Bridgerton: The Duke and I (Bridgertons Book 1)

The new Duchess of Hastings was spotted in Mayfair today. Philipa Featherington saw the former Miss Daphne Bridgerton taking a bit of air as she walked briskly around the block. Miss Featherington called out to her, but the duchess pretended not to hear.

And we know the duchess must have been pretending, for after all, one would have to be deaf to let one of Miss Featherington’s shouts go unnoticed.

LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 9 June 1813

Heartache, Daphne eventually learned, never really went away; it just dulled. The sharp, stabbing pain that one felt with each breath eventually gave way to a blunter, lower ache—the kind that one could almost—but never quite—ignore.

She left Castle Clyvedon the day after Simon’s departure, heading to London with every intention of returning to Bridgerton House. But going back to her family’s house somehow seemed like an admission of failure, and so at the last minute, she instructed the driver to take her to Hastings House instead. She would be near her family if she felt the need for their support and companionship, but she was a married woman now; she should reside in her own home.

And so she introduced herself to her new staff, who accepted her without question (but not without a considerable amount of curiosity), and set about her new life as an abandoned wife.

Her mother was the first to come calling. Daphne hadn’t bothered to notify anyone else of her return to London, so this was not terribly surprising.

“Where is he?” Violet demanded without preamble.

“My husband, I presume?”

“No, your great-uncle Edmund,” Violet practically snapped. “Of course I mean your husband.”

Daphne didn’t quite meet her mother’s eyes as she said, “I believe that he is tending to affairs at one of his country estates.”

“You believe?”

“Well, I know,” Daphne amended.

“And do you know why you are not with him?”

Daphne considered lying. She considered brazening it out and telling her mother some nonsense about an emergency involving tenants and maybe some livestock or disease or anything. But in the end, her lip quivered, and her eyes started to prick with tears, and her voice was terribly small, as she said, “Because he did not choose to take me with him.”

Violet took her hands. “Oh, Daff,” she sighed, “what happened?”

Daphne sank onto a sofa, pulling her mother along with her. “More than I could ever explain.”

“Do you want to try?”

Daphne shook her head. She’d never, not even once in her life, kept a secret from her mother. There had never been anything she didn’t feel she could discuss with her.

But there had never been this.

She patted her mother’s hand. “I’ll be all right.”

Violet looked unconvinced. “Are you certain?”

“No.” Daphne stared at the floor for a moment. “But I have to believe it, anyway.”

Violet left, and Daphne placed her hand on her abdomen and prayed.

Colin was the next to visit. About a week later, Daphne returned from a quick walk in the park to find him standing in her drawing room, arms crossed, expression furious.

“Ah,” Daphne said, pulling off her gloves, “I see you’ve learned of my return.”

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

Colin, Daphne reflected wryly, had clearly not inherited their mother’s talent for subtlety in speech.

“Speak!” he barked.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Just a moment to try to relieve the headache that had been plaguing her for days. She didn’t want to tell her woes to Colin. She didn’t even want to tell him as much as she told her mother, although she supposed he already knew. News always traveled fast at Bridgerton House.

She wasn’t really sure where she got the energy, but there was a certain fortifying benefit to putting up a good front, so she squared her shoulders, raised a brow, and said, “And by that you mean . . . ? ”

“I mean,” Colin growled, “where is your husband?”

“He is otherwise occupied,” Daphne replied. It sounded so much better than, “He left me.”

“Daphne . . .” Colin’s voice held no end of warning.

“Are you here alone?” she asked, ignoring his tone.

“Anthony and Benedict are in the country for the month, if that’s what you mean,” Colin said.

Daphne very nearly sighed with relief. The last thing she needed just then was to face her eldest brother. She’d already prevented him from killing Simon once; she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to manage the feat a second time. Before she could say anything, however, Colin added, “Daphne, I am ordering you right now to tell me where the bastard is hiding.”

Daphne felt her spine stiffening. She might have the right to call her errant husband nasty names, but her brother certainly didn’t. “I assume,” she said icily, “that by ‘that bastard’ you refer to my husband.”

“You’re damned right I—”

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Colin looked at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted horns. “I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t care to discuss my marriage with you, so if you cannot refrain from offering your unsolicited opinions, you’re going to have to leave.”

“You can’t ask me to leave,” he said in disbelief.

She crossed her arms. “This is my house.”

Colin stared at her, then looked around the room—the drawing room of the Duchess of Hastings—then looked back at Daphne, as if just realizing that his little sister, whom he’d always viewed as a rather jolly extension of himself, had become her own woman.

