Page 98 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
He came to sit on the end of her bed, and she looked scandalised, which he thought was rather charming.
‘You have to leave before someone comes in.’
‘I suppose I do.
‘Come to me again tonight,’ he said.
He thought that she would tell him no. That she would tell him they couldn’t.
‘I will. I will.’
And he knew then that it would be this way.
They could never be married. And he could never give her love. He did not know how. He was trying. Trying to shift these things inside of his soul so that he could get this child more of what he deserved. So that he could give his children something that they deserved.
But he would have her in his bed.
And that was still keeping things in their proper place.
She would be his mistress. But he also could not take her from the children, so she could not occupy that position publicly. She would be his mistress at night, and his governess by day. And that was how it would have to remain.
Chapter Seventeen
They settled into a routine of sorts, and if Mary allowed herself to simply live in each moment, then it was perfect.
He was a wonderful lover, and he taught her things about herself that she had never before known. Every night she went to his room, and she sneaked out in the morning before anyone could see. They had very much a distant, appropriate relationship by day. At night they made love, and lay in his bed naked, talking. Drinking, sometimes. One time he went to the kitchen and procured a tray of cold meats and cheeses. He had fed her grapes.
It was luxurious and wicked in a way that nothing in her life had ever been. More than that, there was no purpose to it. And she had a feeling that, for both of them, that was an entirely new sort of experience.
She had always been working towards something. Or running from something.
But she had never simply indulged in something for the sake of it.
She didn’t think he had either.
Well, perhaps he had for short amounts of time.
‘I am sorry if this is too personal,’ she said, nearly laughing at saying something could be too personal when she was lying naked, his leg wedged between hers, her hand pressed to his bare chest.
‘You can ask. I may not answer.’
He gave her a look of good humour...he had done that more and more lately.
He seemed content when they were together, and it was nothing short of a miracle. At least given what she knew of him. And she felt as if she knew him quite well.
‘That is your prerogative. All right. How is it that Jane was not satisfied by you? My experience as your lover is that you are insatiable, and a woman would have to have an extra, secret number of hours in the day in order to take a paramour.’
He made a sound somewhere between a defeated growl and a groan, letting his head rest on the pillow. ‘It is complicated.’
‘I have the time for complicated.’
She had come to the conclusion these past weeks that she would rather miss sleep in favour of time with him.
‘I do not wish for you to be offended,’ he said.
‘Why don’t you test me, and see if it will offend me?’
He pulled her over onto him, so that she was lying across his chest, looking him in the eye. ‘I cannot afford your offence, my darling. For what would I do without you in my bed?’
