by Julia Quinn
Colin Bridgerton tiptoed down the hall, his boots moving silently over the runner carpet that stretched across the floor. His mother had gone off to bed, and Benedict was ensconced with Anthony in the latter’s study. But he wasn’t interested in any of them. It was Daphne he wanted to see.
He knocked softly on her door, encouraged by the pale shaft of light that glowed at the bottom. Clearly she’d left several candles burning. Since she was far too sensible ever to fall asleep without snuffing her candles, she was still awake.
And if she were still awake, then she’d have to talk to him.
He raised his hand to knock again, but the door swung open on well-oiled hinges, and Daphne silently motioned for him to enter.
“I need to talk to you,” she whispered, her words coming out in a single, urgent rush of air.
“I need to talk to you, too.”
Daphne ushered him in, and then, after a quick glance up and down the hall, shut the door. “I’m in big trouble,” she said.
“I know.”
The blood drained from her face. “You do?”
Colin nodded, his green eyes for once deadly serious. “Do you remember my friend Macclesfield?”
She nodded. Macclesfield was the young earl her mother had insisted upon introducing her to a fortnight ago. The very night she’d met Simon.
“Well, he saw you disappear into the gardens tonight with Hastings.”
Daphne’s throat felt suddenly scratchy and swollen, but she managed to get out, “He did?”
Colin nodded grimly. “He won’t say anything. I’m sure of it. We’ve been friends for nearly a decade. But if he saw you, someone else might have as well. Lady Danbury was looking at us rather queerly when he was telling me what he’d seen.”
“Lady Danbury saw?” Daphne asked sharply.
“I don’t know if she did or if she didn’t. All I know is that”—Colin shuddered slightly—“she was looking at me as if she knew my every transgression.”
Daphne gave her head a little shake. “That’s just her way. And if she did see anything, she won’t say a word.”
“Lady Danbury?” Colin asked doubtfully.
“She’s a dragon, and she can be rather cutting, but she isn’t the sort to ruin someone just for the fun of it. If she saw something, she’ll confront me directly.”
Colin looked unconvinced.
Daphne cleared her throat several times as she tried to figure out how to phrase her next question. “What exactly did he see?”
Colin eyed her suspiciously. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said,” Daphne very nearly snapped, her nerves stretched taut by the long and stressful evening. “What did he see?”
Colin’s back straightened and his chin jolted back in a defensive manner. “Exactly what I said,” he retorted. “He saw you disappear into the gardens with Hastings.”
“But that’s all?”
“That’s all?” he echoed. His eyes widened, then narrowed. “What the hell happened out there?”
Daphne sank onto an ottoman and buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Colin, I’m in such a tangle.”
He didn’t say anything, so she finally wiped her eyes, which weren’t exactly crying but did feel suspiciously wet, and looked up. Her brother looked older—and harder—than she’d ever before seen him. His arms were crossed, his legs spread in a wide and implacable stance, and his eyes, normally so merry and mischievous, were as hard as emeralds. He’d clearly been waiting for her to look up before speaking.
“Now that you’re done with your display of self-pity,” he said sharply, “suppose you tell me what you and Hastings did tonight in Lady Trowbridge’s garden.”
“Don’t use that tone of voice with me,” Daphne snapped back, “and don’t accuse me of indulging in self-pity. For the love of God, a man is going to die tomorrow. I’m entitled to be a little upset.”
Colin sat down on a chair opposite her, his face immediately softening into an expression of extreme concern. “You’d better tell me everything.”
Daphne nodded and proceeded to relate the events of the evening. She didn’t, however, explain the precise extent of her disgrace. Colin didn’t need to know exactly what Anthony had seen; the fact that she’d been caught in a compromising position ought to be enough.
She finished with, “And now there is going to be a duel, and Simon is going to die!”
“You don’t know that, Daphne.”
She shook her head miserably. “He won’t shoot Anthony. I’d bet my life on it. And Anthony—” Her voice caught, and she had to swallow before continuing. “Anthony is so furious. I don’t think he’ll delope.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know where the duel is to be held. All I know is that I have to stop it!”
Colin swore under his breath, then said softly, “I don’t know if you can, Daphne.”
“I must!” she cried out. “Colin, I can’t sit here and stare at the ceiling while Simon dies.” Her voice broke, and she added, “I love him.”
He blanched. “Even after he rejected you?”
She nodded dejectedly. “I don’t care if that makes me a pathetic imbecile, but I can’t help it. I still love him. He needs me.”
Colin said quietly, “If that were true, don’t you think he would have agreed to marry you when Anthony demanded it?”
Daphne shook her head. “No. There’s something else I don’t know about. I can’t really explain it, but it was almost as if a part of him wanted to marry me.” She could feel herself growing agitated, feel her breath starting to come in jerky gasps, but still she continued. “I don’t know, Colin. But if you could have seen his face, you’d understand. He was trying to protect me from something. I’m sure of it.”
