“Ffion, please, you did nothing wrong. You did only as I asked you and nothing more.” As Georgette looked at the little girl, her heart felt so terribly torn.
On the one hand, they were two tiny children who had lost everything and whom she loved dearly and, on the other, was the only man she had ever loved with his heart breaking at the very sound of his niece’s native tongue. At that moment, it rather struck her that there was no way in which she could win. She could not help one without hurting the other, and the idea of it was heartbreaking.
“Right, I am going to find Daisy and ask her to sit with you for a little while so that I may go and speak with your uncle.”
“Oh, Miss Darrington,” Eleri said, her voice as distressed as her sister’s.
“All will be well, Eleri, I promise. But I do need to speak to your uncle, and I must do it right away.”
It took some time to track Daisy down and settle her in with the children and, by the time Georgette was walking along the corridor towards the Duke’s study, she felt her nerves almost desert her.
She tapped gently on the door, half expecting that the Duke would simply open it for her as he had done the last time. However, he did not open it but merely shouted that she should enter.
When she did enter, Georgette found herself a little dismayed to see that he was sitting behind his desk. It was as if their last meeting had never happened and that the desk between them signified a barrier both literally and figuratively.
“Your Grace, I do not know what to do,” Georgette said truthfully.
“And neither do I, Miss Darrington,” the Duke replied and sighed deeply.
“I would not have wished to hurt you, Your Grace. I hope that you can believe that.”
“I do not suspect you are going out of your way to do any such thing, Miss Darrington. What I have come to realize is that there is never going to be an end to this. From the moment you arrived here, you have gone against my wishes, and you have done so quite forcefully and openly.”
“Your Grace, I …”
“No, allow me to finish,” he said and stared at her quite plainly.
In truth, she had not known him to regard her so coolly for a number of weeks. His countenance took her aback entirely, and she wondered quite when it was that he had last looked upon her in that way. It was the same look with which he regarded everybody; the look a master gives a servant.
It was not until that moment that she realized quite how precious what had passed before between them had truly been. She had taken for granted the little signs that he saw her differently. Only now when the progress and the curious closeness between them seemed to have been withdrawn did she realize that it had really been there in the first place.
The Duke had not told her so much of himself that last time because he was upset and could do no other. No, he would not have confided so deeply in any other member of his staff. Had she been one of the other governesses, he would, undoubtedly, have dismissed her when he’d happened upon her encouraging Eleri to sing a little Welsh folk song. One of the other governesses would not have been allowed into his study and would not have been told all that he had to tell. And they most certainly would not have been permitted to embrace him the way she had. And even though he had never been hers, at that moment, she felt that she had lost him.
“I explained to you my every reason for wanting my nieces to speak only English. I had thought you had understood me, Miss Darrington. I really did.”
“I did understand, Your Grace. I understood entirely.”
“What I do not understand is why you persist. When you know all that you know why is it, Miss Darrington, that you still choose to disregard everything I say?”
“Your Grace, I do not disregard everything you say,” Georgette said and meant it, but she did not know quite how she would explain herself.
“Certainly, in the matter of my nieces’ language, you have disregarded me at every turn.”
“Your Grace, it is hard to explain, but I have not disregarded your wishes. Yes, I have continued to help the girls hold on to whatever language they have left, but I have not done so to spite you. It has not been an easy thing, Your Grace, to know how you feel about it all and yet to see the girls having their voices taken away from them.”
“And that is what you see me as, Miss Darrington?” he said darkly. “You see me as the man who would take their voices away?”
“I do not know how it is possible to see you in any other light. And I did not mean that harshly, Your Grace. Still, I understand, and I wish I knew what I ought to do about it all.”