Daniel was alone in the library, staring blankly at the wall. Supper was over and the Stratford custom of having tea and music in the drawing room had just ended. The household had quieted down as everyone retired to their rooms. He wished he could do the same—get in bed and forget everything in sleep. As he stared at the wood paneling before him, at the faint markings of paints Harry said Lydia had painted there when she was ten, Daniel found himself too anxious to even notice his sister slip into the room.

It was only when she settled in a chair directly in front of him, blocking his view of the wall with her knowing smile, did he realize he was no longer alone.

"What bothers you?" she asked.

He did not reply, but she knew him too well to know what his sigh meant.

"You look like a man who is about to be crucified. And also, a man who is willing because he's in love." Emmeline studied him with a gentle smile, her eyes filled with understanding and mild concern. "Have you told her?"

He took a sip from his glass. "Tonight."

"Oh, my," Emmeline said, face morphing into pity. "I hope you survive it."

"You're mocking."

She shrugged. "Because I believe that you're bothered by nothing. She will understand and she will accept you."

"That's not precisely what I'm most concerned about," he said, looking away. It was bigger than having Simone's understanding. "I have to settle many things. I can't put myself first."

"Daniel, we can worry about our future later," she said.

"And what of her future, Emmie?"

His sister's face turned serious. "I understand your worries, Daniel. But I just know that you can't let this go a second time. It may be your last chance." He shook his head. "What if she expresses the desire to be with you?"

His jaw clenched. "I don't know. I honestly don't know."

Emmeline's eyes glistened with tears. "Oh, Daniel. I wish I can take your place and relieve you of all this. You have sacrificed so much of your dreams for us."

"Because I love you all as much as I loved what I had to give up," he said, setting his drink down to stand. He approached his sister and cupped her face. Looking down at her, he smiled. "Never blame yourself for what I'm going through. I chose this."

"No, you did not. You wanted something different, and it pains me to know you don't have them."

He bent down and kissed her forehead. "Don't worry about me. I told you, didn't I? I have plans."

As he turned to leave, she asked, "And what about her? What do you plant to do with her?"

"I don't know, Emmie. I just know that I have to tell her the truth. And hopefully, it would be enough for her to give me a few more chances."

***

"I heard Leroy talking with Manuel and Haywood earlier," Lydia whispered.

"What about?"

"He's quite frustrated," her cousin said, stepping closer. "He's starting to think that you and the duke are growing fond of each other."

"He does?" Simone asked, biting a smile. "Leroy has a wild imagination, Lydia."

"Of course he does. He's worried about losing the wager. They're all blaming the female servants, saying they're outnumbered, what with Price and Gale on the opposing side."

"Oh, fret not," Simone said with a wave of her hand.

Lydia stepped back and scrutinized her. "Is it true? About you and the duke?"

Simone rolled her eyes. "Even if it is, we'll still win the wager. Fret not."

Her cousin gasped. "I knew it! Well, you've always looked at him like you'd rather attend to him than mass on Sundays, but the way he looks at you... Now, that's something quite different. I knew it from the very first day. I knew it!"

"Lydia—"

"But did you say you intend to win the wager? How so? If the two of you are—"

"The wager is for us to be a match within the time he and Emmeline are here," Simone said conspiratorially. "It didn't say anything about us becoming a match after."

It took a few seconds for Lydia to blink and her to say, "Oh." Then her cousin grasped her hands and squeezed it with the tiniest squeal. "Oh, Sisi, you're a genius! Price should have known better!"

"He should have. I learned from him," Simone said with a smug look on her face. "Now, off you go. I need to finish this dress," she said, facing her sewing machine.

"A duke, Sisi," Lydia squealed. "A duke. You'll land yourself a duke! Can you believe it?"

"Let's not go that far, Lydia," she said, containing her own excitement. Whatever Daniel told her tonight, she knew she'd understand. But she also had to keep in mind that he was just going to tell her the truth. That it would not be a promise of something. And whatever it would be, it had affected him greatly.

When she was finally alone, waiting for him to come to her, she reminded herself of her own promise. She had to be honest with him.

***

Daniel lightly knocked on the door, his own heart beating fast against his chest. He clenched and unclenched his hands as he heard faint footsteps from the other side, and the door opened.

The lamp washed the room inside yellow. Even at night, she was glowing in sunlight, he thought as he forced himself to smile. She looked as nervous as him as she pulled the door wider to let him in.

He heard her lock it behind him, and suddenly he did not know what to do. He stopped in the center of the room, looking around, but nothing was registering in his brain. There was just the fear of what she would think, of how she would react.

"I hope I'm not keeping you from anything," he said, watching her approach her sewing table, leaning against it, hands on the edge.

Her taunting smile returned. "You're nervous, Your Grace."

"Bloody hell, I am," he murmured under his breath.

"You can start talking if you want," she said, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. "Or you can go on with the small talk if that makes you a little less tense."

He scoffed, smiling at her. "You seem to always say the right things. Do you know that?"

Her eyes rolled. "If you must know, the things I say usually make me feel embarrassed."

