Susan Johnson - Sexy As Hell

It was a brief two lines giving their names and the marriage date. Oz glanced at it, handed it across the small table to Isolde, who surveyed it and gave it back.

“Have it published in all the papers tomorrow,” Oz instructed, holding it out to his secretary. “We should be gone from the city before the news is broadcast.”

“Very good, sir. Are you home today?”

Oz looked at Isolde. “Are we home?”

She shook her head.

“We are not it seems,” he said with a smile for his wife. As his secretary walked out, Oz gestured at a small gold coffer of medieval character, set with large cabochon gems.

“Pick out a more appropriate wedding ring. My mother kept some of her jewelry in London. There should be something suitable in there.”

“I don’t need a ring, but thank you. I expect you want your signet back.” Quickly sliding the ruby cut with the Lennox cipher off her thumb, she handed it to him across the small table.

“Don’t argue. Think how tongues will wag in the ton if I don’t bestow a suitably lavish symbol of my affection on my new bride. Be a good girl,” he quietly said, “and take one.”

She’d not yet come to know how much he disliked resistance, but understood beneath the softness of his voice was a well-mannered command.

“Very well, but you may have it back later,” she said with equal imperiousness, at which he smiled and said, “Of course. As you wish.”

Then he committed himself to entertaining Jess, speaking low, explaining the names of the dinosaurs, helping the toddler rearrange the figures to his satisfaction, not so much as glancing Isolde’s way as she selected her wedding ring from a sumptuous collection of jewels.

“There, are you happy now?” She held out her hand, a heart-shaped ruby sparkling on her ring finger.

There was a small pause while Oz obliged Jess by moving a figure slightly to the left before he turned to his new bride and smiled. “Very well behaved. Thank you.” Then his smile changed to one of lethal charm and he said, “Forgive me for being childish. I’m afraid I’m not used to a wife. That was one of my mother’s favorite rings by the way. It suits you.”

“I apologize as well. We are both singularly determined.”

“I remember that,” he softly said, delight in his gaze. “A quality I much admire in you.”

She flushed deeply and nervously glanced at Achille.

“Achille hears nothing, darling. Do you, Achille?” Oz murmured with a raised brow to his friend standing by the sideboard.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Oz turned back to Isolde. “There, you see? We are quite alone, especially while Jess is transfixed with his toys. Now, come, darling,” he placidly said, “enjoy your breakfast.”

But even as the newlyweds breakfasted with a noisy, busy toddler, rumors of Lennox’s marriage were racing like wild-fire through the ton. A servant at Blackwood’s Hotel had spoken of the surprising marriage to his cousin who valeted for the Duke of Buccleuch-disclosing the news in the strictest confidence, of course. The duke’s valet whispered the juicy bit of gossip into the butler’s ear who in turn conveyed the astonishing tidbit to his counterpart in the Earl of Derby’s household. And so it went, the shocking event made known to the whole of society in less than two hours.

As reports of their marriage were touching off shock and wonderment in boudoirs and breakfast rooms around town, Oz and Isolde shared a companionable meal, finding that they could converse easily like friends of long-standing rather than recent acquaintances. Jess had been diverted with his toy chest, which was conveniently at hand under the sideboard, and was oblivious to the adults as only a toddler fully engaged in play could be.

Oz, having eaten well, was at ease, his wife’s presence across the table surprisingly soothing-a revelation for a man who’d always carefully avoided morning-after occasions. It occurred to him that she was very restful. She didn’t disrupt his normal routine or look askance at Jess, who hadn’t yet warmed to a new acquaintance at breakfast; nor did she introduce a jarring note into what had always been for him a tranquil time. She quietly read the paper, commenting from time to time on some topic that actually interested him, intelligently answering his infrequent remarks with a degree of acuteness that made him conclude that he might have been amusing himself with very shallow females prior to Miss Perceval.

Isolde was equally surprised she was so comfortable with a man she barely knew. Furthermore, a man of such notable seductive skills hardly seemed the type who would entertain a child at breakfast and manage to exude tranquility across the breakfast table as well. And yet he did. Like an old shoe, she incredulously thought.

WHILE THE NEWLYWEDS were breakfasting а trois, two people in London were particularly hard hit by the news of Oz and Isolde’s nuptials.

