “What will be sufficient, Mr. Decker?”
The ghost of a smile returned once more. “I shall let you know when the time comes, my dear.”
She could not shake the notion that this was all a game to him, and that he was toying with her. Enjoying it. But why? What could she possibly have to offer a man of his reputation and experience?
She gritted her teeth. “I do not want to wait. I want to know now. What is the debt I owe you?”
“What did I tell you about patience earlier in the carriage?” He drained the rest of his wine before sauntering to a sideboard and refreshing his glass.
“That it is an under-appreciated virtue.” She raised a brow. “I would argue otherwise.”
“Because you like to argue.” He treated her to a full, roguish grin now. “I do not mind. Your hidden fire amuses me. I must admit, before I discovered your list, I supposed you a boring, cold little fish.�
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Jo told herself his words ought not to hurt her. However, those barbs—intended or not—nevertheless found their mark. She was two different versions of herself. With her family and closest friends, she was garrulous and witty. But when she ventured amongst others, she was cool and quiet and shy. A wallflower, forever on the periphery.
“I am shy until I truly come to know someone,” she said, unable to strip the defensiveness from her tone.
It was an old wound.
“I have begun to see there is far more hiding beneath your façade.” His voice hummed with frank approval. “Tell me, what spurred you to make your list?”
Embarrassment surged once more. “I do not want to speak of it.”
But he was moving back toward her with long, purposeful strides. Trapping her in that bright-blue gaze that rivaled a cloudless summer sky. “But I do want to speak of it. Tell me.”
“Mr. Decker—”
“Banish the bloody mister, if you please,” he interrupted. “As I have told you, it is merely, plainly, Decker.”
She sighed. Somehow, the wine in her glass was nearly gone. A pleasant glow infused her. Surely it was the fault of the claret that she was tempted to give in and refer to him as Decker.
They were locked in a battle. Their gazes met and held. It was as if they were both attempting to see who would flinch first, which of them would blink.
“Why do you wish to be called by your surname, sans mister?” she asked.
“Because I loathe titles of all forms,” he answered with surprising honesty. “My mother bartered herself to a titled man who thought nothing of abandoning her and her children until it suited him.”
Jo was more than familiar with his background. His mother had been the daughter of a country squire, the mistress of the Earl of Graham. Graham had bequeathed everything but his title to his illegitimate son upon his death, and Decker had used those funds to build himself a business empire.
Decker.
Yes, she was thinking of him as he wished her to refer to him. But how could she not, after learning the reason why?
“You did not have a good relationship with your father?” she asked, curious to know more about him.
Mr. Elijah Decker was very much an enigma, and she was beginning to suspect he possessed untold complexities she had never imagined. He intrigued her. Everything about him was impossibly fascinating.
Especially his lips. And his hands. And those stirring eyes. Also, his broad chest and shoulders. To say nothing of his commanding height or his dark, tousled hair…
Cease this nonsense at once, Josephine. No more claret for you.
“I love my mother,” he told her, just when Jo had begun to despair he would answer her query at all. “We may disagree, but though we have been estranged for the last few years, I would do anything for her. My father was a selfish man. He took the love of a good woman, one who would be better suited to make some country gentleman an excellent wife. Instead, he stole her chance of respectability.”
She drained the remnants of her glass. “And yet, you are a man who cares nothing for respectability, for the opinions of others.”
“I began without it. She did not.” He took her glass. “More claret, bijou?”
She ought to tell him no. The glass she had consumed was already going to her head, making her feel as if she were someone else. Making her feel more open. Less constrained. Freer, wilder. The danger was there, sparkling all around her. Calling her to be bold and brave.
Jo relinquished her glass. “Was Lord Graham kind to you?”
She did not know where the question emerged from. It was horribly rude, and she knew it. But she could not seem to stop herself.
Decker did not answer, merely snagged her glass and moved to the sideboard with his effortless grace. His broad back was on display, and she could not help but to admire the sharp lines that proclaimed his strength and masculinity. Even from the rear, he was arresting. His dark coat was fitted perfectly to his form, his trousers worn in the ordinary style and yet seeming to somehow render him taller, more imposing. More compelling, too.
“Decker,” she tried, using his name. Er, his surname. Sans mister, just as he had asked.
He tensed but finished refilling her goblet before turning back to her. “At last, she deigns to use my name.”
“Will you answer my question if I do so from now on?” she countered, inwardly applauding herself for her bravery.
In truth, she was out of her depths, and she knew it. But everything about this evening was extraordinary. She was alone with a notoriously sinful man. And he had read her most private thoughts. Words she had never intended for anyone else to see or read. Words she was not entirely sure she meant.
