Page 38 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
He isn’t your son. Not really. He was born of your body, but you never even held him.
No. She hadn’t.
She hadn’t, and it was an ache that she did not think she would ever truly banish from her soul.
‘Should you not like your brother to join us in the nursery some time?’ she asked Michael and Elizabeth impulsively, without even thinking about it.
She wasn’t certain that she wanted him to join them in the nursery, and yet she was concerned now about his isolation.
‘No,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Why not?’
‘He’s an infant,’ said Michael. ‘He cannot be in here. It is a classroom.’
‘It is a place for children.’
‘No,’ Elizabeth said, shaking her head. ‘We don’t want him. He killed our mother.’
Her words stabbed Mary in the chest, and Mary tried, she tried to the best of her ability, to find that stoic governess within. ‘Childbirth killed your mother,’ she said. ‘But the child was only as helpless as she was. She was his mother too.’
Flashes came into her mind, of her own experience. Of nearly dying.
‘How?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘Well... Childbirth is extremely fraught. It can be dangerous. It is a medical event.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Elizabeth, looking red-faced and furious.
‘There are books. Science books. And it can help explain.’
She knew that people did not often teach children these things. But their mother had died this way. And would that not help them to understand? She had needed to understand. She had given birth without having any idea of what was to happen to her. She had been raped, having no idea how a child was made, or that men did such things to women.
The world was a brutal place, and it did not care whether or not women or children were educated in the realities of it.
And she knew that the Duke might be upset if he found out she taught his children such things, but she would defend her reasoning.
The thought of Elizabeth going into a marriage with absolutely no knowledge whatsoever... It filled her with terror.
And no, she did not need to know everything that passed between men and women just yet, but should she not know these simple things? The very basic truths of biology? Would it not arm her?
It wounded her, the way that girls were sent into the marriage bed with no knowledge at all.
Perhaps they were not being held down in the field. But it would be confusing and frightening, and far too close to what Mary herself had experienced.
‘I promise we will make it part of your lesson. But while this is the way that children come into the world, it is a dangerous thing. And many women die doing it.’
Elizabeth looked frightened. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Many women don’t die. It is not something that you should have to worry about, but the worst happened in your lives, so of course you will. It is a terrible thing to have to grow up before you are meant to. And I think, with this loss, you have had to.’
‘I still don’t want to see the babe,’ she said.
‘Just remember,’ she said. ‘He lost his mother too. He has you. He has your father. But that’s all. Perhaps you could spare him a bit of pity.’
‘No,’ Michael said, standing and furiously kicking over a chair. ‘He killed her. He’s why she’s dead. I hate him.’
And, without thinking, Mary dropped down to her knees and pulled Michael into a fierce hug. ‘Michael,’ she said. ‘It’s all right.’ Because it was. To be furious, to be angry. To rail against the universe. She was well acquainted with that need.
