There was a small silence. “That may be, for which I thank you,” he said with a faint smile. “But I don’t trust Will. I may have to call out the dog if he doesn’t stop sniffing around you.”
“Don’t you dare,” she quickly said.
“Warn him off, not me. I’m just protecting my own.” There was a faint hint of anger beneath the flat tone.
“You’re mistaken,” she said in a deprecating voice. “Really, Oz, I don’t need your protection.”
“Believe me,” he cooly said, “with Will, you do.”
While she might disagree, Oz’s jealousy pleased her-regardless its motivation or degree. “I’m sure you’re wrong, but rather than risk having you call out Will, I’ll take care to avoid him.”
He turned an impersonal gaze on her. “And I’ll see that you do.”
“I don’t respond well to orders,” she softly said.
“Sometimes you do.”
“I’m serious, Oz.”
The flexible charm was automatic as was the smile that warmed his eyes. “I humbly beg your pardon, darling,” he gently said. “I had no intention of offending you.”
He rode with animal grace, she thought; the same grace he brought to the bedroom; the same grace she could no more relinquish than she could contemplate life without him, she thought with an unpleasant lurch of her heart. “I don’t want to fight,” she murmured, shaken by her feelings.
“Nor I,” he said with forced calm, her feelings clear to see.
***
IN THE COURSE of the blissful days that followed, Oz told himself he could take his country holiday in stride; care, but not too much; love his new wife with passion but not with his heart; above all keep the ravishing pleasures they shared in perspective.
Isolde warned herself she was getting in too deep, allowing herself to be swept away by rapture, becoming too attached to a man who played merely a stopgap role in her life. But then Oz was celebrated for his many charms; meeting his legion of lovers in London served to confirm the fact. Why wouldn’t she be equally captivated? More to the point, why shouldn’t she enjoy her ephemeral pleasures while she may? No reason at all, she recklessly decided.
Nothing could have stopped them in any case, their need for each other beyond reason. They spent their nights playing at love while their days were given up to the country social calendar, their intimacy and closeness a sumptuous, personal la dolce vita, the very breath of life.
Oz escorted Isolde to the neighbors without complaint when in the past he would have found such company tame. He briefly questioned his pleasure in such peaceful pursuits but as quickly decided it was irrelevant. Since when did he question degrees of gratification?
CHAPTER 17
A FEW DAYS LATER, Isolde and Oz were at Pamela’s dinner party. Since Will and Anne were also guests, Isolde had taken care to stay by Oz’s side-not a hardship by any means. She preferred keeping her distance from the Fowlers.
But after dinner Pamela had taken her away to see her new Worth gown, which turned out to be as spectacular as claimed-embroidered and jeweled green velvet; the masterful Worth had surpassed himself. A maid had come in as they’d been viewing the gown, calling Pamela away to the nursery over some minor crisis, and Isolde made her way back to the drawing room alone.
Catching sight of Anne Verney waiting in the corridor outside the drawing room, she almost turned around. The last person she wished to see was Will’s fretful, sullen wife who constantly glowered at her. On the other hand, she wasn’t so craven that she’d let herself be intimidated over something so silly.
“Has the dancing begun?” she asked as she approached the woman who managed to look frumpish even in an expensive creation of sparkling silver tulle. The violins could be heard through the closed doors.
“I have no idea,” Anne icily replied. “I have something to say to you.”
God help me. “If it’s about the flowers for the church, my gardeners tell me the hothouse roses are in bloom. You’re more than welcome to them.”
“You insolent hussy. Why would I care about the flowers for the church? I want you to stay away from my husband,” she spat, caustic and malevolent. “I saw you staring at him all through dinner.”
“I did no such thing!” Isolde retorted, her shock plain. “You’re grossly mistaken.”
“Don’t play games with me, you slut.” A mottled flush colored her thin face. “I saw you trying to catch his eye.”
“I have absolutely no interest in your husband,” Isolde calmly said, not wishing to engage with this angry woman. “I’m married and more than content. You needn’t be concerned.”
