“You are home early again,” she observed, pleased.
His work days no longer began so early nor ended as late as they once had. It was yet another of the changes which had been slowly wrought over the last few weeks.
He raised a dark brow at her. “Are you displeased, Mrs. Decker?”
“On the contrary.” She could hardly contain her contentment. She was fairly certain she glowed. “I could not be more pleased.”
“Ah, young love,” Julian drawled wryly.
Jo’s cheeks flushed deeper, she was sure of it. But she could not take her eyes from the man she loved. Her husband, her heart, her other half. To think, all she had needed to do to find him was pen a wicked list and unintentionally deliver it to him.
Decker seated himself at her side. “You look happy, darling wife,” he murmured to her,sotto voce.
“That is because I am,” she said.
Clara sighed.
Julian snorted.
Lila continued to coo at baby Arthur.
At her side, her husband’s hand found hers hidden in the voluminous fall of her skirts. Their fingers tangled and held.
“Mrs. Decker ishere tae see ye, sir,” Macfie announced, waggling his brows in a fashion that made them appear extra bushy this afternoon. “And she has yer sister with her again. May I say, sir, she is a wee adorable thing, Miss Lila. I cannae see any resemblance at all tae ye. Probably best, considering yer one of the—”
“That is quite enough, Macfie,” Decker interrupted his impudentaide-de-campbefore he finished insulting Decker’s appearance.
Macfie raised a meaty hand to his heart, affecting an indignant pose that was rendered all the more hilarious by the fact that he was as massive as an old oak tree. “Always with the interruptions, sir. I was going tae say considering yer one of the most handsome men in all London. Wee Miss Decker cannae be lookinghandsomenow, can she?”
“You had better stop lest I think you fancy me yourself.” Decker suppressed his smile. “And whilst I could not blame you in the slightest, I am already a picked apple, as they say. See them in, Macfie.”
“And a happily picked apple at that, sir.” Macfie grinned. “I am happy tae see ye so contented, Mr. Decker. And if I may say so, it is about damned time. All it took was a lady with a pair of—”
“Bloody hell, man, send my wife and sister in,” he bellowed.
“I was going tae say a pair of hands strong enough fer the task of bringing ye tae heel.” Rolling his eyes heavenward as if in supplication, Macfie turned to leave his office.
“I am not a hound,” Decker muttered, scowling at his infernal man’s broad back.
He was reasonably sure he and Macfie would spend the rest of their days bickering like a pair of dowagers, and he would not have it any other way.
The door slammed shut, and he did not flinch.
When it opened again, all thoughts of Macfie were swept easily aside at his wife entering his office, Lila at her side. Decker drank in the sight of Jo, from her upsweep of dark hair to her perfect mouth to her thoroughly feminine form, draped in black. She made mourning weeds look glorious.
Right, of course she did.
Decker stood at their entrance, bowing to both of them before skirting his desk and moving toward them. “My darling Josie, my sweet Miss Lila. You are one quarter hour early.”
“Mr. Macfie advised us to arrive at this time,” his wife told him, smiling in that way she had that made him long to take her in his arms and kiss her senseless. “He suggested the traffic would be too thick otherwise, and judging from the snarl of carriages out there already, I should think he was right.”
There Macfie went again, thinking of everything. How the devil did the man do it?
“Mayhap I will give the Scottish oaf an increase in pay,” he said, grinning.
“Mr. Macfie is hardly an oaf,” Jo said. “I have become rather fond of him.”
“He gives me peppermint candies whenever I visit,” Lila added. “I have three in my reticule now. I have been saving them.”
