Page 71 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
They’d even been happy in his presence.
That was because of her.
It was because of her.
He could not squander that.
She was what they needed.
She was, perhaps, what they all needed. And he could not destroy that for something so basic as sex.
His life had to be more than his desires. It always had been.
And so it would continue to be.
No matter how much he wanted her.
Or perhaps...it was time for him to change. The thought was like a boulder shifting inside him. She was all these things to his children. He could see it. Why could he not be them? Why must his children be dependent on her to have a show of love?
He loved his children.
He had loved his wife and his inability to show it had destroyed her.
He would not destroy his children.
He would find it in him to fix this, to change this.
His father’s iron hand would not extend itself to his children. His inability to find a path that was both steady and firm and loving was the fault of his father, and his children should not pay that price.
He did not know how. He would have to learn.
Perhaps Miss Smith was meant for him, in ways that went well beyond his desire for her.
Perhaps she could show him the way.
Chapter Fourteen
She awoke with a dull ache in her chest and in her head.
She had been up far too late with the bairn.
The bairn.
He was not West’s child.
And when had she come to think of him as West? All the time.
No longer the Duke. But West.
At least she had not allowed herself to begin to think of him as his Christian name.
Even as she had that thought,Samuelwhispered through her soul.
She would never speak it out loud. That would be an intimacy too far.
She remembered how he had touched her lips.
How he had stood there in the kitchen last night and spoke to her of desire.
