Sexy As Hell (Berkley Sensation)

by Susan Johnson

  There was no reply that wouldn’t offend. But he murmured “Thank you for coming” very softly and meant it—that small corner of his soul momentarily exposed.

  “You’re entirely welcome.” Her reply was neutral, as if they’d completed some business transaction of no consequence. Then she glanced at the door, Oz quickly moved to open it, and looking out, she saw Sam waiting at the curb.

  A moment later, as the carriage pulled away, Oz closed the door and turning on his heel, swiftly made for the bathroom off the entrance hall where he was violently sick.

  When it was over, he was white and shaking, gasping for breath. Pushing himself off his knees, he slowly rose to his feet and walked to the green travertine sink. The man in the mirror was wan and gaunt with dilated eyes, his skin moist with sweat. He looked away, turned the faucets on full, rinsed out his mouth, then shoved his head under the stream of hot water until he stopped shaking. Straightening, he smoothed his wet hair back with his palms, wiped his face with a towel, and walking out into the hall, said to Josef, “Don’t let anyone in you don’t know.”

  “A problem, sir? Do you need help?” Oz was sweating profusely.

  “Not just yet.” And he made for the kitchen, sheer will keeping him upright.

  Once there, he waved for Achille to follow him into his apartment and told him to shut the door. As Achille gazed at him with alarm, Oz sat down heavily, spread his arms on the kitchen table as if for support, and lifting his black gaze, said, “I just retched up a deal of blood along with my breakfast. My guts are raw and mutilated. I’m wondering who poisoned me.”

  “Christ! You need a doctor!”

  “No. There’s nothing he can do anyway. I need to know if we have any new help in the kitchen, in the house, for that matter. Have any tradesmen you don’t recognize been around lately—anyone out of the ordinary?”

  “I haven’t noticed, but I’ll ask the staff. Let me get you something—water, coffee, lemon juice and sugar?”

  “Water—bottled.” Oz followed Achille with his eyes as he hastened to a cabinet. “I’m dying of thirst. Thank you,” he said a second later as Achille handed him a bottle of Apollinaris, uncapped as he watched.

  As Oz drank a small amount, his swallowing impaired by the poison, Achille said, “Someone in India ordered this. Do you know who?”

  Oz blinked to clear his blurred vision. “The lovely cartel trying to take over my banks, of course.”

  “Have they tried before? You were sick a few mornings ago.”

  “I don’t know.” His voice was weak, the room wavering around him. “I thought I’d just drunk too much. But this time there’s no question—I’ve all the symptoms. My heart’s racing, my eyes are dilated so much the light hurts, blurred vision, can’t swallow.

  “Belladonna,” Achille said shortly—a favorite in India. “You threw up, though. That should help.”

  Neither man said what they were thinking; there was no known antidote.

  “Here’s hoping.” Oz clenched his fists against an involuntary tremor convulsing his body. “I feel like shit.”

  “We should call a doctor.”

  Nothing moved in Oz’s braced body but his gaze. “No.”

  “I’ll make you some broth. Something to soothe your stomach.”

  Oz grinned faintly. “Not unless you kill the cow yourself. Do you have some cans of anything?”

  Achille looked affronted, then quickly said, “I’ll go out and buy some soup myself. I’ll open the can in your room, warm it on the grate.”

  “Later. I feel like sleeping.”

  Achille knew better than to express his disquietude. Oz had slept erratically or not at all for weeks. The poison must be taking its toll. “We’ll watch over you. Don’t say a word; none of us wants you to die in your sleep.” Convulsions, coma, and death—in that order—were typical of belladonna poisoning.

  “Least of all, me.” Oz’s brows flickered. “Especially after my wife’s very agreeable visit. Perhaps I can induce her to call on me again.”

  Achille scowled. “She would have stayed if you hadn’t sent her away.”

  “Romantic soul,” Oz said gently. “No, she wouldn’t have.”

  “Surely you could have convinced her. She’s having your child for Christ’s sake.”

  “Ah—the mystery child.”

