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I wasn't jealous before we met
Now every woman I see is a potential threat
And I'm possessive, it isn't nice
You've heard me saying that smoking was my only vice
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Colin hated that stupid plant.
Pen tended to it so carefully, watering it daily, shifting it to a different window as the sun’s path changed month after month, ensuring its warmth during the cold winter. It thrived under her care, and no matter how many times she insisted that it was just a plant, Colin always remembered who had given it to her in the first place.
He wanted to be rid of the thing. He waited for her to lose interest so he might dispose of it, but that never quite happened, even when he distracted her with more enticing activities in the morning. When they finished, she simply put on a robe and immediately picked up her little watering can, filled up by one of the servants, and started her routine of watering, pruning, dusting, whatever that plant needed.
He tried hiding it, too, thinking that maybe if she didn’t see it, she would forget it existed. While Pen’s pregnancy advanced and she grew less able to take the stairs multiple times a day, the plant sat in their parlour. Just after she waddled over, poured a bit of water into the soil, and disappeared into her study, Colin had picked it up and shoved it under a side table. It was discovered later when a maid came to dust and, much to his annoyance, she’d returned to its place on the north-facing windowsill, ideal for the light at that time of year.
He tried again, and again, and again. He left it in a random linen closet, and a cupboard in the larder, and even outside in the garden shed. Each time, a footman or a maid or the cook found it immediately, asking either Colin or Pen where they would like it to reside. Always, like a wart or an annoyingly uninvited aunt, that stupid plant returned, reappearing wherever it was last seen.
He told Pen it must be the servants moving it, perhaps to provide it with more sunlight in a better window, or to re-pot it, or to clean its leaves. She was smart, so she never believed him. In an effort to humour him, she asked the servants if any of them knew who was moving it around, if one of the maids or footmen thought they knew a better place to keep it. Everyone she spoke with looked offended that she would ever think they would move their mistress’ plant without her explicit permission. They simply moved it back whenever they found it, they told her. Pen told Colin they knew nothing, and Colin grew even more frustrated at the sight of the stupid plant, morning after morning, in the parlour or dining room or the study on her desk or once even in their bedroom.
Pen didn’t even have any other houseplants.
Just that one.
He hated it.
But his wife loved tending to it, and Colin loved his wife.
And yet each time she watered it or pruned it or moved it to a better window, flashes of her dancing with him flickered through his mind, images of him wrapped around his wife on a picnic blanket as a hot air balloon nearly crushed them, glimpses of him talking to her in a library, preparing her to propose—
It was as though the ghost of that man would never leave him, even though Pen was his wife and very pregnant with his child.
And yet traces of him lingered, woven into the very roots of that damned potted fern.
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And then one morning, Pen caught him in the act, red-handed—or green—handed, really.
“What are you doing?”
Colin, plant pot in his grip, just barely lifting it above the windowsill, whipped around at the sound of her voice. He tried not to look guilty, but the panic set in immediately. “I…uh…”
Her eyes narrowed, and her lips pressed into a thin line. “Are you the one who keeps moving it around?”
“I…maybe?”
Pen scoffed, striding toward him. “Why on earth are you moving around my plant?”
Suddenly sheepish, Colin looked down. “Because of where you acquired this plant.”
Pen blinked slowly. “What?” she puzzled, frustrated.
“You know what I mean,” he replied pointedly. “He gave it to you.”
A beat passed. Then, she laughed. “He? You mean Lord Debling?”
“Please, do not taint our house with his name,” Colin objected. “My ears and the essence of our very happy marriage do not deserve such cruelty.”
Pen rolled her eyes. “You’re being ridiculous, Colin,” she huffed, reaching for the pot.
“But you take such good care of this stupid thing,” he said, holding it aloft, just out of her reach.
“You’re being unfair,” she said, exasperated and straining up on her toes, jumping up as much as she could given her pregnant state. “It’s just—a fern!”