“I don’t know Hastings nearly as well as Anthony,” Colin said, “or even as well as you, but I’ve never even heard the barest hint of a whisper about some deep, dark secret. Are you certain—” He broke off in the middle of his sentence, and let his head fall into his hands for a moment before looking back up. When he spoke again, his voice was achingly gentle. “Are you certain you might not be imagining his feelings for you?”
Daphne took no offense. She knew her story sounded a fantasy. But she knew in her heart that she was right. “I don’t want him to die,” she said in a low voice. “In the end, that’s all that’s important.”
Colin nodded, but then asked one last question. “You don’t want him to die, or you don’t want him to die on your account?”
Daphne stood on shaky feet. “I think you’d better leave,” she said, using every last bit of her energy to keep her voice steady. “I can’t believe you just asked that of me.”
But Colin didn’t leave. He just reached over and squeezed his sister’s hand. “I’ll help you, Daff. You know I’d do anything for you.”
And Daphne just fell into his arms and let out all the tears she’d been keeping so valiantly inside.
Thirty minutes later, her eyes were dried and her mind was clear. She’d needed to cry; she realized that. There’d been too much trapped inside her—too much feeling, too much confusion, hurt, and anger. She’d had to let it out. But now there was no more time for emotion. She needed to keep a cool head and remain focused on her goal.
Colin had gone off to question Anthony and Benedict, whom he’d said were talking in low and intense voices in Anthony’s study. He’d agreed with her that Anthony had most probably asked Benedict to act as his second. It was Colin’s job to get them to tell him where the duel was to take place. Daphne had no doubt that Colin would succeed. He’d always been able to get anybody to tell him anything.
Daphne had dressed in her oldest, most comfortable riding habit. She had no idea how the morning would play out, but the last thing she wanted was to be tripping over lace and petticoats.
A swift knock on her door brought her to attention, and before she could even reach for the knob, Colin entered the
room. He, too, had changed out of his evening clothes.
“Did you find out everything?” Daphne asked urgently.
His nod was sharp and brief. “We don’t have much time to lose. I assume you want to try to get there before anyone else arrives?”
“If Simon gets there before Anthony, maybe I can convince him to marry me before anyone even pulls out a gun.”
Colin let out a tense breath. “Daff,” he began, “have you considered the possibility that you might not succeed?”
She swallowed, her throat feeling like it had a cannonball lodged in it. “I’m trying not to think about that.”
“But—”
Daphne cut him off. “If I think about it,” she replied in a strained voice, “I might lose my focus. I might lose my nerve. And I can’t do that. For Simon’s sake, I can’t do that.”
“I hope he knows what he has in you,” Colin said quietly. “Because if he doesn’t, I may have to shoot him myself.”
Daphne just said, “We’d better go.”
Colin nodded, and they were off.
Simon guided his horse along Broad Walk, making his way to the farthest, most remote corner in the new Regent’s Park. Anthony had suggested, and he had agreed, that they carry out their business far from Mayfair. It was dawn, of course, and no one was likely to be out, but there was no reason to be flaunting a duel in Hyde Park.
Not that Simon much cared that dueling was illegal. After all, he wouldn’t be around to suffer the legal consequences.
It was, however, a damned distasteful way to die. But Simon didn’t see any alternatives. He had disgraced a gently bred lady whom he could not marry, and now he must suffer the consequences. It was nothing Simon had not known before he’d kissed her.
As he made his way to the designated field, he saw that Anthony and Benedict had already dismounted and were waiting for him. Their chestnut hair ruffled in the breeze, and their faces looked grim.
Almost as grim as Simon’s heart.
He brought his horse to a halt a few yards away from the Bridgerton brothers and dismounted.
“Where is your second?” Benedict called out.
“Didn’t bother with it,” Simon replied.
“But you have to have a second! A duel isn’t a duel without one.”
Simon just shrugged. “There didn’t seem a point. You brought the guns. I trust you.”
Anthony walked toward him. “I don’t want to do this,” he said.
“You don’t have a choice.”
“But you do,” Anthony said urgently. “You could marry her. Maybe you don’t love her, but I know you like her well enough. Why won’t you marry her?”
Simon thought about telling them everything, all the reasons he’d sworn never to take a wife and perpetuate his line. But they wouldn’t understand. Not the Bridgertons, who only knew that family was good and kind and true. They didn’t know anything about cruel words and shattered dreams. They didn’t know the impossible feeling of rejection.
Simon then thought about saying something cruel, something that would make Anthony and Benedict despise him and get this mockery of a duel over with more quickly. But that would require him to malign Daphne, and he just couldn’t do that.
And so, in the end, all he did was look up into the face of Anthony Bridgerton, the man who had been his friend since his earliest days at Eton, and said, “Just know it isn’t Daphne. Your sister is the finest woman I’ve ever had the privilege to know.”
And then, with a nod to both Anthony and Benedict, he picked up one of the two pistols in the case Benedict had laid on the ground, and began his long walk to the north side of the field.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiittttttttt!”
Simon gasped and whirled around. Dear God, it was Daphne!
She was bent low over her mare, in full gallop as she raced across the field, and for one stunned moment Simon forgot to be absolutely furious with her for interfering with the duel and instead just marveled at how utterly magnificent she looked in the saddle.