  “You’re an ass,” Achille said with disgust. “But time enough to lecture you when you’re not on your deathbed. You’re going to faint where you sit.”

  Oz raised weary eyebrows. “How kind of you to notice. Now, could we get back to more relevant issues? Throw out all the food and liquor—particularly the brandy. It tasted like hell. My enemies chose to poison the liquor, I expect. Fortunately, Isolde drank nothing but tea. Dispose of everything where some scrap man doesn’t scavenge it and die because of me. In the morning—the gods willing—I’ll deal with my detractors.”

  “I’ll send a telegram to my friends in India.”

  Achille had met a motley crew during his sojourn in the Maldives.

  “Thank you, but no,” Oz said. “My relatives will take care of my enemies in Hyderabad for me.” Oz supported an extended family of second and third cousins in India in regal splendor. They, in turn, were grateful, not to mention capable of retaliation—subtle or cold-blooded; Oz’s sense of vengeance was equally vindictive. “And I’ll talk to Davey and Sam about my London rivals.” If he lived, those who’d done this to him would regret it.

  But grey with pain he did nearly faint when he rose from his chair, and instead of going to his office, Achille helped him to his bedroom. Davey and Sam arrived shortly after, both careful to disguise their apprehension at Oz’s appearance. His skin was turning blue as he sat in bed, his hair damply matted on his head, and even with a quilt thrown over his shoulders he was shivering uncontrollably.

  “You know the names of those in the cartel, Davey. Find their cohorts here in town.” He inhaled deeply, and the men saw the effort it took to speak. “I’ll see them tomorrow. Send a telegram to my relatives in Hyderabad. They know what to do.”

  “You have to drink liquids to rinse the poison from your system,” Sam said, clutching at straws, knowing the poison as well as anyone, knowing it was too late.

  “I will, thank you,” Oz politely said, the toxins already in every cell and tissue, in his coursing blood and ravaged guts.

  “Don’t worry, sir, Sam and I’ll take care of everything,” Davey interposed. “No one must have thought to mention your size. It may have saved you.”

  “We’ll see.” Oz’s voice was very weak. “Are . . . we . . . done?” He lay back, his rapid pulse making his head spin; whoever had done this to him was of less concern right now than trying to keep his lungs working.

  “We’re done,” Sam firmly said, signaling to Davey that he was staying.

  Oz’s secretary looked back as he followed Achille from the room, a last question on his lips.

  But Oz was already sleeping or unconscious or dying.

  Sam, Achille, Davey, and Josef took turns watching Oz that night, fearful he might stop breathing—the drug capable of paralyzing the nervous system. Or he could deteriorate further into a coma. More than once during the long night, they considered sending for his wife.

  But ultimately, none dared breach the barricades Oz had erected against sentiment after Khair’s death and those of his parents.

  None of his attendants slept that night, each intent on making Oz as comfortable as they could: changing the bedclothes when they became soaked, offering him water when he’d wake in a daze with dry lips and a parched mouth, talking to him in his delirium, offering succor when his night-mares raged.

  Everyone watched the clock, waiting for sunrise, as if daylight signaled a degree of success. And whether it did or not, everyone exhaled a sigh of relief when dawn broke.

  Oz had survived the night, his breathing was improved, as was his color; he was sweating less, and the convulsions had stilled. That he was young an
d strong was in his favor. They were all hopeful now when they hadn’t been so many times during the long hours of the night.

  Sam left to marshal his men, Davey to see if he had any responses to his telegrams, Achille to personally shop for Oz’s breakfast. While Josef sat with Oz, thinking as always that his young master reminded him more of his mother than his father; no blunt, sober, reliable Lennox lay before him, although the former baron had unequivocally loved his rebellious, intemperate son. Oz had all his mother’s charm; they could both delight with word and smile. And now the young boy he’d watched grow to manhood would live to see his child born, Josef pleasantly thought. He was in touch with the staff at Oak Knoll, as would be any conscientious retainer.

