Page 12 of His Duchess to Remember

He spoke those last sentences almost to himself, his brow creasing as if to urge his brain to remember why he was not.

Having Malcolm at Huntfield, going against their agreement, invading her home and the peaceful life she had cultivated for herself was not at all what she wanted. Having him meet his son was not what she wanted, when he had never taken the opportunity before. It would disrupt everything.

But he is not himself. He is… vulnerable. He is injured and in need of help.

Her prickling irritation dulled to a faint reluctance. How could she turn him away in a time of need? More to the point, she doubted she could physically turn him away, so the notion was moot.

And he is Simon’s father.

The words of her friends came back to bother her: the importance of a son having a father in his life. At least this version of Malcolm was gentler and cheerier than the one Simon could have met.

Frustrated and still a little uncertain, she turned her gaze back to her husband… and felt her heart jolt as she found him staring at her, his green eyes warm and soft, his lips curved in a hopeful smile, looking so handsome that it was almost painful to behold. Like staring into the sun.

“I won’t leave my family,” he said, his voice husky, the sound of it sending a faint thrill down the back of her neck. “I need to be with ye, lass, and with our son.”

She drew in a sharp breath, her face suddenly hot. “Well, naturally, this is one of your properties. I cannot send you away from it.” Her heart quickened with the intensity of his gaze. “Nor do I want your condition to worsen. If you think him staying here might be of benefit to him, Doctor, then… very well, he can remain.”

“It is such an uncommon thing that I don’t truly know what would be of benefit,” Stanforth replied. “But it can’t hurt.”

“But…” Octavia raised a hand and struggled to hold Malcolm’s warm, almost inviting gaze, “… once you have recovered, you must leave again for Highcastle.”

Malcolm opened his mouth as if to protest, no doubt braced to say that he would never wish to leave his family again, but she jumped back in before he could.

“Once you have remembered, Your Grace, you will not want to remain here,” she explained. “Everything will return to the way it was, and we shall both be glad of it.”

Leaving him to mull that over, and to give the doctor the opportunity to reason with him, Octavia quickly departed the room.

The last of the day’s summer heat still lingered like a dying ember in the hallways of the manor, but she knew that was not the cause of the burning heat in her face. It was the way her husband had been looking at her, as if there was something powerful between them, something that even a severe knock to the head could not erase.

But there is not. There never was. That was the whole point.

All they had ever known of one another was a not-unpleasant week, five years ago, where they had barely spoken to one another. Talking had not been necessary.

So, why on earth was he looking at her like that now, as if she was someone he might actually like?

“This is a terrible idea,” she muttered to herself, as she hurried off to spread the word that the duke had returned, and that no one was to tell him where to find Simon until she was ready to make the introduction herself.

CHAPTER FIVE

After a restless night spent pacing the nursery, watching her son sleep and listening out for any unexpected sound in the hallway beyond, Octavia stirred from the slumber that must have claimed her some time before dawn.

She groaned, her muscles stiff; she had fallen asleep in the armchair again, and her body was paying for it.

Did all of that really happen? Is Malcolm really here at Huntfield?

She rubbed the back of her neck and tilted it from side to side to try and loosen a tight knot.

A moment later, she forgot her morning aches as her gaze shot toward the empty bed where Simon should have been.

“Simon?” she shouted lamely.

“Millicent?” She called for the night nursemaid instead, who was also worryingly absent from the room.

Jumping up from the chair, she ran for the door, cursed as she found it unlocked, and rushed out into the hallway. Millicent must have taken Simon downstairs for his breakfast without waking her.

But I warned her. I told her not to cross paths with Malcolm.

She tried to comfort herself with that thought as she raced across the landing and down the stairs. Judging by the sun that still hung low in the dusky sky, it was not yet so very late in the morning. Perhaps, with his affliction and the doctor’s prescription for rest, Malcolm would not rise from whichever guest chamber he had taken until much later.