A Governess for the Brooding Duke(51)

In truth, she had quite determined to do what she could to see the best in him. Or at least to admit to herself that there was a side of him that was little seen and very much unknown. In the end, she simply could not forget the feeling that he was just a little lost in his own world, and the idea of it had made her feel sad on and off ever since. All in all, she did not want to taint her finer feelings with anger and frustration, especially in times where there seemed little need for it.



She had no doubt that she and the Duke would, at some stage in the future, find themselves complete opposites in their opinions. Georgette knew that it would be foolish to imagine that a few moments of friendly conversation could do anything to head off the inevitable. But whilst she had no complaint with him at that moment, she would not dwell upon the things in their recent past which would, truthfully, still give her great cause for such complaint. Instead, she would try to think of him a little differently.



With a sigh, Georgette neatly folded Henrietta’s letter, determined that she would write back to her within the next few days. She was keen to put every effort into maintaining their correspondence. She rose and tucked the letter into the walnut drawer unit and, stooping to pick up the little book of Welsh translations, she settled herself down at the table.



It was the first time she had seen the Welsh words written down, and she found her eyes widening at the strangeness of it all. The only few words of Welsh she had in her vocabulary were the ones that she had learned from Eleri and Ffion. But she had only ever heard them spoken and only ever done her best to repeat them properly. With the girls being so very young, it was clear that they would never have learned how to write the beautiful Welsh words they spoke.



Georgette suddenly realized that if she were to help them maintain their heritage, just as she had promised she would to Lady Cynthia, she would have to teach them to write and spell in Welsh just the same as she was teaching them to write and spell in English.



As she looked at the words on the page, and their corresponding phonetic spellings designed to help one pronounce things properly, she felt almost as if she were looking at an entirely different alphabet. The letters were the same, certainly, but many of them were pronounced in a completely different way, and it appeared that many consonants were grouped together in a way that would never be found in English. And even those seemed to have an entirely different and somewhat surprising pronunciation to them.



With a certain amount of dismay, Georgette realized that she if she were to have any hope of maintaining and broadening the understanding of the language for her little charges, she was very much going to have to learn the language in its entirety. Quite why that had not occurred to her before, she could not begin to imagine. After all, she would certainly need a firm grasp of Welsh to be able to keep the thing alive for the girls. But she had quite presumed that the words would be written in rather an English sense, with pronunciations that could be relied upon. In truth, she could easily see that the complicated language would be very much more difficult to learn than French.



“French! I had quite forgotten,” she said quietly to herself, remembering that she ought really to be introducing some French as one of the girls’ accomplishments. As well as music, obviously.



Georgette sat back in her seat and let out a great sigh. Suddenly, the undertaking seemed absolutely huge, and she wondered quite where she and the girls would ever find time for one of their easy and comfortable nature walks through the estate, or for drawing and singing.



Suddenly, the responsibilities of a governess seemed to weigh her down rather heavily. She had been so much concerned with the idea of nourishing the girls’ souls and feeding their confidence that she had quite forgotten how much real teaching would need to be done.



For a moment, Georgette felt overwhelmed. She felt something of a fraud, wondering quite how it was she had so confidently proclaimed herself to have each and every skill and ability that a governess would require. And she had never doubted it for a moment, even thinking the whole thing very much beneath her, as thousands of governesses must have done before her.



“For goodness sake, pull yourself together,” she hissed and snapped the book shut. “If you do not believe in yourself, Georgette Darrington, nobody else shall believe in you.” And yet, despite the firmness of her own words, none of her confidence had returned.



Hearing footsteps outside, Georgette looked at the clock and realized that it must be Daisy with her dinner. Delighted by the prospect of a few moments’ discussion and diversion from her own low mood, Georgette hastily rose to her feet and opened the door.