Page 22 of His Duchess to Remember

Malcolm considered the butler’s story while he tried to read the wretched ledger again. If Mr. Lincoln had been in his employment for six years, then the man must have been there during the honeymoon and the three months that Octavia spent alone in that dreadful, gloomy place.

There were so many things that Malcolm wanted to ask, yet he was uncertain if he was ready to hear the answers.

Where did I go after the honeymoon? Why did I stay away? Why was I nae there to take care of my wife? Why was I nae at the birth of my son? What did Octavia make of me back then? What sort of man was I? Why did I make a deal like that with my wife?

“And ye’ve nay idea how to read any of this?” he asked instead, showing the page to the butler.

Mr. Lincoln squinted. “Perhaps, I could decipher it with some time.”

His mouth opened, and then closed again.

“Go on,” Malcolm encouraged. “What is it ye want to ask?”

“Can you really not remember anything?” the butler blurted out, as if he had been holding onto that question for some time. “Have ten years really just… disappeared out of your head?”

Malcolm chuckled. “Aye, they’re all gone, maybe temporarily, maybe not.”

“So… do you remember your father?”

Malcolm’s laughter died. “Aye, I do.”

“And your mother?”

Malcolm nodded.

“Your brother?” the butler said, wincing.

It was that twist of the mouth that drew Malcolm’s sharp attention. He had tried to ask Doctor Stanforth about his family, for in his memory, they were still alive, living in an Edinburgh townhouse. But the good doctor had refused to answer.

“It won’t help your recovery if I just give you the answers, Your Grace,” he had explained, despite Malcolm’s protests. “Indeed, it may hinder your recovery if I tell you about them.”

Such words had hardly conjured notions of good tidings, but the doctor had been immovable, a vault of secrets that Malcolm had not been able to break.

Mr. Lincoln, however, did not seem to have been warned by the doctor.

“My last memory of ‘before’ is being around a campfire with soldiers,” Malcolm said. “I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t bitter; I was oddly content to be there. It was the night before a big battle, which I ken I survived, but I can’t recall.”

The butler paled. “So, you don’t know what happened?” His eyes scrunched in confusion. “Or do you? Did the doctor tell you? Some of the Highcastle staff, perhaps?”

Malcolm shook his head. “As I said, that was my last memory of ‘before.’ I have no notion of what happened in the ten or so years after, but I ken I haven’t seen any of my family, and they haven’t been to visit, and if I’m duke of somewhere, then my father is assuredly dead.”

“He is,” the butler confirmed, a catch in his throat. “He died the same night he received word that he was due to inherit Highcastle from his cousin, as there were no other male heirs.”

Dark laughter rippled from Malcolm’s throat. “A fitting end for such a vile man, to have been handed everything, only to die before he could get a single taste of it.”

“You were, of course, the next in line,” Mr. Lincoln continued, wearing a rather startled expression. “That is why you returned from war.”

Malcolm raised his gaze to the butler. “And my mother? My brother?”

They were the only two he cared about. Theirs were the fates that he had been desperate to know, though Stanforth had denied him that.

“Your mother and brother passed within weeks of each other,” Mr. Lincoln replied, his head bowed. “It was, perhaps, a year after you left for war, if my memory is correct. The staff at Highcastle told me all about it and, occasionally, you did too.”

“Barnaby is… gone?” A lump clogged Malcolm’s throat.

He had assumed that his mother and father were dead, but his younger brother? He had… hoped, more than anything, that Barnaby had not visited because he had been out there in the world, enjoying the adventures he so richly deserved. Free from their father, at last.

The butler dipped his head in a small nod. “He is, Your Grace.”