The Bridgertons Happily Ever After Read Online Free PDF

you.”
    “I hardly ever think about them,” he said. It was the truth.
    “I know.” She reached out and took his hand, her thumb moving lightly over his knuckles. “But just because you let go of your father, it doesn’t mean he never mattered.”
    He didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say.
    “I’m not surprised that if you do finally decide to read them, it will be to help someone else.”
    He swallowed, then grasped her hand like a lifeline.
    “Do you want me to open them?”
    He nodded, wordlessly handing her the stack.
    Daphne moved to a nearby chair and sat, tugging at the ribbon until the bow fell loose. “Are these in order?” she asked.
    “I don’t know,” he admitted. He sat back down behind his desk. It was far enough away that he couldn’t see the pages.
    She gave an acknowledging nod, then carefully broke the seal on the first envelope. Her eyes moved along the lines—or at least he thought they did. The light was too dim to see her expression clearly, but he had seen her reading letters enough times to know exactly what she must look like.
    “He had terrible penmanship,” Daphne murmured.
    “Did he?” Now that he thought about it, Simon wasn’t sure he’d ever seen his father’s handwriting. He must have done, at some point. But it wasn’t anything he recalled.
    He waited a bit longer, trying not to hold his breath as she turned the page.
    “He didn’t write on the back,” she said with some surprise.
    “He wouldn’t,” Simon said. “He would never do anything that smacked of economization.”
    She looked up, her brows arched.
    “The Duke of Hastings does not need to economize,” Simon said dryly.
    “Really?” She turned to the next page, murmuring, “I shall have to remember that the next time I go to the dressmaker.”
    He smiled. He loved that she could make him smile at such a moment.
    After another few moments, she refolded the papers and looked up. She paused briefly, perhaps in case he wanted to say anything, and then when he did not, said, “It’s rather dull, actually.”
    “Dull?” He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but not this.
    Daphne gave a little shrug. “It’s about the harvest, and an improvement to the east wing of the house, and several tenants he suspects of cheating him.” She pressed her lips together disapprovingly. “They weren’t, of course. It is Mr. Miller and Mr. Bethum. They would never cheat anyone.”
    Simon blinked. He’d thought his father’s letters might include an apology. Or if not that, then more accusations of inadequacy. It had never occurred to him that his father might have simply sent him an accounting of the estate.
    “Your father was a very suspicious man,” Daphne muttered.
    “Oh, yes.”
    “Shall I read the next?”
    “Please do.”
    She did, and it was much the same, except this time it was about a bridge that needed repairing and a window that had not been made to his specifications.
    And on it went. Rents, accounts, repairs, complaints . . . There was the occasional overture, but nothing more personal than I am considering hosting a shooting party next month, do let me know if you are interested in attending . It was astounding. His father had not only denied his existence when he’d thought him a stuttering idiot, he’d managed to deny his own denial once Simon was speaking clearly and up to snuff. He acted as if it had never happened, as if he had never wished his own son were dead.
    “Good God,” Simon said, because some thing had to be said.
    Daphne looked up. “Hmmm?”
    “Nothing,” he muttered.
    “It’s the last one,” she said, holding the letter up.
    He sighed.
    “Do you want me to read it?”
    “Of course,” he said sarcastically. “It might be about rents. Or accounts.”
    “Or a bad harvest,” Daphne quipped, obviously trying not to smile.
    “Or that,” he replied.
    “Rents,” she said once she’d finished reading. “And accounts.”
    “The harvest?”
    She