Chase sent Collette a questioning glance. In the four days that had followed the accident, Addison had visited her at Byrd House four times. And they were lucky in that it was Bethany who volunteered to act as chaperone.
They were lucky, in that Collette’s brother’s wife often managed to find distractions that required she leave them alone for several minutes at a time.
Chase, Collette surmised, might not be so lenient. She couldn’t help but feel the occasional twinge of sympathy for his future daughters.
“Are you quite certain you’re up to seeing her?” Bethany asked from where she sat across the withdrawing room on the settee beside Chase.
Collette nodded.
Addison had said he would send his mother away—to Scotland, no less, where he owned a perfectly suitable, if not cold and drafty, castle. He’d said he refused to subject the woman he loved, the woman who would be the mother of his children and his future duchess, to his mother’s insults.
Although Collette found the idea of his mother going to Scotland instead of herself somewhat ironic, she didn’t want Addison to have to choose between his wife and his mother—not unless it was absolutely necessary.
Collette was willing to give his mother a second chance.
For Addison’s sake but also for Lady Fiona’s.
“Show them in, please.” Collette answered her brother and sister-in-law’s question by speaking to the butler directly, who nodded and then disappeared.
In the silence that followed his departure, Collette wiggled on the small settee where Chase had placed her not ten minutes earlier. Already, she was feeling antsy with her foot propped on the ottoman in front of her.
Aside from the pain of her very swollen and bruised foot, she was perfectly fine and yet she’d been ordered to keep off of it for eight weeks.
Two months!
Addison had taken pity on her the day before and carried her outside to sit in the garden for all of thirty minutes. When she’d protested that he too, was injured, he’d lifted her off the bed anyway.
“Not so injured I won’t take advantage of every opportunity to have you in my arms.”
Blasted man.
She’d taken full advantage of that time as well by inhaling his scent and placing delicate kisses along the line of his jaw.
As with each of his visits, her time with him flew by.
Mr. Ingles appeared in the open door, Addison behind him, and Collette’s heart made a tiny skip of joy.
Because the second she met his gaze, all of her concerns, including but not limited to the dull throbbing in her foot and the stern-looking woman at his side, shrunk into nothing more than small annoyances.
Love, she decided, was an all-encompassing emotion that changed not only her heart but the way she viewed the world.
“Collette.” He stepped aside for the duchess to precede him into the room. “My lord, my lady. You remember my mother?”
Chase was on his feet, as was Bethany, who dipped into a stingy curtsey beside Chase’s quick bow. “Your Grace.”
“Forgive me for not rising,” Collette offered.
“But of course.” The duchess’s gaze flicked to Collette’s foot, and Collette was glad of the sock and blanket that covered it.
Because it was not a pretty sight at all.
Addison, of course, had told her it was the most beautiful sight in the world. Beautiful because it would heal. The day before, in one of those fortuitous gaps of time when Bethany had excused herself, he’d admitted that he’d feared she could lose it. And then he’d pulled back the light blanket and placed a chaste kiss on her large toe.
He had to love her to do that.
“Won’t you sit down? Mr. Ingles, if you’d be so kind as to have tea brought up?” Bethany returned to her seat, where she sat as primly and properly as any earl’s daughter would.
The duchess lowered herself into one of the single high-backed chairs in the room and Addison took the space beside Collette.
