Truly a Wife (Free Fellows League 4)

He blew out a breath he’d been holding and gingerly moved his head from side to side. Several strands of soft hair caught in the stubble on his chin, and the fresh, clean scent of spring rain and some sort of fragrant flower filled his nostrils …

Some sort of fragrant, familiar flower … Not roses. Not lilies. Not violets. Blast it! He owned the finest gardens in London, perhaps in all of England, gardens he opened to the public on Sunday afternoons during the season so everyone could enjoy them, yet Daniel couldn’t put a name to the scent. Not hyacinths or geraniums …

He closed his eyes, breathed in the scent, and concentrated on matching the name to the aroma. Something else … Something soft and romantic … Something that brought back memories …

Lilacs. She smelled of spring rain and lilacs. Daniel struggled to recall which young lady of his acquaintance wore the essence of lilacs and spring rain. But he couldn’t recall anyone who wore that particular combination of fragrances.

Not that it mattered at the moment. Putting a name and a face to the scent of the body molded against his paled in comparison to the pleasure of waking up to it. He tried to recall the last time he’d done so and frowned.

Had it been that long since the girl at Oxford? The barmaid in the Red Lion tavern. What was her name? Helen? Ellen? He struggled to remember, and the pain in his head increased tenfold. Arden. That was it. Arden. How could he have forgotten pretty little Arden with the soft brown eyes and the equally soft bosom? He had spent many a boisterous night with Arden and made love with the sunlight pouring though the narrow window in her room.

Opening his eyes once again, Daniel squinted against the light, peering through his eyelashes at a white-and-gold Rococo ceiling decorated with a multitude of fat plaster cherubs staring down at him, and at the shockingly pink satin floral paper covering the walls.

Where the devil was he?

Not at home. Surely. For none of the bedrooms in any of his residences had such gaudy ceilings. Several of his houses, including Sussex House, had frescoed ceilings, but those ceilings, painted by masters, tended to depict tastefully bucolic scenes of blue skies, fluffy white clouds, and the occasional biblical morality tale.

And not the Red Lion. If he had, for some unknown, nostalgic reason, traveled the tortuous path back to his university days to pay a call on Arden, he was in the wrong room. And the wrong tavern. The Red Lion was a dark, half-timbered structure, and Arden’s room had been a dark, low-ceiled room with a single, narrow window. And she’d never smelled of lilacs. Arden had smelled of bread and ale and sex. And while there had been any number of women since Oxford and Arden, Daniel couldn’t recall spending an entire night with any of them, couldn’t recall waking up to them in the morning light. Couldn’t recall any who smelled of spring lilacs.

Nor did he remember any of Madam Theo’s rooms being quite so pink. Not that he’d visited all of them, but the rooms he’d occupied at Madam Theo’s exclusive house of pleasure at Number Forty-seven Portman Square in London had been more subdued, less blatantly feminine.

Of cours

e it was possible that Madam Theo had redecorated since his last visit, but Daniel didn’t think so. He turned his head ever so slightly, wincing as the roar caused by the rustle of his head against the pillow resounded in his brain. Madam Theo’s taste was quiet and understated, and there was nothing quiet or understated in a room where the bed was made up with a pink silk coverlet, shockingly pink sheets, and pillow slips bordered in gold thread.

The only thing of which he was certain was that he was lying in a woman’s bed and in a woman’s room. But which woman’s room? He turned his head ever so slightly in the opposite direction and came face to face with a tapestry cherub. Where the devil was he? Because there was no doubt that he wasn’t at home. Or that the woman lying beside him, whoever she was, had a passion for pillows, fat, baby-faced cherubs, and all things pink.

Passion.

Daniel became aware of the twin points of her breasts pressing again his upper arm, became aware of the length of her molded against his left side, the triangle of soft hair pressed against his flank, and long limbs intimately entwined with his, and instantly regretted his choice of words. Passion.

His eyes burned, his head pounded, his right side ached, his limbs trembled in agony, and his mouth and throat were as dry as a desert, but the portion of his anatomy that made him uniquely male sprang to attention, tenting the garish pink sheet in an impressive display of unadulterated lust.

For the woman lying beside him.

Who was she? Which of Madam Theo’s young women had agreed to provide him with a few hours of pleasurable oblivion in exchange for a significant amount of gold and silver? Daniel lifted his head once more in an effort to put a face and a name on the body cuddled against him, but all he could see was a mass of auburn hair.

Daniel scowled. Auburn hair. None of the women he favored at Madam Theo’s had auburn hair. He made it a point never to choose women with hair that color because auburn-colored hair reminded him of …

Bloody hell! The oath exploded inside his head as a kaleidoscope of memories came flooding back. The harrowing journey across the Channel. Waking up in the Beekins’ cottage. The agonizing journey from Dover to London. Sneaking into Sussex House and awaiting his mother’s gala. Arriving late so he wouldn’t have to help his mother receive her guests … Avoiding the crowd of partygoers … Waiting for …

Daniel gritted his teeth. Hell’s bells! The only woman he knew who arrived at most any gathering swathed in various shades of pink was the mother of …

He didn’t remember everything that had happened… But he thought he remembered most of it … And the last thing he remembered was holding on to …

Miranda.

Daniel buried his nose in her hair. Miranda. She used to wear ginger and lilies. When had she switched to lilacs and spring rain? Why had she switched when her other fragrance suited her so well that he could never smell a lily without thinking of her?

Miranda wasn’t given to making idle threats, and Daniel wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn he was sharing a roof with the dowager marchioness. Unlike her daughter, the dowager Lady St. Germaine had displayed a taste for pink in all its incarnations on numerous occasions. This bedchamber looked like the sort of room of which the dowager marchioness would approve, and if that was the case, Miranda had a great deal for which to answer.

“Miranda.” Daniel didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until her name came out as a painful croak, barely recognizable as his voice.

The woman on his shoulder slept on.

Daniel tried again, louder this time. “Miranda.”

She stretched like a cat, languorously extending her arm, across his lower abdomen, brushing the part of his anatomy tenting the pink sheet, pressing her lower body into his side as she did so.