Susan Johnson - Sexy As Hell

“Your bath is ready, my lady.”

A young maid appeared from behind a latticework screen.

She lived more simply in the country. Not that Oak Knoll wasn’t a sprawling Tudor mansion filled with relics from the past, but Oz’s home was resplendent of wealth, from the huge staff to the glorious furnishings suggestive of eastern potentates.

“My lady, the water’s cooling.”

Prodded from her reverie, Isolde quickly said, “Thank you. I’ll be right there.” But she would do well to remember that a marriage of convenience had no room for emotion. Especially with a man like Oz.

Driven by hunger, Oz sped through his toilette, and fifteen minutes later, bathed and dressed, his wet hair slicked back, he entered the breakfast room and inhaled the welcome fragrance of hot coffee and bacon.

“Congratulations. I hear she’s very lovely.” Achille was standing beside the sideboard.

“She is, thank you. I need coffee.” Oz made for the table, where his chair was occupied as it was most mornings by a two-year-old, fair-haired boy who at the moment was smiling at him through a mouthful of jam-filled pastry, the remnants of the cruller held out to Oz in one sticky hand.

“At your place. I ground it myself. What can I get you this morning?”

“Two of everything-make that three. Morning, Jess. Is that good? It looks good.” As the little boy vigorously nodded and chewed, his uplifted face shining, Oz picked him up, sat down with the toddler on his lap, and reached for his coffee cup. “Thank you, Achille,” he said, his gratitude plain as he lifted the cup to his mouth. “I need this.”

“Try dis!”

Narrowly averting an ungentle meeting between pastry and coffee cup, Oz swept his cup aside just as the much-handled cruller struck his chin. He laughed. “You missed-here,” he said, bending his head, “try again.”

“Me wike.” A wide, jammy smile. “You wike, too.”

This time the pastry was on target to the satisfaction of one chubby-cheeked toddler who liked Oz as much as Oz liked him. The son of a new member of his staff, Jess often enlivened Oz’s mornings.

“Not much sleep last night?” Achille set two plates before Oz.

“Very little.”

“I thought so. I made the coffee strong.”

The men were of an age and friends of long-standing. Oz had found Achille in the Maldives years ago where the cook had been stranded when his employer along with his employer’s yacht had been sunk by the pirates who plagued the eastern waters. A long way from his home in Marseilles, Achille had been cooking in a waterfront dive; Oz had hired him on the spot.

Quickly draining his cup of coffee while Jess busied himself running his sticky fingers down the gold buttons of Oz’s waistcoat, Oz set down the empty cup. “That was a lifesaver. Now some food and I might survive another day.”

“She must have been delightful, but you don’t usually marry them.”

“It’s a long story. One I can’t divulge at the moment. But in time, all will be revealed.”

“Sounds mysterious.” Achille reached down, picked up a damp cloth, conveniently set on the table for just such a purpose, and quickly wiped Jess’s fingers as the toddler struggled against his grip.

Oz shook his head, chewing a mouthful of very wet scrambled eggs done just as he liked them. “Not mysterious,” he said a moment later. “Just a minor crisis. Soon to be resolved.”

His attention diverted from the buttons, Jess recalled more important issues. “Me toy, me toy, me toy!”

It was a daily ritual. “Look in this jacket pocket.” Oz pointed. “And tell me if you know what’s in there.” While the boy was plunging both hands into Oz’s pocket, Oz asked, “Is that the bacon from Normandy? It is? Give yourself a raise. I thought you couldn’t get any more once Monsieur Battie died.” He speared a thinly sliced round.

“His grandson came home from Paris and took over the farm.”

He smiled without looking up. “Obliging boy. Give him a raise, too.”

“You’re in a damned good mood for a man who vowed never to marry.”

Oz said, “It’s your food, Achille,” before turning his attention to the boy in his lap.

Having pulled out two small, brightly painted animals, Jess was frowning at them.

“Do you know what they are?” Oz gently asked.

“Cows?”

“Dinosaurs. There’s more in the other pocket. Set them on the table and I’ll tell you their names.”

As Jess was digging in Oz’s other pocket, he returned to his breakfast.

“I think your good spirits might be because of something more than my food,” Achille remarked, Oz’s marriage as shocking as his casual disregard of the event.

“Don’t get all intuitive and sensitive on me,” Oz scornfully said, scooping up another forkful of eggs. “You’re wasting your time.”

“As you say,” Achille acceded, Oz’s reply exceedingly blunt. He changed the subject. “I hope my lady likes Madagascar chocolate.”

“God knows. We’ll find out. Here, Jess, line them up here; there should be five. Can you count to five?” He looked up. “What did she ask for? I didn’t listen.”

“Steak and kidney pie if I had any in the larder.”

“For breakfast?” Oz shrugged. “Did you have any?”

“Of course. And cake.”

“She wanted cake? I suppose you had that, too.”

“Need you ask?”

Oz grinned. “No, you smug bastard.”

“You keep an excellent kitchen, mi’lor,” Achille said with a smile.

“Do I indeed? Glad to hear it. On a serious note, though, we’re going into the country soon, and I need you along. Her cook won’t know how to prepare Indian food. There’s one more, Jess. You have to find one more.”

“I’ll start packing supplies after breakfast.”

“We leave either tomorrow or the next day.” Oz glanced up as the door opened, bent to whisper in Jess’s ear, quickly came to his feet, and left the little boy in his chair, busy with his dinosaurs.

With a bow for his new mistress, Achille returned to the sideboard to fetch Isolde’s breakfast.

Oz moved to greet his wife and, meeting her in the center of the large room, casually said to the question in her eyes, “He’s the son of my sous-chef’s sister. He likes to breakfast with me. By the way, you look good enough to eat.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “I like your girlish gown.”

She wore a simple morning dress of raspberry silk with a matching ribbon in her pale, frothy hair. It was the only gown she’d packed, and the traveling dress she’d worn to London needed pressing.

Since nonchalance seemed to be the order of the day, not to mention perhaps the usual mode of living for her new husband, Isolde lightly said, “You clean up rather nicely yourself.” His tweed jacket and buff trousers were casual morning attire, his gleaming half boots testament to his valet’s competence. His crisp linen was immaculate, his foulard waistcoat smeared with jam the only flaw in the elegance of his dress.

“Two-year-olds,” he said, noting her glance. “The bane of my valet. Although I’m assuming we’ll be undressing again soon anyway. Malmsey won’t be back until afternoon.”

“How tempting,” she said. “You do know how to-” Isolde paused at a knock on the door.

A young man entered at Oz’s bidding, and after escorting Isolde to her seat at the table and resuming his, toddler on his lap, Oz introduced her. Jess was devoted to lining up dinosaurs on the linen cloth.

“Darling, this is my secretary, Charles Davey. Charles, my lady wife. You have the announcement I see.” Oz nodded at the sheet of paper in Davey’s hand.

“For your perusal, sir, and”-he dipped his head toward Isolde-“my lady.”

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.