“It’s not just a fern!” he grumbled. “It’s a reminder!”
Pen sighed angrily, her hands on her hips in both defeat and defiance. But then the corners of her mouth twitched.
“My dearest husband,” she said, trying to fight her smile. “Are you jealous?”
“No,” he lied, hiding his flushing face in the leaves of the fern. “I just don’t like thinking about him, and seeing you so carefully tend his gift makes my blood boil.”
“You talk as though he’s some villain,” she said. “He has a name.”
“And yet you know exactly whom I speak of without using it within the walls of our home.”
“But I married you, not Lord Debling,” she teased.
Colin bit back a grimace. “You still haven’t told me why you still have the bloody thing. Surely you do not want anything to do with him now that we are married?”
“Because it’s nice, don’t you think?” she said lightly. “A little bit of greenery always brightens up a room.”
Suddenly, she walked forward and snatched it out of his grip. Placing it on the windowsill, Pen turned the pot a few times until the leaves had the optimal amount of sunlight.
“Perhaps it could be planted somewhere outside,” Colin suggested.
“It’s an indoor plant,” Pen replied. “It wouldn’t survive.”
Precisely, Colin thought bitterly.
“Maybe a servant can take over its care,” he muttered, quickly losing this battle against his strong-willed wife despite his lingering grudge fueling this indignant bickering match.
“But I like it, Colin!” Pen shouted suddenly. She took a few steps toward him, craning up to look at his face. “What about the plant has got you so irked? You cannot possibly be so wound up because another man gave me a gift several months in the past?”
“Because he is the one who gave it to you!” He growled, his voice lowering as he pressed forward, their chests touching. Pen’s eyes widened, and she gulped, backing up slightly.
“I didn’t—” she started weakly, but Colin was not finished.
“Every single day, I wake up and see you tending that stupid plant,” he ranted, continuing to walk her backwards. “It reminds me of him. Of what he almost took from me. Of how close I came to losing you forever. To see you carefully watering it and moving it into the sunlight and pruning the dead leaves…It’s like you still care for him.”
“I—I do not—” Pen stammered as her legs hit the back of their settee. She braced her hands on the cushions for balance.
“You don’t what, Penelope?” he pressed. He placed a hand protectively on her neck, leaning over her.
Her eyes flicked up, clear blue and glinting with a hint of something impish. “I don’t know why you are so jealous of a plant, Colin.”
His lip curled up in a mischievous snarl. “Do you think of him, when you water that plant?” he muttered, winding his fingers into the hair on the back of her neck and pulling.
“Maybe,” she goaded him, smirking. She reached up to fist his shirt in her hands as she arched back over the settee.
His grip in her hair tightened. “Do you wonder what he might’ve been like as a husband?”
“Do you want a pretty lie, or the truth?” she asked, her pretty lips parting as she panted.
“The truth, Penelope.”
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips for just a second, the pink muscle glistening and her mouth barely curving up at the corners.
“Sometimes.”
The thin thread of Colin’s control broke. He tugged her up and smashed his mouth on hers, growling and biting and consuming. Pen gasped, so he took the opening to thrust his tongue inside, tasting her, drinking her in, reminding her who she belonged to.
He hiked her skirts up her legs to her waist, revealing her bare lower half before he released her lips and spun her around. A little carefully, aware of his child in her growing stomach, he led her around to the side of the settee and pushed her forward over the arm of it. Pen braced her hands on the armrest, her bottom presented to him like two beautiful creamy cakes as she leaned over. Colin used his feet to spread her legs apart while he unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his trousers, his erection already straining to burst free.
He stooped down to reach her, slightly awkwardly, his thighs burning, but he only thought of his wife, her pink petal lips sitting so pretty between her arse cheeks, already glistening with her growing arousal.
“Are you wet, darling?” he smirked, dragging his finger down through her center, parting her folds and watching the sticky white cream coat his skin and the rest of her puffy, aching entrance.
“Don’t tease me,” she begged, looking at him over her shoulder.
