The Duke's Forbidden Lover (Forbidden #1)

Chapter 7.

"Can you please help me with spelling?"

Nalini's eyes widened at the request from Richard who handed her a spelling book. He looked up at her with hopeful eyes, his arms behind his back as he waited.

The boy that hated her, was asking her for help. Well, to be fair, she was his governess and that was her job, but she never thought he would actually ask her for anything at all!

"U-uh, of course!" she said, eagerly. He led her into another room, filled with toys and other things little boys like him liked. The sight made her smile.

As they both made themselves comfortable on the floor, Nalini whispered to him, "Are you okay now?"

A small frown made its way onto his tiny, pouty lips at the reminder but he nodded.

"A little," he said in that cute, boyish voice of his. She couldn't tell if he was lying or if he was telling the truth, even though he looked much better than the night before. She didn't want to pry so let it be.

"Alright, that's good," she said before remembering a key detail. "Oh, and I didn't tell your dad about what happened. Let's keep it a secret between us, okay?"

Nalini didn't know if that was the right thing to do, but she knew that there was something going on. If she had to tell the Duke, then she would tell him after finding out what was going on, instead of making Richard uncomfortable and pestered with questions.

Richard looked up at her, wide-eyed. He nodded softly and his cheeks tinged pink. "Thank you," he said.

Seeing the little boy blush thankfully made her want to pinch his cheeks and to gasp in awe, all at the same time. It may be ignorant to think, but she had never seen a white person blush before–she saw it in the movies, but never in real life.

It also felt strange at how his attitude took a complete 180. Sure, he wasn't completely okay with her; he sat a fair bit away from her, but it was still odd at how he wasn't snubbing her and running away from her...or even making a nasty comment.

She shook her head. She had to focus or the boy would probably tell his father that she wasn't doing her job.

"Okay, let's start then," she said, softly to him. Nalini studied the distance between them and let out a small smile. "But you're going to have to come closer to me so I can read to you. Otherwise, I'd have to yell."

He nodded his blonde head softly and shuffled closer. Satisfied with the closer distance between them, she opened the small book that almost looked like a novel.

The plain black cover was barely eye-catching; the title was printed with a small font. It was thick in size and had barely any colour, compared to books back home. It was just black and white; even the pictures to help children's spelling was just plain black and white.

It wasn't very appealing.

Pushing her prejudice aside, she opened a page and tilted it towards Richard who eagerly leaned close to the book.

"You know the alphabet, right?" she asked softly. Richard nodded his head excitedly, then frowned.

"You think I don't know the alphabet?" His words almost sounded whiny and Nalini couldn't help but smile tenderly at him.

"Oh, I was just testing you. You see, not many five-year-olds know the alphabet like you do. You're pretty smart," she said, grinning when his eyes lit up.