“You duplicitous little bitch. Don’t try and placate me with your lies. You always wanted Will. But he’s mine. I bought him!” Blunt as a hammer.
“Everyone knows you bought him,” Isolde snapped back and instantly contrite, quickly added, “Forgive me, I shouldn’t have said that. He’s yours, Anne, truly he is-in every way.” She felt foolish for ever lamenting Will’s loss, embarrassed as well that she’d been so blind to his lies.
“I don’t need you to tell me he’s mine. He was never yours,” she said with deliberate malice. “Never. He told me so-that you were always in hot pursuit, trying to entice him into your bed, using your body to lure him, you witch!”
Isolde could have disputed who had pursued whom, but more than ever, she wanted this confrontation to end. The malicious glitter in Anne’s eyes was alarming enough to motivate a quick retreat. “There’s no need to argue over Will, Anne. He’s indisputably yours. I wish you both much happiness.”
“Spare me your spurious good wishes,” she snapped, her color high, the pulse in her neck beating violently. “Just stay away from my husband!”
“I most certainly will,” Isolde soothingly replied, edging away from the enraged woman. No longer concerned she might appear fainthearted, she fled, jerking open the drawing room door and slipping inside like a thief in the night.
“I needn’t ask how she was,” Oz murmured, pushing away from the wall beside the door as Isolde entered, white-faced. “I saw Anne go out, but I thought Pamela was with you.”
“I wish she had been.” Isolde shivered faintly. “The woman’s crazed.”
“Poor darling,” he gently said, taking her hand and drawing her away from the door. “But consider, dear, you’re outrageous competition for a plain sparrow like Anne.”
“I’ve never given her any indication that I covet her husband. In fact, I told her in no uncertain terms I had no interest in Will.”
“And she didn’t believe you.”
Isolde grimaced. “She said I was looking at her husband during dinner-I wasn’t.”
“He was looking at you.”
“He was? Oh God.”
“He was looking at you with prurience, lust, and adultery on his mind,” Oz delicately said.
Isolde groaned. “Don’t start, Oz. I’m sorry I ever met the man.”
A smile transformed the trifling unease in his eyes. “In that case, would you care to dance?”
And so the drama continued in the small exclusive world of dinner parties and country entertainments.
Will was restive under his wife’s constant guard.
Oz was mildly watchful and surprised that he was.
Isolde, with nothing to hide, openly enjoyed her husband’s company and wasn’t amazed to discover that Oz also danced better than anyone she’d ever met. But then he did everything better than anyone she’d ever met.
Which meant she must remember her life was her own and not lose her grip on it. Oz exerting the full power of his charm made one forget.
CHAPTER 18
A LOVELY, IDYLLIC week later, one in which the newlyweds had refused to leave Oak Knoll, they finally foreswore their hermitage because a singer Isolde particularly liked was performing at Constance Banning’s afternoon musicale.
“Do you mind?” she’d asked the previous day as she and Oz lay hot and sweaty in the shambl
es of the bed.
He’d turned his head as he lay panting beside her, a faint smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “After-that last orgasm-how can… I refuse you… anything.”
“How lovely, how sweet-”
“How likely… I am to fuck you again… as soon as I catch… my breath,” he’d rasped. “Yes to the musicale-now come here… I have something to show you.”
WHY IS HE here? Isolde thought as she and Oz entered the Bannings’ sunny music room. Will disliked sopranos, music in general, and Constance Banning.
Well, well, if it isn’t the ex-lover in hot pursuit. Oz knew very well why Will Fowler was here.
But after greeting their hostess, Isolde took a seat well away from Will and joined the gathering of well-dressed gentry who were fond of music. The audience was primarily female-no surprise. Oz had come out of consideration for his wife, as had a handful of other husbands. Will was alone and here out of consideration for himself.
A boy prodigy Constance had brought up from London performed first, his virtuoso skills on the violin breathtaking for someone so young. Isolde was entranced, leaning forward slightly as though drawn to the beautiful sound.
