Page 55 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
‘Do you think I’m not about other business?’
She looked up at him, her eyes—they were green, he noticed just then, the same colour as the trees around them—glimmering. ‘I’m certain you are. But what business could be more pressing than our safety?’
‘Nothing, of course,’ he said.
He tethered his horse to the nearest tree. She was challenging him, and he well knew it. He did not know why he was rising to the challenge. Only she spoke to him in a manner no one else dared. In a manner no one else ever had.
And perhaps the problem was that above all else there was a relentless, aching dullness to his life. There was grief. There was sadness. There was the feeling that his children were like strangers to him.
But it was like staring into the grey mist that covered the countryside and seeing nothing more. Nothing more than mist, nothing more than resolute, opaque sameness. And she was a bright speck in all that grey. Not in the sense that many might mean that. He was not sentimental. He did not mean that she was some sort of beacon in the darkness, only that she was different. And these past months had been the only time in his life he’d felt lost in something he could not shift or change or fix since he was a child.
He hated the lack of control more than he hated anything. Everything was spinning out of his grasp.
At least this was new. At least this was a problem of sorts. Something to latch onto. Something to focus on.
A fight, in many ways. And it fired his blood.
And it also sounded a warning inside of him, for he well knew what she was.
His employee. His children’s governess.
His children seemed content in a way they had not with any of the previous women in her position.
They needed stability. Above all else.
And he was not a man who could afford to compromise himself or what he had found.
‘I am no expert in botany,’ he said. ‘But I am expert on these grounds. Perhaps, however, you will find something to teach me.’
She pinned her arms behind her back, a pose that brought illicit images to the fore of his mind. Her hands pinned tightly, her breasts offered up to him...
‘A possibility, Your Grace, and one we cannot discount.’
He realised that his children were looking at him as if he were an unrecognisable beast set down into their midst.
And he thought he ought to turn his focus to them rather than thinking untoward thoughts about their governess.
‘Is there something you wish to ask me, children?’ he said, addressing them both.
‘You never walk with us,’ said Elizabeth.
‘And that is not a question,’ he responded.
But something like guilt lanced his chest, and he could not explain it. He should feel no guilt for how he conducted himself with his children. He had never harmed them. Not once. And he never would.
They did not live in fear of him. He was a father who was truly only ever a father in their presence. They did not witness the messy broken pieces of any love affairs, they did not have to bear the brunt of his anger or frustration.
They had never once seen his grief.
He was a stable, steady figure in their lives, and he would feel no regret for that.
‘These are all edible plants,’ said Mary, gesturing towards lichen and a collection of berries, a particular sort of green. ‘If ever you were to find yourself lost, you could eat these.’ She straightened. ‘Not these.’ She pointed to some white berries on the end of the bush. ‘And it is wise to never take risks with mushrooms and other fungi. Many are edible, but it is important that you not make a mistake.’
‘And where did you learn these things?’ he asked, unable to help himself. He was intrigued by her, damn it all.
‘The Highlands,’ she said. ‘We often hunted for food there. I did. For my family.’
He looked at her with speculation. ‘This is something you speak freely about?’
