Page 45 of I Never Forget a Duke (The Night Fire Club #1)

H ugh never recovered his memories entirely, which taught him to savor each moment as it came because each memory was precious.

He was reminded of this as he and Adele arrived at Swynford House at long last a week after Collingswood abducted her. The expression on her face as the carriage approached the house was priceless.

“I’m reminded again that I am a duchess,” she said. “Is this really your home?”

“It is. Mother mentioned at least three times in her last letter that it has been in the family for generations, although according to the records it looks quite different now from its original state as a castle. The records also indicate that I made a number of improvements prior to meeting you, although I cannot recall all of them.”

Adele shot him a concerned look that he’d learned meant she was still worried about his head injury, but it passed quickly. She smiled. “Well, show me this giant house of yours.”

Adele took to household management like an expert and quickly started asserting herself.

She told Hugh in bed one night that she’d never lived in a house she’d had a say in, so he’d given her a few rooms to update and decorate however she liked.

When his mother visited, she acted put out that the rooms had been redesigned, but Adele had good taste, and the dowager grudgingly admitted the rooms looked nice.

Hugh suspected Adele and Helena might never be close friends, but every now and then they seemed to enjoy each other’s company.

Aside from a couple of negative items in the scandal sheets, not much was made of Hugh and Adele’s marriage aside from the fact that the most eligible bachelor in England was now off the market.

By the time Hugh and Adele returned to London for the next season, the gentry had moved on to the next scandal.

This went a long way toward convincing Helena that no shame would come to the family.

But before all that, Lark and Anthony, as Lord Beresford now insisted he be called by his friends, came for a visit mid-summer.

Hugh was still adjusting to the idea of them as a couple, but this seemed to be how they were comporting themselves, with Lark requesting that they share a room when they stayed at Swynford House.

Hugh had objected at first, but Adele talked him into allowing it.

Hugh still worried about the potential consequences—Lark’s parents surely expected him to marry, not to mention they could both be hanged—but Adele insisted they honor the relationship if Lark requested it.

Lark admitted he was in love with Anthony one night and still wasn’t sure what to do about that.

Because of Adele’s delicate condition, they opted not to have house parties, but they did entertain close friends. Owen visited for a week, and Fletcher and Lady Louisa came a different week and insisted they were merely friends again. Adele bet Hugh they’d marry soon.

Hugh was so happy throughout the first year of his marriage to Adele that he wanted to commit it all to memory, but he was content to have each moment with her.

He was happy for the quiet Christmas they spent together and the snowball fight they got into while on a walk one day and the way Adele liked to walk with him on the Swynford grounds.

Among his greatest memories was the day when his beloved wife presented him with his son.

The doctor and midwife had kept Hugh from entering the room while their son was born, but the moment he was allowed inside, he went to her side and looked at the small, angry baby in her arms. Yet even as the baby wailed, Hugh stared at him in awe, amazed that he and Adele had made this tiny person.

They named him Edward, after Hugh’s father.

In the years that followed, he kept savoring these beautiful moments. Another was when he met his daughter. And later his youngest son. He taught his children to ride, to play chess, to listen to their mother, and above all, to cherish each moment.

The End