Colin stared at her, then looked around the room—the drawing room of the Duchess of Hastings—then looked back at Daphne, as if just realizing that his little sister, whom he'd always viewed as rather jolly extension of himself, had become her own woman.
He reached out and took her hand. “Daff,” he said quietly, “I'll let you handle this as you see fit.”
“Thank you.”
“For now,” he warned. “Don't think I'll let this situation continue indefinitely.”
But it wouldn't, Daphne thought a half hour later as Colin left the house. It couldn't continue indefinitely. Within a fortnight, she would know.
Every morning Daphne woke to find she was holding her breath. Even before her courses were due to arrive, she bit her lip, said a little prayer, and gingerly peeled back the covers of her bed and looked for blood.
And every morning she saw nothing but snowy white linen.
A week after her courses were due, she allowed herself the first glimmerings of hope. Her courses had never been perfectly punctual; they could, she reasoned, still arrive at any time. But still, she had never been quite this late…
After another week, though, she found herself smiling each morning, holding on to her secret as she would a treasure. She wasn't ready to share this with anyone yet. Not her mother, not her brothers, and certainly not Simon.
She didn't feel terribly guilty about withholding the news from him. After all, he had withheld his seed from her. But more importantly, she feared that his reaction would be explosively negative, and she just wasn't ready to let his displeasure ruin her perfect moment of joy. She did, however, jot off a note to his steward, asking that he forward Simon's new address to her.
But then finally, after the third week, her conscience got the better of her, and she sat down at her desk to write him a letter.
Unfortunately for Daphne, the sealing wax hadn't even dried on her missive when her brother Anthony, obviously returned from his sojourn in the country, came crashing into the room. Since Daphne was upstairs, in her private chamber, where she was not supposed to receive visitors, she didn't even want to think about how many servants he had injured on his way up.
He looked furious, and she knew she probably shouldn't provoke him, but he always made her slightly sarcastic, so she asked, “And how did you get up here? Don't I have a butler?”
“You had a butler,” he growled.
“Oh, dear.”
“Where is he?”
“Not here, obviously.” There didn't seem any point in pretending she didn't know exactly who he was talking about.
“I'm going to kill him.”
Daphne stood, eyes flashing. “No, you're not!”
Anthony, who had been standing with his hands on his hips, leaned forward and speared her with a stare. “I made a vow to Hastings before he married you, did you know that?”
She shook her head.
“I reminded him that I had been prepared to kill him for damaging your reputation. Heaven help him if he damages your soul.”
“He hasn't damaged my soul, Anthony.” Her hand strayed to her abdomen. “Quite the opposite, actually.”
But if Anthony found her words odd, she would never know, because his eyes strayed to her writing table, then narrowed. “What is that?” he asked.
Daphne followed his line of vision to the small pile of paper that constituted her discarded attempts at a letter to Simon. “It's nothing,” she said, reaching forward to grab the evidence.
“You're writing him a letter, aren't you?” Anthony's already stormy expression grew positively thunderous. “Oh, for the love of God, don't try to lie about it. I saw his name at the top of the paper.”
Daphne crumpled the wasted papers and dropped them into a basket under the desk. “It's none of your business.”
Anthony eyed the basket as if he were about to lunge under the desk and retrieve the half-written notes. Finally, he just looked back at Daphne, and said, “I'm not going let him get away with this.”
“Anthony, this isn't your affair.”
He didn't dignify that with a reply. “I'll find him, you know. I'll find him, and I'll kill—”
“Oh, for goodness sake,” Daphne finally exploded. “This is my marriage, Anthony, not yours. And if you interfere in my affairs, so help me God, I swear I will never speak to you again.”
Her eyes were steady, and her tone was forceful, and Anthony looked slightly shaken by her words. “Very well,” he muttered, “I won't kill him.”
“Thank you,” Daphne said, rather sarcastically.
“But I will find him,” Anthony vowed. “And I will make my disapproval clear.”
Daphne took one look at his face and knew that he meant it. “Very well,” she said, reaching for the completed letter that she'd tucked away in a drawer. “I'll let you deliver this.”
“Good.” He reached for the envelope.
Daphne moved it out of his reach. “But only if you make me two promises.”
“Which are…?”
“First, you must promise that you won't read this.”
He looked mortally affronted that she'd even suggested he would.
“Don't try that ‘I'm so honorable’ expression with me,” Daphne said with a snort. “I know you, Anthony Bridgerton, and I know that you would read this in a second if you thought you could get away with it.”
Anthony glared at her.
“But I also know,” she continued, “that you would never break an explicit promise made to me. So I'll need your promise, Anthony.”