Miranda Jarrett - The Duke's Governess Bride

But what she hadn’t counted on was how this trip had altered her.

The changes had been imperceptible as they’d happened, or at least they’d been so to her. When she studied her reflection in the looking-glass, she appeared much the same as she always had, with more thoughtfulness than beauty in her face. She wore the same clothes as when she’d left Aston Hall, and pinned her hair back into the same tidy knot as she had since she’d been a girl. She still wore no scent, no ornaments or jewels, no extra little enticements designed to beguile. She dressed for sturdy, respectable practicality and nothing else.

Nor could she say exactly when or how the changes had occurred. Was it because she’d been forced to step so far beyond her usual place in life, and accept more responsibility for herself and her young charges? Was it the art she’d seen in the galleries here, frankly sensual images of pagan love among the ancient Greeks and Romans, of writhing nymphs and satyrs, of Romish saints in the throes of exquisite ecstasies, that had subtly marked her? Or had the proximity to the heated affairs of Mary and Diana affected her, too, softening her, burnishing her, making her less like her familiar spinster self and more receptive to male attention, even admiration?

Because that was what had happened. Not only was she noticing gentlemen with more interest than she ever had before, but they were noticing her. To be sure, Signor di Rossi was Italian, and by his nature much given to emotional displays, but for him to have proposed assignations had stunned her. The very word sounded beyond wicked. She would be thirty on her next birthday, well beyond the impulsive age for making assignations with gentlemen. Wasn’t she?

Then why had she seen his Grace in an entirely different light last night? For ten years he had been her master and no more, the father of her charges and little else. She had admired him from afar, of course; there was much about him to admire. But once she took the letters to his room last night, everything between them seemed to have shifted. When he’d opened the door himself, she hadn’t thought of him as her master the duke, but as a large, tousled man roused from his bed.

She’d been acutely aware of his physical presence, glimpsed outside his nightshirt, of the muscles of his bare forearms and the curling hair on his chest like the naked Roman gods in the paintings by Tintoretto. His unshaven jaw bristled with a night’s worth of whiskers, and his uncombed hair had fallen across his forehead. She’d stood so close to him that she’d smelled his scent, the warmth of his skin combined with the faint fragrance of freshly washed bed-linens. He’d looked at her, too, looked at her as if he’d never seen her before, with admiration and interest and with desire for her as a woman, too, if she were being honest. In her confusion, she’d looked down to avoid his scrutiny, and had seen the shocking intimacy of his bare feet, so close to hers that their toes could have touched.

And then he’d spoken of his daughters and love and desire and she’d heard the passion in his voice, the urgency of his emotions, so great that she’d had no choice but to run away, just as she’d run away from him now, both times without his leave or her own common sense.

She groaned, and hurled the stocking into the open trunk. What if he’d guessed her thoughts? She’d come to his bedchamber door last night shamelessly in her night-shift. She’d told him this morning that she couldn’t take his wages without earning them, and of course he’d seen no reason to her objection. The duke was a man in his prime, and bound to make conclusions. And what if his Grace had the same wanton notions towards her that she’d felt towards him? Considering it—considering him —was enough to make her flush all over again. No, she’d no choice. She had to leave this house now, now, before she was thoroughly disgraced by her own wicked self.

She slammed the lid shut on her trunk. She would go to the Scottish widow, and put aside for ever the pleasure of viewing pictures on the arm of Signor di Rossi. She would live as chaste a life as she could until she found a new place. She’d drink no more wine, nor view inflammatory pictures. She would again be the model of English propriety. She would be lonely, too, but she’d been lonely before, it would be nothing new to her. The consequences if she chose otherwise would be far more grievous.

She heard the rap at her door—doubtless the porter come to collect her things.

‘Uno momento, per favore,’ she called, hurrying to gather up her cloak. She paused in the doorway between her little servant’s bedchamber and the more extravagant one meant for a lady, gazing for the last time at the unforgettable view of blue sky, shimmering canal and tiled rooftops framed by the window’s curving arches. It was unforgettable, too; she’d carry it in her memory for ever, and she lingered to savour the sight a moment longer.

‘Miss Wood.’

She jerked around. His Grace stood in the open door, his hand resting on the latch, surprising her just as she had done to him earlier.

‘You left before we could finish,’ he said, coming to join her. ‘We weren’t done.’

‘I believed we were, your Grace.’ She wasn’t exactly frightened of him, but she was wary: of him, and of herself.

‘We weren’t,’ he said, folding his arms over his chest. ‘You say you won’t remain with me and be paid for being idle.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘That is what I said.’

‘Then what if you remain as my guest? You’ll receive no wages, no money. There’s no sin to that, is there?’

She raised her chin, more determined than ever. ‘Idle tongues would still see sin, your Grace, whether I were paid a thousand pounds or none at all. It would be so with any woman beneath your roof.’

‘Damnation, it’s not as if we’re alone,’ he said. ‘The house is full of servants.’

She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to, not with her resolve so evident in every inch of her posture.

He grumbled, a sound she knew was his way of masking an oath in the company of ladies. He began to walk slowly around her, not exactly pacing, but thinking, considering. She recognised that about him as well.

‘You speak Italian, don’t you?’ he asked at last. ‘You can manage the lingo here?’

‘A bit, your Grace,’ she admitted. ‘I am not precisely fluent in the language, but I have learned enough to make my wishes understood.’

‘Well, then, there’s the solution,’ he said as if that explained everything. ‘You can remain here as my translator. You can take me about the city and show me the sights.’

‘But I—you—already have a bear leader hired for that purpose,’ she protested, naming the professional guide who had presented himself with a flourish the morning she’d arrived, ‘a native Venetian named—’

‘I do not care what the fellow is named,’ he said grandly. ‘I would rather have you, Miss Wood, to guide me, and teach me what I should know of Venice.’

‘Oh, your Grace, I am hardly qualified—’

‘You know more than I,’ he said, smiling proudly at his solution. ‘That’s qualification enough. You are a governess, a teacher by trade.’

‘Your Grace, please—’

‘I do please,’ he said, and stopped his walking. By accident he stood framed by the arch of the window, his dark blond hair turned gold by the sun, as much a halo as any English peer would ever have. Yet he also stood beside the bed, that extravagant, opulent, sinful bed, and there was nothing angelic about that whatsoever.

‘In those letters you gave me to read from my girls,’ he continued, ‘they said they’d be here in a fortnight. They’re expecting to see you then, and they’ll have my head if you’re not here to greet them.’