"Embarrassed?" he asked, brows arching in disbelief. "You, Simone Priest?"

She chuckled. "Of course. I make a fool of myself around people." She grinned. "Especially you. From the very first letter."

At her words, he was bombarded by many memories again. The mere mention of her letters brought to him the best moments of his life. And also the worst. His smile slowly died, and he caught her eyes. "I remember everything. I never forgot about your letters." When she just smiled at him, he added, "I want you to know that. I don't want you to think that what we had was just..."

"A thing of the past?" she asked, voice etched with soft bitterness.

"It wasn't," he sternly retorted. "It's—" He brushed his fingers through his hair. "I should not have said that. Please forgive me. I did not mean to reduce our correspondence to something unremarkable because it was not. They—you—were one of the most remarkable moments of my life."

She slowly nodded, and he could only hope she believed him. He held her gaze for a moment, carving in his mind this image of her before she learned his darkest secret. Like everything else about her, from the moment he met her across his window in Picadilly, to the undetermined moment years after when he realized she meant more than just a friend, when her letters brought him comfort and laughter, he wanted to remember this Simone Priest.

"I honestly don't want to do this," he said with a scoff, laughing at himself for being a coward. She waited, just standing there, leaning against her table with a gentle smile on her lips. "I stopped writing to you because of selfish reasons," he began. "I was no longer in the theater, no longer living my dreams. I didn't want to tell you about being a duke, being a bastard, and I didn't want to tell you about what happened that day when I never showed up for my play." He pushed his hands into his pockets and took a deep breath. "I wanted to spare myself of the trouble." A wan smile curled the corner of his lips. "You can say I only wanted to tell you the good things."

She tilted her head to the left, but she remained quiet, patiently waiting.

"That day, I believe, changed everything for me. My time was running out, you see. I knew my father's men were coming for me and I wanted to disappear once again. I didn't want anything to happen that may delay our last play in Coulway."

"When I met you, you were a runaway?" she asked, innocent brown eyes wide.

He smiled. "Yes. After Butler, I took off to pursue a life in the theater. Since then, my father had been trying to find me."

"Did Web know about it?"

"I assume he had an inkling."

"Did your father's men get to you that day? Was that why you never made it to the play?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. He did not know how to best tell her, so he just blurted it out. "I killed a man that day."

She was stunned. Her eyes rounded even more, and he could tell she had stopped breathing. The questions were there in her eyes, but she did not speak. Perhaps she was too stricken, or maybe she was waiting. Nevertheless, he took the time to explain.

"One of the workers in the theater, the one I told you about in my letters, the one who was always making excuses for not doing his job on time, complained that he was not feeling well." He cleared his throat and craned his neck to both sides to ease the tension there. "His name was Ellis Craig and he had always been a liar. He dragged his feet all the time. I never liked him. That day, he said he could not finish securing the beams above the stage for one of our stunts. Everyone else was fine without the act where the stunt was supposed to happen, but I wanted that night to be perfect. I told the director that I would not get on the stage if I could not do the stunt because of Craig's incompetence.

"The director, in turn, told him he had to finish the beams or he would lose his job." He met her eyes, his own moist with tears of guilt. "It turned out that he was not lying that day. While working on the beams hours before the play, he fell. We were rehearsing our lines then. We rushed him to Sinclair, but he was dead before the doctor came to see him. It was concluded that his heart failed while he was working."

"Daniel..." Simone started, but she was too speechless to say more.

"Perhaps you would say it was not my fault, but it was," he said matter-of-factly.

"Maybe it was," she said, surprising him. "It would not have happened if you did not insist he continue his work." His breath caught in his chest as she stared at him with a frown. "It would have happened while he was in his sleep. Or while he was crossing the street. Our previous vicar suffered the same heart condition. He died while reading the bible in front of the fireplace."

He shook his head. "Sisi..."

"I understand your guilt. I truly do," she said. "And I can only imagine what I would have felt. I knew it would have broken me if I were in your shoes. But I also know you only wanted to do your best in that play."

"I was only thinking of myself."

"You had a moment of selfishness, yes," she said, eyes welling with tears. "I'm quite sure many other people told you the same thing. That it could have happened to anyone, that it was not your fault. But your guilt is true to you. It's hard not to blame yourself." He could tell she had more to say, but she was stopping herself. As she said, others had already told him the same things she did. "Is that your secret? Is there more you want to tell me?"

"I tried to return to the theater weeks after the incident. I tried to pretend that everything was still the same. I received your letters, wrote back to you, but I could no longer make myself write about my life in the theater. Somehow, even if I didn't have to tell you, I still felt I was lying whenever I attempted to share how successful my plays were. As days went by, I felt suffocated. I made attempts to go to Craig's family—his wife and five daughters—but I was too much of a coward. So much so that I tried to escape Sutherland when it became too much to handle. I was on one of your ships when my father's men finally found me and brought me back before it sailed." He took a lungful of air and let it out forcefully. "I decided it was the end for the actor."

"And you stopped writing."

"I eventually did," he said, nodding. "I was home in Dafield when I still wrote my last few letters. The valet in Picadilly would send your letters to me." He offered her a sad smile. "He sent everything, including the last one."

