The unexpected contact warmed him. When she would have withdrawn, he moved quickly, taking her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. How good this connection felt. How necessary. As necessary as his beating heart, as his next breath.
Her compassion moved him.
“We are fortunate,” he said, “though I think I did not realize just how fortunate until I saw Verity in the nursery, until I heard her voice, until I held her in my arms and realized she was still alive. We have each other, which is more than some.”
More than Johanna herself, but he did not say that.
He sensed her stiffening at his side, and he knew she heard the unspoken words. Though he longed to learn her story, he would not force her. There would come a day, he hoped, when she would willingly share the details of her past with him.
“I think of her,” she said, taking him by surprise. “My daughter, Pearl. I think of her every day. There will never come a time when I do not feel her absence in my life. When I do not remember her and wish she were still here with me.”
The sadness in her voice hit him directly in his heart. Without thought, he slid his arm around her, drawing her into his side. And though she felt right, tucked against him, her curves pressing into him in all the right ways, his gesture was not about desire but about comfort. A silent acknowledgment of her pain, of what she had endured.
He noted, not for the first time, that she did not speak of Pearl’s father. Since her name was Johanna McKenna, he could only assume she had never wed the man. He found himself curious about what sort of man could capture Johanna McKenna’s heart and win her. But he said nothing, for he did not dare pry.
“There is no cure for grief, I have found,” he said instead, speaking honestly and from his own experience. “Years dull the pain in incremental measures, but still, some days are worse than others. Some days, it is a flood, over your head. Other days, you can swim just long and hard enough to keep from drowning in it.”
He was afraid she might move away from him, might seek to put some distance between them. But instead, she wrapped an arm around his waist in return, her hold tight. As if she were taking comfort from him every bit as much as he was taking it from her.
“It has been nine years since I lost her,” she said quietly.
“Nine?” He stared down at her in surprise. “You must have been nothing more than a babe yourself then.”
“Seventeen.” Her voice was sad. “I was seventeen when I became a mother. I scarcely knew how to look after myself then. It was far too soon. I blame myself for what happened, of course. If I had been older, wiser, wealthier, if she had a father in her life who could have provided for us, she would have lived.”
He stroked down her spine calmly, caressing, but inside him, irritation flared to life at the man who had taken advantage of a young girl on her own in the world. “You need not speak of it, Johanna.”
“I want to.” She glanced up at him from beneath lowered lashes. “I am not embarrassed by my past. Others would be, I know, but I have always reasoned that Pearl was the very best part of me. I will not have her memory as nothing more than a shameful secret.”
He nodded, because he understood. In polite society, an unwed young mother was a source of shame for her family, ostracized by all who knew her. She would either be forced to give up her baby or to hide herself in the country or on the Continent.
“Tell me whatever you wish, my dear,” he said, still caressing her back.
He admired her strength. He did not think he had ever met another who had endured as much as she had and who still found the fortitude to carry on. A woman who could care for and laugh with a child she scarcely knew.
“Her father was another actor in the traveling company I joined when I ran away from my father,” she said slowly. “He was older than I was, thirty to my fifteen, and I thought of him as a brother. I had been with the company for a few months when everything changed. He often performed the largest roles in our plays. He told me he would help me get bigger roles, better roles.”
Dread curdled in his gut as she paused, letting out a bitter laugh. He knew where her tale was going, and it was beginning to make him ill. That a thirty-year-old man would take advantage of a girl of fifteen made him want to do the bastard violence. But he ground his molars and forced himself to remain silent.
“I was in awe of him, I suppose,” she continued, staring into the floor at a memory only she could see. “I allowed him to persuade me to do things I would not have otherwise done. Not long after I discovered I was going to have Pearl, he left in the night. He moved on to a rival company, and I never saw him again.”
“The bastard should be hung from the gallows for what he did to you,” he growled, unable to hold his tongue a second more. The vitriol inside him was at high tide, spewing forth. “You were a child, Johanna. He was a man grown.”
She glanced back at him. “I do not regret it, for it gave me Pearl, and those months with her, being her mother…they were the best months of my life.”
Unshed tears glittered in her eyes, and he felt an answering prickle in his own, and then his vision blurred. His cheeks were wet. He was crying. Crying for the woman he held so securely to his side. Crying for the girl she had once been. Crying for Pearl, the baby she had lost.
“I am sorry,” he told her again, finding his voice, knowing it was trite, but unable to find other words to match the way he felt.
“What is this?” she asked, her tone awed as she reached up and skimmed the soft pads of her fingertips over his cheeks, collecting his tears the same way he had once stolen hers. “Do not cry for me, Felix. I do not deserve it.”
He caught her wrist in a gentle grasp, holding her hand still when she would have removed it, and pressed a kiss to her fingers. The wetness of his own sorrow painted his lips. And then he kissed the center of her palm before lifting his head and meeting her gaze.
“You, Johanna McKenna, are the strongest, bravest woman I know,” he said, meaning every word. “I admire your resilience, your determination, the ferocity of the love in your heart.”