He reached out and took her hand. “Daff,” he said quietly, “I’ll let you handle this as you see fit.”

“Thank you.”

“For now,” he warned. “Don’t think I’ll let this situation continue indefinitely.”

But it wouldn’t, Daphne thought a half hour later as Colin left the house. It couldn’t continue indefinitely. Within a fortnight, she would know.

Every morning Daphne woke to find she was holding her breath. Even before her courses were due to arrive, she bit her lip, said a little prayer, and gingerly peeled back the covers of her bed and looked for blood.

And every morning she saw nothing but snowy white linen.

A week after her courses were due, she allowed herself the first glimmerings of hope. Her courses had never been perfectly punctual; they could, she reasoned, still arrive at any time. But still, she had never been quite this late . . .

After another week, though, she found herself smiling each morning, holding on to her secret as she would a treasure. She wasn’t ready to share this with anyone yet. Not her mother, not her brothers, and certainly not Simon.

She didn’t feel terribly guilty about withholding the news from him. After all, he had withheld his seed from her. But more importantly, she feared that his reaction would be explosively negative, and she just wasn’t ready to let his displeasure ruin her perfect moment of joy. She did, however, jot off a note to his steward, asking that he forward Simon’s new address to her.

But then finally, after the third week, her conscience got the better of her, and she sat down at her desk to write him a letter.

Unfortunately for Daphne, the sealing wax hadn’t even dried on her missive when her brother Anthony, obviously returned from his sojourn in the country, came crashing into the room. Since Daphne was upstairs, in her private chamber, where she was not supposed to receive visitors, she didn’t even want to think about how many servants he had injured on his way up.

He looked furious, and she knew she probably shouldn’t provoke him, but he always made her slightly sarcastic, so she asked, “And how did you get up here? Don’t I have a butler?”

“You had a butler,” he growled.

“Oh, dear.”

“Where is he?”

“Not here, obviously.” There didn’t seem any point in pretending she didn’t know exactly who he was talking about.

“I’m going to kill him.”

Daphne stood, eyes flashing. “No, you’re not!”

Anthony, who had been standing with his hands on his hips, leaned forward and speared her with a stare. “I made a vow to Hastings before he married you, did you know that?”

She shook her head.

“I reminded him that I had been prepared to kill him for damaging your reputation. Heaven help him if he damages your soul.”

“He hasn’t damaged my soul, Anthony.” Her hand strayed to her abdomen. “Quite the opposite, actually.”

But if Anthony found her words odd, she would never know, because his eyes strayed to her writing table, then narrowed. “What is that?” he asked.

Daphne followed his line of vision to the small pile of paper that constituted her discarded attempts at a letter to Simon. “It’s nothing,” she said, reaching forward to grab the evidence.

“You’re writing him a letter, aren’t you?” Anthony’s already stormy expression grew positively thunderous. “Oh, for the love of God, don’t try to lie about it. I saw his name at the top of the paper.”

Daphne crumpled the wasted papers and dropped them into a basket under the desk. “It’s none of your business.”

Anthony eyed the basket as if he were about to lunge under the desk and retrieve the half-written notes. Finally, he just looked back at Daphne, and said, “I’m not going to let him get away with this.”

“Anthony, this isn’t your affair.”

He didn’t dignify that with a reply. “I’ll find him, you know. I’ll find him, and I’ll kill—”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Daphne finally exploded. “This is my marriage, Anthony, not yours. And if you interfere in my affairs, so help me God, I swear I will never speak to you again.”

Her eyes were steady, and her tone was forceful, and Anthony looked slightly shaken by her words. “Very well,” he muttered, “I won’t kill him.”

“Thank you,” Daphne said, rather sarcastically.

“But I will find him,” Anthony vowed. “And I will make my disapproval clear.”

Daphne took one look at his face and knew that he meant it. “Very well,” she said, reaching for the completed letter that she’d tucked away in a drawer. “I’ll let you deliver this.”

“Good.” He reached for the envelope.

Daphne moved it out of his reach. “But only if you make me two promises.”

“Which are . . . ? ”

“First, you must promise that you won’t read this.”

He looked mortally affronted that she’d even suggested he would.

“Don’t try that ‘I’m so honorable’ expression with me,” Daphne said with a snort. “I know you, Anthony Bridgerton, and I know that you would read this in a second if you thought you could get away with it.”

Anthony glared at her.

“But I also know,” she continued, “that you would never break an explicit promise made to me. So I’ll need your promise, Anthony.”

