True to their word, either Pamela or Charles were at her side throughout the day as well as at dinner that evening. Isolde enjoyed the exhilarating afternoon, the soaring jumps and wild gallops, the warm spring temperatures and lush green countryside, the agreeable company of her neighbors, other than the Fowlers. All in all, she had a most gratifying time.
Even dinner was pleasant, with Charles and Pamela on either side of her at the table, the conversation animated, farming and horses favored topics, the food excellent. And when it came time to retire-the company staying over as was usual-Pamela saw her to her bedroom.
“I’ll wait to hear you lock your door,” she said as they reached Isolde’s door.
“Thank you, and thank Charles. I had a wonderful, peaceful day with no harassment from Will.”
“He was exceedingly grumpy by the end of the day, but you made Anne happy, if you care.”
Isolde shrugged. “Why not. As long as I escaped his attentions, I can afford to be magnanimous. Although,” she said with a smile as she opened her door, “the reviling looks sent my way by our hostess were not in the least charitable.”
“The poor girl doesn’t have a charitable bone in her body,” Pamela returned. “Although knowing her parents, it’s no wonder.”
“None of which is my problem,” Isolde airily noted, and with a wave, she entered her bedroom and locked her door.
But she didn’t immediately sleep that night, as was the case since Oz had left. It was most difficult to distract her thoughts once she was alone, when the activities with which she kept herself occupied during the day were at an end. She’d learned to run through the litany of all that was good in her life to remind herself there was recompense for her loss. But she missed him nevertheless.
She expected she always would.
CHAPTER 31
TWO DAYS LATER, Oz was deep in a high-stakes game at Brooks’s, debating which of several good cards to discard, when a player newly come to town said, “I saw your wife at Fowler’s the other day.” Ignoring the frantic shaking of heads from those standing behind Oz’s chair, the young Earl of Quarles continued walking into the lion’s den. “She’s not only dazzling, but she rides like an Amazon. She outrode everyone in the hunting field.”
Oz had stopped breathing.
The silence was so profound, the hiss and crackle of the fire could be heard from across the room.
Smoothly recovering himself, Oz’s gaze, judiciously blank, rested on the earl’s face. “At Fowler’s you say?”
Quarles, suddenly aware of the hush, more aware of the sleek chill in Oz’s voice, began to sweat. “I may… have… been mistaken,” he stammered.
Feeling not only cold but also bloodless, Oz set down his cards and pushed himself upright in his chair. “I doubt it. She rides well. Not that I’m sure she should be riding in her condition,” he murmured, his dark gaze so punitive no one dared respond to the startling admission. “Was she there long?”
“I-that is… you see-”
The buffeting, obsessive sensations so long held in check broke free, and abandoning reason and the role of complaisant husband, Oz said in a voice held steady only with effort, “Tell me or I’ll cut out your liver.”
“She was still there when I left after dinner,” the young man choked out in a rush of words, ashen and cringing under the lethal gaze.
“And what time would that have been?” Whisper soft, knife sharp, murderous.
No one dared interfere, the men at the table silent, the entire room hushed and expectant. Oz in his cups was a child of danger; drunk for weeks, he was the prince of darkness.
“Eleven,” Quarles answered, white-eyed and barely breathing.
“You’ve been most helpful,” Oz said. Picking up his cards again, he swept the table with a glance. “Are we playing or not?”
Disaster averted, the buzz of conversation resumed, although Quarles took the first opportunity given him to escape. Oz didn’t even look up as he left the game, his thoughts divided between his cards and his morning’s schedule.
The conversation between Oz and Quarles was repeated like a drumbeat throughout the club rooms, the tantalizing news soon carried farther afield by noble young sprigs leaving the club for other social pursuits. By morning, the story in all its explosive detail had raced through the beau monde, spurred and energized by the stunning news of Oz’s impending fatherhood.
Not only had the perennial bachelor been snared.
But a child was also on the horizon… and so quickly.
People immediately began counting on their fingers.
What lovely tittle-tattle! Would he discard his lovers? Or more to the point, how often would he visit his breeding wife in the country? No one seriously expected him to relinquish his lovers. Although, with poor Quarles having only narrowly escaped serious harm, it was deliciously apparent that Lennox was jealous of his wife.
Astonishing!
It quite staggered the imagination!
CHAPTER 32
THE MORNING FOLLOWING Quarles’s disclosure at Brooks’s, Isolde had finally reached the limits of her patience. Will had arrived as she was having her breakfast for heaven’s sake! Jumping up, she advanced on him in a rage,
“This is too much, damn you! I’m telling Anne! I swear I will!”
“Calm down. She’ll only blame you for it.”
“For heaven’s sake, Will. How can-”
Suddenly the door to the breakfast room swung open, crashed into the wall like a mallet, toppling a small curio cabinet and catapulting a collection of Meissen figurines to the floor.