“Oh, Felix,” she whispered, her hand going to his cheek in a soft caress. “You should not say such things to me.”
“Why not?” he asked, pushing her.
This moment between them was a bridge. They could cross over it together, or they could retreat to their separate sides. He sensed it, and he knew what he wanted. He had only ever felt this depth of emotion and passion once before in his life, and it had been with Hattie.
It seemed the greatest irony of all that he should find it again now with a woman who was the epitome of everything he should not want. She was an actress with a scandalous past and undeniable ties to one of the most volatile Fenian plotters in America.
“Because it makes me want to kiss you,” she said then, disrupting his every thought.
Sending his ability to think or act rationally fleeing.
She had just taken his hand and started halfway across the bridge. And damn it all, he was going to lead them the rest of the way.
“Then perhaps you should,” he dared.
Felix’s words landed in Johanna’s heart.
He wanted her to kiss him.
Her past had not chased him away. He did not now look upon her as if she must pin a scarlet letter to her breast and hang her head in shame. He wanted her in spite of who she was, what she had done, and all the danger surrounding her.
And he had wept for her. For Pearl.
For that alone, she could fall in love with him.
Perhaps she already had.
She knew that kissing him now would mean more than it had before. The hour was late. She was spending the evening at his home. Everything between them had changed. Though she had not lain with a man since she had been sixteen, she had spent all the years since deflecting the overtures of men. She was not an innocent. She was wise and weary.
But she was also longing. Longing for this man. For the taste of his lips
. For his arms around her. Longing for the way he could replace old memories with new. Now was her chance, she reminded herself as she stared at him, helplessly in his thrall. She would have to leave tomorrow so that he and Verity would be safe and Drummond’s men would divert their dangerous attacks elsewhere.
Indeed, now was her only chance.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and drew his head toward her, stopping when there was a scant inch separating their lips. “Are you sure you want a woman like me? You are a nobleman, and I am anything but noble.”
The arm banded about her waist tightened, and his other hand cupped her cheek as his verdant gaze seemed to devour her. “You are the noblest woman I know.”
What could she do then, but kiss him? There was no other response she could possibly fathom. The Duke of Winchelsea, so handsome and austere, so elegant and poised, thought her noble. And he was looking at her in a way that made her melt.
She was not certain which of them was the first to move.
All she knew was that in the next breath, their lips were fused. And this kiss, it was different from the others they had shared. It was infused with emotion that had been absent before. She moved her mouth slowly over his, suddenly acutely aware of her every sense: the decadent scent of him, the abrasion of his whiskers beneath her palms, the supple smoothness of his lips, the way he tasted of sweet wine and the raspberry fool that had been their dessert at dinner, the low sound in his throat.
Her fingers sank into his hair. The kiss deepened. Their tongues slid languorously against each other. She sucked on his. Desire pooled low in her belly, and lower too. Between her thighs, she throbbed. She was wet and aching.
It was as if no time had passed between their ravenous interlude earlier that day and now. Yet, everything had changed. Her feelings for him had deepened in ways she could not have fathomed hours ago.
“Johanna,” he groaned against her lips.
It felt so very right to hear her true name spoken in his delicious, patrician voice. The desire inside her was building to a crashing crescendo. All the emotion surging within her was overwhelming.
She forgot to care about tomorrow.
Forgot to worry.
Forgot about all the pain and heartache she had been dealt.
In this moment, she was powerful, and she was wanted. And the man in her arms was good, so very good. He was a nobleman, it was true, but he was noble in the truest sense, from the heart. He had been doing nothing but looking after her and taking care of her, worrying over the tightness of her shoes and whether or not she ate, wanting to see her safe, bringing her here to his home, doing his best to protect her from everything and everyone.
She had never met another man like him, and she knew, instinctively, she never would. Just as she knew if she did not give herself to him this night, she would regret it forever.
The time was now.
The man was in her arms.
Felix. Duke of Winchelsea.
But truly, when she kissed him, and in his protective embrace, he felt like so much more than a name and a title. He felt like the other half of her heart, the part of her she had not realized was missing until the moment he had brought it back to her. It had been there, on the tears running down his cheeks. Tears for her, tears for Pearl.
She wanted to worship him. To do everything she could for him. A new, almost crazed need overtook her. Still kissing him, she kept one hand firmly in his hair while the other grasped a handful of her skirts. She hiked them. And then, she straddled him.
Just as she had earlier. But this time, she was not going to run. This time, she wanted more than just the pleasure he could give her.
She wanted all of him. And she wanted to give him pleasure in return. He had given her so much already, and she had only taken.
One of his hands settled on her waist. The other went beneath her skirts, skimming over her calf before igniting a trail of fire all the way to her hip.
He jerked his head backward suddenly, breaking the seal of their lips. His breathing was harsh, nothing more than ragged pants flitting humidly over her lips. Their gazes locked and held.