His head resting against the back of his chair, Oz watched her, aware of the violent passion she evoked in him, equally aware that his normal impersonal dealings with women had altered. As the boy’s dazzling technique brought Tchaikovsky’s fantasia to life with nimble-fingered energy and brio, the audience listened in breath-held silence, and Oz wondered, mildly disturbed, if he was less indifferent than he wished.
But the music came to a precipitous end, the crowd erupted in applause, and Oz’s musing gave way as everyone came to their feet in homage to the boy.
In the interval between performances, Constance Banning’s footmen carried around trays of champagne and sweets, the audience fell to gossiping, and Oz was drawn off by the few husbands in attendance where talk turned naturally to horses. Newmarket was the Nirvana of bloodstock fanatics, and Oz’s racers had won all the early meets in the neighborhood. The men were anxious to hear how best to obtain entree to the mountain tribes that bred Oz’s racers.
Oz noticed Isolde leave the room with Constance, and shortly after their hostess returned alone. Scanning the room, he saw that Will was absent as well, and experiencing an unbridled rush of anger, he excused himself from the group of men with a smile and a bland excuse and went in search of his wife.
Unfortunately he found her.
At the soft footfall on the threshold of a nearby drawing room, Isolde snatched her hands from Will’s and turned to meet the hard, ruthless gaze of her husband.
He was standing in the open doorway, challenge in his stance, in the merciless set of his mouth, menace in his gaze. “Am I intruding?” His voice was meticulously soft.
“No, not at all.” She was doing nothing wrong; there was no need to blush. “Will just called me in to tell me he’s going to be a father. Isn’t that wonderful news?”
Oz turned his unpleasant regard on Will, then his lids lowered slightly, there was a fractional pause, and he said in a controlled voice, “Congratulations.” He sketched Will a self-contained bow. “If you’ll excuse us. Come, Isolde. The Florentine soprano’s about to begin.”
Will was as tall as Oz, and heavier, a solid, handsome man with grey eyes that contemplated Isolde with more than a casual claim. “I’m not sure Izzy wishes to leave. You needn’t, Izzy.”
As Oz took a threatening step into the room, Isolde hurriedly said, “I’m perfectly fine, Will. I’m looking forward to Miss Rossetti’s performance. Do give Anne my best.” Quickly moving toward the door, she brushed past Oz and hastened away down the wainscoted hall adorned with portraits of Banning thoroughbreds.
Walking very fast, Oz’s swift tread behind her, she’d almost reached the music room when she was jerked to a halt and spun around. Grabbing her shoulders, his effort at self-control obvious in the slight tremor in his arms, Oz growled, “What the hell was going on?”
“Nothing. I told you,” she said, bracing herself against his implacable gaze. “I was on my way back from the powder room when I met Will. He told me that Anne’s having a baby. That’s all.” She tried to pull away. “You’re hurting me.”
His grip only tightened, his long slender fingers like vises. “He couldn’t tell you that in the music room?”
“We met by accident.”
“The hell you did,” said Oz shortly.
“Oh, very well. He may have been waiting for me.”
A muscle clenched high over his cheekbone, and when he spoke his voice was like steel. “In the future, I suggest you keep your hands to yourself if you don’t want to make Fowler’s wife a widow. Do you understand?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She met his cold gaze with a determined lift of her chin. “I don’t respond to male tyranny; you have no jurisdiction over me.”
“On the contrary, my dear wife,” he said with sudden impatience, “I have considerable jurisdiction over you. The law is not yet in your favor, and while the double standard is deplorable, in my current frame of mind it is not entirely objectionable.”
He sounded like any rich man, assured and confident of his place and power in the world, female autonomy no part of his life. She had a choice of further provoking him with bravura challenge or calming the waters and thereby avoiding a possible embarrassment should someone come out of the music room. “For heaven’s sake, Oz,” she said, her voice deliberately unruffled, “if you recall, our marriage is temporary. There’s no need for this autocratic display of temper. You’re making too much of an innocent encounter. Will and I’ve been friends forever and-”
“Slightly more than friends as well,” said her husband, his lip curled in a sneer.
