Sexy As Hell

CHAPTER 20

OZ WAS BACK in London by ten, and by half past he was slipping into a chair at one of Brooks’s gaming tables, in command of his feelings once again.

“You win, Harry,” young Telford said with a grin. “You bet seven weeks. Evenin’, Oz,” he cheerfully said. “Marriage worn thin?”

“Don’t they all.”

“Could have told you.” The young marquis had been married four months.

Oz flashed the table a grin. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“You were probably three parts drunk.”

“No probably about it. What are the stakes? I’m in the mood to gamble.”

And as was normally the case with the wealthy and privileged young noblemen who amused themselves at Brooks’s, talk of wives and marriage was quickly exhausted. Play was high that night, thanks to Oz’s reckless mood, and liquor flowed like water-that, too, due to Oz’s largesse. He was drinking heavily in an effort to dislodge the images saturating his brain and raising havoc with his peace of mind: Isolde in bed, in the bath, in his arms, her voluptuous body warm against his, her honeyed sweetness his paradise on earth-his irresistible temptation.

The irresistible part unnerved him; it pissed him off.

Reaching for his remedy for aggravation, he found his glass empty. He shot a gimlet-eyed glare at a footman, the servant quickly filled his glass, and so it remained-never less than brim full-the rest of the night.

He consistently won, of course.

Didn’t he always?

But he was drunker than usual, or more accurately, drunk when he stood on the pavement outside the club and squinted against the morning sun.

“Ready for some cunt?” Harry inquired in slurred accents.

Oz turned and surveyed him for a speculative moment. “I’m not sure,” he said regretfully, “I’ve the stomach for it just yet.”

“Marriage can sour you, that’s a fact,” Harry commiserated, five years’ married and a father three times. “Just don’t think about it. That’s my advice.”

It was advice Harry’s wife pursued as well. Rumor had it her last child was Paxton’s. Oz’s brow knit in a black scowl; like the child of questionable paternity his wife might be carrying. “I’m off to bed,” he muttered. “I’ve a helluva headache.”

“Hair of the dog, Oz. It’s the only way. Let’s go to Marguerite’s; her brandy’s fine, and if you change your mind, the ladies are finer.”

“Some other time. You go. Give Marguerite my regards.”

“She’s been asking for you, you know.”

Oz shrugged. “Maybe tomorrow.” The gilded brothel, and its equally resplendent owner, had been a habitual home away from home for Oz in recent years. “I’m bone tired, brain weary, and out of sorts with the world; you’ll have to fuck ’em without me,” he said over his shoulder as he moved away.

When Oz entered his house a short time later, Josef greeted him with studied civility.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Oz said, shrugging out of his coat, his voice entirely prosaic, not a hint of drink in his tempered syllables. “She told me to go, and if someone told you something different, they shouldn’t have had their ear to the door.”

“Yes, sir,” Josef said with scrupulous restraint, having heard it all from Achille. Taking Oz’s coat from him, he nodded to his right. “You have a visitor in your study, sir. Mr. Malmsey.”

“That was quick,” Oz said drily.

Josef didn’t have to ask what he meant; everyone at Oak Knoll knew what had transpired. Nor would he have asked in any event with Oz’s mood unchancy. “Would you like coffee brought in?”

“Why not, although I doubt this is a cordial call. You’d better bring me some brandy, too.”

Entering his study a moment later, Oz greeted Malmsey with a natural grace uninhibited by drink. “This needn’t be awkward, Malmsey.” He waved him into a chair. “You’ll find me completely amenable.”

“Thank you, sir. You’ve been most agreeable; my client is grateful.”

“Pray be candid,” Oz said, dropping into a chair opposite the solicitor, “or we’ll be talking circles around each other. I know why you’re here.” Leaning back, he crossed his legs and lazily smiled. “Let’s deal with the ledger pages of our mutual responsibilities impartially. You’ll find me willing to sign most anything.”

“Very well, sir.” Given leave to dispense with the preliminaries, Malmsey went directly to the primary consideration. “If there’s a child, the countess would like full custody.”

Oz’s brows rose. “That’ll take more than a conventional divorce, won’t it? I’m no solicitor, but women’s rights are limited in practice if not theory.”

“Naturally, it would have to be a private agreement.”

