Page 98 of His Duchess to Remember

“Snow?” Simon squealed and began to dance in the falling snowflakes.

“Must be the Scot in him,” Malcolm said, chuckling. “The laddie doesn’t feel the cold. Nae like his delicate English mother.”

Octavia laughed. “The housekeeper likes me. That means I cannot be so very English.”

“Aye, that is a mystery to me,” he agreed, as he brushed a few flecks of snow from her cheeks. “Ye should see what she’s like when Anthony and his friends are here. Ye’d think they’d invaded instead of being invited. I was almost tempted to have a house party here for yer friends, but I daresay her head would have exploded.”

Octavia chewed her lip in thought. “Maybe next summer? If I ask her very nicely, she might not put anything offensive in their tea.” She hesitated. “Although, it might be difficult to achieve next summer, considering…”

“Considering what?” he asked, as he swayed a little with her in the snowfall.

With a shy grin, she hugged him tighter. “Because I will not long have given birth to our second child. It might be too much to organize.”

“What?” His eyebrows rose. “What did ye say?”

“It is one of the reasons I wanted to come with you,” she admitted. “I wanted Doctor Stanforth’s opinion. He confirmed it. My love, I am with-child again.”

The doctor had answered her summons a couple of days ago, not long after they had arrived at Highcastle. She had, of course, sworn him to secrecy, and he had promptly taken himself back to Edinburgh so he would not be embroiled in another deception. But the news had been so very, very welcome.

For a moment, Malcolm seemed to be frozen.

“Are you not happy?” she asked, suddenly anxious.

His face cracked into the widest grin and, startling a yelp out of her, he picked her up and swung her around. And when he set her back down on her feet, he embraced her fiercely, kissing all over her face, her hair, her neck, before grazing a long, slow kiss to her lips.

“Och, love,” he murmured. “There was a time when I’d be afraid to feel this happy, but now I say give me all the happiness. Give it to me in abundance. Give me every bit of joy.”

Her heart soared. “So, you are happy?”

“Couldn’t be happier, my love,” he replied, cradling her face in his hands. “Och, I kenned there was something different about ye but I couldn’t figure out what. Ye’re just… more radiant. Ye’re always radiant, aye, but there was something even more ethereal about ye. I can’t wait, love. Truly, I can’t.”

It was a world away from the moment she had found out she was pregnant with Simon. News that she had received by herself in this very castle, though the housekeeper and the staff had been there to celebrate with her, and to take care of her before she made the trip back to England.

This was what she had always wanted, she just had not realized it at the time. She had wanted the husband who was obsessed with her, the husband who would not let anyone remove him from the room when she gave birth, the husband who was so invested in his family, the husband who loved her and their children more than anything in the world. She had thought it was not her dream, but now she was glad that fate had made her see sense.

“What are ye talking about?” Simon asked, with a faint lilt of his father’s accent.

Malcolm scooped their son into his arm, sandwiching him between them. “Ye’re going to be a big brother, laddie,” he said, kissing the boy’s hair. “Ye’re going to have a wee sister or brother to play with ye.”

“Where?” Simon asked, confused.

“Growing in yer mama’s belly,” Malcolm explained, laughing.

Simon stared at his mother in horror. “You ate them?”

“No, my darling,” Octavia said, joining in with the laughter. “It is where babies grow. And, in a few months, you will be able to meet your brother or sister. It is… like bread; they have to bake first until they are ready to come out.”

The explanation seemed to confuse the boy even more.

“The baby is like the caterpillar,” Malcolm jumped in. “It has to be in a chrysalis, which in this case is yer mama’s belly, until it can become a butterfly.”

Simon frowned… and then slowly nodded. “I will be a good big brother.”

“I’m sure ye will,” Malcolm agreed, as he held his wife and son, and they held him in return, all three of them hugging as the snow came down. Their hearts so warmed that they could not even feel the cold anymore.

Nestled into her husband as a lovely fire crackled in the grate of the drawing room, Octavia looked up as the door opened and Quinn stepped inside.

“Did you manage to get him to go to sleep?” she asked, smiling at the boy.