He pressed his member against her bottom, allowing her to feel just how badly he wanted her. Her eyes widened, and Colin traced her jaw with his fingers, his thumb running along her bottom lip as he bore down into her eyes. “Why should I listen to you?” he said. “Torturing me with that man’s stupid fern all these months. It’s maddening.”
“It’s just a plant,” she moaned. He grasped the shaft of his cock and positioned it at her opening, the heat radiating as she shifted closer.
“But it’s his plant,” he growled, “and you are my wife!”
He thrust forward, a sharp gasp falling from her lips. It turned into a moan as he roughly rutted into her, plunging in and out with one hand on her hip and the other pulling her head back by her hair. The stupid settee was so short that he was squatting to reach Pen with his hips, but it also meant that her feet stayed flat on the floor and she wasn’t struggling with her pregnant stomach. Her shoulders against his chest, she leaned back and tilted her head to look at him.
He grinned.
Colin took her hard and fast, an acute contrast to his usual gentle lovemaking, but the anger at that man and the possessiveness for his wife overwhelmed any need for tenderness. He loved her, and watching her tend that stupid plant day in and day out was agonising, like she still held a place in her heart for him, like she might go back to him if he showed up again, like she still cared.
“Who do you belong to?” he grunted, pounding into her relentlessly.
“You,” she panted, whining and moaning. She clenched around him with her cunt, squeezing his cock tightly.
“Say it,” he ordered.
“What?” she asked, lust-addled mind confused.
“The whole thing,” he commanded. “Say it!”
“I belong to you, Colin,” she cried out. “My husband!”
“My wife,” he said, smirking and satisfied.
She was so beautiful. Her hair tangled around his hand, her lust-clouded eyes looking back into his, and her arse jiggling with each uncompromising thrust. Her fingers dug into the cushion, her knuckles turning white. His hips smacked against her, his balls swinging against her thighs, his cock stuffing her full every single time. Her face turned bright red, and Colin grit his teeth, tamping down the coiling tension building in his groin. She was close, her walls fluttering around him and her whimpers growing louder each moment. His fingers clutched at the flesh of her hip, hard enough to bruise, but he could not find his release yet, not until she climaxed around him, until she showed him just how much she loved his member inside of her.
“Are you going to come for me?” he taunted.
“Close,” she whined, barely breathing as she climbed higher and higher.
With the hand in her hair, he turned her head. “Look at the plant,” he ordered.
“Huh?” she said, her legs beginning to shake and her body starting to tremble, but she focused her eyes on the fern.
“Could he make you wet like this?” Colin murmured roughly, leaning over so his hot breath was right next to her ear. “Could he make you come apart around his cock? Could he give you his child after only one afternoon of lovemaking? Could he take care of you like I can?”
“No!” she shouted. “No, no Colin, no! No, no, no, no…”
She fell into a chant, and then devolved into moans and hoarse whimpers as she came, clamping around him and falling to incomprehensible pieces, giving him no choice but to come inside of her.
He exhaled and groaned, spilling himself into her, stuffing her fuller with his seed, marking his claim once again. His wife, his love, his best friend, his everything.
She shook and arched her back, milking every single drop from him before slumping forward. His mind floated back down from ecstasy slowly, and he pulled out, watching the white mix of their fluids gush out from her center.
“Get back in there,” he mumbled, using his fingers to push the juices back in, her cunt jumping and twitching as he touched the over-sensitive flesh.
“I’m already pregnant,” she chuckled breathlessly, still shivering as the last waves of orgasm crashed through her. “No need to make sure it stays in.”
“I like knowing you still have a bit of me inside of you,” he smirked. “I think you could use the reminder that you are mine.”
“I promise you,” she said, standing up on wobbly legs, her skirts falling back down to her ankles, “I have no illusions about the man I married.”