  Oz woke to find Achille cooking his breakfast over the bedroom grate. “Scrambled eggs the way you like them,” his chef said, smiling over his shoulder. “I bought and cracked every egg myself.”

  “I can’t be dead,” Oz croaked, “because I feel so bloody rotten.”

  “You’ll feel better after you eat.”

  Oz turned his head, was gratified to find that his eyeballs didn’t explode, and slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position. He was lightheaded and unsteady, and everything from head to toe that could ache, ached. “I think,” he said, conscious of his stench, “first I need a bath.” Carefully swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he waited until the ringing in his ears stopped before he tried to stand.

  Achille was at his side, his arm out to steady him. “You’re hard to kill.”

  “My enemies will discover that to their regret,” Oz said, waving away his help, closing his mind to the pain. “Catch me if I fall, and thank you, by the way. You haven’t slept, I presume.”

  “I will tonight. One question,” Achille said with a grin, walking beside Oz as he made for the bathroom. “If you don’t mind.”

  “I fear something vulgar with that grin. Would it help if I said I minded?”

  “Not after all the years we’ve known each other. I was just wondering how you managed to function during your wife’s, er, visit when you were being laid waste by poison?”

  Oz smiled. “At first belladonna stimulates the central nervous system, and later,” he said, exquisitely sardonic, “although the effort was increasingly harrowing, the prize was worth the discomfort.”

  CHAPTER 28

  JUSTICE WAS SWIFT and efficient, Oz directing it with no fuss and a carafe of ice water on the desk by his right hand.

  The five men who had the most to gain from his death had been brought together by various means, from their homes or clubs, offices or mistresses’ beds, one from his morning ride in Rotten Row. They were now seated, sweating and fearful, in a row of hard-backed chairs opposite Oz’s desk in the building that housed his shipping line. Sam, Davey, and Sam’s troops lined the walls.

  It was early morning—not yet nine—Oz was fed and fresh from his bath, his tailoring impeccable, his smile bland, his hands loose on the smooth mahogany before him; only his cold-eyed gaze reflected his vicious state of mind.

  “I have no intention of hurting you,” he began when the silence had become unendurable to the coerced men who had never before been treated with such violence, who had only given orders to brutalize others from the safety of their fine homes or offices. “Unless you choose to be uncooperative. As you see, I survived your attempt on my life. Allow me to point out that I’ll not be so derelict should it be necessary to end yours.” He offered them a look of serene and arrogant calm. “I hope I make myself clear. Now then, as to your associates in India—-they are no more; my relatives are less lenient than I. Pray take a moment to acknowledge the good health you still enjoy because of me.”

  No one moved, not his captives, nor his retainers, the air crisp with catastrophe.

  After the small pause allowed for personal reflection, Oz pleasantly said, “I should kill you all. Normally I would with any man so stupid as to try and rob me of my banks. If you continue to press me, I will kill you and perhaps your families as well. I suggest you watch what you eat, what your wife and children eat, watch the servants who attend you, the retainers at your clubs, anyone who gives you a cup of tea, a plate of food, a glass of wine. If you don’t already know fear, make another attempt on my life and you’ll know it with certainty. Then you’ll die.” He exhaled softly. “Now get out.”

  There was a ragged moment of silence.

  The prominent, influential men who set great store on their consequence, who had always felt the execution of the law was in their own hands, looked white-faced one to the other, unsure whether to move, terrified they might suffer for such a misstep. The young man before them was half their age or younger even, indifferent to their prestige and power, unforgiving, violent.

  “You’ll be watched,” Oz said, visibly impatient now. “Every movement, every minute. Now go.”

  Then he leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes.

  A few minutes later the room was silent.

  “Christ, we’re going to have to hire a bloody army to watch them all,” Oz said into the quiet.

  “Fortunately, it won’t be a problem.”

  Eyes still closed, Oz smiled. “How many times is that now,” he wearily said, “that wealthy swindlers have set out to rob me of my fortune?” Then he opened his eyes, clasped his hands lightly on the desktop, and said with the extraordinary degree of self-control that only rarely deserted him, “One too many. I should have killed them.”

