“I don’t want you to do this just for me,” she said. “It has to be for you, too.”
The strangest lump formed in his throat—it was nothing like his stutters, nothing like his stammers. It was, he realized, nothing but love. Tears stabbed at his eyes, and he nodded, utterly unable to speak.
He plunged forward, exploding within her. It felt good. Oh God, it felt good. Nothing in life had ever felt that good before.
His arms finally gave out, and he collapsed atop her, the only sound in the room the rasp of his ragged breathing.
And then Daphne smoothed his hair from his forehead and kissed his brow. “I love you,” she whispered. “I will always love you.”
Simon buried his face into her neck, breathing in the scent of her. She surrounded him, enveloped him, and he was complete.
Many hours later, Daphne’s eyelids fluttered open. She stretched her arms above her as she noticed that the curtains had all been pulled shut. Simon must have done that, she thought with a yawn. Light filtered around the edges, bathing the room with a soft glow.
She twisted her neck, working the kinks out, then slid out of bed and padded to the dressing room to fetch her robe. How unlike her to sleep in the middle of the day. But, she supposed, this hadn’t been an ordinary day.
She pulled on her robe, tying the silken sash around her waist. Where had Simon gone off to? She didn’t think he’d left the bed too long before she had; she had a sleepy memory of lying in his arms that somehow seemed too fresh.
The master suite consisted of five rooms altogether: two bedrooms, each with its own dressing room off to the side, connected by a large sitting room. The door to the sitting room was ajar, and bright sunlight streamed through the aperture, suggesting that the curtains inside had been pulled open. Moving on deliberately quiet feet, Daphne walked to the open doorway and peered inside.
Simon was standing by the window, staring out over the city. He’d donned a lush burgundy dressing gown, but his feet were still bare. His pale blue eyes held a reflective look, unfocused and just the slightest bit bleak.
Daphne’s brow wrinkled with concern. She crossed the room toward him, quietly saying, “Good afternoon,” when she was but a foot away.
Simon turned at the sound of her voice, and his haggard face softened at the sight of her. “Good afternoon to you, too,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms. Somehow she ended up with her back pressed up against his broad chest, gazing out over Grosvenor Square as Simon rested his chin on the top of her head.
It took Daphne several moments before she worked up the courage to ask, “Any regrets?”
She couldn’t see him, but she felt his chin rub against her scalp as he shook his head.
“No regrets,” he said softly. “Just . . . thoughts.”
Something about his voice didn’t sound quite right, and so Daphne twisted in his arms until she could see his face. “Simon, what’s wrong?” she whispered.
“Nothing.” But his eyes didn’t meet hers.
Daphne led him to a love seat, and sat, tugging on his arm until he settled in beside her. “If you’re not ready to be a father yet,” she whispered, “that’s all right.”
“It’s not that.”
But she didn’t believe him. He’d answered too quickly, and there’d been a choked sound to his voice that made her uneasy. “I don’t mind waiting,” she said. “Truth be told,” she added shyly, “I wouldn’t mind having a little time just for the two of us.”
Simon didn’t say anything, but his eyes grew pained, and then he closed them as he brought his hand to his brow and rubbed.
A ripple of panic washed over Daphne, and she started talking faster. “It wasn’t so much that I wanted a baby right away,” she said. “I just . . . would like one eventually, that’s all, and I think you might, too, if you let yourself consider it. I was upset because I hated that you were denying us a family just to spite your father. It’s not—”
Simon laid a heavy hand on her thigh. “Daphne, stop,” he said. “Please.”
His voice held just enough agonized emotion to silence her immediately. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and chewed nervously. It was his turn to speak. There was obviously something big and difficult squeezing at his heart, and if it took all day for him to find the words to explain it, she could wait.
She could wait forever for this man.
“I can’t say I’m excited about having a child,” Simon said slowly.
Daphne noticed his breathing was slightly labored, and she placed her hand on his forearm to offer comfort.
He turned to her with eyes that pleaded for understanding. “I’ve spent so long intending never to have one, you see.” He swallowed. “I d-don’t know even how to begin to think about it.”
Daphne offered him a reassuring smile that in retrospect, she realized was meant for both of them. “You’ll learn,” she whispered. “And I’ll learn with you.”
“I-it’s not that,” he said, shaking his head. He let out an impatient breath. “I don’t . . . want . . . to live my life j-just to spite my father.”
He turned to her, and Daphne was nearly undone by the sheer emotion burning on his face. His jaw was trembling, and a muscle worked frantically in his cheek. There was incredible tension in his neck, as if every ounce of his energy was devoted to the task of delivering this speech.
Daphne wanted to hold him, to comfort the little boy inside. She wanted to smooth his brow, and squeeze his hand. She wanted to do a thousand things, but instead she just held silent, encouraging him with her eyes to continue.
“You were right,” he said, the words tumbling from his mouth. “All along, you’ve been right. About my father. Th-that I was letting him win.”
