Page 62 of The Governess and the Brooding Duke
She knew what it felt like to have the weight of a man on top of her. To have him thrusting inside of her.
It had been painful, and it had been pure humiliation. Fear. Nothing about it had borne a resemblance to either a clinical act of procreation, which should be divorced of feeling and emotion, or the soft romantic dreams of the girls at boarding school.
They had talked about handsome men, words of poetry. Of being kissed and walking in gardens. They had dreamed of the sort of touch she hadn’t truly believed in.
And all the while she had kept her secrets close to her breast. For no one could know that she was not a maid. No one could know that her virginity was long since lost in a muddy field.
She did not wonder about those things, but she did wonder about his strength. What it would feel like to have it surround her. But not used against her. She did wonder that.
And she did not know if she was filled with a strange sort of hopeful joy at the realisation that she could experience still this strange, mystical wonder at the mysteries between men and women, or horror that the years had faded away something that she had considered to be one of her greatest protections.
She was not naïve. And she was not foolish. She would never put herself in that sort of position again.
And yet she found herself looking at his eyes, his mouth, the strong column of his throat.
Found herself compelled by his hands, large and strong-looking.
The way that he had ridden up on the horse, demanding much of the beast. The way he’d held his riding crop in his hands...
‘Give me the truth then. What is it you think of men like me?’
‘I have never known a man like you.’
It was the truth. Nothing more, nothing less, and yet she was appalled to have had it exit her mouth.
‘Have you not?’
‘As I said,’ she said, trying to recover herself, ‘I have never worked for a duke.’
‘And what sort of men do you know, Mary?’
‘Small men,’ she said. ‘Men who hurt women. And men who enjoy the subjugation of those around them. The humiliation.’
‘They are not men. My father was such a man. And his primary sin was never knowing where to channel the various vices he possessed. A man in possession of much power must know how to wield it. Anger can be expended, but never upon your wife and children. Never upon those weaker than yourself. Power can be wielded, but never for the sake of diminishing another. It is men who never grow beyond boys who do not understand this.’
She could see that he had put a great deal of thought into this.
‘Then trust me to take your children into the woods, to have fun with them—trustme. Is that not allowing something to be in its rightful place? They had fun today out in the wood.’
‘Botany is not a necessary pursuit.’
‘No. But it was fun. I... Your Grace, I am very, very sorry for the loss of your wife. The children lost something of their childhood when they lost their mother. And I know all too well what it is to lose your innocence. Your youth. Before its time.’
She felt breathless standing before him.
Talking to him down by the pond had been the strangest experience. For he’d felt nearly...tame for a moment. And then she’d seen the beast. That dangerous thing in him, and it did not make her want to turn away.
There had been a note of steel in his voice when he had spoken of her supplication, and yet it was different. Different to men who wished to harm women.
There was something velvet and enticing about it. An invitation to test his strength. In a way that appealed.
For the first time, she imagined what it might be like for a man to touch her. Her face, her mouth.
It was far too easy to imagine those large hands drifting along her jawline, the edge of her lip.
She looked up at him, a gasp making her breath hitch.
‘I thank you,’ he said. ‘For the connection you have forged with the children. Even in such a short time. But you must avail yourself to the child.’