  “You should have.” Sam stood alone by the door, the throng dispersed. “You’re young; they think you’re vulnerable.”

  “Next time I will,” Oz said flatly, pushing himself out of his chair, his strength depleted, the effort it took to come down to his office and deal with his adversaries costing him dearly. “We’ll prepare the surveillance lists at home.” Moving around the edge of his desk, he slowly walked to the door. “I wonder what my wife’s doing while we’re chastising the extortionists of the world?” he said with a sudden smile.

  “Farming.”

  Oz laughed. “Christ, I forgot. You’re right.”

  SAM WAS HALF-RIGHT.

  Isolde was following her head gardener, Forbes, through the drifts of daffodils that ran down her south lawn to the river.

  “Just a wee bit farther, Miss Izzy. You ain’t never seen such a sight. Now hush, mind, or they’ll hear us.”

  As they reached the border of the lawn, where the daffodils gave way to a small copse of beeches planted long ago by an earlier Wraxell, the gardener put his finger to his mouth and then pointed.

  Following the line of his arm, Isolde peered through the dappled shadows under the trees and saw the rare sight promised by old Forbes, who’d seen all there was to see on the Wraxell lands. On a bed of green moss, in the curve of its mother’s body, lay a snow-white fawn, tiny and delicate. Isolde unconsciously sucked in her breath, and the small sound brought the doe’s head up.

  She and Forbes stood motionless, scarcely breathing, until the doe’s attention returned to her fawn. Then, slowly backing away until they were out of range, they returned to the house.

  Standing on the drive, Forbes said, “I were wondering if’n we should snare the pair and carry them into the paddock so the young’n ain’t harmed by the hounds or mayhap a wild pig.”

  “It might disturb them too much; the fawn looks newborn.”

  “Still, miss, yon might be kilt if we don’t take a hand.”

  Isolde softly sighed, the helplessness of the little fawn triggering a rush of maternal emotion. “Moving them could be traumatic. Might food be set out for the doe without frightening her? Then she wouldn’t have to leave the security of the copse.”

  “Mayhap we could.”

  She couldn’t tell if he agreed or was being polite. “Talk to Grover. I’ll defer to his judgment.”

  “Yes’m.”

  But she couldn’t rid her mind of the tender image—the vulnerable fawn and protective mother, the aching beauty of t
he scene. Or maybe seeing Oz yesterday made her more susceptible to emotion. She should have been sensible and refused him, but then what woman could? He made the world disappear with a smile or a single word; she had no proof against such disarming appeal. But allowing him to entice her into his bed, to have yielded to his sweet and versatile talents only made her sense of loss worse.

  She had in the weeks since he’d left her reconstructed her life; she’d even thought she’d reached a stage of rational equilibrium where she could meet him with stoic self-command.

  And now those barricades must be erected all over again. As defenseless as the young fawn, as vulnerable, she went to the nursery that was being prepared for her child—for Oz’s child—and shutting the door behind her, sat in the rocker that had been brought out of storage, and quietly broke down and cried.

  She’d had the misfortune to fall in love with a man who was adored by every woman who came within range of his magnetic, effortless charm. And with the exception of their passionate sexual encounters, he otherwise treated her as he did all women once the heat of desire had cooled—with patient kindness . . . until they left.

  She wondered if he ever thought of her—of his child.

  Or if she and the child were forgotten as were all the other women.

  She wondered if it was only vanity that had tears leaving wet paths on her face but knew better before the thought was even finished.

  It was unfortunate, that was all.

  She’d fallen in love with a man who, once the sexual play was over, could ignore with equanimity the displeasure of a great number of women. And would continue to do so in the future.

  That her eyes were open to his faults did not in any fashion absolve her from the ensuing heartache.

  A timid tap on the door interrupted her gloomy thoughts, and quickly wiping the wetness from her cheeks, she said, “Enter.”

  It was Grover, who out of politeness averted his gaze. “You’ll be pleased to know that the fawn and mother are safe, Miss Izzy. Forbes said you’d wish to know.”