He was before her once again, holding out her glass. There was too much claret in it, but she did not protest. Instead, she accepted the goblet from him, their fingers brushing over the crystal stem. The same awareness that infected her whenever he was near returned.
“I will answer your question if you answer mine,” he said, his gaze steady upon hers. “I asked you what prompted you to make your list, and you refused to answer. I will respond to your query after you respond. Fair is fair, after all.”
Of course he would want something in return for his answer. He was a businessman, was he not? Her every dealing with him had been firmly grounded in bargaining.
Jo took a deep breath and plunged onward. In for a penny, in for a pound.
“I made the list because I want passion in my life,” she admitted. “Everyone around me is finding happiness and love. Meanwhile, I remain firmly on the periphery. It was a lark, in truth. I never intended to cross off each item on my list. I never intended to finish the list itself. And yet…”
“And yet,” he prompted when she trailed off.
“And yet,” she continued, “part of me very much wants to complete it. Part of me wants to be wicked and reckless and bold. To ignore all the rules. To be unlike myself. To be daring. To throw caution to the wind and see where it leads me.”
His gaze was intent upon hers.
“It led you here. To me.”
There was a gruffness in his voice that sent a frisson down her spine. Not of fear but anticipation.
“Yes,” she agreed, doing her best to hide her breathlessness. “It did. However, as you said, fair is fair. I answered your question and now you owe me a response in kind. What was your relationship like with Lord Graham?”
Decker inclined his head, then took a sip of his wine before speaking at last. “He wished I were legitimate. His wife bore him seven daughters. My mother gave him a son. Graham loathed his heir, a wastrel country cousin he feared would leach the earldom dry in the outside of a year. He gave me everything he could, but not because he loved me. Because he could not bear for the next earl to waste it.”
She did not think she mistook the harshness in his voice, the bitterness in his expression. “Forgive me for asking. I had no wish to bring back painful memories.”
“It is the truth. I cannot change it.” Decker finished his claret and placed his empty glass upon a low table before snagging her hand. “Enough of this grim talk. Come with me.”
He laced his fingers through hers, and the gesture, while casual, filled her with a profound sense of rightness. She clasped his hand, savoring the way it engulfed hers, so much larger. So different from hers. So capable.
“Where are you taking me now?” she asked as he led her from the library.
“Suspense is half the fun, my dear.”
She still held her claret in her left hand. His long-legged strides ate up the distance far quicker than her petite limbs could travel. She had to move at twice the pace to keep up with him, meaning she had to engage in a delicate balancing act to avoid spilling her wine all over his carpets as they traveled.
There was the possibility he was taking her to his bedchamber. Jo was already in treacherous territory indeed. She should stop him. Demand he take her back home. B
ut whether it was the connection they had made in their conversation, or whether it was the claret she had consumed—mayhap both—she did not want to go.
She was enjoying this clandestine meeting with Decker far too much.
As it turned out, her fears were unfounded. The chamber they entered next was a dining room. He gave a discreet order to a servant, and then seated her at the table. Jo placed her goblet before her and watched as he folded his lean form into the chair opposite her.
“What are we doing here?” she asked.
“What does it look like?” He raised a brow, giving her a look that made her think of bedchambers once more. “I am feeding you.”
That was not the response she had expected. What manner of rakehell brought a lady to his home and then led her to the dining room so he could feed her? A contradictory one, she was certain. There were layers to Elijah Decker. And Jo wanted to get to know them all, to peel them away, one by one.
Along with his clothes.
Where had that thought emerged from? Her ears went hot and she forced herself to think of something—anything—else. Definitely not the way his chest would look, bereft of his shirtsleeves, waistcoat, and jacket. Absolutely not the muscles she had felt, the barely leashed strength simmering beneath his surface.
“I dined earlier this evening,” she told him, finding her voice.
“We are not having an elaborate multi-course meal. We are having dessert.”
As if on cue, the servants returned, bringing a tray laden with delicate crystal bowls. She counted almost a dozen, each filled with molds of cream ices in varying colors and design.
“Thank you,” Decker said. “That will be all.”
When the footmen had gone, his gaze settled back upon her.
“I love cream ices,” she blurted.
Her lack of composure she blamed upon the claret, too. She was altogether unsettled.
“I guessed as much,” he said, his voice low. “I noted how much you enjoyed it at Sin’s dinner party.”
The dinner party Callie and her husband had held the previous week had been rather large. Jo had not supposed Decker had taken notice of her at all. They had not been seated near to each other. The knowledge he had been watching her filled Jo with warmth.
Lady Wallflower Page 5
