Chapter Two #2
"My expectations for Henry's education are adequate," he said, his voice resuming its previous cool efficiency.
"Lessons will begin early in the morning.
The curriculum will be as his schedule includes.
There will be no deviation from the schedule without my express permission.
Discipline is to be maintained at all times.
There will be no..." He waved a hand vaguely. "Chaos."
"Latin and Greek," Eliza repeated, keeping her voice carefully neutral. "For a six-year-old."
"He is the heir to a dukedom. He must be prepared for the responsibilities that await him."
"Prepared for what, precisely? Debating Cicero over his morning porridge? Translating Homer before he's learned to tie his own boots?"
The Duke's eyes snapped to hers. For a moment, they simply stared at each other—the ice and the fire, taking each other's measure. The air between them seemed to thicken, charged with something Eliza couldn't quite name.
"You have strong opinions," he said slowly, "for a woman in your position."
"I have strong opinions regardless of my position, Your Grace.
" The words were out before she could stop them.
Eliza winced internally but refused to look away.
She had promised Henry she would stay. She had promised to teach him to laugh.
She could not do that if she allowed herself to be cowed into silence by a man who thought childhood should be scheduled like a coach timetable.
"Indeed." The word was clipped. Dangerous. But he did not dismiss her, which she chose to interpret as progress.
"Lord Henry is six years old," Eliza continued, since she had apparently decided to die on this particular hill.
"He is bright and curious and eager to please.
He needs a foundation, but he also needs time to be a child.
Time to play, time to imagine and time to learn that the world contains joy as well as duty. "
"Joy." The Duke spoke the word as if it were a foreign language he had once known but long since forgotten. As if joy were something that happened to other people, in other houses, in lives that had not been touched by tragedy.
"Yes, Your Grace. Joy. It is generally considered beneficial for children. Adults, too, though I suspect you would argue the point."
He rose from his chair in one fluid motion, and Eliza was suddenly reminded that he was very tall, very broad and very much her employer, and that she had perhaps gone too far.
He moved to the window, his back to her, his hands clasped behind him with white-knuckled tension.
The morning light fell across him, illuminating the rigid set of his shoulders, the careful control in every line of his body.
"What else would you have on the schedule, Miss Harrow?" His voice was quiet. Too quiet. The calm before a storm. "Finger painting? Mud pies? Unstructured chaos? Perhaps we should let the boy run wild through the moors since we have come to it."
"I would have affection, Your Grace."
He turned. The morning light fell across his face, illuminating every sharp angle, every plane of carefully constructed control. And beneath it, just for a moment, something that looked almost like pain.
"Affection," he repeated.
"Is that on the schedule?" Eliza asked, rising from her chair because she could not bear to remain seated while he loomed over her.
"I did not see it listed between Latin and mathematics.
A half hour, perhaps, for someone to tell that child that he is loved?
Ten minutes for a hug? Five minutes to ask him about his day, his thoughts, his dreams, his fears? "
"Miss Harrow…"
"He has named his rocking horse Perseus.
" She stepped closer, refusing to be intimidated by his height, his title, his walls.
"Did you know that? He named it after a Greek hero, because he loves stories, myths and adventure, except he's been told that making up stories is unbecoming in a future duke.
He arranges his toast soldiers into formations instead of eating them because no one has taught him that breakfast is for enjoyment, not military strategy.
He asked me if I was going to stay, Your Grace, and the way he asked…
" Her voice caught, but she forced herself to continue.
"The way he asked made it clear that he expects everyone to leave.
That he has learned, at six years old, not to become attached to anyone because attachment leads to abandonment. "
The Duke's face had gone very still. A muscle jumped in his jaw. "You have been here less than a day."
"And in that day, I have seen a child who is starving. Not for food, he is clearly well provided for in that regard, but for warmth. For connection. For someone to see him as a little boy rather than a title in training."