His mud-spattered riding coat swinging against his filthy boots, Oz stormed in, his heels crushing the shattered porcelain, his hard, haggard gaze leveled on Will. “Get the hell out of my house!”
“My house,” Isolde snapped, instantly provoked by her husband’s misplaced authority.
Oz shot her a look as though noticing her for the first time. With a shrug, he said, “Her house. Now get the hell out!”
As Will hesitated, Oz pulled out a pistol with dizzying speed, cocked the hammer, and in a voice cold with outrage, snarled, “Stay away from my wife.”
“Maybe we should ask Isolde what she wants,” Will hurled back. “She and I were friends long before you came along!”
Isolde had never seen the blood drain from a man’s face. Frightened, she went still, the pale, stark planes of Oz’s face conspicuous in the morning light, the blank look in his eyes terrifying, the pistol aimed at Will’s chest held, white-knuckled.
“Don’t be a fucking hero,” Oz murmured, slurred, softly goading.
And completely drunk, Isolde suddenly realized.
“Go, Will, for God’s sake!” she gasped, unable to breathe, understanding now why Oz had looked right through her.
“There, you see,” Oz softly said, his nerves flinching at Isolde’s concern for her lover. “Tell him again, my darling,” he said with overdrawn sweetness, “how you fear for his life.”
Even without looking, she could feel the contempt in his gaze. But she wouldn’t be the cause of Will’s death, and ignoring her husband’s indolent sarcasm, her face closed, she whispered, “Please go, Will. Think of Anne and your child.”
Whether it was the terror in Isolde’s voice or the annihilating indifference of the man holding the gun, Will bowed to Isolde, turned, and tramping over the scattered bits of Meissen, passed through the open doorway.
His footfall echoed down the hall, the sound slowly fading.
A hush descended, the brilliant sunlight glinting off the silver on the breakfast table, the air taut with aggression and insult.
Oz stood swaying gently on his boot heels, his eyes half-shut, a gauntness to his face even more pronounced since she’d seen him last. Then his lids slowly lifted, he eased the pistol hammer back in place, tossed the weapon on a chair, and turned a jaundiced gaze on Isolde. “You seem to have been amusing yourself rather nicely in my absence despite your protests to the c
ontrary.”
The word absence kindled a sudden thought, and she glanced at the open doorway. In all her busy, well-staffed household, not one of the scores of servants she employed was visible. Honest surprise raised her brows. “How did you threaten them?”
“I told them I’d kill you.”
“And will you?”
A vein beat rapidly along his temple. “I haven’t decided.”
“Am I supposed to plead?”
“Please don’t. And don’t make excuses,” he said evenly.
She wouldn’t plead, no more than she’d beg him to love her. “You’re being a little presumptuous, aren’t you? Jumping to conclusions?” She had nothing to hide.
Turning the full weight of his anger on her, he said with a cruel and deliberate malice, “I arrive to find him here at breakfast? And I’m jumping to conclusions? Spare me your fucking lies.”
“You’re drunk.”
“I wonder what his wife says when he drags home stinking of you?” he growled as if she hadn’t spoken.
“You’re wrong. When you’re sober, I’d be happy to explain.”
“My ears work drunk or sober.”
“But does your brain?” With Will gone, so was her fear. She could feel it in her bones, intuitive and independent of reason. Just as she suspected Oz was jealous, if extravagant dreams were allowed. “You look tired,” she said, wanting to take him in her arms and soothe the scowl from his face. Wanting more that he might have come because she mattered to him.
“Tired and abysmally drunk.” The faintest of smiles twitched across his fine mouth. “You don’t look tired at all.”
“Unlike you, I have no one making demands on my energy at night.” She lifted one brow. “I’d appreciate no lies from you on that score if you please.”
He felt a twinge of guilt for the first time in his life, and as if to mollify that culpability, he said, “Then we won’t exchange lies.”
“I have none to exchange. Ask any of the staff. In fact, I was in the process of threatening to tell Anne of her husband’s visits if he didn’t stop calling on me. Will’s been annoying me worse than ever, if you must know.”
Oz’s grin was instant and disarming. “I should have shot him.”
“I’m almost in a mood to agree. But I’ll leave it to his wife to bore him to death instead.”
“Tut, tut,” Oz murmured, his gaze limpid.
“You met her,” Isolde said, charmed by the uncalculated warmth in his voice. “Admit, she’s boring.”
“Hell yes. I’d shoot myself after a week in her company.”
“What a sweet thing to say.”
“At the risk of ruining this charming rapprochement,” he said, his gaze suddenly alert, “I have a question.”
“I didn’t, if that’s what you want to know.”
He watched her for a moment, then slowly said, “Why did you go on his hunt?”
“Because I like to ride. Who told you?”
“Quarles. I almost hurt the poor boy.”
“I was sent an invitation. The entire neighborhood was there. Pamela and Elliot were my duennas.”
“You stayed late.”
“No later than most.”
“Did you stay the night?”
“Yes,” she said, steady and composed. “Everyone did.”