Whether impelled by some primal patriarchal impulse or whether he felt Isolde was asking too much, Oz hesitated when faced with the finality of giving up his child. Should a child even exist, he reminded himself. Not a certainty at this point. “Is that common? A private agreement?”

Malmsey didn’t quite meet his gaze.

“Ah,” Oz murmured and a malicious glitter entered his eyes. “The countess is taking matters into her own hands-as usual.”

“Your marriage was outside the norm, sir-if I might be so bold to say. Its dissolution need not necessarily conform to precedence.”

Oz’s gaze was half hidden by his lashes. “Does she always get her way?”

Malmsey studied the floor for a moment before he replied with diplomatic obliquity. “As an only child, she was indulged, my lord. Furthermore, an independent title and great fortune confers added scope to one’s freedom. But the countess is kindhearted and obliging, sir, and well respected by all.”

She was indeed obliging in bed. You couldn’t fault her there. But then Will knows that, too. “There’s a small issue of paternity,” Oz said with careful detachment. He glanced up as the door opened and a servant carried in a tray.

The men sat in silence while coffee was served, Oz’s brandy was poured, and the servant departed. Quickly drinking down his brandy, Oz leaned forward, set the glass on the table beside him, and picked up the bottle. “As I was saying,” he pleasantly went on, uncorking the bottle, “the issue of paternity may be in doubt. But should the child be mine, I hadn’t contemplated relinquishing my paternal claims. Isolde’s request for sole custody”-he shrugged-“could be a sticking point.” Lifting the bottle to his mouth, he drank deeply.

“She didn’t think it would be.”

“Then we have a dilemma,” he cooly said. At Malmsey’s look of chagrin, Oz’s expression altered, and in a completely different tone, benevolent and affable, he added, “Other than the custody issue, I’m quite willing to oblige her.”

“I’m sure she’d be willing to pay you whatever you like to, ah, reach some agreement.”

Oz smiled angelically. “I have too much money, Malmsey, not too little. I can buy this country and barely touch my wealth. Now if it was Will you were dealing with,” he sardonically noted, “you might be able to negotiate. For my part, I’ll have to wait and see.” There was a small pause, and then a trace of mockery lightened his voice. “Tell her if it turns out to be my child, it’s not for sale.”

Malmsey had known before he’d come that Lennox’s wealth would hinder negotiations. A few questions in the right quarters had brought to light the vast extent of his fortune. “Other than custody, however,” Malmsey said, methodical and deliberate, “you have no objection to the divorce?” A solicitor’s question, clarifying the boundaries.

“None.”

“Very well. I’ll relay the information to the countess.” Malmsey stood and picked up his leather portfolio.

“How is she?” Oz asked, his voice guarded.

“I couldn’t say, my lord. Her note was brief.”

Oz grinned. “And full of spleen, I warrant.”

“I couldn’t say, sir.”

“I commend your loyalty, Malmsey. She’s lucky to have you on her side.”

“If she wishes to compromise, I’ll come back.”

Oz lifted his brows. “Not likely that, eh, Malmsey?”

This time, the pink-faced solicitor betrayed a modicum of feeling in the calibrated neutrality of his face. “I was told she was unhappy,” he slowly said. Then, turning, he walked from the room, leaving Oz mute.

WHILE MALMSEY WAS presenting her case in London, Isolde was lying abed at Oak Knoll, weary and fatigued after a sleepless night, her stomach in questionable straits, her mood sulky. In an effort to overcome her joyless spirits, she reminded herself she’d only known Oz seven weeks. There was no point in falling into some vaporish or resentful gloom over the departure of a wild, charming, irresponsible man who never intended to stay. Before long, she’d look back on his sojourn at Oak Knoll as no more than a tiny blip in the full and vital continuum of her life. Except for the child in your belly, a little voice pointed out.

Which observation triggered a wave of nausea she fought down because she was too tired to get out of bed and she wasn’t about to vomit where she lay. Drawing air into her lungs, she breathed shallowly and slowly until the queasiness receded, and as if gaining control over her stomach somehow translated into fresh authority over her life, she felt refreshed. Sliding into a seated position against her pillows, she decided, rationalizing furiously, that the delicacy of her condition was no doubt the cause of her sleeplessness and melancholy. There was a very good possibility that neither circumstance had anything to do with Oz. It was purely physical.

Good; that was settled.

