She shuddered, inhaling slowly and forcing her racing heart to calm before attempting to explain. “I thought I saw my brother,” she managed. “In the street just now. But when I turned back, he was gone. I am certain it was my worried imagination, but it gave me a fright.”
Felix drew her into his side, his arm a comforting band around her waist. “Come back inside with me now. Whether or not it was your brother you saw, I promise you I will do my utmost to keep you safe, from this moment forward.”
“I cannot let you do that.” Sadness crept over her, the shame at her recklessness returning. She had given in to her weakness for him twice. She must not do so a third time. “I will look after myself, just as I always have.”
Because she had learned her lesson a long time ago, that no man could be trusted.
Including this one.
No matter how much she wanted to.
She gazed up at him, reminding herself this man, this duke, was not for her. He could not be. She was a danger to him and his daughter both. And there was no future for them together. She was leaving for Paris. He belonged here in London. She was an actress. He was a nobleman.
He was still frowning down at her, every inch the aristocrat. “You can let me, and you will, Johanna. If the man you saw in the streets just now is your brother, then you must allow me to help you.”
“Felix,” she began to protest.
“Johanna,” he interrupted. “You promised me.”
“I did not.” But part of her was vacillating now. Part of her wanted to accept the Duke of Winchelsea’s offer to keep her safe. To accept his every offer, and all his kisses, his every touch, too. To spend every night between now and the day she left for France in his bed.
But that was the old part of her. The careless girl she had once been. The one who still longed and hoped and dreamed. The one she must do everything in her power to ignore.
“Come inside with me now, Johanna,” he urged. “Do not be stubborn, I beg of you. You need my help, and I am more than willing to give it.”
“Why?” she bit out, her emotions careening wildly inside her as she stared up at his handsome face. “Why do you want to help me? Why would you do such a thing, put yourself in jeopardy, for a woman you scarcely know?”
It could not merely be because he wanted to bed her.
She knew men found her attractive, but she did not fool herself that her wiles were so strong.
His bright-green gaze plumbed the depths of hers. For a beat, he said nothing, simply held her in his thrall with his magnetic intensity. The energy crackling from him was like live electric wires.
“Because I care about you,” he said at last, his voice rough and low. Almost a growl. “I want to see you safe because I cannot bear the thought of more harm coming to you. When I think of how you have already suffered, what you have lost, and yet the way you have continued on, holding your head high, building a name for yourself, forging a career from the dust…I am in awe of you, Johanna McKenna. I have been from the moment I first saw you. And I want to be the man who keeps you safe rather than the man who makes you fear.”
His words reached inside her to a place she had not known she possessed. And although a gust of wind picked up, whipping at her skirts and making her shiver, she was somehow warmed. Warmed from the inside out. No one had ever said something like that to her before.
No soliloquy in the finest play could compare.
She was softening, yielding. She knew it. But still, she had to try. For his sake as well as Verity’s and for Johanna’s sake too. If Drummond was indeed in London, it meant no one was safe. And Johanna was determined to never open her heart again. To never trust another man.
“I have never feared you,” she said softly. Sadly. Desperately. “You have only been kind and good to me, Felix, and for that I must thank you. But please do not take this on. This is my battle to fight, my war to wage.”
“Our battle to fight,” he insisted. “Our war to wage.”
“No.” Tears sprang to her eyes anew. “It cannot be. You must stay out of this.”
“I won’t,” he vowed, his tone determined, his voice strong. “You cannot keep me from your side. If that vicious bastard is out there somewhere, I will tear him apart with my own bare hands before I allow him to hurt you. Do you understand? He is not going to hurt you, or anyone else, ever again if I can help it.”
He was so vehement, so determined, so fierce.
But he was a duke, not a warrior. He was elegant and refined. He did not have a network of men at his disposal, ready to do his bidding.
“You cannot save me,” she said. “I am already lost.”
“You are not lost.” He searched her face. “You are here, with me. Exactly where you belong.”
She wanted him to be right. Oh, how she did. But deep in her heart, she knew he was wrong. Still, she allowed him to lead her back inside.
