And the boy? What about him?
It seemed that not only had he found his wife, but he also had a son.
An heir to the Dukedom.
Everything inside him softened.
Hector. The boy—dark haired with light grey eyes—had a narrow face, a proud forehead, and a fine aquiline nose—features that were all too familiar to him.
The child was the living, walking image of a portrait of himself that was hanging in Aldingbourne Hall. Both Mortimer and Evie had reacted with the same recognition.
There was no doubt about it: the boy was legitimately his.
It was strange how certain he was about Hector. In the past, it had happened more than once that a Covent Garden doxy had approached him and claimed that her by-blow was his child, and he’d always denied it, firmly, arrogantly.
And now he’d claim the child as his own without a second thought, and it was strange. He knew, deep in his bones, that it was true.
There was no logical explanation for it.
It was the same kind of odd certainty he knew that this woman was Catherine.
Eight years had passed and she had hardly changed. She’d felt the same in his arms—soft, delicate, dainty. Her oval face, the gentle brows, the soft expression in herbrown eyes were all as he remembered them. If there was a difference from the Catherine he knew, it was in her attire and hairstyle. The Catherine he remembered had worn only the most fashionable clothes and kept every strand of her hair immaculately in place.
This new Catherine seemed more dishevelled. Soft wisps of blonde hair escaped from her bun, and her dress was simple, slightly worn and stained.
All those familiar gestures and mannerisms—the way she raised her hand, the way she patted her skirt, the way her mouth quirked upwards to reveal a dimple on her left cheek, the mole on the right.
It was undeniably Catherine.
Yet she continued to deny it, and there was no glimmer of recognition in her eyes at all.
She did not remember him.
It was most disconcerting.
He had been astonished by how fluently she spoke German. Catherine was known to speak the language—her grandmother was Austrian, and she had studied it for years—but her pronunciation was almost native. Her English, on the other hand, had been slightly stilted as if she hadn’t spoken it for years.
A sliver of doubt crossed his mind.
Her personality also appeared to have changed.
Catherine had been a quiet, reserved person. Almost timid, especially in his company. He’d forgotten how her nervousness used to irritate him, a constant caution lurking in the back of her eyes…as if she were afraid of him.
It had always made him feel like he was some sort ofmonster, though he could never quite put his finger on why.
He frowned.
This Viennese Catherine, however, was an exuberant sort of creature who showed her emotions all too openly. She laughed with an abandon that was almost enviable. When she was sad, her brown eyes filled with tears, enormous and luminous, making him want to gather her in his arms and, and…
He shook his head.
And there had been anger. Her eyes had sparkled, and her cheeks had flushed. How she’d lashed out at him at the end, when she’d presumed her son in danger.
His hand shook as he drew it again and again through his thick hair.
She saw him as a threat. That much was clear.
And here was the biggest difference between the Catherine he had known and this new Catherine: she was a mother. Fierce and loyal and protective as only a mother could be.
