Page 25 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
The sort of thing that would normally have made her lash out. Or run.
And yet she did not run. She imagined herself standing in soft ground again, but this time it was not simply her heels that dug in. She felt as if her entire foot was weighted down there. Stuck to the spot. Grounded.
‘Do you think you know better than I do?’
She could argue. It was what she had done yesterday, and it was what she had done the day before. And she nearly wondered if that was what he wanted. To spark her fury, because then it would give free rein to his.
He had not dismissed her over her impudence. And she had to wonder why.
It seemed to make him angry, and yet he seemed to almost want her to behave badly. So she decided to try something new. She would be the governess. She would be the employee that he needed her to be.
She did not respond. She kept her face placid. And he drew closer.
Her heart began to flutter like a trapped bird, and yet more disturbing was the pulse that echoed between her thighs.
It confused her. And yet she could not let him see it.
That there was something about his strength she found compelling rather than terrifying. That even now, as he drew close to her, she did not feel threatened.
‘Of course, Your Grace. I am sorry if I have stepped across the line. You have asked for an account of the day, and I seek to give it, along with what wisdom I feel I may offer based on what I’ve seen. But yours is the only real wisdom that must be taken into account.’
The banked flame behind his eyes did not abate. Rather it only seemed to glow with more intensity.
‘You are my master,’ she said.
She looked up then, their eyes colliding, and she could not account for what felt like a thunderclap between them.
Somehow, she had managed, with this game, to step into dangerous territory that she could not name or understand.
She liked it. That was the strangest thing. From the heat in his eyes to the satisfaction she felt naming him as her master by her own choice.
With those words she had given him power. Yes, society gave him power. His body granted him strength. She could do nothing about those things, could not fight them. But she could give him that.
Master.
And see what he did with it.
Test him.
Test herself.
She hadn’t intended to. But now she’d done it.
He lifted his hand, and it hovered there between them. And she thought, wildly, that he meant to touch her.
But then he lowered it again and did not.
Her breath left her lungs in a gust, and she was sure that he would’ve seen that.
And now she felt afraid. Fighting with him did not scare her. But this... This draw she felt towards his authority, towards his strength, created a terror that rattled around inside of her, heedless and without authority. Save his.
She took a step back.
‘When you call upon me tomorrow, I will make no more suggestions.’
‘We will not meet tomorrow,’ he said, turning away from her and going back to his desk.
‘We...will not?’
