Page 93 of His Duchess to Remember

So, with a bob of her head, she walked away from him and headed up the stairs to the bedchamber where she would sleep alone. Selina had received her letter in time and, fortunately, had had a room to spare.

Octavia awoke to a peculiar sound: the happy shriek of children.

For a moment, she was disoriented, forgetting that she was not at Huntfield but at Selina’s manor in Dorset. A dream she had been having had leaked into the real world somehow; a dream of more children, belonging to Octavia and Malcolm, a dream of a large family that filled the hallways of Huntfield with laughter and joy.

Puzzled, she got out of bed and padded over to the window.

Oh, my goodness…

Out there on the lawns that ran straight to the cliff’s edge were five children, relishing in the drama of being chased by none other than Malcolm. It appeared to be a game involving a wolf, if his roars and snarls were anything to judge by.

He stood there for a while with his back turned to the children as they crept toward him. Then, all of a sudden, he whirled around and began the chase, and the children were delighted, dispersing like startled rabbits.

Octavia recognized one of the children as Selina’s son, two of them were dressed less formally and must have belonged to someone on the staff, while the other two were her very own cousin’s children.

I should have brought Simon. She had not realized it was allowed. More than that, however, she had not realized that Frances and Dominic were in attendance. She had not seen them last night.

Perhaps they had arrived late, for the ball was supposed to lead into a house party. It was just that Octavia had no intention of staying longer.

A smile played upon her lips as she watched her husband turn his back again, waiting for the children to sneak as close as they dared.

She could see his face, while the children could not, and there was such delight and mischief in his expression that he resembled Simon more than ever. Imbued with a boyish quality that made her heart soar, for here was a hardened warrior, a scarred man with a scarred past, a soldier who had seen countless atrocities, having the time of his life playing at being a wolf.

How could that not warm her heart?

“Ready or nae!” Malcolm whirled around and ran after the scattering children.

There was no doubt he could have caught every last one of them if he was actually trying, but the fun was in letting them believe they were quicker, wilier. And they seemed to have a ‘safe spot’ in the form of a fountain. As long as they were inside the ring of the fountain, they could not be eaten by the wolf.

“My tummy is grumbling!” Malcolm growled. “How many tasty rabbits shall I have?”

The children screamed gleefully.

“You won’t catch me!” one shouted.

“I won’t be breakfast!” said another.

“Toothless old wolf!” barked a third. One of Francis and Dominic’s.

Octavia laughed, and could not help but imagine her husband on the lawns of Huntfield, playing this very game with a horde of children of his own.

Five would be a pleasant number, she daydreamed.

As she watched, enchanted, Dominic appeared and, somehow, got himself roped into the game. Octavia could not believe it, for though her cousin was gentle and playful with his own children, he was not the sort of man who played games in full view of others or allowed himself to be silly in public. But soon enough, there were two wolves, and the rabbits were doubly ecstatic, until this entire corner of the world seemed to be filled with pure joy and laughter.

“I have married the very best of men,” she whispered, slightly choked up. “Heaven help me, I love him so.”

Still warmed by the sight that had woken her that morning, Octavia was in a lighter mood as the carriage made the long journey back home. She had managed to nap for several hours, and the nerves that she had arrived in Dorset with had been left there on the cliffside.

Evelyn, too, seemed to be in good spirits. “I cannot wait to be in my own bed. I cannot stay in other bedchambers the way I used to.”

“I slept surprisingly well last night,” Octavia said, as she watched a darkened world go by the window.

She had no notion of the time, but it was certainly late, and she had the sense that they were almost at Huntfield. Simon would be asleep when they returned, so she would have to wait until morning to hold him in her arms again.

“Did your husband have anything to do with that?” Evelyn asked slyly.

Octavia shot her a look. “No, he did not. We had our own chambers, and we kept to them.”