Chapter One
London, 1885
Decker stared at the list on the desk before him.
He had read the flowery script at least half a dozen times since finding it tucked between the pages of a pamphlet he had been tasked with printing for the Lady’s Suffrage Society.
The words taunted him.
Tempted him.
Reading them made his cock hard, partly because he had never been meant to see them. Partly because of the woman who had written them. Quiet, shy Lady Jo Danvers, who loved to frown at him. Who looked at him as if he were a footpad about to filch her reticule. Who had delivered her pamphlet to his offices buttoned to the throat, not a hair out of place, looking very much like a governess he longed to defile.
Damn it, he had to stop thinking about her. Had to stop perusing the list. And he would, Decker promised himself. Soon. But first, he was going to read it again.
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
Bloody hell. The items on her list were delicious enough to incite his lust and his interest in equal, ballocks-tightening measure. But that incomplete number eight—only just begun, as if she had stopped in medias res, as if she had more wonderfully sinful items to add to her list—made his prick twitch every time. He had tortured himself with it. So many possibilities.
What did she want to ask? And who did she want to pose the question to? Was there a number nine? What else would she add to her list?
Most importantly, who the devil was Lord Q?
That question bothered him more than it ought to. Decker told himself it hardly mattered. Lady Jo was not the sort of woman with whom he dallied. First, she was a lady. Second, she was an innocent.
Or was she?
The list before him mocked.
It hardly seemed the composition of a virginal miss. But then, how the devil would Decker know what a virginal miss would write? He had not been a virgin in years, and he had never been a damned miss. Moreover, he had not bedded an innocent in…well, ever. His predilections tended to be far more depraved than a virginal miss could satisfy.
But oh, how delightful it would be to debauch Lady Jo.
Curse it, his trousers were too tight, drawing against his erection each time he shifted in his chair to ease his discomfort. The spell of yearning Lady Jo’s list cast upon him was heavy and thick, unbreakable. He was going to have to take himself in hand if he was going to get anything accomplished today.
There was only one answer to his current predicament.
He had to rid himself of the list.
Remove the temptation.
Return it to its rightful owner, and then forget he had ever seen it.
Right. That last part was never bloody well happening, was it?
On a sigh, he composed a terse note to Lady Jo Danvers.
I believe I have something of yours.
D.
The note was in Jo’s reticule as she waited for the hulking Scotsman who served as Mr. Elijah Decker’s aide-de-camp to announce her. Seven words. Signed with his initial. She had instantly known who had sent her the message. And she had also known what he had in his possession. What she had inadvertently given him.
Her cheeks were hot.
Misery churned in her stomach.
Her list had been missing for three days. She had searched for it everywhere. Initially, she had believed she had somehow misplaced it, shuffling it with some of her correspondence. But when a thorough investigation had failed to produce the list, she feared her older brother Julian, the Earl of Ravenscroft, had taken it. However, after his protective, brotherly wrath had not been unleashed upon her, she had reached another, far more troubling conclusion.
She had unintentionally mixed her list into the pages of her pamphlet for the Lady’s Suffrage Society. And she had given it to the odious, sinfully handsome, utterly self-absorbed rake who owned the publisher that was now printing all the society’s pamphlets.
Those seven words written in his arrogant hand, burning a veritable hole of shame through her reticule, confirmed it. Of all the people to whom she could have unintentionally given