Page 23 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
‘Not me,’ said Elizabeth, sitting in a chair and crossing her arms.
‘We will not be taking tea until this is finished. And I will not finish it on my own.’
‘You can’t do that,’ Elizabeth protested.
‘I am afraid that I can. Your father has put me in charge. Therefore, what I say and what I require of you is what is to be done.’
‘But you can’t! You can’t! You can’t!’ Elizabeth stood, her cheeks fiery with rage. She stomped her foot with each statement, and the only thing Mary could think was that she hoped Elizabeth always retained that spirit. That none of the men in her life ever extinguished it. It would be a furious and wonderful thing for her to carry with her into her womanhood, though it would not make things easy for Mary now.
But she would always rather a woman had spirit. It would often be the only thing that might insulate her.
‘I can, you will find. You do not command the servants. I do. And I will ensure that there is no tea until this is finished. I do not mind suffering alongside you, so if you think that you will break my will in that fashion, you are mistaken.’
Living with hunger was familiar for her. While she did not enjoy it, she knew how to be uncomfortable. She had spent the first thirteen years of her life in some sort of discomfort or another. Whether it be cold, damp, tired, hungry...
She never took surroundings like the kind she found at Attingham for granted.
It took an hour. An hour to get them moving. To get them to participate. But they did.
Tea was delayed by an hour, and she was desperately hungry by the time she sat down. They made it through the lessons, and even though they didn’t make it outside that day she was proud of what had been accomplished.
She had stuck to what she said, she had not allowed them to take control of the situation, or to undo her. She had redoubled her efforts to find control last night, and it was worth it. Tonight, when she spoke to the Duke—and she had to ignore the swooping sensation in her stomach when she thought of him—she would be cool and collected, and entirely appropriate.
She ignored the way that her heart pounded as she made her way to his study. She knocked with confidence.
And when he bid her enter, she opened the door and went inside.
‘Make your report,’ he said, his tone brisk.
He was not looking at her. And that gave her a moment to examine him, his head bent over his papers. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing forearms that spoke of physical labour. He was far more muscled than either of her previous employers, who had clearly enjoyed lives of leisure as granted them by their titles.
But not the Duke of Westmere.
Again, she thought the man was closer to mountain than human.
His hair was dark, left just long enough to curl in some places. Standing, you could not see that, but sitting like this with his focus on his papers, she could. There was grey at his temples, and some mixed throughout. It had an astonishing effect on his good looks, as did the lines on his face. They lent him an air of distinction and ruggedness. She could imagine that as a young man he had been stunning in his beauty, but thought that age had probably tempered that in the way of a well-aged wine.
She ought not to think about his features in such detail, but he commanded her focus. She was certain he was the sort of man who commanded the focus of all eyes in any room he was in.
She took a breath, remembering to focus on why she was here.
‘It was a difficult day at the start of it, but I refused to be held hostage by them, and the end result was that they cleaned the nursery.’
He looked up, and she felt like he had struck her right through the heart with an arrow.
‘My children are not household staff,’ he said.
‘No. But they are in desperate need of someone to show them that they need authority in their lives, and that authority will not bend, or abandon them.’
His face was like stone. ‘My children do not need to be scrabbling around...’
‘Your Grace,’ she said, doing her best to keep her voice mild. She ran into trouble with him when she allowed him to get beneath her skin. ‘They are fine. They completed their task. They had their tea. By the time supper came, they had forgotten entirely how furious they were with me. But I did not leave them, and that is the important part. Tomorrow, I imagine that when I suggest we go out for some exercise they will obey and easily. The consequence today was that they cleaned rather than doing so, as they refused me.’
‘Their refusal of you is unacceptable.’
‘Yes, I know. It stems, I feel, from the lack of stability in their life.’
‘Is this another opportunity for you to lecture me?’
