Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
It had been years since Malcolm had been invited into Octavia’s bedchamber, and he had never been invited into this one. Indeed, the last time he had set foot in here, she had been most insistent on him leaving at once.
“There really is nay need for this,” he said, as she steered him toward the bed and urged him to sit down. “I can tend to it myself. I have a needle and thread; it’ll be easy enough to sew it closed if it’s too deep.”
She shuddered and walked off to a chest of drawers, where she pulled out a wooden box and brought it back over. A moment later, she was crossing the room again to fetch the basin of water.
“I wish Doctor Stanforth was still here,” she mumbled, taking a seat beside him.
“Mr. Lincoln has gone for the village doctor. He’ll suffice.” Malcolm tried to take her hand. “Ye don’t need to fret, love. All I need is a glass of brandy, and I’ll be fine.”
She freed her hand and, shaking violently, she soaked a clean cotton cloth in water and reached up to dab at the wound on his head. He had no idea how bad it was but, judging by the panic on her face, it was not pretty.
“If ye think this is bad, ye should’ve seen the day I got a bayonet through the stomach,” he said, meaning to joke to help her relax, but it seemed to have the opposite effect.
More color drained from her face as she swiped and prodded at the cut. It hurt more than the injury itself, but he did not show it; he did not want to make her feel worse than she likely did already.
“I used to get cuts like this every day,” he insisted. “If ye weren’t bleeding by the time ye got back to camp, yer brothers-in-arms would wonder what ye’d done with yer day. Ye’d get called lazy.”
Still, she did not laugh. She did not smile. She did not speak. She just concentrated on cleaning the wound, trembling all the while.
“Off with it,” was all she said, before she grabbed his white shirt and lifted it up and off him.
He sat there, wondering how on earth he could get her to calm down, as she searched his upper body for any signs of injury.
One of the horses had put a hoof on his shoulder when he was already on the ground, but then it had immediately withdrawn it.
With any luck, the bruise would not be showing yet.
Seemingly satisfied, Octavia returned her attention to his forehead. With clumsy fingers, she pressed a wad of cloth to the cut and then wound a length of bandage around his head, tying it a little too tight.
He did not interrupt, allowing her to get on with it.
Once she was finished, she sat there beside him and stared at her handiwork, her eyes feverish.
Slowly, he brought his hand to her cheek, brushing his thumb across her skin and whispered softly, “Relax, love.”
Her eyes widened, and he knew she remembered five years ago, when he had said the same thing in her bedchamber at Highcastle. It had worked then, and he hoped he would work now, for he did not like to see her this way, a jittering bundle of worry and fear.
“Stay,” she croaked, her lip trembling. “Stay here with me.”
“I’m nae going anywhere, love,” he told her.
She shook her head. “No, I mean… stay here with me. At the manor.” Her breath hitched. “Never leave my side again.”
“I can do that,” he promised, smiling at her. “But I’m going to have to teach ye how to wind a bandage properly.”
At that, she choked out a laugh and lightly smacked him on his bare chest… where her hand stayed, her palm pressed to his heart. “I did my best.”
“I ken, love, and I mean to keep it like this. It’ll amuse our son.” He grinned at her, his heart warming as he saw her face relax.
“How can you jest at a time like this?” she asked, as her other hand joined the first on his chest.
“To see ye smile,” he replied. “I never want to see ye hurt or worried again. Never because of me, anyway.”
She shuffled a little closer to him, until the sides of their legs nudged against each other.
“I love you, Malcolm.” A tear tumbled from her eyelashes.
“I think… I have loved you for as long as you have loved me. I think I have loved you since our first night. But I know I love you now, and always will.”
His heart swelled until he thought it might explode, for he had wished and prayed to hear such words from her lips. As if to seal her confession, to make it everlasting, he slipped his arms around his beloved wife and held her close as he leaned in to kiss her.
The first brush of his mouth against hers was like magic, all of his pain melting away; he did not even feel the throb of the bruise that would appear soon, and ignored the ache in his shoulder as he held her closer still.
She kissed him back without hesitation or fear, her soft palms slowly smoothing up his chest to his neck, her arms looping around so she could pull him nearer.
With a smile against her mouth, he scooped one arm under her legs and hoisted her into his lap, holding her in a sort of seated bridal carry: a carry he had never gotten to have before.
She gasped and laughter spilled from her lips, a joyful sound that he hoped he would be able to hear for decades to come. Pulling back for a moment, she gazed deeply into his eyes, her fingertips toying with the locks at the nape of his neck.
“I am so very glad it was you, my love,” she said thickly. “I do not know how else to say it, but you… you are my dream come true. A dream I thought was impossible.”
He cradled her face, his heart so full. “As ye are mine,” he told her.
“I’m a better man because of ye, and I’ll continue to be.
I will never make ye fret again, and I will never withhold the truth from ye.
Even if it’s to say that ye can’t bandage a wound and ye’re too rough when ye clean one, I’ll tell ye the truth. ”
She gaped at him… and then burst into fresh laughter. “How rude!”
“Do ye want me to fib?” he challenged playfully, his thumb brushing her lower lip, which had ceased trembling.
“No,” she said, grinning. “No, I suppose not.”
“But the biggest truth is that I love ye. I have loved ye for five years, and I mean to love ye for eternity,” he told her, relishing the weight and shape of her in his arms, knowing he never wanted to let go.
She smiled and leaned in, whispering back, “I love you too. I love you now and for the rest of my life and beyond that.” A chuckle rumbled in her chest as she added, “And I should like to have many more children with you, enough to play a good game of wolf.”
“How did ye—?” He stared at her in amused disbelief.
“I watched you from the window, and I think I fell in love with you all over again,” she explained.
Smirking, he dipped his head and murmured in a low growl, “Seems I’ve caught ye, wee rabbit.”
She giggled and pretended to pull away. “Oh no, I have been captured! However shall I escape this mean, handsome wolf?”
“Mean?” he teased, as he grazed his teeth against her throat. “Och, nay, I’m just hungry. Ravenous, in fact.”
Her laughter warmed him as he tightened his hold on her and pulled her back against him.
And with a smile on his lips, he kissed her.
He kissed her slowly, savoring every moment, awestruck by the realization that his life had just changed for the better, that he now had a family of his own, whom he would cherish for the rest of his days.
And though he had lost so much in the past, believing that anything he cared for would be taken away, he knew that it had been a stupid belief.
Love and family were everything, and though he could not prove it, he had a feeling that his brother and his mother had sent this gift to him; it had just taken him a long time to realize that he was allowed to be happy now.
“I love you,” he murmured as he kissed her harder, his breath ragged.
“As I love you,” she whispered back, holding him as if she too never intended to let him go.