Free The Secret Desires of a Governess by Tiffany Clare Page A

thinking about her.
    “You haven’t managed a single day of lessons with my son since your arrival. Now that I’ve caught the songbird, one might wonder why she hasn’t tried to fl y the coop.”
    She blew at a strand of hair that had fallen over her cheek. She was unsuccessful. He longed to brush it away, but held himself still.
    “It’s hard to teach a pupil who is nowhere to be found.
    Your assumptions are misaligned, Lord Brendall, I am no nightingale for you to cage.”
    A challenge if ever he had heard one.
    He didn’t want to cage her. He wanted to shed the constraints that bound her to being a governess, layer by silky layer. And because of that, he must play the beast.
    “How much do you really want this post?”
    She made no response. Though there was a flash in her eyes of some unspoken emotion he couldn’t quite place his finger on. Dislike? Anger? Surprise?
    “You can’t mean to send me off, Lord Brendall.”
    He wrapped his hand around the soft creamy white skin of her neck. So much for not touching her. He could cover the whole expanse of her neck with his giant hand. His thumb massaged the pulse beating frantically there; he couldn’t stop touching her. Couldn’t pull away.
    She swallowed hard beneath his callused palm. When she didn’t object, he tilted her head to the side to expose the line of her neck, wishing he could taste her there instead of simply studying the smooth perfect arch.
    With more difficulty than it should have taken, he dropped his hand from her temptingly soft skin
    and took a step back. It was not far enough to douse the need thrumming through the whole of his body like the tension in a rope ready to snap.
    “No, I won’t send you off, yet.” He might have no choice if he couldn’t keep his hands off her.
    He didn’t miss the spark of relief that flashed across her green eyes with his announcement. Maybe she had nowhere else to go? He couldn’t send her away if that were the case. Damn. She’d do better to find a post elsewhere.
    “What exactly is it you wish of me, my lord?”
    “Only what I’ve hired you for.”
    Only that wasn’t all he wanted.
    “You come with excellent recommendations as a governess, so I wouldn’t dare interfere with your teaching my son.”
    His earlier actions belied those words. What was done was done. He must learn constraint while in her presence.
    Abby almost snorted at his observation of her skills as a teacher. It would remain her secret that the letters of recommendation were forged by her own hand. Not that she doubted her ability to teach a child— she had every confidence in herself.
    The fact that Lord Brendall thought she could play some sort of mistress to his whims and teach Jacob put her in an interesting predicament. Why else would he touch her as he just had, if he didn’t want something more intimate between them? And why did a liaison with Lord Brendall hold such great appeal?
    She’d always been a bit of a daredevil in the family, so long as she didn’t skirt too much over the lines of respect-ability. As tempting as it was to succumb to the seduction, she would not lower herself to appease her desires.
    She stood away from the ladder. He needed to know she’d not be swayed in her decided course of becoming an in de pen dent woman, reliant on no one but herself. She’d not be ruled by a man. Especially him. It was not her fault she couldn’t find Jacob. Not once had anyone offered to help her find the child. No one had offered her any word of encouragement, either.
    “I’ve seen you but a handful of times since my arrival, we’ve barely spoken a word, yet you advance like the hound on the fox.”
    Let it be known he was not chasing the proverbial rabbit. No, she was no creature so simple and easy to catch as a rabbit; he no better than a hound bent on the chase and nothing else from what she’d witnessed of his actions so far. Perhaps he’d tire of her once she accomplished what she’d been hired on for?