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She would search until she found answers.
When she’d lost her friend Helena, she’d channeled all of her energy into her studies, determined to escape the orphanage and not die there, friendless and alone.
Whatever the truth of her past turned out to be, the knowing would be so much better than the not knowing.
To keep this post, she must gain the confidence and trust of the twins and make their lessons diverting enough to keep them from running away again.
And she must continue to deceive the duke into believing she was superior enough to be their governess. She needn’t tell any outright lies, only small untruths and omissions.
He wasn’t anything like the man she had pictured. He wasn’t a monster. He was a man with vision, building engines to fight fires. A man who cared for his illegitimate children.
Which was, perhaps, more dangerous than his broad shoulders and his handsome face.
Kneeling at her feet. Cutting her bootlaces.
Heat rippled through her body as she unbraided her hair and removed her gown. She must be constantly on her guard. She was pretending to be a superior governess, one who would never permit anything as maudlin as sentiment to muddle her thinking.
Feeling anything other than practical and businesslike emotions for her employer was completely forbidden.
She must stay as far from him as possible.
He might have a list of objections, but she had a list of her own.
He was far too abrupt and changeful.
Entirely too gruff and given to growling.
More attentive to his mistresses and engines than his children.
And he had a most alarming way of using his enormous size to intimidate a girl.
Had it been absolutely necessary to lift her clear off the carpet and dangle her about like a kite in the wind before throwing her over his shoulder?
And why did a delicious little thrill ignite in her mind every time she thought about his large hands gripping her waist?
And that,she reflected,was the most objectionable trait of all.
The elicitation of illicit thrills.
Utterly unforgivable.
And most definitely to be avoided.
Chapter 4
High-pitched screaming woke Mari the next morning:the children.
She fumbled into her stays and black dress. There was a new pair of bootlaces laid out on a table. Were they from the duke?
The memory of his roughened fingertips brushing her ankle unwound in her mind as she coiled her braids atop her head. Ruthlessly, she pinned her hair, and her propriety, firmly into place.
She had no time for daydreaming about dukes. It sounded as though his offspring were attempting to murder one another. If she didn’t calm them and restore order to the household she’d be out on her ear with only a new pair of bootlaces to show for her troubles.
She followed the screams to the nursery and paused inside the doorway.
Well she certainly had her work cut out for her.
A shirtless Michel was chasing a shrieking Mrs. Brill through the nursery, his skinny arms flailing and one hand clutching the snake.
