Page 36 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
It is not the predator you worry about.
No. Indeed.
She did not worry about protecting herself from the Duke. She worried about what she...what she might do. Not he.
She walked up the stairs, and down the corridor. And, like the other night, heard the babe wailing. She stopped and waited. Waited for that wet nurse to appear.
She didn’t come. And the babe continued to cry, his screams becoming more and more pathetic.
She took a sharp breath, and she had that feeling again. Like the whole ceiling might collapse upon her. Like everything was crumbling.
She did not know why. But it was as if she couldn’t find her defences.
And this child had none.
That hit her with more force than the ceiling ever could have.
She was a woman. A woman of two and twenty years who had just pulled a knife on a man who had frightened her. She felt bruised and battered, yes. But she had defences.
This child did not.
This child with no name.
The wet nurse wasn’t coming. This child could not save himself.
He was dependent, and surrounded by people who could not get past their own wounds in order to see to him.
Galvanised, she stepped forward, pushing open the door to the nursery.
It was empty, other than the bairn.
She crossed the room slowly and looked down into the crib.
The child was screeching, kicking impotent fists and feet into the air.
She did not know how to pick a child up out of the cradle. So she stood there, uselessly. Feeling the weight of her past folding in on her.
And she pushed it back. She didn’t want to remember this.
You are not English.
From the moment she had set foot in this house it was as if her past was closer than ever before.
It was as if him uncovering that truth had brought it up to the surface.
And then there was Pelham. The way he had cornered her, the way that it had forced her to think about her attack at thirteen. The way she had changed the outcome.
It was not all wounding. Some of it was, in fact, healing, but it was all right bear all the shame, and deeply disconcerting in its way.
She reached out and put her fingertips against the babe’s belly.
He hiccupped, and then stilled.
She drew her hand away, anxiety lancing her. And then she put her hand back, resting it more firmly on his stomach, rubbing him back and forth like she might a kitten.
‘It’s all right,’ she said soothingly. ‘Food will be here soon.’
It had better be.