She was crying, and she sniffled, wiping her tears with her hands.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, approaching her, cupping her face and wiping the tears.

"I don't know," she said. "It's sad." Her lips and shoulders shook as she looked up at him. "He had a wife and five children, Daniel. I wish you went to them. Even if I believe it wasn't your fault, still, you should have shown yourself to them. Maybe if you did, you would not be this miserable. And they would have had closure. Do they even know how he died?"

Head bent, he nodded. "I don't know if they knew about me."

Her hands came up to cup his face, and she forced him to look at her. His hands came to hold her wrists, partly thankful that she could still stomach to touch him, and somehow also desperate that she would still feel the same tomorrow. He kissed her palm, but she sternly said, "Look at me," urging him to turn to her. "Is this what you meant when you said you had amends to make?"

Again, he nodded.

"Then do it," she said. "They deserve to watch you grovel. They deserve to make demands."

As he closed his eyes, the tears flowed. "I've been anonymously sending them money."

"They must think someone is being generous to them, but that's not the case, Daniel. In a way, you've been lying to them and it's not fair."

He rested his forehead against hers, mastering his tears and failing miserably. And all the while, she waited as he cried, kissing his cheeks and his tears. When he finally calmed down, she leaned back and wiped his face with the pads of her fingers. When a gentle smile, she leaned upward to plant a soft kiss on his mouth. "Your fear was misplaced when you told me the truth. Your battle is not with me because I'm the most understanding person there is. I'd always fool myself when it comes to you, Daniel Cavendish."

"Never do that."

"I know," she said with a smile. "I shouldn't. But I could not help it because I've seen and read about your best moments, and you had inspired me to want to live my dreams. One act of selfishness would not be enough to make me push you away." She kissed him again. "But I think I'll push you away because a life with me in a life you have now is not what you want."

A soft groan escaped him as he buried his face in her neck, pulling her away from the table and into his arms. And then he murmured, "I never wanted to be a duke. I never wanted this life."

"That is quite obvious." She rose to her toes and wrapped her arms around him. "Tell me what you want."

"I want to go to the Craigs and grovel at their feet. I want to be relieved of the guilt." He leaned back just enough to kiss her jaw. "I want the stage. I want what I lost."

"And me?" she asked, tone teasing.

His arms tightened around her. "Good Lord, I never thought I would, but I do."

She turned and sought his mouth, and this time the kiss was deeper, more consuming. His hands traveled up and down her sides and he pulled her by the waist, as if he could press her deeper into himself. He wanted her naked in bed, but he also wanted her clothed under the sunlight, golden eyes laughing, brown waves flying in the wind.

He groaned when she stopped and pulled away, biting her lower lip. Her eyes mirrored the flame within him, but she was the stronger one between them because not only did she push away, she also managed to push him away and say, "Find your way back to the life you dream of. But know that it doesn't have to be the same as before. Nothing is always the same after a tragedy. But we learn how to build a new world around it. What you did, however, was build another tragedy. Out of your fear and guilt. But then, again," she said, stealing another kiss, "you get to try again. And this time, please do it right, Daniel."

"Thank you," was all he could say. "For being honest."

She dramatically sighed. "Honestly, Your Grace, if I'm being honest, I would have suggested we marry and I'll help you find yourself again." He chuckled as she smiled. "But I realize we have to win this wager." His laughter rumbled in his chest. "Unfortunately, you'll have to do it all alone," she added.

Cupping her face, he kissed her forehead. "You've always had the talent to make me laugh."

"I don't have the talent. You just have a very shallow humor."

His laughter slowly died and they allowed the quiet to linger a little longer. He took her hand, watched it in his, and whispered, "Do you think you can wait for me?"

"When are you planning to return?"

He shook his head. "I don't know."

"A year? Two?" she asked, slowly scowling. "I may have to think about this if it's longer."

"I'm planning to start at Coulway. If Emmeline wishes to go, she can come with me for the remaining of the social season. I don't think there's a match between her and Harry."

"Good," she said, nodding her head. "Your sister has dreams, you know, and it's not to live with a Stratford."

"Of course. Her dream is to live like the Stratfords."

She snorted. "Well, yes, somewhat."

He nodded, loosely wrapping his arms around her. "And while in Coulway, I'll go to the Craigs."

"And after? Are you going to give up your title?"

He playfully narrowed his eyes at her. "I sense that you'll be disappointed if I do."

"I quite like the idea of being a duchess."

He laughed. "My father's brother is looking for a way to prove that I'm not my father's son."

"Oh, what a horrible man."

"He thinks my mother had another lover when she conceived."

"He does not deserve to be a duke if he can think badly about your mother or any woman, for that matter."

Through his laughter, he said, "I agree. Which is why I cling to the title as long as I could. I promised my father I would."

"Oh. Good." She smiled up at him. "Then perhaps, after you settle matters with the Craigs, you can build your own theater."

He kissed the tip of her nose. "I'm not as strong as you, Sisi. I cannot think of another battle while on the march to another."

She patted his shoulder. "Very well. At your own pace."