“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