She looked quite the sight, barely dressed for the morning and her wild hair already sticking out in every direction from its loose coiffure because of their lovemaking. Colin guiltily tried to smooth the curls back down, tucking the loose strands around her face behind her ears before leaning down to kiss her gently on her lips.
He brought her in for a tender embrace, holding her to his chest. She wrapped her arms around his waist and hummed in contentment.
“So,” he began uncertainly, “…do you think about him?”
Pen laughed. “After all that, you still have to ask?”
“But do you think about him?” he pressed.
“Sometimes,” Pen admitted softly.
Colin’s stomach twisted. “What do you think about? The big house you could’ve had all to yourself? The freedom to write Lady Whistledown columns with no one to answer to?” he asked bitterly.
“Yes,” she replied softly, taking his big hand in hers and bringing it to her mouth, kissing each of his knuckles before continuing. “But even after I think about all that, I realise I made the right choice in the end.”
“You’re damn right you did,” Colin growled.
He kissed her more soundly now, slotting their lips together in a very familiar rhythm that sent warmth curling through him. He slipped an arm around her waist, and though they didn’t fit together quite as easily now because of her pregnancy, he thought he adored her even more.
“Colin?” she asked quietly when he released her.
“What is it, my love?”
“Can I still keep it?”
He did not understand what she was asking for a moment, but her eyes flicked over to the pot of green leaves on the windowsill.
“Yes, you can keep the plant,” he whispered. “It is, after all, just a plant. Right, dear?”
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One week later, Pen went downstairs for breakfast one morning only to find the parlour transformed into a jungle of potted plants.
Ficus, ferns, pothos, monstera, fig leafs, succulents, and even a lemon tree, all potted in the most gorgeous ceramics in shades of orange, green, and yellow. There were a few potted flowers as well, some orchids and violets and jasmine and geraniums and tiny pink roses. Vines trailed along the piano, a few winding around her curtains. A greenhouse exploded and filled up nearly every corner, every free table, every small surface, leaves bursting and overflowing, her vision entirely green.
“What in the world…?” she trailed off, stepping around a massive potted tree—a laurel?—to see if her sofa was still in the room. It was still there, just hidden by some sort of palm and what looked like an entire hedge of heather.
“Do you like it?”
Though she could not see him, the source of the voice was her husband, hiding somewhere within the foliage.
“Colin? Where are you?” she called, peering around the leaves.
A hand emerged from behind a few broad leaves. Colin stood over by her desk, mostly obscured by the plentiful plants.
“Good morning!” he greeted her brightly.
“Colin,” she said, dry, stepping carefully between pots. Her pregnant belly brushed more than one branch on the way. “Why is my parlour suddenly home to a greenhouse?”
“Well, I wanted to add to your collection after our little talk yesterday,” he explained, beaming proudly. “Do you like them?”
“I fear I shall have to hire a gardener just for the indoors now,” she said. “But I must admit, the air smells rather fresh. Perhaps we can move some into other rooms of the house.”
“I thought so too,” he said. “It’s a bit crowded, but I wanted you to experience the full effect.”
“The effect of what?” she teased, raising a brow. “Your jealousy over a fern?”
“That fern is, of course, just a plant,” he replied. “But I have now given you many, many more. What do I need to be jealous of?”
Pen laughed at her ridiculous husband and his lingering resentment over a man who truly could not hold a candle to Colin’s devotion to her. Truthfully, she found it quite satisfying to feed into his possessive nature. Somehow, it reminded her that she belonged to Colin, and he was entirely committed and steadfast in his love for her.
“I love you, my jealous husband,” she smiled at him. “Are you going to move all these plants around, or shall I call for someone?”
“I have no other plans for the day, darling,” he replied. “I am your humble servant, ready to carry them wherever you deem best.”
Penelope laughed again, her heart impossibly full. She loved being wanted by her sweet, ardent, protective husband. And she’d spend the rest of her life making sure he knew she adored him just the same.
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Don't go wasting your emotion
Lay all your love on me
Don't go sharing your devotion
Lay all your love on me