Page 92 of His Duchess to Remember

Octavia’s eyes widened at the warmth in his voice and the passion with which he spoke those words.

“I didn’t have to set my pride aside, but my fear,” he continued, as his hand found hers. “My fear of hurting those I love, and losing them. I thought that if I could build high enough walls around myself, then I wouldn’t suffer pain or grief again, but when ye build such high walls, ye don’t feel anything again. Ye become a husk. A living ghost.

“Then, I lost my memory, and I rode to ye without even kenning ye, and when those memories came back, it was already too late; I didn’t want to be a husk again, because of ye,” he urged, and brought her hand to his lips, kissing it. “But I ken that I hurt ye, that I broke yer trust, and rather than run away from it, I want to be at yer side until ye can trust me again. If that takes forty years, so be it, but I won’t stop trying to earn it back.”

Octavia stared at him, not knowing what to say.

“And now I ken why I rode to ye in the first place,” he added with that radiant smile of his.

She swallowed. “Why is that?”

“Because there was a part of me,” he replied, as he brought her hand to rest on his heart, “this part of me, that couldn’t ever forget ye. I could take twenty hits to the head, and I wouldn’t forget ye, or how I have felt about ye since the first night at Highcastle.”

Her eyelids fluttered, her lungs unable to draw breath. “How you… have felt about me?”

He nodded. “The week of our honeymoon. I left so soon because I could already feel that ye were thawing my heart. I was already half in love with ye, and I chose to run from it because, back then, I thought that to love something was to lose it. I thought I was a blight on anyone who cared for me. A cursed soul, who’d hurt ye one way or another. And, of course, ye’d already said ye didn’t want joined lives. But I ken, with all of this heart, that I will never hurt or lie to ye again because I’m more than half in love with ye now, lass.”

It was the confession she had daydreamed about in his absence and since his return. It was the confession she had imagined since she was a little girl, before experience had made her build such high walls of her own.

He loves me.

Her heart ached, straining with the urge to respond in kind. She wanted to tell him that he was not alone in his feelings… but she could not get her mind and mouth to cooperate with that eager heart. For how could she genuinely confess her love when she still could not trust him? There was no love without trust, not really.

“I’m nae expecting ye to say it back,” Malcolm said, as if reading her mind. “If that takes forty years too, so be it. I might nae have so many virtues, love, but patience is one of them.”

She managed to get her head to tip into a nod. “Thank you.”

“Now, what do ye say to that dance?” he asked, so hopeful that she could not bring herself to refuse.

“I suppose just one would not hurt,” she replied, as she allowed him to lead her to the dance floor, where they had just missed the waltz.

But as she stood waiting beside him, she peered up at him out of the corner of her eye and heard a quiet voice in her head whisper, I love you too. It might take me a while to say it out loud but my goodness, I love you too.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The ball had passed in a blur of emotion and dancing and eating more ices than Octavia had ever eaten in her life. For when she was putting flavored ice into her mouth, it was a good enough excuse not to talk to her husband.

“I think I might retire for the evening,” she said, at last, when she could not bear the silence anymore.

Not because of its innate quiet, but because she could not sit there a moment longer, loving him, and not tell him that she did. It was unfair.

Malcolm rose to his feet. “Too many ices, love?”

“I do feel a little… unusual,” she replied, managing a smile.

“Do ye want me to escort ye? Do ye need anything?”

His kindness made her heart sore. Maybe Evelyn had been right; maybe this version of Malcolm was the real one, a blend of the old and the new, no longer weighed down by his past.

She shook her head. “No, thank you. I shall be quite all right.” She paused. “Thank you for a lovely evening, Malcolm.”

“Thank ye for the dances,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes.

“Indeed.” She laughed stiffly. “I did not trip after all.”

“I would nae have let ye.”

She believed him, she really did, and yet she still could not get herself to say how she felt. The idea of admitting her feelings felt too enormous, like she would be setting herself up for a greater disappointment. Since the incident that Laurence had saved her from, she had promised herself she would never be vulnerable in a gentleman’s presence again. Confessing her love? That was a vulnerability she could not yet permit.