His hips moved, finding a rhythm, his length sliding in and out of her with agonizing torpor at first and then with greater speed. She tightened on him, convulsions of pleasure licking down her spine and radiating from the place where their bodies connected. One more stroke of his thumb, and she came apart.
Her pinnacle was swift, merciless. She nearly squeezed him from her body, and he gripped her hip, thrusting into her harder, faster. Izzy whimpered into his commanding kiss, a conflagration overtaking her. She was splintered shards of herself. Brilliant and shining like the stars at midnight.
Her world was surreal. Blurs of brightness. Senses amplified to exquisite heights. Scent and sound and touch. There was the earth, hard at her back, the man, possessing her and filling her, her own body, trembling and shuddering beneath him.
And then there was the hot spurt of his seed. His body stiffening. Zachary broke the kiss and buried his face in her throat, crying out the hoarse jubilation of his own release.
She held him tightly, pressing a kiss to his crown, her body pulsing and her heart pounding. He was still inside her, and they were both mostly clothed in the trappings of politeness they had donned earlier in their separate chambers. But he was hers now, and she was his.
As their hearts raced in unison and they held each other close, Izzy could not deny the moment felt very much like a victory.
CHAPTER11
Defeat filled Zachary as he found himself inhabiting his father’s old study with his friends that evening following dinner. Greymoor and Wycombe were two of his closest chums, and their witty conversation usually kept him amused and distracted regardless of the restlessness infecting his dark soul on any occasion. But not this evening. This evening was decidedly different.
Because he had taken his future wife’s virginity on the hard earth, still wearing his damned trousers and boots, her hems wrinkled and crushed and dragged to her waist.
He was a rutting beast.
An animal.
Despicable.
He ought to have possessed a modicum of control, some restraint where his future bride was concerned. Instead, he had been so overwhelmed by her tender concern, her easy acceptance, her understanding. And her passion. Sweet Lord, her passion. It was enough to set him aflame, to make him wild and needy and desperate.
“Anglesey?”
He glanced from his untouched glass of port, a relic which had been resurrected from the cellars and covered in enough dust to make him suspect it had belonged to his grandfather. The marquess and the duke were watching him, the latter with a concerned air and the former with a taunting grin.
“Forgive me.” He shook his head slightly. “I was lost in my thoughts.”
“Regrets?” Greymoor asked.
Dozens of them.
He met his friend’s gaze and raised his glass in mock salute. “None.”
The marquess issued an inelegant snort. “I have told you before…” Here he paused and glanced in Wycombe’s direction. “Hold your ears, old boy.” He turned back to Zachary. “I have told you that you needn’t marry her. If you are this Friday-faced at the prospect, why throw yourself off the cliff when you know you are about to be smashed to bits on the rocks below?”
“That is a deuced grim analogy, Grey,” Wycombe snapped, clearly irritated on behalf of his wife’s sister.
But of course he was. The duke was loyal to his marrow, and when he took someone under his protection, he would fight to the death for them.
“I am marrying Lady Isolde,” he reassured Wycombe. “If I am Friday-faced, it is because I arrived to an estate that has been neglected for years, presided over by nothing more than a housekeeper of dubious qualifications and a nonagenarian butler who cannot hear a bloody thing I say to him.”
“How do you think I felt when I was handed a crumbling, dilapidated estate and a mountain of debt?” Wycombe drawled wryly. “Thank God I was also handed my lovely wife. Without her, I have no notion how I would have endured.”
The duke was besotted with his duchess, which was as it should be, though surprising for the marriage of convenience theirs had initially been. His wife had brought with her a handsome dowry; the same tidy fortune Zachary could expect from Izzy. However, he was not in the same position as Wycombe had been as a Scotland Yard detective suddenly thrust into the role of duke. Zachary had been investing in a number of Greymoor’s businesses, and as the marquess’s wealth had bloomed, so had his. A rising tide, as it were.
No, he did not require funds. He had not in years. And he could not deny that he had taken immeasurable joy in knowing the wealth he had amassed far surpassed that of his brother the earl, who Beatrice had chosen over him. The success had been rendered that much sweeter.
Vindication was the most intoxicating form of revenge.
He would do it all again just the same, given the chance. And from this side of the debacle that had been his relationship with Beatrice, he had a new appreciation for the way it had all settled into place. It had been meant to be. She had done him a favor in marrying Horatio, that much was certain.
“I expect you felt like utter rubbish,” Greymoor was saying to Wycombe. “No sane man wants to inherit a wife or debt. To be fair, I cannot discern which would be the worst burden.”
“The wife was wonderful, and not at all a burden,” Wycombe countered. “Indeed, I suspect I was the burden to her. The debt, however…well, I could have happily avoided that bit. Still, life takes strange and plodding turns. But they always work out for the best. I have seen it time and again.”
