The Duke of Winchelsea’s fingers had been inside her.
At the last thought, another aching surge of pleasure throbbed between her thighs. The delicious languor of her spend was still licking through her body, still humming in her veins. No man had ever brought her to such a searing, delicious crescendo with nothing more than his fingers and his words.
His words.
Dear God, his words.
I want to watch you when you come.
And he had watched her. And she had come. The pleasure had been terrifically intense. Mind-numbing.
What had she done? She had entrusted all her secrets to a man she scarcely knew. And then she had entrusted herself to him as well.
She paced on the front walk, her hair wild and half-unbound around her shoulders, her mind an utter mess. Back and forth until she was dizzy with it. Carriages and hacks moved on the street with disinterest. The sounds were familiar: jangling tack, the distant dissonance of voices and wheels rumbling over the road. Last night’s deluge had given way to the morning’s fog.
What was she going to do now? She did not have her reticule, she realized. That, too had been left behind within the duke’s home. She was too prideful to make a return in her crazed state. She had just run as if fleeing a house aflame.
And for the wisdom of her actions, she may as well have been.
Once, long ago, she had entrusted herself to a man. He had been charming and handsome as well. He had kissed her and courted her. Patrick had been another actor in the first company she had ever toured with. And she had believed he had loved her. Had allowed him to pressure her into giving him her body. He had left in the night when he had discovered she was pregnant, and she had been alone to raise Pearl, as a girl of seventeen.
In all the years since, she had not allowed another man to touch her, unless it had been within the bonds of a scene. Acting was permissible. Trusting another man was not. Nine years had passed, and yet it would seem she was as foolish as she had ever been. She had not known the Duke of Winchelsea for two weeks, and already she had allowed him not just kisses but far, far more.
And allowing him anything at all was dangerous.
Reckless.
Stupid.
Because her heart—her wild, foolhardy heart—already felt things for him. Things she did not want to feel. That she had no right to feel. She was leaving soon. She would never see him again. And he was a duke, a man who had not invited her to his home until it had been burning down.
What was wrong with her?
She was making another pass of the walk when a man walking on the opposite side of the street caught her attention. It was a combination of his height and the way he moved that struck her as painfully familiar. He wore a hat pulled low, and his face was averted. But she paused, mid-stride, watching him.
For the second time in the last half hour, her heart was pounding frantically, but this time not because of desire but for another reason entirely.
Fear.
Raw, blistering, fear.
She was imagining things, she told herself. Drummond was not here in London. He would not be here, where he could be arrested at any moment. Where the police wanted to throw him into prison for life. He would never put himself at such risk.
And yet, she could not stop watching the man. He turned toward her slightly, as he walked, and their gazes met. Shock washed over her, making her mouth go dry. She was rooted to the spot, unable to move.
Good, sweet, Lord.
It was…
“Johanna!”
At the sound of Felix’s voice calling her, she turned instinctively to find him stalking down the walk after her, his expression clouded with worry. “Come back inside before you catch a chill. You don’t have your wrap.”
She wrenched her gaze back to the street, still robbed of speech, but the man was gone. Had it truly been Drummond? Her mind refused to believe it. How? And why?
Felix was behind her now, his hand on her shoulder as he gently turned her back to him. He was frowning, his gaze searching. “What is the matter, Johanna? You look as if you have seen a ghost.”
And she felt almost as if she had.
