“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…”
“Deckerdoeshave 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 icewithout 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 wordrubbishwithin 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.
