He nodded. “Not terribly original of me, I am afraid. The company was formerly known as Smithton and Sons. They produced some of the finest pianos in all the world in their day. However, since I am neither a Smithton, nor one of the fellow sons, I deemed it wise to change the name, along with restructuring some of the piano designs. This piano is our newest, one of only a few of its kind—Lord and Lady Sinclair are in possession of one, and there is another as well, aside from this.”
She ran a reverent finger over the keys. “It is beautiful, Decker.”
“You may play, if you like.” He hoped she would, though he had certainly not brought her here to listen to her on the piano.
She shook her head slowly, giving him a measuring look he was not sure if he liked. “Not now, I do not think. I should like to see the rest of this wickedest room in your club first.”
Of course she would.
Decker suppressed a grin. “Go on, then, minx. Have a look.”
She did not waste any time in making her way to the framed pictures hanging upon the walls. Her gasp told him she had taken a closer look at what appeared to be tasteful, elaborate lithographs of the alphabet. Twenty-six of them in all, one for each letter, individually framed and on prominent display. Except, upon inspection, hidden within the fancy motif of each letter was an erotic image. Worked into the A, for instance, was a gentleman stroking his cock as he watched a woman lifting her skirts.
“That is positively indecent,” she said, and she was flushing once more.
Damn, she was delicious. He could not keep himself from wondering just how far that pretty pink extended on her creamy flesh. Down her throat, for certain. Where did it end? The tops of her breasts?
Think of something else, you bloody scoundrel.
His cockstand was rising and ready.
But there would be no slaking of his needs in this chamber tonight, and he knew it. Tonight was about Lady Jo. About making her breathless. Shocking her, too. If she truly wanted to be wicked, she had come to the right source.
No one had perfected the art better than Decker.
He followed her in silence, prowling like a caged tiger who had been starved, it was true, and had been taunted with the promise of succor. She was moving, taking a stroll of the perimeter, stopping by each letter. Some caused a swift inhalation—such as the G, which depicted a man and woman sucking each other whilst a bare-breasted woman loomed over them and watched. Others made her eyes go wide, her lips part. The gymnastic determination evidenced by the couple curved around the O—whilst the woman tongued the man’s cock—made her speak.
“Oh my!” She pressed her hands to her cheeks, which had flushed darker the farther she traveled.
“Do you like it?” he asked, curious if the erotic art appalled her, intrigued her, or excited her.
Perhaps a commingling of all three?
“It is…” Her words trailed off as she looked to him, wetting her lips. “It is shocking. I have never seen the like. And the acts—some of them—are they truly possible?”
“Quite possible,” he assured her, his prick pulsing in his trousers. “And intensely pleasurable.”
“All of them?” she asked, her brows raised.
She was talking about the R, he supposed. That letter involved two gentlemen and one woman.
He held her gaze. “All of them.”
“Have you…” She faltered, her question tapering off.
He smiled. “I have not attempted every position in the alphabet, if that is what you are asking. Pleasure is not the same for everyone, but that is part of what makes it such a wondrous gift.”
Decker himself did not find pleasure with men, but he had friends and club members who did so, discreetly.
“You are a conundrum,” she said softly, then blushed more furiously.
He grinned—she was so damned fetching, without trying. How had no man before him seized her up, made her his?
Ah, yes. She was young. Not yet twenty.
So dreadfully young.
Too young for a man of his jaded experience, it was certain.
For the moment, Decker thrust that reminder aside. “I could say the same of you, my dear. Tell me more about Lady Jo Danvers whilst you familiarize yourself with my wicked chamber, if you please.”
Her expression changed—she looked almost surprised. “What do you want to know?”
Everything.
What a clumsy oaf he was. It occurred to him that he did not know how to woo a woman of her ilk—not just aristocratic, because he had known countless ladies—but delicate, on the cusp of realizing her own sensuality. Innocent. Desire was a pounding beast lurking within him, and he was drawn in two separate directions, one urge to preserve her naïveté and the other to ruthlessly, savagely debauch her.
“Tell me about your family,” he said, wondering where the devil that particular request had emerged from.
Clearly, the former urge rather than the latter.
It was as if a cloud passed over her countenance. “I have a sister, a brother, and a sister-in-law.”
He sensed a story there, and he recalled there was another brother who had died in the not-so-distant past. Decker did not make a habit of following societal gossip, but as many of his businesses were tied to the quality, he did take care in making certain he knew as much of their daily dealings and interconnections as possible.
“You are close to them?” he prodded, giving her room to reveal what she wished to him, but not forcing her into any which would make her uncomfortable.
“I am closest to my sister Alexandra,” she said, turning away and continuing her slow perusal of his naughty alphabet series. “We are near in age, and we remained together, under the care of our aunt Lydia for many years. My brother Ravenscroft was saddled with our father’s debt and pockets to let until he met my sister-in-law, an American heiress. That was when he brought us to live in London. I do wish he had not left us for so long in the care of our aunt after our parents’ deaths. However, I understand the life he was living at the time was ill-suited to young, impressionable ladies being beneath the same roof.”
