The Duke and I (Bridgertons, #1)(102)


"Good," he said calmly. He was silent for several seconds and then he fairly yelled, "What in God's name did you think you were doing! "

Daphne's jaw dropped, and her eyelids started opening and closing with great rapidity. She made a strangled sort of sound that might have metamorphosed into an actual word, but Simon cut her off with more bellows.

"What the hell were you doing out here with no groom? And why were you galloping here, where the terrain clearly does not allow it?" His eyebrows slammed together. "And for the love of God, woman, what were you doing on a horse?"

"Riding?" Daphne answered weakly.

"Don't you even care about our child? Didn't you give even a moment's thought to its safety?"

"Simon," Daphne said, her voice very small.

"A pregnant woman shouldn't even get within ten feet of a horse! You should know better."

When she looked at him her eyes looked old. "Why do you care?" she asked flatly. "You didn't want this baby."

"No, I didn't, but now that it's here I don't want you to kill it."

"Well, don't worry." She bit her lip."It's not here."

Simon's breath caught. "What do you mean?"

Her eyes flitted to the side of his face. "I'm not pregnant."

"You're—" He couldn't finish the sentence. The strangest feeling sank into his body. He didn't think it was disappointment, but he wasn't quite sure. "You lied to me?" he whispered.

She shook her head fiercely as she sat up to face him. "No!" she cried. "No, I never lied. I swear.

I thought I'd conceived. I truly thought I had. But—" She choked on a sob, and squeezed her eyes shut against an onslaught of tears. She hugged her legs to her body and pressed her face against her knees.

Simon had never seen her like this, so utterly stricken with grief. He stared at her, feeling



agonizingly helpless. All he wanted was to make her feel better, and it didn't much help to know that he was the cause of her pain. "But what, Daff?" he asked.

When she finally looked up at him, her eyes were huge, and full of grief. "I don't know. Maybe I wanted a child so badly that I somehow willed my courses away. I was so happy last month."

She let out a shaky breath, one that teetered precariously on the edge of a sob. "I waited and waited, even got my woman's padding ready, and nothing happened."

"Nothing?" Simon had never heard of such a thing.

"Nothing." Her lips trembled into a faintly self-mocking smile. "I've never been so happy in my life to have nothing happen."

"Did you feel queasy?"

She shook her head. "I felt no different. Except that I didn't bleed. But then two days ago ..."

Simon laid his hand on hers. "I'm sorry, Daphne."

"No you're not," she said bitterly, yanking her hand away. "Don't pretend something you don't feel. And for God's sake, don't lie to me again. You never wanted this baby." She let out a hollow, brittle laugh. "This baby? Good God, I talk as if it ever actually existed. As if it were ever more than a product of my imagination." She looked down, and when she spoke again, her voice was achingly sad. "And my dreams."

Simon's lips moved several times before he managed to say, "I don't like to see you so upset."

She looked at him with a combination of disbelief and regret. "I don't see how you could expect anything else."

"I—I—I—" He swallowed, trying to relax his throat, and finally he just said the only thing in his heart. "I want you back."

She didn't say anything. Simon silently begged her to say something, but she didn't. And he cursed at the gods for her silence, because it meant that he would have to say more.

"When we argued," he said slowly, "I lost control. I— I couldn't speak." He closed his eyes in agony as he felt his jaw tighten. Finally, after a long and shaky exhale, he said, "I hate myself like that."

Daphne's head tilted slightly as furrows formed in her brow. "Is that why you left?"

He nodded once.

"It wasn't about—what I did?"





His eyes met hers evenly."I didn't like what you did."

"But that wasn't why you left?"she persisted.

There was a beat of silence, and then he said, "It wasn't why I left."

Daphne hugged her knees to her chest, pondering his words. All this time she'd thought he'd abandoned her because he hated her, hated what she'd done, but in truth, the only thing he hated was himself.

She said softly, "You know I don't think less of you when you stammer."

"I think less of myself."

She nodded slowly. Of course he would. He was proud and stubborn, and all the ton looked up to him. Men curried his favor, women flirted like mad. And all the while he'd been terrified every time he'd opened his mouth.

Well, maybe not every time, Daphne thought as she gazed into his face. When they were

together, he usually spoke so freely, answered her so quickly that she knew he couldn't possibly be concentrating on every word.

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