She’d always had a disgust for females prone to megrims.

Now that her recuperation was in hand-as if on cue-a soft knock on the door indicated her breakfast had arrived. She bid her maid enter.

Ah, the comforting familiarity of a daily routine.

She smiled. Nothing had changed.

She was alone at Oak Knoll as she’d been for many years. She was healthy and young; Grover was no doubt waiting to discuss his plans for the day. He’d be pleased she was ready to assume the estate duties she’d abandoned while Oz had been in residence.

With regard to the routines of local society, she was also pleased that she wouldn’t have to deal with Anne Verney’s triumphant looks. She wouldn’t have to concede victory to her on pregnancy at least. Bitchy and trite though it might be, irrational as well, Isolde’s feelings of satisfaction and redress were gratifying. As for her being pregnant, she was relatively certain of her condition with her morning nausea so pronounced.

While her feelings for Oz might be muddled and moot, or more to the point, useless, she had no such doubts about this child. She was excited, elated, filled with delight. She had been from the first.

Taking the tray from the maid, she arranged it on her lap, wished Libby a cheerful good morning, and tucked into her breakfast.

After all, she was eating for two.

LATER THAT MORNING, she went to see Betsy and Jess before they left. Betsy, who had the same bright hair as her son, was finishing her packing and she turned when Isolde entered her room. “The baron has a temper, my lady. But he always gets over it, Sam says.”

“Izzy, Izzy!” Jess dropped the wagon he was playing with, jumped up, and ran to Isolde, his arms wide open.

Isolde scooped him up and hugged him hard. They’d become good friends in the weeks he’d been at Oak Knoll.

“We going London!” Jess squealed, his smile wide. “You go, too!”

“Maybe I’ll come later. Grover needs me to help with the farming right now.”

“Me stay help.” He glanced at his mother. “Me stay, Mummy?” Jess had attached himself to Grover and spent hours every day accompanying Isolde’s steward on his rounds of the estate.

“We can’t stay now, darling, but we’ll come back,” Betsy said, knowing how to pacify an insistent toddler. “Miss Izzy’ll tell you so.”

“Of course, sweetie. If I don’t see you in London, you make sure you have your mummy bring you back for a visit.”

“When, Mummy?” A wide blue gaze swerved to his mother.

“Next week.”

“Fer sure?”

“For sure, Jessie,” Isolde lied, kissing his plump cheek and swallowing hard to stanch her tears.

Seeing the wetness in Isolde’s eyes, Betsy distracted her son. “Come, darling, show Miss Izzy your new wagon,” she said with a smile, taking Jess from Isolde.

“Grover found that toy wagon in the village,” Isolde said, as Betsy set Jess down by his new toy. “It’s rather sweet, isn’t it?”

“It go faaasssst!” Jess exclaimed, launching the wagon across the floor like a projectile, quickly scrambling after it. Like any two-year-old, he was easily diverted.

“How are you feeling, miss?” Betsy quietly asked as Jess was once again engrossed in his toy. “Better than yesterday?”

Everyone knew; not that she’d thought otherwise. “I felt a little unwell when I first woke, but once I ate”-Isolde smiled-“I’m quite myself again.”

Betsy smiled back. “I know what you mean. Those first months can be a trial. Me and Sam wish you all the best, miss. Men can be a right handful, and I should know,” she said with a grimace. “My Richie left me God knows why. But things are bound to work out-for you and Lord Lennox. Sam says he’s never seen his lordship so over the moon for a woman; I thought you should know.”

“Thank you. His lordship is very loveable in turn, but life takes strange directions at times.” And I don’t believe for a minute that Oz would ever be over the moon for a woman. “I’m very pleased with the child, though; I’m grateful to my husband for that.” She took a small breath to steady her nerves, talk of Oz and the baby adversely affecting her composure. “Now please, come and visit anytime. You and Sam and Jess.”

“Sam’s buying me a wee house, so you must visit us as well.”

“I’d love to. Send me your direction when you know it.”

A short time later, as she stood on the drive and waved good-by, Isolde felt less forlorn knowing she could visit Betsy and Jess again-without having to see Oz. In the past few weeks she’d become attached to the adorable, affectionate little toddler and she’d miss him.

She’d become attached to an adorable big boy, too.

A shame he was no longer on her visitor list.