"You know nothing of this family." His voice had dropped to something low and dangerous, but beneath the danger, Eliza heard something else.
Something that sounded almost like anguish.
"Nothing of what we have endured. Nothing of what I have had to…
" He stopped and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the walls were back in place. "You know nothing."
"I know grief," Eliza said quietly. "I know what it is to lose a parent and to be left behind with the weight of their absence.
I know what it is to grow up in a house that has forgotten how to laugh, where every room holds memories, and every silence echoes with loss.
And I know, Your Grace, that children who have lost everything do not require silence, schedules and Latin declensions.
" She held his gaze, refusing to flinch from the storm brewing in those gray eyes. "They require courage."
"Courage." The word came out rough, as if it had scraped against something raw on its way out.
"The courage to love them anyway. The courage to show them that loss does not mean the end of joy. The courage to hold them when they cry and laugh with them when they play and teach them that the world, for all its cruelty, still contains beauty worth experiencing."
The silence that followed was absolute. The Duke stared at her as if she had reached into his chest and taken hold of something vital. His hands, still clasped behind his back, were trembling; she could see the fine tremor in his shoulders, and the way his jaw worked as he fought for control.
For a moment, just a moment, the ice cracked. Behind it, Eliza glimpsed something that looked like anguish, like longing. Like a man who had been alone with his grief for so long that he had forgotten there was any other way to live.
Then the walls slammed back into place, so quickly and completely that she might have imagined their absence.
"You are dismissed for the day, Miss Harrow." His voice was perfectly even and perfectly controlled. As if she had not just shattered something between them. "We will discuss the schedule further tomorrow."
"Your Grace…"
"That will be all."
She should leave. She should curtsy and retreat and count herself lucky that she hadn't been dismissed entirely. She should…
"He adores you, you know."
The Duke went very still.
"Henry," Eliza continued, because she had come this far.
"He speaks of you with such careful respect.
'His Grace prefers things tidy. His Grace values discipline.
His Grace expects proper behaviour.' He watches the door when he thinks no one is looking, as if hoping you might walk through it.
He is desperate for your attention, Your Grace, and terrified of disappointing you.
He loves you with all the fierce, uncomplicated devotion of a child who doesn't know how to stop loving, even when love brings only silence in return. "
"Enough." The word cracked through the room like a whip. "You forget yourself."
"No, Your Grace." Eliza met his gaze. "I remember myself perfectly. And I remember that I was hired to care for your brother, and I intend to do so. With or without your cooperation."
She curtsied, the barest dip of respect that propriety would allow, and walked out of the study before he could respond.
The door closed behind her with a soft click that somehow managed to sound like a declaration of war.
Alistair Ravenshaw, seventh Duke of Northmere, stood motionless in his study for a very long time after Miss Harrow's departure.
The fire crackled, the clock ticked, and somewhere in the house, servants went about their duties with the quiet efficiency he demanded.
The world continued to turn, indifferent to the fact that a copper-haired governess with a sharp tongue and sharper eyes had just walked into his carefully ordered life and set fire to it.
Copper-haired.
He closed his eyes, but the image was already burned behind his eyelids.
That hair, that impossible, improbable hair, catching the morning light like it was made of flame.
Not gentle auburn that could be ignored.
Not a dignified chestnut that could be overlooked.
True copper, bright and wild and completely untamed despite what had clearly been a valiant effort with hairpins.
He had always been drawn to red hair. It was a weakness he had identified in himself years ago; an inexplicable, irrational attraction to the color that had no basis in logic or sense.
His father had loved his mother's dark hair and would bury his face in it when he thought no one was watching. He had been unable to live without her, but Alistair would not make the same mistake.
And yet here was a woman living in his house with hair like a sunset and eyes like a forest and a mouth that curved into challenge every time she spoke.
A mouth he had found himself watching far too closely, wondering what it would look like, curved into other expressions. Softer ones and warmer ones.
A mouth like a challenge.