The distinct scent of stale cigar smoke and strong cologne followed Simon Basset on his trail as he departed the gentleman's club. The stench sticking to each woven strand of his coat, finding a place within the stitching to assault his senses repeatedly with the overwhelming reek of arrogant and belligerent men. But as the cool wind of the late night air drifted across his face, his boots beginning their leisurely paced decent down the vast flight of cement steps, the rich scent of the evening air inhaled into his lungs washed away the stench. Leaving his senses clear and refreshed, the chill dancing against his bare flesh as the darkness of the night enclosed on him. The strong taste of whiskey lingered on his tastebuds, but his mind was clear of any haze the alcohol might have caused. Only a drink or two downed in the far corner of the room, burning away the emotions he desperately tried to rid, but eventually subsiding, leaving him to his near sober thoughts yet again.
The sky was left nearly starless, as the dense cloud cover hid away any sign of the moonlight peaking high in the night. The tiny twinkles, often forgotten in the abyss of darkness, introducing a void to the blanket that casted itself over the streets of London. The air Simon inhaled in deep breaths, feeling as the oxygen rushed in and out of his lungs with steady exhales, was tinged with a slight chill. Autumn on the very heel of the last summer month clinging to the atmosphere, for the humidity and warmth of the day disappeared but the chill that had blown in with the soft breeze, wasn't yet strong enough to sway one to claim the next season was upon the city.
The air was clear and crisp, yet there was a palpable dampness that tainted every chilled summer evening breath taken. One that spoke of impending precipitation, rain lingering within the shadows of clouds that were nearly hidden within the vast canvas of indigo darkness above him. The Earth smelled richer when rain was upon it, even as the raindrops had yet to fall from the skies, there was something about the approaching weather that brought the essence of the ground and the plants to life.
Simon released a deep exhale, not yet cold enough for it to appear visible before his eyes in the open air, but he could feel as it faintly washed back over his flesh as he walked through the invisible presence of his sigh. His hands twitched at his sides, his fingers fidgeting restlessly, curling into fists only to unclench them in the very same movement. He knew it was his body's way of unconsciously taking on his stress and overwhelming thoughts in a physical formation, for his boots had done the same thing inside the club. One leg crossed over the other as he sipped slowly from his glass, his ankle anxiously jittering as though he had fresh adrenaline soaring through his veins, forcing upon him the need to move. The only part of himself that felt as though it was barely moving an inch, was his mind. It felt frozen, like a carriage stuck in thick mud without the slightest luck of immediate freedom as the wheels remained buried within the mess. He had a million different nagging thoughts, fearful worries, more emotions swirling than he could possibly hope to name, and yet it felt as though his mind simply wouldn't work the way it always had. Leaving Simon Basset to feel the one way he absolutely dreaded the most... out of control.
Releasing another deep sigh out into the air, as his boots slowly lead him down towards the last third of the steps remaining, his eyes lifted to look towards the street ahead of him. The far street lamp on the parallel sidewalk glowed a faint, dwindling orange, while some lights remained on in buildings lining the street. But the lack of sufficient light was not the sight to capture Simon's eye, but rather the shadowy silhouette of someone he would always be able to identify, no matter the absence of light. She stood on the final step, barely an inch or two off the ground, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. She wrung them together, over and over again, a nervous fidget that he'd witnessed from time to time in her demeanor. She seemed so delicate and frail as the darkness of the night stood behind her, a vast canvas seeming to swallow her shape into the shadows. But her head was balanced on her shoulders, her gaze not aimed towards the steps beneath her or off in a different direction, but rather focused on his now stalled frame. For his footsteps faltered the moment his eye landed upon her unexpected presence, his boots nearly tripping over the step he was just about to descend, but catching himself in time.
She was close, three maybe four steps away from his own stilled stance, but not close enough that his hand could touch her or her breath would even flutter against his skin. The space between them wasn't far, and yet the void felt insurmountable. Her natural curls cascaded down her shoulders in loose silken swoops, the tight up do that had once confined her hair only hours before, now relinquished it's hold and allowed for the thin strands to blow freely in the gentle breeze around them. He'd always preferred her hair that way, Simon silently admitted to himself, the way her loose wavy curls flowed down her back like a reflective waterfall. Left free from any restraints, letting the natural beauty of her slightly messy tendrils emphasize the shape of her face. Small pins were still hidden within, as though she hadn't the patience to pull them all out or rather she didn't care if they were still lost amongst her curls. The ends of them captured what little light illuminated her presence, pinging in nearly imperceptible glitters, as though the missing stars were peaking out from beneath her wave of natural curls.