“This is hardly necessary, Daff.”

“Promise!” she ordered.

“Oh, all right,” he grumbled, “I promise.”

“Good.” She handed him the letter. He looked at it longingly.

“Secondly,” Daphne said loudly, forcing his attention back to her, “you must promise not to hurt him.”

“Oh, now, wait one second, Daphne,” Anthony burst out. “You ask for too much.”

She held out her hand. “I’ll be taking that letter back.”

He shoved it behind his back. “You already gave it to me.”

She smirked. “I didn’t give you his address.”

“I can get his address,” he returned.

“No, you can’t, and you know it,” Daphne shot back. “He has no end of estates. It’d take you weeks to figure out which one he’s visiting.”

“A-ha!” Anthony said triumphantly. “So he’s at one of his estates. You, my dear, let slip a vital clue.”

“Is this a game?” Daphne asked in amazement.

“Just tell me where he is.”

“Not unless you promise—no violence, Anthony.” She crossed her arms. “I mean it.”

“All right,” he mumbled.

“Say it.”

“You’re a hard woman, Daphne Bridgerton.”

“It’s Daphne Basset, and I’ve had good teachers.”

“I promise,” he said—barely. His words weren’t precisely crisp.

“I need a bit more than that,” Daphne said. She uncrossed her arms and twisted her right hand in a rolling manner, as if to draw forth the words from his lips. “I promise not to . . .”

“I promise not to hurt your bloody idiot of a husband,” Anthony spat out. “There. Is that good enough?”

“Certainly,” Daphne said congenially. She reached into a drawer and pulled out the letter she’d received earlier that week from Simon’s steward, giving his address. “Here you are.”

Anthony took it with a decidedly ungraceful—and ungrateful—swipe of his hand. He glanced down, scanned the lines, then said, “I’ll be back in four days.”

“You’re leaving today?” Daphne asked, surprised.

“I don’t know how long I can keep my violent impulses in check,” he drawled.

“Then by all means, go today,” Daphne said.

He did.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pull your lungs out through your mouth.”

Simon looked up from his desk to see a travel-dusty Anthony Bridgerton, fuming in the doorway to his study. “It’s nice to see you, too, Anthony,” he murmured.

Anthony entered the room with all the grace of a thunderstorm, planted his hands on Simon’s desk and leaned forward menacingly. “Would you mind telling me why my sister is in London, crying herself to sleep every night, while you’re in—” He looked around the office and scowled. “Where the hell are we?”

“Wiltshire,” Simon supplied.

“While you’re in Wiltshire, puttering around an inconsequential estate?”

“Daphne’s in London?”

“You’d think,” Anthony growled, “that as her husband you’d know that.”

“You’d think a lot of things,” Simon muttered, “but most of the time, you’d be wrong.” It had been two months since he’d left Clyvedon. Two months since he’d looked at Daphne and not been able to utter a word. Two months of utter emptiness.

In all honesty, Simon was surprised it had taken Daphne this long to get in touch with him, even if she had elected to do so through her somewhat belligerent older brother. Simon wasn’t exactly certain why, but he’d thought she would have contacted him sooner, if only to blister his ears. Daphne wasn’t the sort to stew in silence when she was upset; he’d half expected her to track him down and explain in six different ways why he was an utter fool.

And truth be told, after about a month, he’d half wished she would.

“I would tear your bloody head off,” Anthony growled, breaking into Simon’s thoughts with considerable force, “if I hadn’t promised Daphne I wouldn’t do you bodily harm.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t a promise easily made,” Simon said.

Anthony crossed his arms and settled a heavy stare on Simon’s face. “Nor easily kept.”

Simon cleared his throat as he tried to figure out some way to ask about Daphne without seeming too obvious. He missed her. He felt like an idiot, he felt like a fool, but he missed her. He missed her laugh and her scent and the way, sometimes in the middle of the night, she always managed to tangle her legs with his.

Simon was used to being alone, but he wasn’t used to being this lonely.

“Did Daphne send you to fetch me back?” he finally asked.

“No.” Anthony reached into his pocket, pulled out a small, ivory envelope, and slapped it down on the desk. “I caught her summoning a messenger to send you this.”

Simon stared at the envelope with growing horror. It could only mean one thing. He tried to say something neutral, such as “I see,” but his throat closed up.

“I told her I’d be happy to conduct the letter to you,” Anthony said, with considerable sarcasm.

Simon ignored him. He reached for the envelope, hoping that Anthony would not see how his fingers were shaking.

