He was mindless now. Almost boneless as they moved frantically together. She came on a low, keening cry, gripping his shaft. Delicious pleasure shot through him, his ballocks going tight once more. There was no control left in him as he pinned her to the bed and fucked her again, making his claim upon her.
He tore his lips from hers and tipped back his head as he poured himself into her a second time. White-hot pleasure rolled up and down his spine, filling his head with a fog.
Drained, he rolled to his back at her side. He felt as if he were fashioned of lead. An invading army could not rouse him from this bed. Isabella curled against him, resting her head on his chest.
Their breaths were ragged, and his heart pounded.
“I am sorry,” he told her when he could catch his breath.
She stroked his chest, the night soft and dark and deliciously quiet all around them after a day spent in the presence of so many others. “Why?”
He sifted his hand through her beautiful blonde curls, pleased they were not bound in one of her chignons. “For being beastly to you the first day we met.”
She kissed his shoulder. “And what of being so beastly to my lady typewriters?”
He could not contain his rueful grin. “Having witnessed your incredible skill, I am willing to acknowledge they were well-trained. It was merely their delivery which was lacking.”
“Perhaps you intimidated them.” She stroked over his collarbone, her fingertips lightly grazing his scarred flesh.
Though Dr. Gilmore had stitched him neatly, his skin would never be the same. But he did not give a damn. If this was the price to pay for having the woman he loved lying upon him right now, his duchess, he would pay it again and with nary a hint of regret. After all, she had been willing to do the same for him. And her bravery in the aftermath of his wounding was unimaginable. She had saved his life as well, in more ways than one.
“Why should I intimidate them?” he asked, lifting one of her curls in his thumb and forefinger, then watching it fall to the ivory smoothness of her back. “You were not intimidated. I distinctly recall just how unimpressed you were with me.”
She had descended upon his study like a raging storm, back stiffened, clad in black.
And he had been smitten, even then.
“I was too furious with you to be intimidated,” she said softly, raising her head to look at him. Love shone in her brilliant eyes. “I am heartily glad I was not. Otherwise, I would never have returned, and you would have been without a typewriter.”
“I realized quite quickly it was not a typewriter I wanted at all.” He caressed the sleek, satiny skin of her jaw. “It was the other half of my heart. An intelligent, fierce woman who built a business of her own. A woman who takes my breath every time I look at her. A woman who was brave enough to endure hell and still somehow manage to save my life.”
She smiled, then pressed a reverent kiss to his palm. “Do I know this paragon?”
“Mmm.” He traced her lip with his thumb, loving the freedom to touch her, however he liked. They were man and woman, together joined. Forever. “Her name is the Duchess of Westmorland.”
“I have it on good authority that she is madly in love with the Duke of Westmorland,” she said, nipping his thumb with her sharp little teeth.
“A love match, then.” He grinned at her like the besotted fool he was, wondering how the devil he had gotten so fortunate.
“The lady typewriter and the fearless duke,” she agreed.
He drew her to him, unable to resist kissing her again. “It sounds like a book I would like to read.”
“Even if it is a book of poems?” she teased.
“Even then,” he agreed, and then his mouth settled upon hers once more.
Epilogue
Boswell Manor, Oxfordshire
“It is rather like a gathering of the Special League and the Lady’s Suffrage Society all at once,” Isabella told Benedict, sotto voce as they made their way to the extensive Boswell Manor gardens for a picnic luncheon.
They were guests at the country house party to surpass all country house parties. Hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Bainbridge, those in attendance included Lord and Lady Stanwyck, along with the Dukes and Duchesses of Carlisle, Strathmore, Arden, and Winchelsea.
“All the finest minds,” her husband agreed mildly, “united for one week of revelry. And an infantry brigade’s worth of small children. Egad, how many children does the Duke of Carlisle possess?”
She swatted his arm with her closed fan, hoping he would not mind small children after all. But that was a discussion that would necessarily have to wait. “No more than four, I believe. Two sets of twins.”
“Two sets of whirlwinds is more like,” Benedict grumbled. “The eldest girl child saw fit to use my sleeve as a napkin.”
She smiled, because she had witnessed the incident to which her husband referred. The set of friends they had fallen into—fashioning their own coterie of sorts, amidst London’s lords and ladies—was rather unlike the standard society sets. They included their children in virtually every gathering they could. But Benedict had been quite sweet to little Lady Rose, whose jam-smeared face had wound up all over one of his immaculate jackets the day before.
He did have more patience than he pretended.
“You doted upon the child,” she countered without sting.
The day was too beautiful for anything but happiness. Flowers in bloom perfumed the air. Birds trilled from the trees, the sun shone high overhead, and all the world seemed more vibrant than it had ever been.
Isabella could not be certain if it was because she was wildly in love with her husband, because