She adorned the same gown she wore hours ago when he'd seen her last, the soft periwinkle blue gentle and kind against her skin tone, delicate sweeping silver embellishments dancing across the fabric near her bodice and along her short capped sleeves. But now, a dark navy blue cape trailed down her shoulders, covering her back and a portion of her arms she left hidden beneath the fabric. The ribbon tied loosely around her neck, the string balancing along the space between her collarbone where a necklace laid earlier in the day. In fact, the only jewelry she wore was the ring balancing on her fourth finger. The delicate band and twinkling diamond, standing out as even the small studded earrings had been removed, but she hadn't taken that one piece off. But even as Simon forced his mind to focus away from her appearance, still taken back by her sudden arrival, he couldn't help but feel a swell of contentment at the notion that she couldn't take the ring off, even if she had wanted to.
Narrowing his eyes as he collected his thoughts, his lips parted for the first time since he'd left in the early hours of the evening. "What are you doing out this late?"
It wasn't that he asked why she was there, but rather, why she had been out at all. For as strong as he knew she was, as capable and slightly too independent for her own good as she was, no woman should be strolling the dark streets alone at this hour of the night. He trusted her, he just didn't trust other men, and even though he had been the one to storm out of the house without a second word, the mere thought of something sickening and horrid happening to his wife, still made his stomach twist into a thousand tightly wound knots.
"I rather think I'm in the position to ask you the same."
Her voice was soft, the gentle, ever graceful flow of honey that it always was. But her tone was strong, respectful and cautious with just enough emotion hidden behind the landing of each word she spoke, that Simon understood where she stood. Her hands remained clasped in front of her, brushing softly against the soft muslin fabric of her gown, but her brows arched in a faint motion that emphasized her quick rebuttal.
Simon didn't respond. Whether it was because he didn't have anything to say, or because he didn't want to say anything he might have had at all, he didn't care to decipher. For he knew why she was here, it was not only clear on her face and the way she held herself before him, but because Simon knew there could be no other logical reason as to why she would venture, evidently on her own, in the middle of the night to come searching for him at an establishment he certainly wouldn't want her visiting. He knew that the conversation was to happen, it was an inevitability he was too wise to believe could simply be avoided. He knew that the situation needed to be addressed, the matter handled and the conversation spoken, but as he took one last glance at her expression that was determined and yet, as soft as it was when she first woke in the mornings, Simon simply couldn't bring himself to have it now. If he couldn't have it in the comforts of his own home hours ago, he certainly wasn't about to have it out on a set of chilly cement steps, with an impending rainfall.
His eyes broke away from her steady gaze, looking down towards the tips of his boots that began to start their steps down the stairs once again. Her voice speaking up as he lowered another short step.
"I searched all over the grounds for you," Her tone still held strong, yet there was an undisputable tremble of longing in her soft voice. "after you had not returned for dinner nor taken it in a separate room entirely, I went searching for you. I thought, perhaps you had gone out to the stables or the garden, I checked every room, every possible piece of land I could think of, before I realized you had left the estate entirely."
Simon's silence did not dissuade her efforts, for she continued to speak softly as though they were speaking at the dining table or in the library in the evening about how the weather had been that day. She was grasping for him, for anything, but she remained as collected as she could possibly be as she endured the coldness of his turned shoulder.
"I had a fairly good idea of where you would ultimately wind up, but I hadn't the slightly notion of where to start, what with all of the pubs in London. But I remembered you mentioning your meetings with Lord Bridgerton here from time to time, and thought it might be a good place to start my search."
