Page 24 of His Duchess to Remember

The boy shook his head. “Mama says it… um… is not safe.”

“Och, every wee lad should have a pony!” Malcolm lifted his son off the fence and set him on his feet, the two of them walking into the stables.

The stablemaster greeted them warmly. “Are you here to feed the horses some carrots, Master Simon?”

“Yes, please,” Simon replied.

“Remember to keep your fingers out of the way,” the stablemaster warned with a smile, as he dipped a hand into a bucket and brought out a bunch of carrots. “You go on and feed them their breakfast.”

The boy gamboled off to perform the task, starting at the very rear of the stable. There, a great big black-and-white head appeared over the stall door and reached down, snuffling at the proffered carrot before taking a bite.

“Ye don’t have a very docile mare, do ye?” Malcolm asked, watching his son in pure admiration.

Just as the stablemaster had instructed, Simon was taking great care to keep his fingers out of the way as he fed the carrots to the horses.

“There’s Bessie. She’s an old girl,” the stablemaster replied. “Hasn’t thrown a soul off her back in her life.”

Malcolm cast the man a conspiratorial look. “Could ye saddle her up? I think it’s time for my son’s first riding lesson.”

“Her Grace doesn’t want him to ride yet,” the stablemaster said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I keep suggesting it’s better to start them young, but she doesn’t like the notion.”

“I’m his father,” Malcolm pointed out. “I won’t let any harm come to him. Saddle the mare.”

The stablemaster pulled a face and put up his hands. “I think every young’un should learn to ride early, so I won’t argue with you, Your Grace, but I’m just warning you that she won’t like it.”

“Ye let me contend with that.” Malcolm clapped the man on the arm in a gesture of gratitude, before walking down the row of stalls to join his son.

“Don’t let go!” Simon chirruped, his little hands gripping the reins tightly.

Malcolm smiled, his hand firmly on the guide rope. “I won’t, laddie. I’ve got ye.”

The mare was undoubtedly too large for a boy of four, his small legs barely making it halfway down the sides of the saddle. But the mare was gentle and slow, and she seemed to like having a rider in her old age, as she diligently plodded around the training paddock.

“I’m riding!” the boy cried out, his cheeks pink, his eyes alight with happiness, his entire demeanor radiating joy… and just a few lingering nerves.

“Aye, that ye are.” Malcolm lightly scratched between the mare’s ears to let her know she was doing a good job too. “We will have to get ye a horse that’s yer own size, though.”

“Really?” Simon gazed at his father.

Malcolm nodded. “Aye, really. This lass is a fine horse, but to truly learn how to ride, ye need one that’s right for ye.” He hesitated. “We’ll ask yer mother about getting ye one.”

He resisted the urge to tell his son that he would go ahead and buy one for him. It was one thing to teach Simon to ride without his mother’s say-so, but to completely circumvent her in order to gift their son a horse was quite another.

And Malcolm was trying to win her over; he could not afford to make any big mistakes.

“Mama won’t let me ride,” Simon said, relaxing into the sway of the mare. “She says it’s… um… a big danger.”

“There’s no danger as long as I’m with ye,” Malcolm reassured him. “Indeed, ye have nothing to fear as long as I’m near to ye. I won’t let ye fall off. I won’t let any harm come to ye.”

Simon pursed his lips and fell silent for a moment, his bright eyes clouding over. Whatever was on his mind, they were clearly large thoughts for a boy so small.

“But… Mama says you’ll leave,” he said at last, his lip trembling a little. “Then, I’ll not be safe.”

The boy’s sweet words cracked Malcolm’s heart, and he was sorrier than ever that he had missed so much of Simon’s life already. He hated that he had been absent from the moment the child was born—before then, even—and that there was a version of him that had chosen that separated path.

What else mattered in life but this?

“I promise, my dear boy, that I will try my very best nae to leave ye ever again,” Malcolm said in earnest. “If I have my way, I never will.”