Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“My love?” Octavia choked, staring up at him.
“Aye, that’s better.” Malcolm smiled again, bringing his hand up to her cheek, brushing his thumb across the rosy apple as he had done five years before. “Are ye cross because ye missed me? I can’t have been away so long that ye’d be angry with me.”
She continued to stare, unblinking. He looked like Malcolm, sounded like Malcolm, certainly had the strength of Malcolm, but there was no way that this was the man who had ridden off a week after bringing her to Scotland and had not seen her since.
Even after the physician gave the good news that she was with-child, almost three months after her arrival in Scotland, he had not bothered to come back from wherever he was staying. Instead, he had simply arranged for a carriage to take her to Huntfield House, where she had been ever since.
“No, I meant…” She took a breath. “I meant, why are you calling me that?”
“Is that nae what I call ye?” He searched her face, his green eyes almost twinkly. “Do I call ye something else? Sweetling? Bumblebee? My cherry blossom? Mon Coeur?”
Overwhelmed by this insanity, she pushed on his chest again, a slight jolt of pain ricocheting up her wrists. She had no hope of actually shoving him away, when his chest—and the rest of him—was as sturdy as granite, but he did release his hold on her and took a half step back.
“You do not call my any of those things,” she replied, moving away from him.
To her surprise, he followed.
“Do I have to keep guessing?” he asked. “We might be here a while. My blue-eyed beauty? Angel? Mo bheatha? Darling?”
She squinted at him as if that might help her solve whatever was going on. “Is this a game?”
Clearly, something was amiss. Was it a trick to get her to break the deal?
Had he decided he wanted to be part of his son’s life after all, and was trying to pretend to be a doting husband?
It did not seem like Malcolm’s character, but then again, she did not know him.
There had been no need to know him beyond the terms of their arrangement.
“That depends. Are you having fun?” he replied, his smile faltering slightly.
“No, Your Grace, I daresay I am not having fun.” She moved again, a vain attempt to put the settee between them, but there he was, just a few steps behind her.
Rather like a pup, albeit a giant, scarred, warrior-like one.
“You should not be here,” she added, frowning.
He smiled again. “Where else would I be but with my dear wife?”
“Stop that!” she gasped, utterly bewildered.
“Stop what?”
She exhaled sharply. “Stop… saying such things. Stop following me around the room like a dog. Just… keep your distance, although it seems you have already decided to deny me that.”
When she moved again, coming around to the other side of the settee, he stayed where he was. Confusion, far greater than her own, clouded his green eyes, a line appearing between his eyebrows, one corner of his mouth turning up in a half-grimace, as if he were in pain.
“What have I done to offend ye, wife?” he asked a moment later, his tone unnervingly gentle.
“Well, you are here, for one thing,” she said, shocking herself with her boldness. “You mentioned nothing of coming here. If you had written first, that might have been courteous. After all, this was not our agreement. I did not agree to you suddenly turning up here.”
His eyes scrunched, as if whatever pain had made him grimace had now doubled. “I must ask permission to visit my wife and my manor?”
“My manor,” she shot back. “You gave it to me as a gift. You said it would be mine and mine alone, just as you said that you would stay away from me and my son.”
Malcolm’s eyes shot open. “A son? We have a son?”
He leaped the settee in one smooth jump, a bright and breathtaking grin spreading across his face, even bigger than before. Standing before her, he did not attempt to touch her; he just whispered, his voice laced with awe, “Where is my boy? Take me to him.”
Octavia’s brain faltered, and she stared at him with renewed unease.
It was one thing for him to come here and play foolish games that went entirely against his character.
It was quite another for him to stand there and behave as if he did not know they had a son.
This was not a jest or a jape; this was terribly, unnervingly wrong.
He was all wrong.
“What is the matter with you?” she rasped, searching his face for answers.
Before any could present themselves, the drawing room door burst open for a second time. A stranger ran in, closely followed by the very harried butler.
“Your Grace, this is… unwise,” the stranger wheezed, bending slightly at the waist to catch his breath.
Octavia shot a look at the butler, Mr. Lincoln, who shook his head. Evidently, he did not know who this newcomer was either.
“Stanforth, ye mustn’t worry so much,” Malcolm said cheerily, his green eyes so twinkly they looked as if they had stars within them. “I am at home. What is there to fret about?”
