Page 35 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
She was not unaffected and right in this moment she simply didn’t have the strength to be the governess.
She was Mary.
And he had held her.
His eyes met hers. ‘Did you not tell me, I am your master? You are mine.’ Her heart was pounding in her ears, and she was trembling, but not in the same manner as last night. ‘Part of this household.’
She let out a breath that she had indrawn.
‘Your responsibility,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he confirmed.
She was not his, nor should she want him to make such a statement. And yet for a moment all of her had been held captive by those words. By her longing.
If she belonged to him she could rest. Finally.
If she belonged to him he would protect her, and yes, she was pleased that she had discovered she could protect herself, but the very idea that someone else might also protect her, and not in a distant way, but a personal way...it ignited a need in her that terrified her.
But this was not personal.
It was how he would feel for anyone in his house.
‘I am sorry to have taken so much of your time.’
His expression shifted, going stern. ‘You were not the cause of this. He was.’
She hadn’t realised how good it might feel to hear something like that. She had been blamed. Condemned. Made to fear for her life.
With ease, West...
Why had she called him that last night?
Why was she thinking of him that way?
With ease he had accepted that she was the one who’d been wronged. He believed her, and not the man who had tried to attack her.
She might not be his in a personal sense, but she did have that.
‘Thank you. I... I will go to bed now. Today was quite tiring.’
He nodded. ‘Of course.’
She wanted to thank him. She wanted to move to him and...she wanted him to touch her again, but instead she drew back.
‘Goodnight,’ she said, and it sounded intimate somehow.
He said nothing, he only regarded her with those stern blue eyes, and she moved from the room, closing the door firmly behind her. She leaned against it for a moment, trying to catch her breath, trying to find her balance again.
She could feel the impression of his touch lingering still. He had balanced her, and yet left her feeling storm-tossed all at once.
She pushed herself away from the door and walked through to the entrance of the house. It was so vast.
For some reason she felt compelled to move quickly beneath the opulent chandelier, dark now due to the late hour, as if the whole thing might come crashing down on her if she weren’t careful.
As if everything that protected her was coming undone.
It made no sense why she should feel that way. She had protected herself from that...from that predator of a man.