“If only you weren’t an infamous libertine,” she shot back, “you might have cause to take issue with me.” A lifetime of indulgence was unlikely to long sustain a spirit of submission.
“Men can do what women can’t.”
“Allow me to disagree!”
“Just stay away from him or I’ll put a shot through him,” Oz said, his voice ruthless and uncompromising. “I won’t wear cuckold horns.”
“Unlike all the husbands you’ve crowned with horns?” Flaring irritability in every word.
“They chose to accept it. I don’t,” he answered with enormous self-control. “Nor do I fancy being made to compete for my wife’s favors.”
“No more than I fancy being ordered about by you,” she said tartly. For a moment she thought he was going to strike her, and whether prompted by panic or the oppressive atmosphere, she suddenly felt a wave of nausea roll up her throat. Hastily slapping a hand to her mouth, she said faint and unsteady through her fingers, “Oh dear.”
Oz dropped his hands as if burned. Say it isn’t so, he thought, even as he understood that it was not only possible but also highly probable considering their single-minded obsession with sex. Softly swearing under his breath, he pulled his handkerchief from his pocket, shoved it into Isolde’s hand, leaned over, picked her up, and praying she wouldn’t vomit all over them, carried her down the hall, down the stairs, and out the door.
The fresh air helped Isolde’s roiling stomach, and by the time they reached her carriage she was feeling marginally better. Oz lifted her in, jerked his head toward Dimitri, ordered, “Drive slowly,” and climbing in, dropped into the opposite seat. Leaning back, he stretched out his legs. “Feeling better?” he asked as the carriage rolled down the drive, his voice notable for its restraint.
“Slightly, yes,” she whispered, ashen to the roots of her pale hair. “Tell me it’s not what I’m thinking.”
“Perhaps something you ate is the cause,” he said, not above negotiating with the gods of anarchy and disorder.
“Do you think so?” A glimmer of hope in her eyes.
“It’s possible.” But even as he spoke, he knew he was lying, his imagination racing unchecked toward disaster. He’d practiced coitus
interruptus-normally effective-but the risk increased with constant repetition and he’d been on permanent stud duty for weeks.
“You’re right. We have been careful, haven’t we?”
“Fuck no.”
She bristled at his blunt repudiation, at the sullenness of his tone. “Are you blaming me?”
“I don’t suppose,” he said, gently, “it would do much good at this point.”
“You do have some responsibility,” she said, pithy and acerbic, annoyed at his insolence. “Whether you like it or not.”
“Yes, I know. Could we talk about this later?”
“When later?” she said, affronted by his soft and savorless voice.
“When I don’t feel like strangling someone.”
“Me, you mean.”
“No, I don’t mean you. I mean the whole bloody world,” he said sharply.
“It might turn out to be nothing.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Blunt and brusque.
“We’re going to have to talk about it sometime.”
“But. Not. Now.”
Her temper was rising. “You’re acting like a child.”
He shot her a gelid look. “And you’re acting like a shrew.”
“How dare you call me a shrew,” she hissed.
A muscle twitched over his stark cheekbone, and silent, he fixed a cool eye on her.
“Just like a man,” she said, flushed and petulant. “Mute and muzzled when there’s the devil to pay.”
He rolled his eyes but gave no answer, and from that point on, no matter what she said or how she prodded him, he refused to respond. Even when she lost her temper, lunged forward, and slapped his face, he just grimaced, grabbed her, and tossed her back on her seat. Then, bracing his foot against her seat cushion as if to ward her off, he slid down on his spine, shut his eyes, and promptly went to sleep.
Openmouthed, she sat transfixed, reminded of their first night together when he’d said to her, “Observe,” and proceeded to shock her with his instant erection. In the same astounding fashion, he’d fallen asleep, his mastery over his senses extraordinary.
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