The stranger grimaced, sweeping a hand through thick, dark gray hair. “Your Grace, we have spoken about this.”
The man had the mildest hint of a Scottish accent.
“I warned you not to overexert yourself,” he continued. “You shouldn’t be here. You should be back at Highcastle, resting. This is not your home.”
Thank you! Octavia was glad that someone had said it, even if she did not know this gentleman.
“It must be my marital home if my wife is here,” Malcolm insisted, that pained look creasing the corners of his eyes. “I imagine she wanted to be closer to English society. There isn’t much to entertain a lass in the glens. Nae much to entertain me, either.”
“You will make yourself worse!” the man, Stanforth, urged, as he took a step closer.
“Lying in me bed, staring at a ceiling, going out of me mind with boredom is what will make me worse,” Malcolm retorted, a flare of the duke she remembered flashing through the smiling facade. “I cannae rest anymore, doctor. I won’t.”
Doctor?
Why on earth was a doctor here at Huntfield, apparently in pursuit of Malcolm?
Octavia’s heart plummeted into her stomach, her eyes turning to the older man. “What is the meaning of this, sir?”
Stanforth puffed out a breath. “I didn’t mean for you to find out like this, Your Grace.” He offered an apologetic smile. “It was my intention to write to you if his condition didn’t improve, though I had hoped that it would, and you would never need to know of it.”
“Condition? What condition?” she demanded to know, her tone harsher than she had intended.
The doctor grimaced. “There was an… accident.” He glanced at Malcolm, who had fallen silent, rubbing his temples as if to press away whatever pained him.
“His Grace rescued a boy from the river, but he was riding, and the horse spooked. Your husband fell and… I am afraid he injured his head rather seriously.”
She stared at Malcolm, unable to see any wound or obvious injury. Aside from the fact that his character was entirely opposite to the one she remembered, he seemed unscathed. There was, perhaps, a new bruise just above where he was rubbing his temples, but it did not look so severe.
“His memory is affected, Your Grace,” the doctor said in a quieter voice. “He… Well, he can’t remember the last ten or so years of his life.”
Octavia stood speechless, her jaw slack. She had heard stories of such incidents, but she would never have thought it possible that Malcolm, with his body made of granite and the fact he had survived years of fighting in a war, could ever succumb to such a thing.
“Wait…” She shook her head. “Ten years?”
The doctor nodded. “Give or take.”
Her brow furrowed. “Then, why has he come here to me? I did not know him ten years ago.”
“After I realized he had lost his memories, I had to decipher what he could remember, if anything, of the past decade,” the doctor explained.
“I mentioned your name. He didn’t remember you, but seemed curious about you.
Asked who you were to him. So, I told him, and I…
made the mistake of telling him where you were.
“Believe me, Your Grace, if I had known he meant to ride off without warning to find you, I wouldn’t have mentioned you at all,” he concluded, a weariness collapsing his face.
Dr. Stanforth must have ridden like a man possessed to try and catch up to his escaped ward before he could reach Huntfield House. Even after all that effort, he had failed.
“I will be staying with my family until I am recovered,” Malcolm declared abruptly, the force in his voice a sure sign that there was still some of the battle-hardened war hero in there somewhere, however hidden.
“I cannot advise that, Your Grace,” Stanforth said, sighing. “This manor is not familiar to you, as Highcastle is. Your wife is not familiar to you. You need to be where you know things, where your mind and memories can feel more… anchored.”
Malcolm’s eyes hardened. “I was living alone in a castle. That is not where I will be well again.”
“Which is true, Doctor?” Octavia’s gaze flitted from her husband to Stanforth. “Where might he recover his memories the quickest?”
Stanforth exhaled a strained breath. “I would say Highcastle, as I mentioned, but… I can’t force him to go back.
I don’t have that authority.” He paused.
“And there is the matter of his determination to find you. That is not nothing. It might be a sign that he remembers you, in some capacity, which may, in turn, lead to him remembering more of the years he has lost.”
“Don’t speak of me as if I’m nae here,” Malcolm said grumpily, his lip slightly curled.
I kissed those lips once…
Octavia swallowed thickly at the memory that she had no trouble at all remembering. Indeed, there had been times over the past five years when she had wished that she could forget it, wiping it clear from her mind.
“I don’t understand why I wasn’t living with my family in the first place,” he added, his tone short. “A husband should be with his wife. A father should be with his son.”
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.