Miranda Jarrett - The Duke's Governess Bride

Hadn’t he?

‘Miss Wood is still a young woman, your Grace,’ Potter was saying, stating the patently obvious as he too often did. ‘No doubt she is already looking towards her future, and a position with another—’

‘I know perfectly well how young she is, Potter,’ Richard said, and as soon as he spoke he remembered how she’d looked last night, her hair loose and full over her shoulders and her eyes wide and glowing with the fervour of her argument. Oh, aye, she was young, a good deal younger than he’d remembered her to be. Now he couldn’t forget it, and his confusion made his words sharp. ‘Nor do I need you to tell me of her future.’

Potter sighed, and bowed. ‘No, your Grace.’

‘Miss Wood’s future, indeed,’ Richard muttered, pointedly turning away from Potter to gaze out the window. Nothing had prepared him for losing his girls as abruptly as he had, and now he’d no intention of letting Miss Wood go before he was ready. ‘As if I’d so little regard for the young woman that I’d turn her out in a foreign place like some low, cast-off strumpet.’

‘Your Grace.’

He swung around at once. Miss Wood herself was standing there beside Potter, her gloved hands neatly clasped at her waist and her expression perfectly composed.

‘Forgive me for startling you, your Grace,’ she said, ‘but Signora della Battista told me you wished to see me directly. I have only now returned, and I came to you as soon as I could.’

He nodded, for once unable to think of what to say. Hell, what had he been saying when she’d entered? Something unfortunate about strumpets and being turned out.

‘Potter, leave us,’ he ordered, determined not to embarrass her any further. ‘I will speak to Miss Wood alone.’

The secretary backed his way from the room, and shut the door after him. Miss Wood continued to stand, her expression so unperturbed that Richard found himself unsettled by it.

‘Sit, Miss Wood, sit,’ he said, waving his hand towards a nearby chair. ‘That is, if you wish to.’

‘Thank you, your Grace.’ She sat with an unstudied grace, the slight flutter of her plain woollen skirts around her ankles reminding him painfully of her night-shift last night in the hallway.

Unaware of his thoughts, she sighed and glanced down at her letter, still open on the table before him.

Her smile became more forced, its earlier pleasantness gone. ‘I suppose you wish to discuss terms, your Grace. I can be gone from this house by nightfall today, if that is your desire.’

‘It most certainly is not!’ he exclaimed, appalled. ‘Look here, Miss Wood, what I was saying when you came in—I didn’t mean you, or that you were to leave.’

Her eyes widened with bewilderment, and she flushed. ‘Forgive me, your Grace, but I don’t understand. When I entered just now, you were looking through the window, saying nothing.’

‘Very well, then, very well.’ He cleared his throat to cover his discomfort. That was a fine start to things, stammering out an apology when none was needed, like some tongue-tied schoolboy. ‘I’ve no intention of sending you off to fend for yourself without any warning. It’s not right, and I won’t have it said that I’d do such a thing to any woman in my employment.’

‘You’re very…kind.’ Now her smile was tremulous with an uncertainty he’d never seen from her before, and that touched him at once. Little tendrils of her dark hair had escaped from beneath her linen cap, doubtless coaxed into curls by Venice’s perpetual dampness, and reminding him again of last night. Why had he always believed her hair to be straight and uninteresting before this?

‘It’s not kindness,’ he said as firmly as he could. ‘It’s my duty to you, in return for how well you have served my daughters.’

‘It is kindness, your Grace,’ she said carefully, ‘and I thank you for it. But I cannot continue here, a governess with no charges to govern. It would not be right.’

‘And I say it is.’ To prove it, he took her letter and tore it in two. ‘There. We’ll forget about this notice, and you can continue with the same wages. I’ll have Potter settle the particulars, to make sure I’m not in arrears with you for the quarter.’

‘But for what, your Grace?’ she asked. ‘Before you arrived, I could continue to stay here until I took the passage for home because I was following my orders as we had arranged last summer. I could continue as I was, because I’d no reason not to, even without any responsibilities. But now that you do know my situation, everything changes. To accept wages from you for being idle would be perceived as unseemly, your Grace.’

Her cheeks had remained pink, and he wondered if she, too, were remembering last night. Had he surprised her as much as she had him? Had she been aware of him as a man, and not just a master? Is that what she meant by ‘unseemly’?

‘You’ve been in my household for years, Miss Wood.’ A thousand memories of her with his daughters came racing back to him—more, really, than he had of the girls with his wife. All he asked now was that she share that with him for another fortnight. ‘You are in many ways a part of our family, you know. Certainly my two daughters feel that way towards you.’

With triumph he saw the brightness in her eyes that meant unshed tears. She wouldn’t go now, not so long as she thought of Diana and Mary.

He lowered his voice, softer but no less commanding. ‘Please, Miss Wood. No one would question it if you remained here another few weeks.’

But instead of immediately agreeing, as he’d expected, she shook her head. ‘Forgive me, your Grace, but I believe they would. A governess is always vulnerable to talk.’

‘No female servant has ever come to grief in my household,’ he declared proudly, ‘and I defy anyone to say otherwise. That shall not change, Miss Wood. I give you my word of honour.’

‘I thank you, your Grace.’ She rose, and he stood, too, on the other side of the table with her torn letter lying between them. ‘But I must refuse. I have no choice, not if I hope to be at ease with myself. I cannot remain here to take money from you for doing nothing in return.’

‘Nothing?’ Swiftly he turned away from her again and back towards the window, unwilling to let her see his surprise at her refusal. When was the last time anyone had refused him like this? What more did she wish from him, anyway? What more could he offer her?

‘For the sake of my girls, I would ask you to stay,’ he said to the window. ‘Reconsider, and stay. Please.’

Yet she did not answer, and he sighed impatiently, clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back.

‘An answer, Miss Wood,’ he said. ‘Damnation, you can at least grant me that courtesy, can’t you?’

No answer came, not a word, and with a muttered oath he swung around to confront her.

And to his chagrin, learned that she had left him and he was already alone.

With feverish haste, Jane packed the last of her belongings into her travelling trunks. Despite the luxury and comfort of this house and the hospitality shown to her by Signora della Battista, the sooner she left this place, the better. No matter how much the duke insisted she stay, she could not remain here with him. She could not. It was as simple, and as complicated, as that.

She muttered with frustration, a rolled-up stocking clutched tightly in her hand. She had anticipated this tour across the Continent so much. Likely it would be the one time in her life she’d be able to see the places and paintings she’d only read about in books. While most tutors to noble families had travelled to France and Italy, very few governesses ever left their schoolrooms, and she’d counted on these new experiences to increase her value to families who’d hire her in the future.