But Anthony did see. “What the devil is wrong with you?” he asked in an abrupt voice. “You look like hell.”

Simon snatched the envelope and pulled it to him. “Always a pleasure to see you, too,” he managed to quip.

Anthony gazed steadily at him, the battle between anger and concern showing clearly on his face. Clearing his throat a few times, Anthony finally asked, in a surprisingly gentle tone, “Are you ill?”

“Of course not.”

Anthony went pale. “Is Daphne ill?”

Simon’s head snapped up. “Not that she’s told me. Why? Does she look ill? Has she—”

“No, she looks fine.” Anthony’s eyes filled with curiosity. “Simon,” he finally asked, shaking his head, “what are you doing here? It’s obvious you love her. And much as I can’t comprehend it, she seems to love you as well.”

Simon pressed his fingers to his temples, trying to stave off the pounding headache he never seemed to be without these days. “There are things you don’t know,” he said wearily, shutting his eyes against the pain. “Things you could never understand.”

Anthony was silent for a full minute. Finally, just when Simon opened his eyes, Anthony pushed away from the desk and walked back to the door. “I won’t drag you back to London,” he said in a low voice. “I should but I won’t. Daphne needs to know you came for her, not because her older brother had a pistol at your back.”

Simon almost pointed out that that was why he’d married her, but he bit his tongue. That wasn’t the truth. Not all of it, at least. In another lifetime, he’d have been on bended knee, begging for her hand.

“You should know, however,” Anthony continued, “that people are starting to talk. Daphne returned to London alone, barely a fortnight after your rather hasty marriage. She’s keeping a good face about it, but it’s got to hurt. No one has actually come out and insulted her, but there’s only so much well-meaning pity a body can take. And that damned Whistledown woman has been writing about her.”

Simon winced. He’d not been back in England long, but it was long enough to know that the fictitious Lady Whistledown could inflict a great deal of damage and pain.

Anthony swore in disgust. “Get yourself to a doctor, Hastings. And then get yourself back to your wife.” With that, he strode out the door.

Simon stared at the envelope in his hands for many minutes before opening it. Seeing Anthony had been a shock. Knowing he’d just been with Daphne made Simon’s heart ache.

Bloody hell. He hadn’t expected to miss her.

This was not to say, however, that he wasn’t still furious with her. She’d taken something from him that he quite frankly hadn’t wanted to give. He didn’t want children. He’d told her that. She’d married him knowing that. And she’d tricked him.

Or had she? He rubbed his hands wearily against his eyes and forehead as he tried to remember the exact details of that fateful morning. Daphne had definitely been the leader in their lovemaking, but he distinctly recalled his own voice, urging her on. He should not have encouraged what he knew he could not stop.

She probably wasn’t pregnant, anyway, he reasoned. Hadn’t it taken his own mother over a decade to produce a single living child?

But when he was alone, lying in bed at night, he knew the truth. He hadn’t fled just because Daphne had disobeyed him, or because there was a chance he’d sired a child.

He’d fled because he couldn’t bear the way he’d been with her. She’d reduced him to the stuttering, stammering fool of his childhood. She’d rendered him mute, brought back that awful, choking feeling, the horror of not being able to say what he felt.

He just didn’t know if he could live with her if it meant going back to being the boy who could barely speak. He tried to remind himself of their courtship—their mock-courtship, he thought with a smile—and to remember how easy it had been to be with her, to talk with her. But every memory was tainted by where it had all led—to Daphne’s bedroom that hideous morning, with him tripping over his tongue and choking on his own throat.

And he hated himself like that.

So he’d fled to another of his country estates—as a duke, he had a number of them. This particular house was in Wiltshire, which, he had reasoned, wasn’t too terribly far from Clyvedon. He could get back in a day and a half if he rode hard enough. It wasn’t so much like he’d run away, if he could go back so easily.

And now it looked like he was going to have to go back.

Taking a deep breath, Simon picked up his letter opener and slit the envelope. He pulled out a single sheet of paper and looked down.

Simon,

My efforts, as you termed them, were met with success. I have removed myself to London, so that I might be near my family, and await your directive there.

Yours,

Daphne

Simon didn’t know how long he sat there behind his desk, barely breathing, the cream-colored slip of paper hanging from his fingers. Then finally, a breeze washed over him, or perhaps the light changed, or the house creaked—but something broke him out of his reverie and he jumped to his feet, strode into the hall, and bellowed for his butler.

“Have my carriage hitched,” he barked when the butler appeared. “I’m going to London.”