Compton was somewhat the worse for drink despite the hour, but then he’d been roughly handled earlier that morning and had just cause for imbibing. On being given the inauspicious tidings by his valet, he swore roundly, poured himself another drink, drank it down, then sent for a shady fellow and a shadier solicitor he knew.

At her maid’s mention of Oz’s new wife, Nell’s shriek echoed all the way down to the kitchen, the servants throughout the sprawling house flinching at the sound. Lady Howe’s temper was fearsome. Her next scream-freezing the blood in all within range of her voice-was for her carriage to be brought round. Then, hurling her breakfast tray on the floor, she leaped out of bed, bellowing for her abigail.

In the course of her toilette, she took out her fury on the poor woman, unmercifully threatening and upbraiding her at every turn, finding fault with all her words and actions, using the young maid servant as a convenient target for every item of clothing, bit of jewelry, comb, brush, or hairpin that offended her. By the time Nell finally stalked from her boudoir, the floor was littered, but London’s reigning beauty was modishly, even dashingly attired. Her fox cape and black velvet gown served as stunning foil to her pale skin and red hair; pearls the size of pigeon eggs glistened at her throat and ears, and a small beaded bonnet was picturesquely perched on her upswept curls. With her pert chin high, her cherry red lips pursed, she sallied forth to ferret out the truth.

The instant the bedroom door closed on her mistress, the abigail, ashen and shaking, collapsed in tears. As she loudly sniffled and sobbed, she vowed to seek out another position even if it meant taking a post at some lesser establishment. Even if she was reduced to working for some arriviste mushrooms.

For her part, Nell was vowing to get to the bottom of the ridiculous, outrageous rumor making the rounds of London. She had no intention of giving up a virile, captivating, obscenely handsome lover like Oz! None at all!

IT WAS NO surprise to at least one of the occupants enjoying coffee in the baron’s morning room sometime later, when a distrait servant burst in stammering an apology, followed closely by a beautiful, glowering woman in red fox and black velvet who swept into the room like a whirlwind.

“Sorry, sir,” the servant quavered, sweating. “She weren’t-”

“Never mind, Jack. You did your best.” A master at awkward situations, Oz rose from the sofa to face his irrate lover.

“To what do we owe this early-morning visit, Nell?” he blandly inquired.

“Tell me you didn’t actually do it!” Nell retorted, ill-humored and sulky, swiftly advancing on Oz, her porcelain brow marred by a scowl.

“News travels fast below stairs it seems.”

“As you well know! Is it true? It can’t be!” Halting before him, she raked him with a glance. “You did, didn’t you! How could you?” she cried, stamping her foot and swatting him with her beaded purse.

“Allow me to make my wife known to you, Nell,” Oz remarked, not about to respond to her outburst. Taking a step back, he glanced at Isolde seated on the sofa. “Countess Wraxell in her own right, meet Lady Howe. Nell and I are old friends.”

If looks could kill, Isolde thought with amusement as the stylish redhead raked her with a murderous glance, her husband would have been widowed on the spot. As for old friends, it was obvious they were rather more than that. “Good morning, Lady Howe. Would you like coffee or do you prefer tea?”

Oz smiled at his wife, charmed by her poise.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nell snapped. “I didn’t come here for tea.” Flushed with anger, she turned to Oz. “I came to speak with you.”

“Say what you like,” he answered.

“I doubt your wife would care to hear what I have to say.” Snobbish and snide, she dismissed the young woman in the unfashionable gown.

“I’m sure Isolde won’t care; we deal well together.” Shock and chagrin registered for a flashing moment on Nell’s face, his fondness plain when he mentioned his wife. Impossible; not Oz. It must have been a lapse of some kind. “Very well, suit yourself,” Nell said sweetly, shifting her tactics, although the quick look she cast Isolde’s way was anything but sweet. “The truth now, darling,” she murmured, brushing Oz’s arm with her gloved finger in a proprietary gesture. “Surely, this must be some jest.”

“Not in the least.”

She tried to interpret his tempered tone. “Is it some absurd wager?”

“No.”

His placid reply and faint shrug left little doubt he spoke the truth. “I can’t believe you actually married this, this-little nobody from nowhere,” she petulantly accused, volatile and sullen once again. “You were supposed to meet me at Blackwood’s last night!”