The duke and I julia Quinn

that's
what a man wants to hear," he sneered. 
"For the love of God, Simon," she snapped, "you know I didn't marry you 
because
I felt sorry 
for you." 
"Then why?" 
"Because I loved you," she replied, but the acid in her voice made the declaration rather brittle. 
"And because I didn't want to see you die, which you seemed stupidly bent upon doing." 
He had no ready comment, so he just snorted and glared at her. 
"But don't try to make this about 
me,"
she continued hotly. "I'm not the one who lied. You said 
you can't have children, but the truth is you just 
won't
have them." 

---

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 . 
Lady Whistledown's Society Papers, 2 June 1813 
In the end, Daphne did the only thing she knew how to do. The Bridgertons had always been a 
loud and boisterous family, not a one of them prone to keeping secrets or holding grudges. 
So she tried to talk to Simon. To reason with him. 
The following morning (she had no idea where he had spent the night; wherever it was, it hadn't 
been their bed) she found him in his study. It was a dark, overbearingly masculine room, 
probably decorated by Simon's father. Daphne was frankly surprised that Simon would feel 
comfortable in such surroundings; he hated reminders of the old duke. 
But Simon, clearly, was not uncomfortable. He was sitting behind his desk, his feet insolently 
propped up on the leather blotter mat protected the rich cherry wood of the desktop. In his hand 
he was holding a smoothly polished stone, turning it over and over in his hands. There was a 
bottle of whiskey on the desk next to him; she had a feeling it had been there all night. 
He hadn't, however, drunk much of it. Daphne was thankful for small favors. 
The door was ajar, so she didn't knock. But she wasn't quite so brave as to stride boldly in. 
"Simon?" she asked, standing back near the door. 
He looked up at her and quirked a brow. 
"Are you busy?" 
He set down the stone. "Obviously not." 
She motioned to it. "Is that from your travels?" 
"The Caribbean. A memento of my time on the beach." 
Daphne noticed that he was speaking with perfect elocution. There was no hint of the stammer 
that had become apparent the night before. He was calm now. Almost annoyingly so. "Is the 
beach very different there than it is here?" she asked. 
He raised an arrogant brow. "It's warmer." 
"Oh. Well, I'd assumed as much." 

---

He looked at her with piercing, unwavering eyes. "Daphne, I know you didn't seek me out to 
discuss the tropics." 
He was right, of course, but this wasn't going to be an easy conversation, and Daphne didn't 
think she was so much of a coward for wanting to put it off by a few moments. 
She took a deep breath. "We need to discuss what happened last night." 
"I'm sure you think we do." 
She fought the urge to lean forward and smack the bland expression from his face. "I don't