The Scottish Duke’s Substitute Bride – Extended Epilogue

Lachlan

Lachlan had faced gunfire with steadier nerves than this.

He paced the corridor outside Diana’s chamber, each turn carrying him back to the same closed door. The polished floorboards beneath his boots reflected the low glow of the corridor lamps, and he had become uncomfortably aware that he had traced the same path so many times the servants would likely notice the wear by morning.

His hands kept curling into fists at his sides before he forced them open again.

He had never felt so completely useless in his life.

Stephana sat in one of the chairs along the wall, though she rose nearly every time Diana cried out from the room beyond the door. Each sound pulled her halfway to her feet before she caught herself again. Callum stood beside her, one hand resting quietly on the back of the chair, the other occasionally closing over her fingers when her nerves began to fray.

To anyone watching, Callum Fraser appeared calm.

Lachlan knew better.

The physician’s composure had always been steady, but Lachlan noticed the small things others might miss: the way Callum’s jaw tightened every time Diana’s voice rose inside the chamber, the way his thumb brushed absently across Stephana’s knuckles as though reminding himself she was safe beside him.

Stephana twisted her hands together as another cry carried through the door.

“It is too early,” she said anxiously, turning toward Callum. “The baby was not meant to come for another month.”

Callum gently caught her hands, stilling the restless movement.

“Babies come when they are ready,” he said softly.

His voice was calm, the same reassuring tone he used with nervous patients and frightened children alike.

But Lachlan did not miss the tension set firmly along his jaw.

Inside the chamber Diana screamed.

The sound cut straight through Lachlan’s chest like a blade.

He stopped pacing immediately.

For a brief moment his mind dragged him backward—back to the standing stones, to the moment Lionel had lifted the pistol. The memory came with the sharp clarity of instinct: the wind across the ridge, the boy’s terrified eyes, the flash of the gun.

But the fear that gripped him now was far worse.

On the moor he had known what to do. There had been a man to stop, a threat to confront, a moment that demanded action.

Here there was nothing he could fight.

Nothing he could fix.

He could only stand outside the door and listen while the woman he loved endured something he could not share.

Another cry rose from inside the chamber, raw with pain.

Lachlan’s hands curled again.

Helplessness sat like a stone in his chest.

The chamber door opened abruptly.

Mrs. Drummond stepped out with her sleeves rolled to the elbows, her normally immaculate hair escaping its pins and her cheeks flushed from the heat of the room. She looked far more like a battlefield commander than the housekeeper who usually ruled the kitchens with iron discipline.

“Your Grace,” she said briskly, “the midwife requires more hot water.”

Lachlan did not even nod.

He turned down the corridor immediately and shouted for the servants, his voice echoing through the hall with more force than he intended.

Servants hurried from the stairwell moments later, arms already laden with kettles and linens.

The door closed again behind them.

Silence returned to the corridor.

Lachlan resumed pacing.

Hours passed.

The candles burned low and were replaced. Footsteps moved quietly through the corridor as servants carried water, linens, and fresh cloths into the chamber. The sounds from inside rose and fell in waves, each cry setting Lachlan’s nerves further on edge.

Jeffrey eventually appeared at the top of the stairs.

Lachlan noticed him only when he turned at the end of another restless circuit of the corridor. The boy sat halfway down the steps, pale and unusually quiet, his hands folded tightly in his lap. The wild energy that normally followed him through the castle had vanished completely.

Jeffrey’s eyes stayed fixed on the door to Diana’s chamber.

Lachlan felt a dull ache settle somewhere behind his ribs.

The boy was old enough to understand that something serious was happening, but not old enough to understand what. He could only sit and wait, just as the rest of them were doing.

Hamish eventually joined him.

The older man lowered himself onto the stair beside the boy and began speaking quietly. Lachlan caught fragments of the conversation as he passed—stories of Highland warriors and ancient battles, of men who had stood against impossible odds and somehow survived.

Heroes who had always returned home.

Jeffrey listened with wide, solemn eyes.

Lachlan wondered briefly whether Hamish had chosen those stories for the boy’s sake or his own.

Another cry echoed from inside the chamber.

Lachlan’s heart lurched painfully.

Every sound from that room seemed to tear through him in a way he had not thought possible. It was a helpless kind of fear, the worst sort he had ever known.

Then, suddenly, everything went quiet.

The silence was so abrupt it made the corridor feel strangely hollow.

Lachlan stopped pacing.

For a moment he could hear nothing but the distant crackle of the corridor lamps and the quiet shifting of bodies around him.

The silence stretched just long enough to let dread creep in.

Then another sound cut through the stillness.

A thin, furious cry filled the room beyond the door.

A newborn’s voice.

Lachlan’s breath left him all at once.

The door opened.