Another step turned to another, until the sight of her showed in the corner of his view, as Simon used all of his will not to turn his head to glance at her expression as she spoke. For he knew if he looked, his feet would surely slow and the conversation he didn't want to have would come quicker than he'd like. And so, he continued forward. His boots landing against the first step her own feet stood upon, but walked past and down to the edge of the connected sidewalk without a single acknowledgement of her presence, now pushed behind him. Simon wasn't sure if it was a conscious effort or not, but he noticed the way his strides quickened once he met the stretch of pavement. Perhaps hoping if he walked fast enough, in far enough strides, that he could simply disappear into the shadows of the night. But even as her presence grew smaller behind him, still lingering on the last step of the stairs, he could hear as her next breath hit the damp night air in a sharp and heavy sigh. But it was the call of her next words, that forced his feet to halt exactly where they stood.
"I know that you never wanted this, but I can not do this without you!"
All of his movements were stopped cold, even the air in his lungs fizzled the moment she shouted her words out in a loud breath that shook with an emotion that grasped to his thundering heart. She didn't raise her voice often, only becoming boisterous or intense when she was upset or when her happiness consumed her so much so that it all but overflowed from her lips. This call out to him, the words falling from her lips, held an urgency and pain that he couldn't dismiss and simply couldn't ignore. For not only did it take him by surprise, her loud shout in the middle of an empty street in the dark of night, but rather the words themselves, hitting him harshly in the place it mattered most.
Simon Basset took complete responsibility and could acknowledge without any doubt of his own, that his reaction to his wife telling him she was pregnant with his child, was nothing close to what a woman could hope for and even farther from what his wife deserved. He'd felt as though he'd been hit with a ton of bricks, the wind completely knocked out of him, standing frozen before her as the words she'd spoken played on an endless loop through his head. But as the immediate shock began to subside, the boiling rush of emotions flowed through his veins in a burning rage. It was in that moment, as the emotions tore through his chest and he felt as the words he wanted to say became thick and heavy against his tongue, that he decided to leave. Needing space, needing time, needing a moment to think through the bomb that had just been dropped over his entire world and shattered everything he had thought to be true.
For he'd tried so hard to keep this from ever happening, vowing to his father that he was never to sire a child, ending the Hasting's line with him. She hadn't regarded him any differently knowing that he "couldn't" give her a child, and remarkably, she hadn't disowned him when she found out the truth. But even so, he had been so diligent and careful to make sure that this never happened, and yet, here he was. In the exact situation he had always vowed he'd never find himself in.
He was going to be a father...and it scared him more than any fear he'd ever known.
Simon knew she deserved better, she deserved a man who didn't leave her the moment she told him she was with child. But even as he knew full well that he handled the moment with terribly fumbling hands and in a way that plagued him with guilt if he lingered on the thought a moment too long, hearing her words confess an honesty and fear so deeply rooted, startled his heart. Had she truly begun to believe that he may actually leave her? Abandon her and their unborn child, after learning of it's sudden existence? For even as she had all the right to, especially after his poor reaction to the news, Simon never thought she would ever think that low of him.
His eyebrows knitted tightly at her words, struggling to find his own set of right ones to respond with. Blinking his eyes as though it might in some way force clarity upon his spiraling thoughts, breaking his stare upon her anxious stance, Simon glanced down at his feet as he fought for the words. His tongue felt heavy, the feeling familiar but intensely despised as the sensation filled his chest with dense emotions and his mind of memories he desperately wished to rid from his subconscious. Simon knew he had to say something, he couldn't simply allow her to stand there any longer with that kind of heartbreaking confession lingering in the air with such a crushing weight. Exhaling a deep breath, he tried with all of his might to steady his emotions, to grasp control of himself as tightly as he could as his lips parted to speak.
"You think--" Simon could feel it. Instantly, he felt the way he fumbled the words as though an object his hands simply couldn't catch. The way the words balanced right there on the edge of his tongue, ready to be spoken, yet ultimately remained stuck where they stood. He hated the way he sounded, he despised the way his stutter made him sound like an incompetent man. But even more so, Simon hated the way it made him feel like that little boy, struggling for every word he spoke, feeling completely helpless and unwanted. Simon stood before her a man, but he felt nothing more than that babbling child, crying out for the words he knew clearly in his own head. "--you think I would-would leave? That I-I-- would abandon you with--with--without so much as a s-s-single word?"
