Sexy As Hell

CHAPTER 31

TWO DAYS LATER, Oz was deep in a high-stakes game at Brooks’s, debating which of several good cards to discard, when a player newly come to town said, “I saw your wife at Fowler’s the other day.” Ignoring the frantic shaking of heads from those standing behind Oz’s chair, the young Earl of Quarles continued walking into the lion’s den. “She’s not only dazzling, but she rides like an Amazon. She outrode everyone in the hunting field.”

Oz had stopped breathing.

The silence was so profound, the hiss and crackle of the fire could be heard from across the room.

Smoothly recovering himself, Oz’s gaze, judiciously blank, rested on the earl’s face. “At Fowler’s you say?”

Quarles, suddenly aware of the hush, more aware of the sleek chill in Oz’s voice, began to sweat. “I may… have… been mistaken,” he stammered.

Feeling not only cold but also bloodless, Oz set down his cards and pushed himself upright in his chair. “I doubt it. She rides well. Not that I’m sure she should be riding in her condition,” he murmured, his dark gaze so punitive no one dared respond to the startling admission. “Was she there long?”

“I-that is… you see-”

The buffeting, obsessive sensations so long held in check broke free, and abandoning reason and the role of complaisant husband, Oz said in a voice held steady only with effort, “Tell me or I’ll cut out your liver.”

“She was still there when I left after dinner,” the young man choked out in a rush of words, ashen and cringing under the lethal gaze.

“And what time would that have been?” Whisper soft, knife sharp, murderous.

No one dared interfere, the men at the table silent, the entire room hushed and expectant. Oz in his cups was a child of danger; drunk for weeks, he was the prince of darkness.

“Eleven,” Quarles answered, white-eyed and barely breathing.

“You’ve been most helpful,” Oz said. Picking up his cards again, he swept the table with a glance. “Are we playing or not?”

Disaster averted, the buzz of conversation resumed, although Quarles took the first opportunity given him to escape. Oz didn’t even look up as he left the game, his thoughts divided between his cards and his morning’s schedule.

The conversation between Oz and Quarles was repeated like a drumbeat throughout the club rooms, the tantalizing news soon carried farther afield by noble young sprigs leaving the club for other social pursuits. By morning, the story in all its explosive detail had raced through the beau monde, spurred and energized by the stunning news of Oz’s impending fatherhood.

Not only had the perennial bachelor been snared.

But a child was also on the horizon… and so quickly.

People immediately began counting on their fingers.

What lovely tittle-tattle! Would he discard his lovers? Or more to the point, how often would he visit his breeding wife in the country? No one seriously expected him to relinquish his lovers. Although, with poor Quarles having only narrowly escaped serious harm, it was deliciously apparent that Lennox was jealous of his wife.

Astonishing!

It quite staggered the imagination!