Decker moved with her, keeping a safe distance to prevent himself from snatching Jo up and kissing her senseless then and there. Sadness gave her voice a throaty edge. He detected a note of resentment. For her brother the earl, perhaps. But Decker was more than familiar with Ravenscroft’s reputation. For years, he had essentially kept himself from utter penury by selling himself to society women who wanted him in their beds.
“You are displeased with your brother for not looking after you and your sister himself,” he observed mildly, forcing himself to remain focused upon their conversation instead of the need for her burning within him.
“It felt as if he had abandoned us,” Jo said, casting him a glance over her shoulder that made his gut clench again. “He is a good man, in spite of his reputation. He would do anything for those he loves. My other brother was nothing like him. He was a selfish, greedy, heartless bastard.”
The vehemence in Jo’s tone took Decker by surprise. Unlike some ladies of his acquaintance, Jo did not relish speaking poorly of others. He had never once heard her issue a cutting remark about another.
“This other brother you speak of, he is dead?” Decker asked solemnly, trying not to pry too much, and yet curious.
To be sure, it was an odd conversation to engage in when he had been intending to seduce her—with kisses, at least—this evening. And yet, he could not deny he was intrigued. He wanted to know what made her who she was.
Jo nodded. “He died after attacking Ravenscroft and his countess. His jealousy made him mad. He believed he was the only rightful heir of our father. Perhaps that is true, and perhaps not. Our mother took many lovers. None of us shall ever know the truth.”
Here was something interesting indeed, the notion that he and Jo had something deeply in common. That both their births were shadowed with scandal. However, where her mother had been properly wed to the
former earl, Jo had been shielded from the brunt of scrutiny and scandal.
But Decker was also quite taken aback by the other half of her revelation—that her dead brother had attacked the earl and countess. One could only surmise it had been with the intent to murder them both.
He found himself moving nearer to her, taking her hands in his. “Damnation, Jo, that is a wretched weight to live with.”
Her smile was tremulous. “Life is a wretched weight itself sometimes, is it not? We are given struggles and anguish, and yet there always remains that promise of goodness, looming on the horizon, that rainbow after a punishing rain, that keeps us going on. We have had the promise before, and we know it will come again, even if we are not certain of when or why. I cannot change the past, and therefore, I look to the future.”
And what manner of future? He could not help but to wonder as he studied her stunning face. He had thought her lovely at the onset of this arrangement of theirs. But now… Now, he could see, quite plainly, that she was utterly glorious, in the rarest sense. She was strong and brave, with a wisdom beyond her tender years. Like an orchid in the wild, fragile, stunning, resilient.
Decker swallowed hard against a rush of pure longing. “You are far too young to be so world-weary, bijou.”
She gave him a sad smile. “The same could be said of you, I think.”
How sweet she was.
Too sweet for the likes of him.
He would have her anyway. Take some of that sweetness for his own.
“I am not young at all, darling.” Indeed, he felt as if he were positively ancient.
He felt as if he were a lecherous satyr presiding over a fairy queen.
“How old are you, Decker?” she asked then, startling him once more with the use of his preferred name.
“Eight-and-twenty in years,” he said softly. “Easily twice that in experience.”
“I like that about you.” Her smile faded, her gold-chocolate eyes searching his with an intensity that scorched him. “Your eyes are very expressive. You are not the man you would have the world believe you to be, are you? You are so much more.”
Bloody hell.
She had robbed him of the ability to speak.
He would show her how much more of him there was. And he would give her all of himself. Decker knew it with a certainty that shook him, despite the hardness of his heart. This slip of a woman, so young and untouched and yet, just as she had said about him, so much more.
He tugged her into him, forgetting his plans. Forgetting everything but the need to cover her mouth with his. And she was every bit as frantic. She felt it too, this precious connection, this melding of their very souls. It was as if he had waited all his life for it, so rare and deep and real.
Ridiculous, scoffed the remaining shreds of his rational mind.
Complete rot. You are thinking with your cock. You want her cunny, and all the blood in your body has gone to your prick, leaving your pitiful brain unable to function properly.
Fuck that voice. He forgot all about it as her arms wound around his neck. As her fingers sank into his hair. As she rose on her toes in the same instant he lowered his head.
Their lips collided.
This was different from the kiss in the carriage. It was more powerful, one part communion of bitter and jagged and disappointing pasts, one part acknowledgment of the fierce desire burning between them. Her teeth rasped against his lower lip. Her unbridled hunger was the most potent aphrodisiac he had ever known. He kissed her harder, slanting his mouth over hers.
He knew he ought to take his time, break her in, initiate her. Show her what he wanted and how he wanted it. Learn what she liked. But he could not control himself any more than he could tear his lips from hers. His tongue sank inside, plundering. He kissed her brutally, licking the satin heat of her mouth, her tongue, plunging deep the way he wanted to do with his cock inside her cunny.
She whimpered, but not from shock, and not in protest. Instead, she clutched him harder. She stepped into him, fitting their bodies together more fully. They were well-matched, her shorter, petite curves melting into him. There was raw need in her voice, in the way her tongue moved against his.