She had only heard him stutter in her presence once before, at the alter, as his tongue tripped over his vows. Her lips parted in a breathless exhale, as the sound of Simon's struggle hit her ears with a painful crack of his voice. The late night air was still in the way that nothing could hide how he fought for every word, scrapping for every syllable that seemed to become choked in the back of his throat. Her eyes softened at the sound of his voice, the deep concentration etched in the light lines across his face, while there was a clear sense of pain evident in his tone, from the way he grappled to finish his single sentence. Simon Basset was a very strong man, but she watched with saddened eyes, as he spoke with the one impediment that made him feel utterly weak.
She watched as his left hand rose to run roughly over the facial hair shadowing his jawline, his fingertips dragging across his flesh as she saw the embodiment of his struggle in every essence of his stance. His arms hanging close by his sides, while his fingers proceeded to tighten into painful fists, as though an effort to physically force the words from his body. His shoulders tense, while his body stood still and straight, she could almost see the way the weight bared upon them threatened to break him.
"I-I-I should not have left!" His next words were casted in a harsh breath, an undeniable frustration emboldened within their pronunciation. But she knew that the angst that burned a trail behind his words, was in no way an anger directed at her, but rather at himself. He hated how he couldn't let a simple sentence, a mere thought in his mind escape him without a fighting struggle. It infuriated him, forcing the thoughts out in an angered breath. "I-I know I sh-should have stayed w-w-with you, but I couldn't."
"I co-could not breathe, but even worse, I knew th-th-that if I would ha-have stayed, any wo-words I could have possibly said, would be im-im-impossible to s-say without s-sounding like a babbling ch-ch-child!" The pain in his eyes and scrunched tightly along the lines of his face, pained her heart in a way she never thought possible. As though in the dead of the night, she could hear the way the strings keeping it together and beating soundly, snapped and the shards of her heart slowly broke off piece by piece at the sound of his vulnerability. She bounded in a swift motion down from the first step, feeling the sweep of her gown whirling against her ankles as she ran across the pavement, short strides until she met him where he stood.
"I-I-I hate the w-w-ay--" Instantly, as the tips of her heels nearly touched upon the edges of his boots, her hands reached forward and collected his hands in a tight grasp of her own. The warmth of her fingers curling into his own, the smoothness of her flesh embracing his own, forced his eyes to open and peer down at her. Cutting off his painful admission, with the stern brace of her sudden hold on his hands and a soft hush that blew past her lips as though a whispered secret. For she didn't need to hear any more. Whether it was because she knew of the next set of heartbreaking words he was about to say or because her own heart simply couldn't bare the pain that exuded from his presence any longer, she didn't know. But her hands tightened their clasp around his own, much thicker palms, and stared up at him.
"You've spent all of your life envisioning what you did not want, what you swore to your father you would never give to the Hastings name, but what is it that you truly want Simon?" Her tone was gentle, as though the very caress of her fingertips. Her words touched him with cautious care. For he was raw before her now, exposed in a light he didn't often allow, but she regarded him with all of the tenderness she had within her beating heart.
"I do not k-know how to want this, wh-wh-where to even b-begin."
Her eyelashes fluttered wildly against her cheekbones, willing the tears that pierced her eyes to stay at bay, while her lips pressed together to restrain the gasp begging to be freed from the breakage of her heart.
"If you are to separate your own wants and desires from those you promised to deprive your father, what do you see?"
Her question, spoken in the softest breath of a whisper, startled Simon. For it was an inquiry that he had never once allowed for himself to explore, never once allowing himself to dabble in the mere thought of what if. But here he was, standing before her shaken and vulnerable in a way that made him feel less than somehow, forced to think about the one thing he had always managed to cast from his thoughts.
Her words echoed in his head as a faint, almost blurred image appeared in his subconscious. It was dark, the shadows nearly resembling those of the night swirling around them, but in the center of it all stood a boy. A child, not much older than Simon was when he spoke for the very first time. Pain grasped at his heart as he stared longer at the boy whose features he couldn't quite make out, but just before he went to blink his eyes in an effort to clear the vision that made him hurt in the core of his being, a new silhouette appeared. Although her features were blurred and shadowed just as the young boy's, Simon still knew her presence in any form, in any possible light, and knew instantly who stood beside the boy. Kneeling down, as her gown swept across the floor, her hands reached for the boy gently. Cradling his cheek in the palm of her hand, before bringing him into her tender hold. It was a scene marred by deep shadows, having been drawn from some sort of charcoal or deep blue set pencil. But something about the faint image, one that came with the question he never once allowed himself to consider, tugged at the gates concealing his heart.
