Sexy As Hell (28 page)

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.

She swore under her breath, debating an outright attack. Not that she was likely to prevail. Nor would such behavior solve her dilemma.

This particular problem required a cool head and thoughtful reflection.

Not that it wouldn’t be satisfying to punch him a few times as well.

If it would only help, she brooded.

Although, if nothing else, the turmoil and fury had served as remedy to whatever had been ailing her. She felt quite herself again.

Except for being mad as a hornet.

CHAPTER 19

WHEN THEY REACHED Oak Knoll, Oz helped Isolde alight. In the presence of grooms and footmen, with Dimitri looking on, he said with cultivated grace, “Would you like me to call your maid?”

“I’m perfectly capable of calling my maid,” she said, bristling at his cool detachment.

He smiled tightly. “If you’ll excuse me then, I’m going for a ride. Don’t hold dinner for me.” He found himself addressing the air. Isolde had turned and was walking away.

He wasn’t obtuse; he understood her anger. But he needed time to sort out the turmoil in his brain, come to terms with the burden of his past. Reconcile what was to have been a temporary marriage with this
current dilemma
.

As the door closed on Isolde, he swiftly made for the stables. Too restless to wait while a groom saddled his horse, Oz rigged and harnessed Sukha himself. A chestnut stallion from the mountains beyond the Hindu Kush, Sukha had been bred for speed and endurance, and once horse and rider cleared the stable block, Oz let the leathers slip through his fingers. With extended rein and curbless mouth, Sukha was soon racing flat out over the downs.

Literally escaping entanglement, Oz rode fast and hard over the green hills and dales, eyes narrowed against the wind, his hair disheveled by the breeze, his ears deaf to the thunder of calamity riding his coattails. He didn’t want to reason or debate, referee or adjudicate; he just wanted to bolt.

Evade and avoid.

Until he no longer could.

The banner of defeat hoisted itself at the signpost for the village of Upper Framton, where his exhausted mount stumbled and nearly went down. Leaping from the saddle, Oz apologized to Sukha, who’d carried him across most of India as well as along London’s fashionable gallops, and turning back, he walked his lathered horse until the huge chestnut was rested enough to take his weight again.

His return to Oak Knoll proceeded at a gentle pace, the March light slowly fading, a light mist rising in the low ground as evening approached. No matter how often he tried to flee—whether from formidable memory or disquieting emotion—Khair’s memory remained fixed in his mind: beautiful and full of grace, her skin like alabaster against her dark hair, her eyes smiling, her soft voice teasing and playful. They’d grown up together at the court in Hyderabad, had always assumed they’d marry. But his suit had been rejected, her family committed to a union that would ally them to a powerful northern prince. Not that her family had had a hand in her death, but they’d been the reason she’d taken her own life rather than marry a man she didn’t love.

A part of him had died with her that day, and in the years since, he’d not found the means to salvage his life. Immediately after Khair’s funeral, he’d fled to England, where he’d dealt with his anguish in his own dissolute way. He was there when his father and mother had died, both prey to a summer fever that decimated the Anglo community. And ironically, while his English ancestry had cost him the woman he loved, the fact that his grandmother had been a native of Hyderabad permitted him to inherit the largest bank in India. Not adequate compensation for so heavy a loss of those he loved, but at least his road to destruction was paved with limitless gold.

Long accustomed to his particular method of escape, he was case-hardened to withdrawal, untaxed by the sensibilities that touched other men, thick-skinned with practice, and wholly selfish. Devoted to no living soul, when he finally came to a decision apropos Isolde, it was unequivocal. His certainty would have come as no surprise to those who knew him.

The moon was pale on the horizon when he rode into the stable yard, all turmoil and doubt resolved.

Isolde, unable to evade the behemoth in the room, had spent the ensuing hours fretting and stewing and in general working herself into a pet. It wasn’t that she was blaming Oz completely; naturally, she shared responsibility. Nor was she irrational when it came to the necessary decision making
if
—there was still the remote possibility she was jumping to conclusions—
if
she should be pregnant. However, she didn’t think herself unduly difficult in expecting Oz to discuss the situation. Although that might be too demanding for a man who’d apparently avoided permanence in his relationships. More to the point, a man who’d offered her his name with the clear understanding that there existed an express time limit to the offer.

It was her mistake, she ruefully thought, to have become so enamored and infatuated that she’d surrendered completely to passion and neglected the most fundamental prudence. Resting her head against the chair back, she softly groaned.