“Your legs are bare.”
Yes, he would have noticed that during her dance on the rope. She crossed them away from him. “They are only legs.”
“Makes me wonder what else is bare.”
A new resonance, a suggestive one had entered his voice. A tone that she’d not imagined the haughty Duke of Baynton possessed, and it set off a tingling warmth in some of her other bare places.
Sarah tried not to squirm. Or to look at him. She didn’t want to see the interest in his eye or think of Baynton as a . . . lover.
Oh no, she didn’t. Well, her brain didn’t. The naked parts seemed to have thoughts of their own.
He shoved his jacket almost in her face and shook it at her. “Put on my coat.”
There was no denying the order.
Still, when she accepted it, she did so because right now, she needed protection from her own reactions. She didn’t like this coil of feelings, especially around him. It had been a long time since she’d slept with a man or felt his strength moving within her. The last time she’d experienced this piercing hunger, it had almost destroyed her. She mustn’t forget. She need never forget—
Of course, Baynton’s scent was in the folds of his jacket, circling her, teasing her—
The hack came to a halt. Sarah was surprised to see they had stopped before the house on Mulberry Street where she had lived with Charlene. A house that held almost all the very best memories of her life . . .
And then she realized, of course, Baynton would bring her here. He believed this was her address. He had no idea of what had befallen her, and she wasn’t about to let him know.
Without waiting for the driver or the duke, she opened the door and started to let the jacket slip off her shoulders.
“Leave it on,” Baynton ordered. “I don’t want you parading around your neighborhood in that dress. Your neighbors might not realize you are ‘not naked’ beneath it.”
“At this hour, my neighbors will be asleep.” Sarah stepped out of the hack but she kept the jacket. He was right about the wisdom of her racing around the streets of London dressed as she was, especially where she was going. Once again she wished she wore shoes. She had a ways to walk.
But for right now, her purpose was to rid herself of Baynton’s troubling, overbearing presence.
“Thank you very much, Your Grace, for the rescue and the ride.” There, she’d done the pretty but she was speaking to air. He had exited the other side of the hack and was coming around toward her.
Baynton fully dressed was a formidable presence.
However, Baynton in shirtsleeves and brocade vest and hatless, especially in the dim lamp of the hack’s coach lamp, was something else entirely. He appeared relaxed. At complete ease—while the tension inside her from this night threatened to break like the string on an overplayed violin.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
“Seeing you to the door,” he answered.
“There is no need. It is only steps away. Good night, Your Grace. Thank you for your help. Move on now.”
He stopped, a mere foot away from her. “I shalln’t leave until I see you properly inside.”
Her chin came up. “I know your gambit. ‘Safely inside,’ eh?”
The duke frowned. “What else do you think I mean?”
She cocked her head with a meaningful glance to that juncture between his thighs.
From the second Sarah Pettijohn had appeared on the stage, Gavin had gone as hard as an iron pike, and he’d stayed that way.
Being in the hack with her had been the worst. He was aware of her every gesture, of her breathing, of the defiance in the lift of her chin, the arch of her brow, of the subtlest movement of her lips. Even the act of snatching her away from those men chasing her had added to the almost animal tension thrumming through his veins. When she’d been bold enough to touch him, he’d almost embarrassed himself.
However, he was not one to give in to impulse.
He was the Duke of Baynton. He had a will of steel. He controlled himself. He did what was honorable—except he would like to take her in his arms and bury himself to the hilt in her body.