By the time she yanked on the reins and brought the horse to a halt right in front of him, however, his rage was back in full force.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.
“Saving your miserable life!” Her eyes flashed fire at him, and he realized he’d never seen her so angry.
Almost as angry as he was. “Daphne, you little idiot. Do you realize how dangerous this little stunt was?” Without realizing what he was doing, his hands wrapped around her shoulders and started to shake. “One of us could have shot you.”
“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “You hadn’t even reached your end of the field.”
She had a point, but he was far too furious to acknowledge it. “And riding here in the dead of night by yourself,” he yelled. “You should know better.”
“I do know better,” she shot back. “Colin escorted me.”
“Colin?” Simon’s head whipped back and forth as he looked for the youngest of her older brothers. “I’m going to kill him!”
“Would that be before or after Anthony shoots you through the heart?”
“Oh, definitely before,” Simon growled. “Where is he? Bridgerton!” he bellowed.
Three chestnut heads swiveled in his direction.
Simon stomped across the grass, murder in his eyes. “I meant the idiot Bridgerton.”
“That, I believe,” Anthony said mildly, tilting his chin toward Colin, “would refer to you.”
Colin turned a deadly stare in his direction. “And I was supposed to let her stay at home and cry her eyes out?”
“Yes!” This came from three different sources.
“Simon!” Daphne yelled, tripping across the grass after him. “Get back here!”
Simon turned to Benedict. “Get her out of here.”
Benedict looked undecided.
“Do it,” Anthony ordered.
Benedict held still, his eyes darting back and forth between his brothers, his sister, and the man who’d shamed her.
“For the love of Christ,” Anthony swore.
“She deserves to have her say,” Benedict said, and crossed his arms.
“What the hell is wrong with you two?” Anthony roared, glaring at his two younger brothers.
“Simon,” Daphne said, gasping for breath after her race across the field, “you must listen to me.”
Simon tried to ignore her tugs on his sleeve. “Daphne, leave it. There’s nothing you can do.”
Daphne looked pleadingly at her brothers. Colin and Benedict were obviously sympathetic, but there was little they could do to help her. Anthony still looked like an angry god.
Finally she did the only thing she could think of to delay the duel. She punched Simon.
In his good eye.
Simon howled in pain as he staggered back. “What the hell was that for?”
“Fall down, you idiot,” she hissed. If he was prostrate on the ground, Anthony couldn’t very well shoot him.
“I am certainly not going to fall down!” He clutched his eye as he muttered, “Good God, being felled by a woman. Intolerable.”
“Men,” Daphne grunted. “Idiots, all.” She turned to her brothers, who were staring at her with identical expressions of openmouthed shock. “What are you looking at?” she snapped.
Colin started to clap.
Anthony smacked him in the shoulder.
“Might I have one, single, tiny, ever-so-brief moment with his grace?” she asked, half the words mere hisses.
Colin and Benedict nodded and walked away. Anthony didn’t move.
Daphne glared at him. “I’ll hit you, too.”
And she might have done it too, except that Benedict returned and nearly yanked Anthony’s arm out of the socket as he pulled him away.
She stared at Simon, who was pressing his fingers against his eyebrow, as if that might lessen the pain in his eye.
“I can’t believe you punched me,” he said.
She glanced back at her brothers to make sure they’d moved out of earshot. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“I don’t know what you hoped to accomplish here,” he said.
“I should think that would be abundantly obvious.”
He sighed, and in that moment he looked weary and sad and infinitely old. “I’ve already told you I cannot marry you.”
“You have to.”
Her words emerged with such urgency and force that he looked up, his eyes on sharp alert. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice a study in control.
“I mean that we were seen.”
“By whom?”
“Macclesfield.”
Simon relaxed visibly. “He won’t talk.”
“But there were others!” Daphne bit her lip. It wasn’t necessarily a lie. There might have been others. In fact, there probably were others.
“Whom?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’ve heard rumblings. By tomorrow it will be all over London.”
Simon swore so viciously that Daphne actually took a step back.
“If you don’t marry me,” she said in a low voice, “I will be ruined.”
“That’s not true.” But his voice lacked conviction.
“It is true, and you know it.” She forced her eyes to meet his. Her entire future—and his life!—was riding on this moment. She couldn’t afford to falter. “No one will have me. I shall be packed away to some godforsaken corner of the country—”
“You know your mother would never send you away.”
“But I will never marry. You know that.” She took a step forward, forcing him to acknowledge her nearness. “I will be forever branded as used goods. I’ll never have a husband, never bear children—”
“Stop!” Simon fairly yelled. “For the love of God, just stop.”
Anthony, Benedict, and Colin all started at his shout, but Daphne’s frantic shake of her head kept them in their places.
“Why can’t you marry me?” she asked in a low voice. “I know you care for me. What is it?”
Simon wrapped his hand across his face, his thumb and forefinger pressing mercilessly into his temples. Christ, he had a headache. And Daphne—dear God, she kept moving closer. She reached out and touched his shoulder, then his cheek. He wasn’t strong enough. Dear God, he wasn’t going to be strong enough.