"You must see something Simon." Her voice nearly blew away in the breeze encircling the two, for as Simon blinked quickly for the clarity, he looked down at her expression gazed upward at him. Her remark was soft and spoken without an ounce of judgement, however she could not conceal the emotion that inevitably flowed within the making of her words. For she peered up at him, through the dark curtain of her lashes, and there was a longing within her irises that Simon couldn't miss. She stared up at him so intently, it was as if she herself, searched his eyes in an attempt to try and see what it was that he saw.
Simon Basset wasn't quite sure what he had seen when the image of the young boy appeared in his mind. He wasn't certain what it all meant, what it meant for him, what the conflicting emotions fighting over his heart and soul meant. But as he looked down at his wife, who regarded him with a compassion so strong in a moment that perhaps he didn't deserve a shred of it, he considered her question one more time. What did his future look like when he really thought about it? What did he see that he knew exactly what it meant, exactly how it would appear, what did he see in the light rather than painted in blurred shadows of wonder?
Inhaling a deep breath, as he swallowed down a growing lump in the back of his throat, Simon responded in the only voice he could muster. A raw breath, sharing with his wife the one thing he was truly sure of, without so much as a shadow of a doubt. "I see you."
The midnight skies above had been still and silent up until that very moment, for the sky opened up just as Simon's heart did the same. Raindrops falling from the dense and heavy clouds like the teardrops beginning to spill from his wife's eyes. It was a cold rain, one that made any exposed flesh shiver at the contact, but there was no harshness to the fall. It was a gentle stream, small and delicate droplets spilling from the darkness above, washing the two beings below in a lightly growing downpour.
Her hands, that had yet to separate from his own as they were still grasped tightly in the palm of her own, pulled them towards her. Guiding his fingertips to the place above her abdomen, pressing his hands against the soft yet now dampened fabric of her dress. He could feel the warmth of her flesh beneath soaking through the material, straight to his palms. His breath hitched, silently but with a strength that he felt inside of himself, as his eyes steadied on her strong gaze.
"I know it will take you time Simon, I do not expect you to feel towards this child what I feel right away. But I beg of you to stay, that is all I ask of you. I can not do this without you, no matter how much you did not want it. I--" But Simon didn't let her finish. For in a swift motion, his hands retracted from her grasp and their placement against her stomach, as his arms lifted and pulled her into his embrace. His arms tight around her body, as she was pressed firmly against his rain soaked chest, immediately feeling her warmth exuding beneath his strong hold. He hadn't grasped her face and kissed her passionately as he had so many times in the past, but rather, Simon brought her towards him, engulfing his dear wife in a crushing hug that he needed for his very soul.
Her compassion, the overwhelming beating of her heart, had always left Simon speechless. For it was as though she hadn't a bad bone in her body, not a single ounce of hatred coursing through her veins. Even when he'd hurt her, an occurrence that had happened more times than he was willing to admit in the past, she still regarded him with the love that had managed to capture and sway his heart in the very first place. He didn't deserve her, Simon knew, but when he looked at her, she was the one thing in his life that he believed was a sign that the universe did not completely hate him as he once thought. For surely, if the universe or the God above had truly hated him and sought to make his life a miserable existence, as he had so long believed to be true, they would have never sent Simon Basset the woman who he held close to him with all of his might.
Neither could say how long they stood like that, captured within each other's tight and unwavering embrace, beneath the chilling midnight downpour, but neither seemed to care. With her head resting against his chest, feeling not only the warmth of his skin soaking through the drenched fabric of his shirt, and the chiseled shape of his muscles beneath her touch, but the way his heart beat rapidly inside of his chest. Listening to it's rhythm as her ear laid against it, finding comfort in the beats that drowned out the surrounding sound of the rushing rain. Simon simply stood there amongst the growing precipitation with a sense of pure contentment, for he had everything he could ever need right there in his very arms.
