Page 39 of His Duchess to Remember

“There are some raspberry tarts, and they are all for you,” Hugo said with a wink.

“But you must stay for luncheon, so do not ruin your appetite completely,” Evelyn cooed, ruffling Simon’s hair.

“I haven’t had breakfast,” Simon said cheerily.

The next moment, Hugo and Evelyn were staring at Octavia as if she had horns sticking out of her head. Hugo’s stare carried an edge of confusion, while Evelyn’s was outright worried.

“Is everything all right?” Evelyn asked.

Octavia swallowed. “Simon, why don’t you go down to the kitchens and see if they can find something other than raspberry tarts for your breakfast?” She turned to Mrs. Foster, the housekeeper, who had led her into the room in the first place. “Could you take him?”

“Certainly, Your Grace,” the old woman replied, extending a hand toward Simon. “Come on, dear boy. Let us see what cook has made.”

Simon hesitated for a moment, but eventually decided to follow his stomach. Humming happily to himself, he took the housekeeper’s hand and allowed her to lead him out of the drawing room.

“What is wrong, Octavia?” Evelyn jumped right in.

On shaky legs, Octavia made her way to the opposite settee and sank down. “It is Malcolm.”

“What has he done?” Hugo’s tone darkened. “Has he hurt you? Threatened you? Has he hurt Simon?”

“What?” Octavia blinked. “No… no, nothing of the sort. In truth, I have the opposite problem.”

Hugo relaxed. “Oh? What do you mean?”

There was no one in the world that Octavia trusted more than her brother and her sister-in-law, and she could no longer bear the truth of her husband’s condition alone. With them, she could unburden herself and, perhaps, receive some answers to her quandaries.

“He is… quite changed,” she began uncertainly. “There was… Well, there was an accident. I do not know the exact details, but I know that my husband struck his head, was knocked unconscious, and when he awoke, he… had lost ten years of his life. The memories, I mean.

“Now, the doctor that was tending to him is currently at Huntfield House, but… the truth is, he does not know what might happen in terms of Malcolm’s recovery. Apparently, amnesia is so rare and so complicated that anything could happen. He might regain his memories tomorrow, or a month from now, or years from now; he might regain some but not all, or he might never regain them.”

Hugo stared at his sister, open-mouthed.

“And it seems that the Malcolm of ten years ago,” she continued, “is not at all the same as the man that I married. For one thing, he wishes to be involved in my life and Simon’s. For another, he does not seem to want to leave again… and I do not know what to do.”

Her voice cracked, the pressure of the last week finally catching up to her.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Hugo waved his hands. “If Malcolm has lost all of his memories from the past decade, how does he even know about you and Simon?”

“The doctor told him,” Octavia replied. “Indeed, the very moment Malcolm found out, he decided to ride straight to Huntfield. Simon adores him, and he adores Simon. They are… so lovely together. Malcolm plays with him, in ways that I lack the imagination for; he is teaching him to ride and is considering buying him a pony; Simon just… brightens every time his papa is with him, and… I am so confused by it all, and so afraid that he will stay, but I am also afraid that he will leave and break Simon’s heart.”

Sinking back into the settee, Hugo let out a low whistle. “My goodness…”

“That is one way of putting it,” Octavia replied wryly.

“Well, this is not at all what you wanted.” Her brother pointed out the obvious. “It is not what was agreed. Now, I know I was not pleased about the arrangement to begin with, but I know it made you happy. Are you here because you want me to make him leave Huntfield?”

Octavia swept a hand over her hair, her eyes scrunched as the weight of that question threatened to crush her brain. Was that why she had come to Hugo?

No… No, it is not as simple as that.

She shook her head. “I just do not know what to do. What if he decides to stay forever? How do I navigate that? What if he stays for a few years, and then suddenly remembers everything? His entire character would change back, would it not? And Simon adores this Malcolm, not the one who never met him.”

Hugo looked like he was about to answer, when a startling crash snapped her brother’s attention toward the drawing room door. The shout of dismay that followed had Hugo up on his feet, heading for the exit with a muttered, “Just give me a moment. I shall contend with this, then come back to see what advice I can offer… though I cannot promise much, at present.”

He headed out and, as the door closed behind him, Evelyn leaned forward on the settee.

“But what do you make of this new Malcolm?” she asked, with a pointed smile.