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The birth of Simon Arthur Henry Fitzranulph Basset, Earl Clyvedon,
Simon Arthur Henry Fitzranulph Basset
And his father, the ninth Duke of Hastings, had waited years for this moment.
the duke’s heart near burst with pride. Already several years past forty,
Though his wife had managed to conceive five times in the fifteen years of their marriage, only twice had she carried to full term, and both of those infants had been stillborn.
surgeons and physicians alike had warned their graces that they absolutely must not make another attempt to have a child.
She was too frail, too weak, and perhaps, they said gently, too old.
The duke of Hastings wife, knew not to have another baby. She would have another, miscarriage and die.
Five months later, the duchess informed the duke that she had conceived.
nothing—absolutely nothing—would cause this pregnancy to go awry.
The duke was taking no chances this time. He would have a son, and the dukedom would remain in Basset hands.
He would stop at nothing, to make sure he had a child. Especially a son. He would have a child, he would make sure of that.
The household prayed for the duke, who so wanted an heir, and a few remembered to pray for the duchess, who had grown thin and frail even as her belly had grown round and wide.
after all, the duchess had already delivered and buried two babes. And even if she did manage to safely deliver a child, it could be, well, a girl.
but the duke was determined to be present when the babe’s sex was revealed.
“I have a son!” he boomed. “A perfect little son!”
“You are perfect. You are a Basset. You are mine.”
he had finally sired a healthy male child,
Meanwhile, the duchess, who had been bleeding steadily since the birth, slipped into unconsciousness, and then finally just slipped away.
After the dutchess gave birth, to her child Simon. She died. She never got to know her son. Simon never knew his mother.
He hadn’t loved her, of course, and she hadn’t loved him, but they’d been friends in an oddly distant sort of way. The duke hadn’t expected anything more from marriage than a son and an heir, and in that regard, his wife had proven
herself an exemplary spouse.
He was a sturdy, healthy young boy, with glossy brown hair and clear blue eyes.
“Doesn’t he speak?”
Simon's father, is very upset that his child has not spoken a word. He thinks he is an idiot.
“He’s two. Shouldn’t he be speaking?” “Some children take longer than others, your grace. He’s clearly a bright young boy.” “Of course he’s bright. He’s a Basset.”
“Why isn’t he talking?”
“He’s four years old, God damn it,” the duke roared. “He should be able to speak.”
“Five children I’ve raised, and not a one of them took to letters the way Master Simon has.”
“A fat lot of good writing is going to do him if...
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“Maybe he needs scaring. Maybe what he needs is a good dose of discipline. A good paddling might help him find his voice.”
His father thinks he can treat his child with violence. Just to make Simon talk, he is a child. This will only make him, more afraid of him.
“Four years you’ve been waiting for him to speak, and—” “And he’s an idiot!” Hastings roared. “A goddamned, bloody little idiot!”
“Hastings is going to go to a half-wit,”
“All those years of praying for an heir, and now i...
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“You’re the smartest little boy I know. And if anyone can learn to talk properly, I know it’s you.”
While the Duke of Hastings removed himself to London and tried to pretend he had no son,
But Simon was determined, and Simon was smart, and perhaps most importantly, he was damned stubborn.
“I think it is time we went to see my father.”
The duke had not laid eyes on the boy in seven years. And he had not answered a single one of the letters Simon had sent him. Simon had sent nearly a hundred.
“It is my understanding that Earl Clyvedon is dead.”
“His grace has not mentioned you in years. The last I heard, he said he had no son.
How could you have assumed the boy was dead if his father was not in mourning?”
But when she looked at the duke, she saw Simon in him,
The duke might look just like his son, but he was certainly no father to him.
“You, sir,” she spat out, “are ...
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The way his father stared at him made him feel like an infant. An idiot infant.
Simon had come here to prove himself to his father, and now his nurse was treating him like a baby.
“You are my worst failure,”
He said his son was dead, he was never really a father to Simon. He's disappointed because he can't speak. That is his child, you don't treat your child like this.
“I am your son.”
something he’d never seen before blossomed in his father’s eyes. Pride. Not much of it, but there was something there, lurking in the depths; something that gave Simon a whisper of hope. “I am your son,”
Simon felt the duke’s rejection in his very bones, felt a peculiar kind of pain enter his body and creep around his heart.
If he couldn’t be the son his father wanted, then by God, he’d be the exact opposite . . .
The Bridgertons are by far the most prolific family in the upper echelons of society.
Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth—orderliness is, of course, beneficial in all things, but one would think that intelligent parents would be able to keep their children straight without needing to alphabetize their names.