“This is not what I intended,” he said. “After everything you have shared with me, I cannot—”
She silenced him with a kiss. A long and lengthy and delicious one. Her tongue slipped past his lips, and he made a sweet sound of surrender, kissing her back. This was what she wanted, what she needed now. Desire. Felix.
She did not want his sympathy or his sadness. She wanted him.
And she told him. With her lips and tongue. With the desire burning white-hot inside her. With her hand, which she slid between their bodies until she found his cock, long and thick and hard. He seemed to burn into her palm through the barrier of his trousers. She palmed him, gratified at how he seemed to swell beneath her caress.
He broke the kiss once more. His expression was as dazed as she felt. He looked almost as if he were drunk, and she was sure she looked the same. She had never known desire so strong, so overwhelming.
She was sure she had never known desire at all until Felix. Had never before understood how one man could make her body come to life.
“Johanna,” he bit out, his voice low. “This is not why I invited you to stay here with me.”
She knew that, of course. Nor was it the reason she had accepted his offer.
“Felix,” she countered, lost in his eyes. “I want you. And you want me.”
“God yes, I do,” he admitted.
He need not have said the words, because the evidence was still hard beneath her hand. But she liked the way he sounded, almost desperate. As if he had to have her. As if he was helpless to fight the way she made him feel.
This time, she answered him with deed.
She took his mouth. Kissed him long and slow and deep. Kissed him with intent, letting him know with her lips and tongue just how much she longed for him.
A growl of sensual promise sounded deep in his throat.
At last, his hand moved, skimming over the fabric of her drawers. Unerringly, he found the split between her legs. The first touch of his fingers to the bud of her sex was electric. He teased it with slow and deliberate strokes, circling it. A surge of ecstasy went down her spine. Their tongues tangled.
She was ready, so ready for him.
Perhaps it was because she already knew the pleasure he could bring her. Their bodies seemed unusually attuned to each other. It did not require much for him to work her into a frenzy.
She was already clamoring for more.
Her body was on fire.
At her core, she pulsed and ached and wanted and needed.
His nimble, knowing fingers continued to play over her. And her fingers found the buttons at the fall of his trousers. She undid them. And then, her hand slipped past the barrier of fine fabric to hot, delicious flesh.
Until his hand slid from between her legs and he stayed her with a gentle clutch of her wrist.
He tore his lips from hers. “Not here. Not like this.”
Her cheeks went hot. “Forgive me. I do not know what came over me.”
But when she attempted to scramble from his lap, he held her fast, his gaze intense upon hers.
“When I make love to you for the first time, I want it to be in a bed, Johanna,” he said, his voice a low and decadent rumble, sliding over her like velvet.
For the first time.
She must tell him this would be the only time. But seated as she was, their limbs entangled, her blood coursing with fire, her mouth swollen from his kiss, she recognized such a statement for the inevitable lie it would be.
How could she ever make love to this man just once?
Once would never, ever be enough.
She swallowed, then took a steadying breath. “This was not my intention.”
“Nor was it mine.” He closed the distance between them and kissed her sweetly, chastely on the lips before pressing his forehead to hers. “Go to your chamber, and I
will follow as soon as I am able.”
A thrill swept over her, chasing any of the lingering shame. There was only one word she could manage to offer. “Yes.”
With his aid, she stood, shaking out her crushed skirts.
“Johanna?”
The question in his voice had her glancing back up at him. He looked so unlike his ordinary, elegant self in that moment: disheveled and wild, his dark hair mussed, his lips darkened, his green cat’s gaze burning into her.
“What is it, Felix?” she asked softly, her body still humming with awareness, still aflame with thwarted desire.
“If you change your mind before I arrive, I will understand,” he told her, belatedly unfolding his tall, lean form into a standing position.
She held his gaze. “I will not change my mind. Not for you. Not ever.”
Johanna had never meant words she had spoken more than these. It was a confession, an admission. An acknowledgment of how much he meant to her, how greatly he affected her. And it was more than she had ever given another.
Acutely aware of that fact, she gave him one last look before turning to flee the chamber. His words chased her out the door, sweetly rumbled revelations.
“Nor I, Johanna.”
But as she made her way to the chamber where she would be spending the night, she wondered at the strange undercurrent edging his voice. Something far too close to regret.
Chapter Eleven
Felix had no excuse to ameliorate the guilt rising within him as he stood in the hall outside Johanna McKenna’s bedchamber. Plenty of time had passed since she had swished out of the salon earlier in a seductive swirl of silk and satin skirts, leaving him behind with a cock that was hard as marble. He could not blame his decision upon the grip of lust.
And he could not blame it upon duty, for somehow, over the course of the time since he had first met her, his sense of obligation had slowly and more surely come to rest upon her rather than upon his work for the Home Office.
He could not say he had fallen prey to her maddening kisses. Or to her knowing touch. Though, bloody hell, when she had undone the fall of his trousers earlier and touched him, it had required all the control he possessed to keep from driving mindlessly into her.
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