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He said nothing, but he knew the answer was in his eyes.

She took a step toward him, advancing with barely controlled fury. “If you truly couldn't have children, it wouldn't matter where your seed landed, would it? You wouldn't be so frantic every night to make certain it ended up anywhere but inside me.”

“You don't know anything ab-bout this, Daphne.” His words were low and furious, and only slightly damaged.

She crossed her arms. “Then tell me.”

“I will never have children,” he hissed. “Never. Do you understand?”

“No.”

He felt rage rising within him, roiling in his stomach, pressing against his skin until he thought he would burst. It wasn't rage against her, it wasn't even against himself. It was, as always, directed at the man whose presence—or lack thereof—had always managed to rule his life.

“My father,” Simon said, desperately fighting for control, “was not a loving man.”

Daphne's eyes held his. “I know about your father,” she said.

That caught him by surprise. “What do you know?”

“I know that he hurt you. That he rejected you.” Something flickered in her dark eyes—not quite pity, but close to it. “I know that he thought you were stupid.”

Simon's heart slammed in his chest. He wasn't certain how he was able to speak—he wasn't certain how he was able to breathe—but he somehow managed to say, “Then you know about—”

“Your stammer?” she finished for him.

He thanked her silently for that. Ironically, “stutter” and “Stammer” were two words he'd never been able to master.

She shrugged. “He was an idiot.”

Simon gaped at her, unable to comprehend how she could dismiss decades of rage with one blithe statement. “You don't understand,” he said, shaking his head. “You couldn't possibly. Not with a family like yours. The only thing that mattered to him was blood. Blood and the title. And when I didn't turn out to be perfect—Daphne, he told people I was dead!”

The blood drained from her face. “I didn't know it was like that,” she whispered.

“It was worse,” he bit off. “I sent him letters. Hundreds of letters, begging him to come visit me. He didn't answer one.”

“Simon—”

“D-did you know I didn't speak until I was four? No? Well, I didn't. And when he visited, he shook me, and threatened to beat my voice out of me. That was my f-father.”

Daphne tried not to notice that he was beginning to stumble over his words. She tried to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach, the anger that rose within her at the hideous way Simon had been treated. “But he's gone now,” she said in a shaky voice. “He's gone, and you're here.”

“He said he couldn't even b-bear to look at me. He'd spent years praying for an heir. Not a son,” he said, his voice rising dangerously, “an heir. And f-for what? Hastings would go to a half-wit. His precious dukedom would b-be ruled by an idiot!”

“But he was wrong,” Daphne whispered.

“I don't care if he was wrong!” Simon roared. “All he cared about was the title. He never gave a single thought to me, about how I must feel, trapped with a m-mouth that didn't w-work!”

Daphne stumbled back a step, unsteady in the presence of such anger. This was the fury of decades-old resentment.

Simon very suddenly stepped forward and pressed his face very close to hers. “But do you know what?” he asked in an awful voice. “I shall have the last laugh. He thought that there could be nothing worse than Hastings going to a half-wit—”

“Simon, you're not—”

“Are you even listening to me?” he thundered.

Daphne, frightened now, scurried back, her hand reaching for the doorknob in case she needed to escape.

“Of course I know I'm not an idiot,” he spat out, “and in the end, I think h-he knew it, too. And I'm sure that brought him g-great comfort. Hastings was safe. N-never mind that I was not suffering as I once had. Hastings—that's what mattered.”

Daphne felt sick. She knew what was coming next.

Simon suddenly smiled. It was a cruel, hard expression, one she'd never seen on his face before. “But Hastings dies with me,” he said. “All those cousins he was so worried about inheriting…” He shrugged and let out a brittle laugh. “They all had girls. Isn't that something?”

Simon shrugged. “Maybe that was why my f-father suddenly decided I wasn't such an idiot. He knew I was his only hope.”

“He knew he'd been wrong,” Daphne said with quiet determination. She suddenly remembered the letters she'd been given by the Duke of Middlethorpe. The ones written to him by his father. She'd left them at Bridgerton House, in London. Which was just as well, since that meant she didn't have to decide what to do with them yet.

“It doesn't matter,” Simon said flippantly. “After I die, the title becomes extinct. And I for one couldn't be h-happier.”

With that, he stalked out of the room, exiting through his dressing room, since Daphne was blocking the door.

Daphne sank down onto a chair, still wrapped in the soft linen sheet she'd yanked from the bed. What was she going to do?

She felt tremors spread through her body, a strange shaking over which she had no control. And then she realized she was crying. Without a sound, without even a caught breath, she was crying.

Dear God, what was she going to do?

Chapter 17

To say that men can be bullheaded would be insulting to the bull.