“Simon, you should be in bed.”
He nodded again, this time with considerably more vigor and enthusiasm. “Yesh, yesh I should.” He tried to rise to his feet, but only made it as far as his knees before he tripped and fell back down onto the carpet. “Hmmm,” he said, peering down at the lower half of his body. “Hmmm, that's strange.” He lifted his face back to Daphne's and looked at her in utter confusion. “I could have sworn those were my legs.”
Daphne rolled her eyes.
Simon tried out his legs again, with the same results. “My limbs don't sheem to be working properly,” he commented.
“Your brain isn't working properly!” Daphne returned. “What am I to do with you?”
He looked her way and grinned. “Love me? You said you loved me, you know.” He frowned. “I don't think you can take that back.”
Daphne let out a long sigh. She should be furious with him—blast it all, she was furious with him!—but it was difficult to maintain appropriate levels of anger when he looked so pathetic.
Besides, with three brothers, she'd had some experience with drunken nitwits. He was going to have to sleep it off, that's all there was to it. He'd wake up with a blistering headache, which would probably serve him right, and then he would insist upon drinking some noxious concoction that he was absolutely positive would eliminate his hangover completely.
“Simon?” she asked patiently. “How drunk are you?”
He gave her a loopy grin. “Very.”
“I thought as much,” she muttered under her breath. She bent down and shoved her hands under his arms. “Up with you now, we've got to get you to bed.”
But he didn't move, just sat there on his fanny and looked up at her with an extremely foolish expression. “WhyduI need t'get up?” he slurred. “Can't you sit wi' me?” He threw his arms around her in a sloppy hug. “Come'n sit wi' me, Daphne.”
“Simon!”
He patted the carpet next to him. “It's nice down here.”
“Simon, no, I cannot sit with you,” she ground out, struggling out of his heavy embrace. “You have to go to bed.” She tried to move him again, with the same, dismal outcome. “Heavens above,” she said under her breath, “why did you have to go out and get so drunk?”
He wasn't supposed to hear her words, but he must have done, because he cocked his head, and said, “I wanted you back.”
Her lips parted in shock. They both knew what he had to do to win her back, but Daphne thought he was far too intoxicated for her to conduct any kind of conversation on the topic. So she just tugged at his arm and said, “We'll talk about it tomorrow, Simon.”
He blinked several times in rapid succession. “Think it already is tomorrow.” He craned his neck this way and that, peering toward the windows. The curtains were drawn, but the light of the new day was already filtering through. “Iz day all right,” he mumbled. “See?” He waved his arm toward the window. “Tomorrow already.”
“Then we'll talk about it in the evening,” she said, a touch desperately. She already felt as if her heart had been pushed through a windmill; she didn't think she could bear any more just then. “Please, Simon, let's just leave it be for now.”
“The thing is, Daphrey—” He shook his head in much the same manner a dog shakes off water. “DaphNe,” he said carefully. “DaphNe DaphNe.”
Daphne couldn't quite stop a smile at that. “What, Simon?”
“The problem, y'see”—he scratched his head—“you just don't understand.”
“What don't I understand?” she said softly.
“Why I can't do it,” he said. He raised his face until it was level with hers, and she nearly flinched at the haunted misery in his eyes.
“I never wanted to hurt you, Daff,” he said hoarsely. “You know that, don't you?”
She nodded. “I know that, Simon.”
“Good, because the thing is—” He drew a long breath that seemed to shake his entire body. “I can't do what you want.”
She said nothing.
“All my life,” Simon said sadly, “all my life he won. Didjou know that? He always won. This time I get to win.” In a long, awkward movement he swung his arm in a horizontal arc and jabbed his thumb against his chest. “Me. I want to win for once.”
“Oh, Simon,” she whispered. “You won long ago. The moment you exceeded his expectations you won. Every time you beat the odds, made a friend, or traveled to a new land you won. You did all the things he never wanted for you.” Her breath caught, and she gave his shoulders a squeeze. “You beat him. You won. Why can't you see that?”
He shook his head. “I don't want to become what he wanted,” he said. “Even though—” He hiccuped. “Even though he never expected it of m-me, what he w-wanted was a perfect son, someone who'd be the perfect d-duke, who'd then m-marry the perfect duchess, and have p-perfect children.”
Daphne's lower lip caught between her teeth. He was stuttering again. He must be truly upset. She felt her heart breaking for him, for the little boy who'd wanted nothing other than his father's approval.
Simon cocked his head to the side and regarded her with a surprisingly steady gaze. “He would have approved of you.”
“Oh,” Daphne said, not sure how to interpret that.
“But”—he shrugged and gave her a secret, mischievous smile—“I married you anyway.”