The duke and I julia Quinn

Please God please,
she begged, 
let there 
be a child
. 
She might not get another chance. 
She wasn't ashamed of her actions. She supposed she should be, but she wasn't. 
She hadn't planned it. She hadn't looked at him while he was sleeping and thought— 
he's 
probably still drunk. I can make love to him and capture his seed and he'll never know
. 
It hadn't happened that way. 
Daphne wasn't quite sure how it had happened, but one moment she was above him, and the 
next she'd realized that he wasn't going to withdraw in time, and she'd made certain he 
couldn't
... 
Or maybe— She closed her eyes. Tight. Maybe it had happened the other way. Maybe she 
had
taken advantage of more than the moment, maybe she had taken advantage of 
him
. 

---

She just didn't know. It had all melted together. Simon's stutter, her desperate wish for a baby, 
his hatred of his father—it had all swirled and mixed in her mind, and she couldn't tell where one 
ended and the other began. 
And she felt so alone. 
She heard a sound at the door and turned, expecting the timid young maid back with tea, but in 
her stead was Mrs. Colson. Her face was drawn and her eyes were concerned. 
Daphne smiled wanly at the housekeeper. "I was expecting the maid," she murmured. 
"I had things to attend to in the next room, so I thought I'd bring the tea myself," Mrs. Colson 
replied. 
Daphne knew she was lying, but she nodded anyway. 
"The maid said no biscuits," Mrs. Colson added, "but I knew you'd skipped breakfast, so I put 
some on the tray, anyway." 
“That's very thoughtful of you." Daphne didn't recognize the timbre of her own voice. It 
sounded rather flat to her, almost as if it belonged to someone else. 
"It was no trouble, I assure you." The housekeeper looked as if she wanted to say more, but 
eventually she just straightened and asked, "Will that be all?" 
Daphne nodded. 
Mrs. Colson made her way to the door, and for one brief moment Daphne almost called out to 
her. She almost said her name, and asked her to sit with her, and share her tea. And she would 
have spilled her secrets and her shame, and then she would have spilled her tears. 
And not because she was particularly close to the housekeeper, just because she had no one else. 
But she didn't call out, and Mrs. Colson left the room. 
Daphne picked up a biscuit and bit into it. Maybe, she thought, it was time to go home. 

---

Chapter 19 
The new Duchess of Hastings was spotted in Mayfair today. Philipa Featherington saw the former 
Miss Daphne Bridgerton taking abit 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