Page 45 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
‘Well, I don’t want him in here,’ said Elizabeth.
Mary wasn’t certain she did either.
‘He is your brother,’ Mary said.
‘He isn’t,’ she answered.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mary. ‘It must be difficult. Since the loss of your mother.’
Loss.
The word echoed inside her.
Loss.
She looked down at the pitiful little bundle in her arms.
Loss.
Elizabeth looked at her, hurt shining out from her eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk about her.’
‘Sometimes it’s good to talk about things that hurt.’
As though Mary had ever spoken of these things. Of being raped. Of giving birth. Of giving that child away—and gladly—yet still sometimes feeling echoes of disquiet.
She would not change what she had done. It was the only choice she’d had. The only piece of the ordeal that had not been forced upon her.
But that did not mean she didn’t experience sadness.
Choosing to let the Laird and his wife raise the child as their own did not mean the past was gone. It only meant she had the chance at a different future.
It did not take away the memories of what had happened, it did not make it so she’d not carried a child in her womb that she had resented—hated—all the months she had carried it, from the moment her mother had found out...
Slut.
Harlot.
If your father finds out you’ll be dead.
Hide it.
Then bury it in the woods when the time comes.
‘What would you know about this?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘Is your mother dead?’
She could not find the governess inside her. The tightly protected answer she would have given if she were not beset and overcome by the weight of the babe. By the weight of the past.
In her heart, had she not promised to prepare these children for the world? Elizabeth most of all.
And yet she kept her deepest truths locked away tight. For all the world she looked like a proud, perfectly composed governess. And inside she was Mary. Just Mary. Wounded and small and so bruised that her every breath was painful.
How could she look at this child and lie?
Her mother might be dead. And as she looked at the hurting little girl she decided the truth was the only thing she had. For this child was raw and in pain, and did she not deserve to know she wasn’t alone? That there were others who felt the same?
Her father held himself at a distance, kept his pain hidden.
Did they know he felt their pain?
