Page 1 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
Chapter One
London, 1825
One could never be prepared for a duke.
That was Miss Mary Smith’s most prominent thought as she looked up—the natural level of her gaze falling to his black cravat, so great was his height—into the shocking blue eyes of Samuel Montgomery, the Duke of Westmere.
Dressed in a severe black suit which conformed to a body that would look more suited to a Highland warrior than English nobility, he cut an imposing figure.
He was dressed in all black out of concession for mourning, she supposed, and yet it also seemed to suit him.
It was not simply that he was handsome—though he was, and if Mary were the sort of woman who was affected by the handsomeness of men, she would be struck into silence now—it was the vitality and power which shone from him as if he were the sun.
It was unusual to meet the master of the house, as she was accustomed to meeting their wives. Or even a housekeeper.
She understood why she was meeting the Duke himself, though, considering his situation.
She knew little about him, or his situation, apart from the fact he had two children—a boy and a girl—and an infant, who was in the care of a wet nurse since the death of his wife.
The children were young, and without a mother. The potential for the position to go on for years, to allow her some stability, some rest, was high. Higher than either of her previous two positions, where the children had been older when she’d arrived, and nearly finished with the age when a governess was necessary.
Then there was the splendour of the estate. Attingham was glorious, set near the edge of a forest, with spacious lawns all around the red brick and grey stone house. It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, apart from royal residences, in London.
This felt something like hope. For the girl she’d been. That this chance she’d taken, leaving everything behind, coming to England, battling her accent away, and pushing her memories to the side, had all been worth it.
Miss Mary Smith was everything Mary McLaren had never been. She was calm, assertive and educated. In all things. From arithmetic to society’s intricacies.
She prided herself on being unflappable. Unbreakable.
Here and now, when this composure was more important than ever before, she felt herself crack.
She had never met a duke.
Thus was unprepared for the impact of him. Though she did not think one duke was the same as another. Or at least, she had her doubts any were like him.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, his bearing and authority unparalleled to anyone she’d yet met. She had been looked down on before—in both the literal sense and in the figurative. She was quite small, after all.
What the Duke did now was not lookdownon her.
Rather he seemed to lookintoher.
She found she would have preferred a condescending sneer. That, at least, she knew how to withstand.
There were men who sneered because she was a woman, and therefore beneath them. There were women and men who sneered because she was a governess. Not quite a servant. Not quite a lady. Never one of them. A woman who shaped her life around the children of her betters but had none of her own. No husband. Nothing to inherit. Nothing at all to give her value in the way those sorts of people could measure it.
And there were men who sneered in triumph, because they found the arrangement of her features beautiful, and thought because she was a woman, because she was a governess, they could have her if they wished.
The Duke of Westmere did not sneer.
His assessment, clear and cold, was somehow so much more disconcerting for the condescension it lacked.
Despite years of preparing for this very moment, she found there was no way she could have been truly prepared for it. Every moment in England up until this point had been just not quite this.
A meeting with the master’s wife wasnot quitea meeting with the master himself. An earl wasnot quitea duke, and his home wasnot quitea duke’s home. The lofty air of a man who knew many other men outranked him was notat allthe bearing of a man who knew that no matter which room he walked into—save one at the palace—none were above him.
Even if this man were to walk into a palace he would stand head and shoulders above anyone else there, she was certain.
She could think of nothing that might lessen his impact.
