Page 50 of A Governess Should Never… Deny a Duke (The Governess Chronicles 2)

The shadows beneath the duke’s eyes highlighted his startling dusk masculinity and could she detect a reflection of fire within those obsidian depths?

Or was she overwrought from the evening’s events?

Covering the top of her hand with his, he rubbed.

Back and forth.

Forth and back.

Sound sharpened – the spit of firewood, the slip of skin. Her erratic breath, his rustle of sleeve.

Never in her entire life had Isabelle felt anything so…sensual. Pure awareness flowed from his touch, coursing until it flitted to every far-flung part of her.

“Does…” His voice had deepened to a growl. “This evening… Does this happen often to a governess?”

Never, she was about to say. Never had she felt such a sensual thrill roiling through her…

But the last remaining shard of her wits jabbed her in the noddle to inform her that wasn’t what he meant.

So she breathed deep. “No, but a governess has little authority, no champion, and so can be viewed as defenceless prey. Some male employers are under the impression that all females beneath their mansion roof belong to them, to do with as they will.”

His rough palm rubbed still, and her own hand was no longer chilled but akin to flame.

“Why did you become a governess, Miss Beaujeu? You cannot tell me that some French émigré or English gentleman did not wish to marry you. You are all that is intelligence and grace.”

“Oh…that’s most…” She swallowed. But then stiffened her shoulders. “But you see, I… I could not forget. My choice was… I did not wish to compromise.” And with that, she yanked her hand away. “What I am trying to say, Your Grace, is that to be a governess was my choice.”

Rhys waited,but it appeared Miss Beaujeu had revealed all she was going to. From her scant utterances, it seemed she’d had opportunity to wed and yet refused, instead choosing the life of a servant.

Regard stirred within him. For although he could only guess at her reasons for eschewing marriage, he understood the not wanting to compromise or appease others.

In the firelight, her hair gleamed with an umber, almost auburn hue, lips lush, and dark lashes lowered. She reached up to touch her nape but a grimace rippled her features.

“Damn it, you’re hurt, why didn’t you say–”

“No, I am well.” She shrugged. “I believe his signet ring or some such scratched my skin, ’tis all.”

A swell of anger surged through Rhys; he ought to have kicked Gwilym harder.

“Here, come sit on the edge of the desk,” he bit out, swallowing that anger.

“Pardon?” Her eyes flashed a silvered storm, but he claimed her wrist, led her to the desk, set hands to waist and lifted her to the surface.

She squealed a most un-Miss Beaujeu-like squeal. He rather liked it.

“Your Grace, I really must protest.”

Yet she proceeded to protest not.

So he grabbed a bottle from a wooden cabinet on the wall. “For flesh wounds, Cadwalader uses this stuff that his London housekeeper concocts – colourless but with a pleasant scent of sage.”

“It’s not a wound, Your Grace, just a scratch…”

Nonetheless, he plucked a handkerchief from his top pocket, uncapped the bottle and upended an amount to the cotton. “Lean forward, if you will.”

A harrumph whispered from her lips. “Miss Appleton would have an apoplexy. Her instructional manual for my profession certainly does not include this.”

He hooked a curl of hair from his path. Silky, it coiled his finger like a cat’s tail around an ankle. Then he saw the scratch etched across her tilted nape. Not much to it, as she had supposed, but even so, the sight stirred previously unbeknown instincts – wrath, tenderness and a dangerous unfurling.

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