Page 66 of His Duchess to Remember

“I am waiting, Malcolm,” she said, more curtly than she had intended. “You seem to be neglecting your duties.”

His mouth tugged into a half-smirk. “Aye, I daresay I am.”

Taking another apple from Simon, Malcolm threw the fruit in a generous arc, easily captured. Nevertheless, Octavia almost missed the catch; she was so stunned by his words and confused by their meaning.

Might he… want another child?

She hardly dared to hope, the bashful warmth in her face transforming into the heat of possibility. It was no secret that she had thought about their honeymoon from time to time, her skin tingling whenever she remembered the power of that first kiss, but she had put that part of herself away, locked it in a box of impossible things, alongside the promise of siblings for Simon.

If all it took was a knock to the head to get Malcolm to grant her more children, she would have taken a rock to his skull years ago.

“How many do ye think we need?” Malcolm asked.

Octavia snapped out of her reverie. “What?”

Was he talking about children?

“How many apples do ye think we need?” he said, as her cheeks burned furiously.

“For a pie? At least ten, I should think.” She looked down at the four in her skirts, if only to give herself a moment to catch her breath. “Six more, my darling.”

When Malcolm’s eyebrow rose again, she added hastily, “I was talking to Simon.”

“Aye, I ken,” he replied with that ghost of a smirk.

Maybe, she really had been wrong about the difference in him since he came back from London. Maybe it had all been because of Simon’s sickness, for the man standing in front of her, looking at her like that, was every bit the Malcolm she wanted to keep around.

“Ye heard yer mama, laddie,” he said, looking up at his son. “Six more. Count them out for me as ye pick them.”

With fixed determination on his face, Simon picked and counted, and when he faltered, Malcolm did not correct him outright or with impatience but encouraged him to try again until he had the right number. A sight that filled Octavia up with such pride and such joy that she could hardly bear it, for one thing she had never expected was that Malcolm might be a good father.

Oh no… she thought with a jolt, for it really was beginning to feel like Evelyn was right: Octavia Gale, the woman who had never sought a normal sort of marriage, was falling in love with her husband.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Almost two weeks had passed since Simon’s fever broke, and the little boy had returned to running around like nothing had happened: a wild thing that reveled in the outdoors, racing across the lawns just to see how fast he could go, splashing in the reflecting pool simply because it delighted him, chasing butterflies because he was in awe of their beauty, running amok with the gardener’s dogs, riding his mare under Malcolm’s careful supervision, and begging Malcolm to teach him how to climb trees, fish in the pond, and get the dogs to obey.

They were, perhaps, the happiest two weeks of Malcolm’s life. So happy, in fact, that he forgot he was supposed to be pretending to be his amnesiac self.

His smiles were no longer forced, his laughter came almost easily, and he reveled in every moment he got to spend with Simon, learning everything there was to know about the little boy who would one day replace him as Duke of Highcastle.

“Malcolm? Malcolm, are you out here?” Octavia’s voice called to him like music across the rose garden, where he was showing Simon a caterpillar and explaining how, one day, it would become a beautiful butterfly.

“By the gate!” Malcolm called back.

She appeared a few moments later in a floaty dress of cream muslin, an embroidered ribbon giving the suggestion of a waist. Her hair had been curled and pinned into a bun, a few locks framing her radiant face. He did not know how it was possible, but she became more beautiful every day.

Not that he had told her that, or would, for the closer he wanted to get to her, the more he urged himself to pull away.

“What are we learning today?” Octavia asked wryly, as she sat down on a nearby bench. “Not how to skin rabbits, I hope.”

That was, perhaps, not one of Malcolm’s finest moments. The gamekeeper had brought over a brace of the animals, and Malcolm had decided that he would prepare the rabbits so the cook did not have to. He had not, however, expected Simon to come running out to find his father with bloodied hands, a small pile of rabbit skins, and the bodies lying out on a stool.

The poor boy had wept for an hour, yet it had not stopped him enjoying his rabbit stew later that afternoon.

He’s a gentle boy, as he should be.

Barnaby had been a gentle boy too, unable to stand up to the cruelty of their father.