“Him,” Jo repeated gently. “Do you mean your father?”
“The Earl of Graham,” he bit out, for he refused to think of that selfish bastard as his father. A father was a man who was a part of his children’s lives, and Graham had certainly never been that, either for Decker or for Lila.
Especially not for Lila. As a daughter born on the wrong side of the blanket, she did not suit Graham’s urge for vengeance. The man already had seven daughters. Decker alone had been the unfortunate beneficiary of the earl’s dubious generosity, and only inasmuch as it suited Graham’s purposes.
“Your mother was in love with him, and you did not deem him worthy of that love,” Jo said.
“Damned right he was not,” Decker confirmed. “The Earl of Graham loved himself, his money, and his pleasure, and not necessarily always in that order. He wanted his wealth to carry on in his own bloodline. But not just any bloodline. Only the male bloodline. He had eight daughters and one son. Me.”
“That is the source of your quarrel with your mother, is it not?” Jo ventured. “You told me you love her, that you would do anything for her, but that you are estranged. It was the inheritance which caused your rift.”
Once again, she was probing. Prodding him. Examining parts of himself Decker did not like to think about or to acknowledge. And yet, uncomfortable as it was, he also found her tender persistence oddly reassuring. None of the women in his past had ever deigned to see the man beneath all his rakish, devil-may-care trappings.
His Josie did.
My Josie, my wife, my love.
The thoughts emerged from nowhere, but he did not dare speak them aloud.
Instead, he swallowed down a rising lump in his throat, that same, old unwanted knot of emotion, and answered her question. “It was. I did not want to accept a penny of Graham’s wealth. I was set to deny it all. My mother told me I had to accept it for my sister Lila’s sake. You see, Lila is, like me, a bastard. But, unlike me, a daughter. Do you know what he left her, a sweet girl of five years when he died, whom he had only deigned to meet once in all her life? He left her one hundred pounds. He left more for the care of his bloody hunting dogs than he left for his own flesh and blood.”
Decker’s rage, the fury he had done his best to abate over the years with whatever distraction at hand in the moment, returned. This time, he had no faceless woman to bed, no depraved party, no bottle, no way to disappear, to forget.
This time, he was a man sitting in a carriage with his wife, on his way to see his dying mother for the last time. A man who regretted the way he had treated both of those women. His hands were balled into fists in his lap, trembling.
Jo slid onto the Moroccan leather bench at his side in a whisper of sound. She brought her sweet scent, her strength, her warmth. His need for her was so intense, it was crippling. He sat there, utterly humbled, as she embraced him. He had never felt so comforted. So cared for. Not since he had been a lad in the arms of his mother.
But this was different. Not at all the same. This was the touch of a woman, his wife. The woman who, just yesterday, had told him she loved him. He believed her. Hell, heneededto believe her. Without a modicum of pride, he wrapped his arms around her, clinging to her, holding her so tightly he feared he was hurting her and forced himself to relax his hold.
“I am so sorry, Decker,” she whispered softly. “You all deserved better, every one of you.”
“Yes, we did.” It was, he thought, the first time he had ever acknowledged it. The first time the pain of this particular part of his past had been unearthed to someone other than his mother. “But I damn well know one thing. I do not deserveyou.”
Her hand stroked up and down his spine in a steady, reassuring rhythm. Calming and soothing him as her other arm remained banded around his waist, holding him tight. “I am nothing extraordinary. I am merely your wife, and I care for you. I hurt when you hurt.”
She was killing him, his Josie. This sweet, passionate, young, intelligent, funny, compassionate, loving woman he had married. He definitely did not deserve her, despite whatever delusions she insisted upon accepting. It was merely her nature. She was Persephone to his Hades, bringing life into his darkness when he had not known he needed it.
He lowered his face to her throat, inhaling the familiar, beloved scent of orange blossom. He could not resist pressing his mouth to her velvet-soft skin. Her heart strummed steadily beneath his kiss, a reassurance he needed in this uncertain journey.
“I never want you to hurt, Josie,” he murmured against her skin, kissing her again because now that he had begun, he could not seem to stop. “You are too sweet, too kind, too good. Too good for me, it is certain.”
He thought, for the first time since receiving the telegram earlier, about Nora’s letter. About his intention to reveal everything to Jo. He wanted to, and he would, but his emotions were already a maelstrom. He could not bear to add one more struggle to the moment. For now, he was going to be greedy and simply accept his wife’s comfort and concern as she offered it to him.
Later, he promised himself, after his mother was well, he would tell Jo about the letter. Or later, after his mother was gone.
The latter plunged him back into the depths of despair and regret. How he wished he had spared his mother some time in the last seven years, an audience, at least. Could he have forgiven her? Should he have forgiven her?
What mattered when death was likely waiting at the other end of this carriage ride?
“You must not hold on to your regrets,” Jo told him then, as if she could read his troubled musings. As if she heard them spoken aloud. “There must have been a reason for you to remain estranged from your mother, all these years. Did she force you to accept the inheritance?”
A shudder wracked him. He inhaled deeply of the scent of her neck. She was more potent than a drug to him. He was like an opium eater, needing her to soothe a deep and abiding ache within him. “She threatened me. I told her I would not accept Graham’s blood money. She told me if I refused, I would no longer be permitted to have any contact with my sister, Lila. She was adamant. She said she had sacrificed for me, for Lila, that she would not allow me to squander her efforts in favor of my pride.” He paused, collecting himself, before continuing. “Part of me knows she was right. Part of me never forgave her for what she did, for what she forced me to do.”
“My love.” She kissed the top of his head. “You were both trying to do what was right. Pray, do not punish yourself any more than you already have.”
My love.
Those words affected him. How could they not? They stole their way into his heart and settled there, refusing to leave. Because they fit there. Theybelonged. Just as she belonged in his arms, his life, at his side.
