Page 11 of His Duchess to Remember

The man had the mildest hint of a Scottish accent.

“I warned you not to overexert yourself,” he continued. “You shouldn’t be here. You should be back at Highcastle, resting. This is not your home.”

Thank you! Octavia was glad that someone had said it, even if she did not know this gentleman.

“It must be my marital home if my wife is here,” Malcolm insisted, that pained look creasing the corners of his eyes. “I imagine she wanted to be closer to English society. There isn’t much to entertain a lass in the glens. Nae much to entertain me, either.”

“You will make yourself worse!” the man, Stanforth, urged, as he took a step closer.

“Lying in me bed, staring at a ceiling, going out of me mind with boredom is what will make me worse,” Malcolm retorted, a flare of the duke she remembered flashing through the smiling façade. “I cannae rest anymore, doctor. I won’t.”

Doctor?

Why on earth was a doctor here at Huntfield, apparently in pursuit of Malcolm?

Octavia’s heart plummeted into her stomach, her eyes turning to the older man. “What is the meaning of this, sir?”

Stanforth puffed out a breath. “I didn’t mean for you to find out like this, Your Grace.” He offered an apologetic smile. “It was my intention to write to you if his condition didn’t improve, though I had hoped that it would, and you would never need to know of it.”

“Condition? What condition?” she demanded to know, her tone harsher than she had intended.

The doctor grimaced. “There was an… accident.” He glanced at Malcolm, who had fallen silent, rubbing his temples as if to press away whatever pained him. “His Grace rescued a boy from the river, but he was riding, and the horse spooked. Your husband fell and… I am afraid he injured his head rather seriously.”

She stared at Malcolm, unable to see any wound or obvious injury. Aside from the fact that his character was entirely opposite to the one she remembered, he seemed unscathed. There was, perhaps, a new bruise just above where he was rubbing his temples, but it did not look so severe.

“His memory is affected, Your Grace,” the doctor said in a quieter voice. “He… Well, he can’t remember the last ten or so years of his life.”

Octavia stood speechless, her jaw slack. She had heard stories of such incidents, but she would never have thought it possible that Malcolm, with his body made of granite and the fact he had survived years of fighting in a war, could ever succumb to such a thing.

“Wait…” She shook her head. “Ten years?”

The doctor nodded. “Give or take.”

Her brow furrowed. “Then, why has he come here to me? I did not know him ten years ago.”

“After I realized he had lost his memories, I had to decipher what he could remember, if anything, of the past decade,” the doctor explained. “I mentioned your name. He didn’t remember you, but seemed curious about you. Asked who you were to him. So, I told him, and I… made the mistake of telling him where you were.

“Believe me, Your Grace, if I had known he meant to ride off without warning to find you, I wouldn’t have mentioned you at all,” he concluded, a weariness collapsing his face.

Dr. Stanforth must have ridden like a man possessed to try and catch up to his escaped ward before he could reach Huntfield House. Even after all that effort, he had failed.

“I will be staying with my family until I am recovered,” Malcolm declared abruptly, the force in his voice a sure sign that there was still some of the battle-hardened war hero in there somewhere, however hidden.

“I cannot advise that, Your Grace,” Stanforth said, sighing. “This manor is not familiar to you, as Highcastle is. Your wife is not familiar to you. You need to be where you know things, where your mind and memories can feel more… anchored.”

Malcolm’s eyes hardened. “I was living alone in a castle. That is not where I will be well again.”

“Which is true, Doctor?” Octavia’s gaze flitted from her husband to Stanforth. “Where might he recover his memories the quickest?”

Stanforth exhaled a strained breath. “I would say Highcastle, as I mentioned, but… I can’t force him to go back. I don’t have that authority.” He paused. “And there is the matter of his determination to find you. That is not nothing. It might be a sign that he remembers you, in some capacity, which may, in turn, lead to him remembering more of the years he has lost.”

“Don’t speak of me as if I’m nae here,” Malcolm said grumpily, his lip slightly curled.

I kissed those lips once…

Octavia swallowed thickly at the memory that she had no trouble at all remembering. Indeed, there had been times over the past five years when she had wished that she could forget it, wiping it clear from her mind.

“I don’t understand why I wasn’t living with my family in the first place,” he added, his tone short. “A husband should be with his wife. A father should be with his son.”