It became a battle for power, her thrusting her tongue into his mouth, and him retaliating in kind. They went on, kissing and kissing. One of his hands had found purchase on the nip of her waist and the other cupped the base of her skull, his fingers skewering the dark, silky strands of her simple chignon.
Hair pins were falling at last. Locks unraveled. He kissed her harder, tasting Jo and chocolate. Sweetness and mystery, that was what she tasted like. He sucked on her tongue, then bit her lower lip. He wanted to devour her the way she had eaten up her dessert earlier.
And then, a most unwanted intrusion: a barrage of louder-than-necessary raps on the door. Decker knew what the knocks meant and who was dealing the blows. Macfie. He had asked his man to provide him with a subtle reminder when the time had come to put an end to his clandestine evening with Lady Jo and return her to her home.
Of course the brute would pound on the bloody door loud enough to wake the dead.
Reluctantly, Decker tore his mouth from Jo’s. What a beautiful sight she was, all flushed, her lips dark and ripe as a cherry. He had conducted a ruinous assault upon her coiffure. She looked as if she had been properly ravished. A fresh bolt of lust pounded through him in time to Macfie’s second round of knocking.
Jo blinked, as if trying to collect herself.
He knew the feeling.
“Who is banging on the door?” she asked, breathless just as he had planned all along.
“Macfie,” he growled, every bit as affected as she was.
Decidedly not part of the plan, that. When the devil had a woman ever affected him the way Lady Jo Danvers did?
Never, that was when.
“Macfie?” she repeated, in question form.
“Giant redheaded Scotsman,” he reminded her. “You have met him on several occasions, I believe?”
“Yes. Of course.” She blinked again, before lifting a hand to inspect the damage he had inflicted upon her hair. “Oh dear. My hair pins.”
Macfie knocked again. “Sir? Have ye fallen asleep?”
Decker cleared his throat. “No, Macfie. See the carriage readied, if you please.”
“Aye, sir!” Macfie hollered from the other side of the door.
Decker winced. Yes, every part of the fellow was brash. But he was deuced loyal and intelligent, and Decker trusted him implicitly in all his business affairs. And now, his personal matters as well.
“Must we go already?” Jo asked, frowning.
He echoed the sentiment. It was as if they had only just begun, and now, he would have to leave her once more when leaving her was the last thing he wanted to do. He had not had the opportunity to show her the rest of the peculiarities—and pleasures—this chamber contained.
He would have to save it for another day, supposing they would have another. The notion struck him like a blow. He was unaccustomed to being with a woman who was not free to accompany him, a woman who could not spend the night with him.
This was different, perilous terrain between them indeed, and not just because of her unwed status as a lady. Also because of the way she made him feel. The things she did to him.
He inhaled slowly, trying to gain some semblance of control over his wildly rampaging thoughts. “Yes, I am afraid we must, if we wish to make certain your return is undetected. I dare not keep you here much longer, no matter how much I would like to.”
“Yes, you are right, of course. I cannot afford to be seen returning in such a state. Or at all, for that matter.”
She touched her lips then, and though he supposed the gesture was instinctive, he had to stifle a groan at the erotic picture she presented. He wanted to finish what he had begun, to take down the rest of her hair until it was wild down her back, cascading over her shoulders. He wanted to kiss her until their lips ached.
“Your hair pins, my dear.” He offered them to her.
She took them, her fingers grazing his palm as she gathered them up. “Thank you.”
Such a small touch, and yet he felt it as thoroughly as a caress on his cock. “I am a decent hand with a lady’s hair, if you would like me to attempt to restore the damage.”
“I suppose I should not be surprised by that,” she said softly. “You are an established rogue, after all.”
Damn it, that statement stung more than it ought to have done. He had never been ashamed of his past before. And he was not ashamed by it now, not precisely. Still, there was something about the way she called him a rogue that made him wish he were not.
Bloody odd.
“There are many benefits to being an established rogue,” he told her, summoning up a cheeky grin.
But for the life of him, he could not summon up a single one as she turned her back and allowed him to settle her hair into place once more.
Chapter Seven
Ways to be Wicked
1. Kiss a man until you are breathless.
2. Arrange for an assignation. Perhaps with Lord Q?
3. Get caught in the rain with a gentleman. (This will necessitate the removal of wet garments. Choose said gentleman wisely.)
4. Sneak into a gentleman’s bedchamber in the midst of the night.
5. Go to a gentleman’s private apartments.
6. Spend a night in a gentleman’s bed.
7. Make love in the outdoors.
8. Ask
Jo could not manage to stifle her yawn.
After two delicious nights of sneaking out of her brother’s townhome and flitting about London with Decker, she was tired. Tired and excited and filled with a tangled mess of yearning and newfound desire.
Mr. Elijah Decker was many things. Scoundrel. Rakehell. Skilled kisser. Strike that—exceedingly skilled kisser. Handsome rogue. Sinfully charming. Observant. Peculiar. Witty.
Lady Wallflower Page 8