The midwife stepped into the corridor looking utterly exhausted, her sleeves damp and her hair escaping its careful pins. Yet the smile that spread across her face softened the fatigue there.

“Congratulations, Your Grace,” she said. “You have a daughter. Mother and child are both well.”

For a moment Lachlan could not move.

Relief flooded through him so suddenly it left his legs unsteady. He caught himself against the wall before forcing his feet forward and pushing open the chamber door.

The room smelled of lavender and warm linen.

Diana lay against the pillows, pale and drenched in sweat, her hair damp against her temples. Exhaustion softened every line of her face.

And yet she looked more beautiful to him than she ever had before.

In her arms rested a small bundle wrapped in blankets.

Diana lifted her eyes as he approached.

“Would you like to hold your daughter?” she asked softly.

The words struck him with unexpected force.

His daughter.

For a moment the phrase felt almost unreal.

He crossed the room slowly, suddenly uncertain of his own hands as Diana passed the small bundle carefully into his arms.

The baby was astonishingly small.

Her face was red and scrunched in protest, a faint tuft of dark hair visible against the pale blanket. As he watched, she gave a tiny yawn, one small fist curling lazily into the air before settling again.

Lachlan stared down at her.

Something tightened painfully in his chest.

“She is perfect,” Diana murmured.

He could only nod.

The weight in his arms felt impossibly fragile and yet overwhelming at the same time. A life so small, and yet somehow capable of changing everything.

After a moment Diana spoke again.

“I was thinking…” she said quietly. “If you would agree… I would like to name her Catriona.”

Lachlan froze.

The name struck him like a sudden echo from another life.

For a moment he could not speak.

The memory of his sister rose sharply in his mind—her laughter, the years of grief that had followed her death, the guilt that had hollowed him out and left him wandering through the world convinced he had lost everything that mattered.

His throat tightened.

He looked down at the small child sleeping in his arms.

Then he lifted his eyes to Diana.

She watched him carefully, as though unsure whether the name might reopen wounds better left alone.

But the feeling rising in Lachlan’s chest was not pain. It was something far more joyful.

Finally he nodded.

Hours later the castle had grown quiet again.

Stephana lingered beside the bed, smiling softly as she watched the cradle where the baby now slept.

“I have sent word to Mother and Father,” she said gently. “About little Catriona.”

Diana lifted her brows slightly.

Stephana’s smile softened.

“They have… softened somewhat,” she admitted. “Since my marriage to Callum.”

Lachlan glanced toward the doorway where Callum stood waiting.

“They acknowledged the wedding,” Stephana added.

Callum gave a small shrug when Lachlan looked at him, though the warmth in his expression when Stephana laughed spoke far louder than the gesture itself. They had married the previous spring. And Stephana laughed more easily now. Callum had given her that.

Jeffrey crept quietly into the room not long after.

He approached the cradle with solemn caution and peered inside, studying the tiny figure with serious concentration.

“She’s very small,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Diana said gently.

Jeffrey considered this information carefully, as though committing it to memory.

“I will teach her about dragons when she’s bigger,” he announced.

Lachlan rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“I am certain you will.”

He glanced around the room.

Diana rested quietly against the pillows. Baby Catriona slept peacefully in her cradle. Jeffrey stood beside him, already planning the adventures he would one day share with his sister.

Through the window the east wing of the castle stood fully restored beneath the moonlight.

Just two years earlier, Lachlan had been a man drowning in guilt, convinced the best years of his life had already slipped beyond his reach.

Now he had a wife who loved him, a boy who called him Papa, and a daughter named for the sister he had lost.

The realization settled quietly through him, not as the sharp rush of emotion he had felt earlier that night, but as something steadier. Something real.

Diana stirred slightly against the pillows. Her hand moved instinctively across the coverlet until it found his, her fingers curling around his as though she had known exactly where he stood without opening her eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked softly, her voice still thick with sleep.

Lachlan tightened his grip on her hand, his thumb brushing lightly across her knuckles.

“The truth,” he said after a moment. “That I never believed I would have this.”

His gaze drifted slowly across the room as he spoke. It rested briefly on the cradle where the baby slept, then on Jeffrey standing beside him with his solemn watch over his sister.

Finally his eyes returned to Diana.

“A family,” he continued quietly. “A future.”

He hesitated, studying her face for a moment before adding, more softly still,

“And you.”

Diana’s smile deepened.

“You have it now,” she said.

Lachlan remained where he stood for a long moment after that, simply taking in the quiet warmth of the room. The soft rise and fall of Diana’s breathing, the faint rustle of blankets in the cradle, the steady presence of the boy at his side.

All of it had grown from grief he had once believed would consume the rest of his life.

For the first time in years, he no longer felt as though he were standing among the ruins of what he had lost.

And for once, Lachlan allowed himself to believe that the life he was living—in all its fragile, hard-won happiness—was truly his.

THE END