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Daphne cocked her head to the side, obviously pondering his words. Then she looked over at Nigel and sighed. “I'm afraid I have to agree with you, much as it pains me.”

Simon bit back a smile. “It pains you to agree with me, or that most people are fools?”

“Both.” She grinned again—a wide, enchanting smile that did odd things to his brain. “But mostly the former.”

Simon let out a loud laugh, then was startled to realize how foreign the sound was to his ears. He was a man who frequently smiled, occasionally chuckled, but it had been a very long time since he'd felt such a spontaneous burst of joy. “My dear Miss Bridgerton,” he said, wiping his eyes, “if you are the soul of kindness and amiability, then the world must be a very dangerous place.”

“Oh, for certain,” she replied. “At least to hear my mother tell it.”

“I can't imagine why I do not recall your mother,” Simon murmured, “because she certainly sounds a memorable character.”

Daphne raised a brow. “You don't remember her?”

He shook his head.

“Then you don't know her.”

“Does she look like you?”

“That's an odd question.”

“Not so very odd,” Simon replied, thinking that Daphne was exactly right. It was an odd question, and he had no idea why he'd voiced it. But since he had, and since she had questioned it, he added, “After all, I'm told that all of your Bridgertons look alike.”

A tiny, and to Simon mysterious, frown touched her face. “We do. Look alike, that is. Except for my mother. She's rather fair, actually, with blue eyes. We all get our dark hair from our father. I'm told I have her smile, though.”

An awkward pause fell across the conversation. Daphne was shifting from foot to foot, not at all certain what to say to the duke, when Nigel exhibited stellar timing for the first time in his life, and sat up. “Daphne?” he said, blinking as if he couldn't see straight. “Daphne, is that you?”

“Good God, Miss Bridgerton,” the duke swore, “how hard did you hit him?”

“Hard enough to knock him down, but no worse than that, I swear!” Her brow furrowed. “Maybe he is drunk.”

“Oh, Daphne,” Nigel moaned.

The duke crouched next to him, then reeled back, coughing.

“Is he drunk?” Daphne asked.

The duke staggered back. “He must have drunk an entire bottle of whiskey just to get up the nerve to propose.”

“Who would have thought I could be so terrifying?” Daphne murmured, thinking of all the men who thought of her as a jolly good friend and nothing more. “How wonderful.”

Simon stared at her as if she were insane, then muttered, “I'm not even going to question that statement.”

Daphne ignored his comment. “Should we set our plan into action?”

Simon planted his hands on his hips and reassessed the scene. Nigel was trying to rise to his feet, but it didn't appear, to Simon's eye at least, that he was going to find success anytime in the near future. Still, he was probably lucid enough to make trouble, and certainly lucid enough to make noise, which he was doing. Quite well, actually.

“Oh, Daphne. I luff you so much, Daffery.” Nigel managed to raise himself to his knees, weaving around as he shuffled toward Daphne, looking rather like a sotted churchgoer attempting to pray. “Please marry me, Duffne. You have to.”

“Buck up, man,” Simon grunted, grabbing him by the collar. “This is getting embarrassing.” He turned to Daphne. “I'm going to have to take him outside now. We can't leave him here in the hall. He's liable to start moaning like a sickened cow—”

“I rather thought he'd already started,” Daphne said.

Simon felt one corner of his mouth twist up in a reluctant smile. Daphne Bridgerton might be a marriageable female and thus a disaster waiting to happen for any man in his position, but she was certainly a good sport.

She was, it occurred to him in a rather bizarre moment of clarity, the sort of person he'd probably call friend if she were a man.

But since it was abundantly obvious—to both his eyes and his body—that she wasn't a man, Simon decided it was in both of their best interests to wrap up this “situation” as soon as possible. Aside from the fact that Daphne's reputation would suffer a deadly blow if they were discovered, Simon wasn't positive that he could trust himself to keep his hands off of her for very much longer.

It was an unsettling feeling, that. Especially for a man who so valued his self-control. Control was everything. Without it he'd never have stood up to his father or taken a first at university. Without it, he'd—

Without it, he thought grimly, he'd still be speaking like an idiot.

“I'll haul him out of here,” he said suddenly. “You go back to the ballroom.”

Daphne frowned, glancing over her shoulder to the hall that led back to the party. “Are you certain? I thought you wanted me to go to the library.”

“That was when we were going to leave him here while I summoned the carriage. But we can't do that if he's awake.”

She nodded her agreement, and asked, “Are you sure you can do it? Nigel's a rather large man.”

“I'm larger.”

She cocked her head. The duke, although lean, was powerfully built, with broad shoulders and firmly muscled thighs. (Daphne knew she wasn't supposed to notice such things, but, really, was it her fault that current fashions dictated such snug breeches?) More to the point, he had a certain air about him, something almost predatory, something that hinted of tightly controlled strength and power.