“Not Quarles,” he replied, clipped and cool.
“He and his wild party left for more intemperate pleasures in Cambridge.”
“And what,” he said, holding her gaze, “was the extent of intemperate pleasures at the Fowlers’?”
“What were the extent of your pleasures in London?”
His dark brows floated upward. “Are you picking a quarrel?”
“Am I not allowed a wifely question?” she delicately asked.
“Not that one,” he placidly replied.
“Which ones am I allowed?”
There was a small silence, and then he smiled. “Let me get out of these muddy clothes and I’ll tell you.”
“Just like that? No apology for your false accusations?”
“That, too, I can better do upstairs.”
“What if I were to say no?”
“You’d be lying.”
“So sure?”
“Very sure,” he pleasantly said and offered her his arm.
“Apologize,” she said, because she would not be so easily seduced or worse, trifled with.
He dropped his arm and stood still, not speaking for a moment as if gathering his thoughts. Then he quietly said, “I apologize for insulting you, for leaving you here and in London, for questioning the paternity of your child.”
“Our child.”
“For that,” he graciously said, willing to take the child, whether his or not. “My life is no longer my own,” he said, open-eyed and softly, his earnestness so heartfelt it stole her breath away. “I say it humbly and without pride. I need you to make the sun shine and bring the stars out at night. I need you to make my life sweet again and stop the weeping inside me. I need you.”
She smiled, happiness warm and fathomless, the music of the world in her ears. “I love you. I have from the first.”
“I love you, too.” His eyes scanned her face. “Is there more?”
She shook her head. In time, she knew, he’d speak those words of love with feeling. Taking his hand, she drew him to the door. “I must warn you, darling,” she calmly said, glancing up at him. “My passions seem to have increased with pregnancy; I may be demanding. Do you think you can stay awake?”
His smile unfurled and filled his eyes. “No sleeping. I promise.”
When they reached her bedchamber, he quickly stripped away his muddy boots and clothes, leaving them in a pile at the door. Then pulling off his rings, he dropped them into a small Imari bowl on the dresser. As the emerald twinkled against the orange and blue design, he knew he wouldn’t be wearing Khair’s ring again.
The past was the past.
He’d be a father soon. The concept was strange but pleasing, he thought, smiling faintly.
“Why are you smiling?”
He turned to find his wife half-undressed, her pale hair tumbled on her shoulders, her blue gaze speculative and watchful. “I was thinking about fatherhood. You must tell me what to do.”
“Love us both.”
“That’s simple enough. And until such a time, I’ll love you.”
Her smile was pure sunshine. “How?”
“Any way, every way. And I apologize. I smell of horse.”
“Would you like to bathe?”
“I did before I rode up, but if you want me to.”
“No. I don’t know why I said that.”
“Nervous?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be. I’ve decided to become a farmer. Even if you want me to leave, I won’t.”
“So you can be troublesome coming or going,” she playfully noted.
“In some ways I’m not troublesome at all.” He moved closer and taking her face in his hands, kissed her gently. “Let me show you.”
A sharp rap on the door was followed by Grover’s voice. “Do you need anything, Miss Izzy?”
Isolde’s eyes widened. “I don’t believe Grover has ever stepped foot in this wing.”
“He’s here to save you,” Oz kindly said.
“I already have someone saving me. Let me tell him.”
Finding a robe, she went to the door and opening it a small distance, assured her steward of her safety. Shutting the door a few moments later, she turned to find Oz facedown on her bed in a dead sleep.
Drawing up a chair near the bed, she sat and studied the wild, young man she loved to distraction. His breathing was deep and slow, the dark shadows under his eyes indication of his exhaustion, of his wastrel ways, of the overindulgence that marked his life. Would he cease his debauch for her? Could he? Was she a fool to think he might? Was she a bigger fool to think she could tame his headstrong ways and turn him into an obliging husband?
She softly sighed.
He came awake with a start, instinctively scanning the room as if waking in strange places was habitual. His gaze stopped on Isolde, and he smiled the beautiful smile that had charmed across three continents. “Have I been sleeping long?”
“A few minutes. Sleep, though; I can wait.”
“I can’t.” Rolling on his back, he held out his arms. “Come here and tell me about your farming.”
“In an hour I’ll tell you about my farming,” she quietly said, rising and slipping off her robe.
He grinned. “That’s what I meant.”
As it turned out, they didn’t speak at all unless whimsical, sporadically uttered love words could be characterized as speech. Or screams, sighs, and pleasurable growls.
And when, finally, both were sated and it was possible to consider that a world lay beyond the confines of the bed, Oz lifted his head from Isolde’s shoulder, smiled down at his wife, and content now beyond his wildest imagination, softly said, “I have come to rest now from my travels.”
With his black hair brushing her cheek and the pulse of her heart beating wildly with love, she met his affectionate gaze and smiled. “Welcome home.”
Susan Johnson
***
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Sexy As Hell Page 30
