She shook her head fiercely as she sat up to face him. “No!” she cried. “No, I never lied. I swear. I thought I'd conceived. I truly thought I had. But—” She choked on a sob, and squeezed her eyes shut against an onslaught of tears. She hugged her legs to her body and pressed her face against her knees.

Simon had never seen her like this, so utterly stricken with grief. He stared at her, feeling agonizingly helpless. All he wanted was to make her feel better, and it didn't much help to know that he was the cause of her pain. “But what, Daff?” he asked.

When she finally looked up at him, her eyes were huge, and full of grief. “I don't know. Maybe I wanted a child so badly that I somehow willed my courses away. I was so happy last month.” She let out a shaky breath, one that teetered precariously on the edge of a sob. “I waited and waited, even got my woman's padding ready, and nothing happened.”

“Nothing?” Simon had never heard of such a thing.

“Nothing.” Her lips trembled into a faintly self-mocking smile. “I've never been so happy in my life to have nothing happen.”

“Did you feel queasy?”

She shook her head. “I felt no different. Except that I didn't bleed. But then two days ago…”

Simon laid his hand on hers. “I'm sorry, Daphne.”

“No you're not,” she said bitterly, yanking her hand away. “Don't pretend something you don't feel. And for God's sake, don't lie to me again. You never wanted this baby.” She let out a hollow, brittle laugh. “This baby? Good God, I talk as if it ever actually existed. As if it were ever more than a product of my imagination.” She looked down, and when she spoke again, her voice was achingly sad. “And my dreams.”

Simon's lips moved several times before he managed to say, “I don't like to see you so upset.”

She looked at him with a combination of disbelief and regret. “I don't see how you could expect anything else.”

“I—I—I—” He swallowed, trying to relax his throat, and finally he just said the only thing in his heart. “I want you back.”

She didn't say anything. Simon silently begged her to say something, but she didn't. And he cursed at the gods for her silence, because it meant that he would have to say more.

“When we argued,” he said slowly, “I lost control. I—I couldn't speak.” He closed his eyes in agony as he felt his jaw tighten. Finally, after a long and shaky exhale, he said, “I hate myself like that.”

Daphne's head tilted slightly as furrows formed in her brow. “Is that why you left?”

He nodded once.

“It wasn't about—what I did?”

His eyes met hers evenly. “I didn't like what you did.”

“But that wasn't why you left?” she persisted.

There was a beat of silence, and then he said, “It wasn't why I left.”

Daphne hugged her knees to her chest, pondering his words. All this time she'd thought he'd abandoned her because he hated her, hated what she'd done, but in truth, the only thing he hated was himself.

She said softly, “You know I don't think less of you when you stammer.”

“I think less of myself.”

She nodded slowly. Of course he would. He was proud and stubborn, and all the ton looked up to him. Men curried his favor, women flirted like mad. And all the while he'd been terrified every time he'd opened his mouth.

Well, maybe not every time, Daphne thought as she gazed into his face. When they were together, he usually spoke so freely, answered her so quickly that she knew he couldn't possibly be concentrating on every word.

She put her hand on his. “You're not the boy your father thought you were.”

“I know that,” he said, but his eyes didn't meet hers.

“Simon, look at me,” she gently ordered. When he did, she repeated her words. “You're not the boy your father thought you were.”

“I know that,” he said again, looking puzzled and maybe just a bit annoyed.

“Are you sure?” she asked softly.

“Damn it, Daphne, I know—” His words tumbled into silence as his body began to shake. For one startling moment, Daphne thought he was going to cry. But the tears that pooled in his eyes never fell, and when he looked up at her, his body shuddering, all he said was, “I hate him, Daphne. I h-h-h—”

She moved her hands to his cheeks and turned his face to hers, forcing him to meet her steady gaze. “That's all right,” she said. “It sounds as if he was a horrid man. But you have to let it go.”

“I can't.”

“You can. It's all right to have anger, but you can't let that be the ruling factor in your life. Even now, you're letting him dictate your choices.”

Simon looked away.

Daphne's hands dropped from his face, but she made sure they rested on his knees. She needed this connection. In a strange way she feared that if she let go of him right now she'd lose him forever. “Did you ever stop to wonder if you wanted a family? If you wanted a child of your own? You'd be such a wonderful father, Simon, and yet you won't even let yourself consider the notion. You think you're getting your revenge, but you're really just letting him control you from the grave.”

“If I give him a child, he wins,” Simon whispered.

“No, if you give yourself a child, you win.” She swallowed convulsively. “We all win.”

Simon said nothing, but she could see his body shaking.

“If you don't want a child because you don't want one, that's one thing. But if you deny yourself the joy of fatherhood because of a dead man, then you're a coward.”