“Oh, Simon,” she murmured.
“B-but what—” His face—his strong, handsome face, which was always so firm, always so in control—crumpled. “What if . . . if we have a child, a-a-and it comes out like me?”
For a moment Daphne couldn’t speak. Her eyes tingled with unshed tears, and her hand moved unbidden to her mouth, covering lips that had parted in shock.
Simon turned away from her, but not before she saw the utter torment in his eyes. Not before she heard his breath catch, or the shaky exhale he finally expelled in an attempt to hold himself together.
“If we have a child who stutters,” Daphne said carefully, “then I shall love him. And help him. And—” She swallowed convulsively, praying that she was doing the right thing. “And I shall turn to you for advice, because obviously you have learned how to overcome it.”
He turned to face her with surprising swiftness. “I don’t want my child to suffer as I have suffered.”
A strange little smile moved across Daphne’s face without her even realizing it, as if her body had realized before her mind that she knew exactly what to say. “But he wouldn’t suffer,” she said, “because you’ll be his father.”
Simon’s face did not change expression, but his eyes shone with an odd, new, almost hopeful light.
“Would you reject a child who stuttered?” Daphne asked quietly.
Simon’s negative reply was strong, swift, and accompanied by just a touch of blasphemy.
She smiled softly. “Then I have no fears for our children.”
Simon held still for one moment more, and then in a rush of movement pulled her into his arms, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “I love you,” he choked out. “I love you so much.”
And Daphne was finally certain that everything was going to be all right.
Several hours later, Daphne and Simon were still sitting on the love seat in the sitting room. It had been an afternoon for holding hands, for resting one’s head on the other’s shoulder. Words hadn’t been necessary; for both it had been enough simply to be next to the other. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and they were together.
It was all they needed.
But something was niggling at the back of Daphne’s brain, and it wasn’t until her eyes fell on a writing set on the desk that she remembered.
The letters from Simon’s father.
She closed her eyes and exhaled, summoning the courage she knew she’d need to hand them over to Simon. The Duke of Middlethorpe had told her, when he’d asked her to take the packet of letters, that she’d know when the time was right to give them to him.
She disentangled herself from Simon’s heavy arms and padded over to the duchess’s chamber.
“Where are you going?” Simon asked sleepily. He’d been dozing in the warm afternoon sun.
“I—I have to get something.”
He must have heard the hesitation in her voice, because he opened his eyes and craned his body around to look at her. “What are you getting?” he asked curiously.
Daphne avoided answering his question by scurrying into the next room. “I’ll just be a moment,” she called out.
She’d kept the letters, tied together by a red-and-gold ribbon—the ancestral colors of Hastings—in the bottom drawer of her desk. She’d actually forgotten about them for her first few weeks back in London, and they’d lain untouched in her old bedroom at Bridgerton House. But she’d stumbled across them on a visit to see her mother. Violet had suggested she go upstairs to gather a few of her things, and while Daphne was collecting old perfume bottles and the pillowcase she’d stitched at age ten, she found them again.
Many a time she’d been tempted to open one up, if only to better understand her husband. And truth be told, if the envelopes hadn’t been closed with sealing wax, she probably would have tossed her scruples over her shoulder and read them.
She picked up the bundle and walked slowly back to the sitting room. Simon was still on the couch, but he was up and alert, and watching her curiously.
“These are for you,” she said, holding up the bundle as she walked to his side.
“What are they?” he asked.
But from the tone of his voice, she was fairly certain he already knew.
“Letters from your father,” she said. “Middlethorpe gave them to me. Do you remember?”
He nodded. “I also remember giving him orders to burn them.”
Daphne smiled weakly. “He apparently disagreed.”
Simon stared at the bundle. Anywhere but at her face. “And so, apparently, did you,” he said in a very quiet voice.
She nodded and sat next to him. “Do you want to read them?”
Simon thought about his answer for several seconds and finally settled on complete honesty. “I don’t know.”
“It might help you to finally put him behind you.”
“Or it might make it worse.”
“It might,” she agreed.
He stared at the letters, bundled up by a ribbon, resting innocently in her hands. He expected to feel animosity. He expected to feel rage. But instead, all he felt was . . .
Nothing.
It was the strangest sensation. There before him was a collection of letters, all written in his father’s hand. And yet he felt no urge to toss them in the fire, or tear them to bits.
And at the same time no urge to read them.
“I think I’ll wait,” Simon said with a smile.
Daphne blinked several times, as if her eyes could not believe her ears. “You don’t want to read them?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“And you don’t want to burn them?”
He shrugged. “Not particularly.”
She looked down at the letters, then back at his face. “What do you want to do with them?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
He grinned. “That’s what I said.”
“Oh.” She looked quite adorably befuddled. “Do you want me to put them back in my desk?”
“If you like.”
“And they’ll just sit there?”
He caught hold of the sash on her dressing robe and started pulling her toward him. “Mmm-hmm.”
“But—” she spluttered. “But—but—”