By the time they returned home, the evening hours had passed and the very peak of morning broke. The promise of a rising sun hours away but inevitable, as there was a silent shift between midnight and the first breath of a new day. The sky still consumed in darkness, as the rainfall drenched them to their bones as they walked through it's downpour. His hand hadn't released her the entire stroll home, never once letting her fingers slip from his hold, as though if he loosened his grasp even a fraction, she might slip right through and never come back to him. He only let go, when they reached their shared bedchamber and he helped her change out of the saturated clothing that made her shiver as though a leaf in the wind.
They didn't speak another word as they changed into warm and dry attire, slipping into bed with a content silence, as Simon wrapped his arms around her waist. Pulling her against his chest as slumber found her almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. The emotion of the night and her own emotions of being with child, drained her of all of her strength. She rested peacefully, for as Simon laid beside her with his arms holding her close as to never let her go again, he listened to the soft inhales and exhales of her breath. The rise and fall of her chest felt against his own, watching the edges of her eyelashes beginning to flutter against the very base of her cheekbones. There had been many nights before when Simon couldn't help but watch his wife sleep, some nights still in shock that he could call her his own, but tonight, he couldn't help but wonder what she dreamt of. Did she dream of things he couldn't even begin to imagine? Was she dreaming of the child growing inside of her, the child she'd always prayed for even when she thought it was impossible? Simon couldn't help but wonder however, if maybe...just maybe... she dreamt of him.
Leaning down, his nose brushing through her strands that engulfed his senses in a soft aroma of her natural sweetness, mixed with the heaviness and purity of rain still dampening the curls. Closing his eyes, as his lips found the warm skin of her temple, he kissed her tenderly. Lingering for a moment, allowing for himself to simply hold his wife and kiss her while she slept soundly in his embrace. Pulling back barely an inch as his eyes reopened, his lips brushed against her ear as Simon proceeded to speak ever so softly to her.
"I see a child raised in overwhelming love." Simon couldn't say where the words came from, what had prompted them not only into his mind, but to fall from his lips in the softest of whispers. But as he stared down at his wife as she slept in his embrace, a miraculous occurrence after the way he'd handled her news, he found the words just appeared. Almost out of thin air, but holding a weight that he could feel inside of himself, in places he'd never felt come to life before. "A child that knows how wanted and adored and supported he is. A child that shall never know the sting of abandonment or the pain of cruelty at the hands of it's own flesh and blood."
"I see a child," Simon swallowed deeply, as his hand lifted just a fraction, his fingers brushing against the curls falling against her cheek. "as precious and patient as it's mother, with a heart just the same."
The picture might have had a ways to go before being crystal clear and the foreign sensation consuming his chest might've frightened Simon with uncertainty, but staring down at the woman he couldn't help but love with all of his guarded heard, he felt an unusual sense of strength in the idea that perhaps he didn't have to be. Perhaps, she could be strong enough for the both of them for the moment. She could be sure enough, brave enough, until the picture painted in the grips of an impending reality, became as clear to him as the sight of her beside him.
A/N: Wow, this one is an emotional one!😥❤
I knew I wanted to do one focused around the idea of Simon becoming a father and the reaction he might have in the very beginning. Especially, when it would still fall around the time when he didn't want to have one, when he didn't want to continue the Hastings line. I wanted to blend that strong belief of his, that fear and vow that held him captive, with the undisputable but conflictingly strong love that he has for his wife, and that is how this one came to be!
I had a lot of the scene already plotted out, with the dialogue right on its heel, but as I began to write Simon's words, I realized that it was the perfect moment to capture his stutter. As composed as he is, as much as he has managed to conquer his impediment, it is still apart of him and a vital part of his character. I couldn't think of a better moment that would ultimately bring it to the surface for him, with the rush of different emotions and feelings he wouldn't have any idea how to approach, a situation that he had made a mindful choice to avoid coming true, I felt it would surely be a moment in which it made his stutter present in his speaking. It hurt my heart to write his struggle, but I felt it was very important to the scene, adding a rawness and an emotion that needed to be felt and heard through his stumbling words. I tried my very best to craft that scene with the utmost care and love, approaching his stutter with gentle hands and I am very happy with the piece I was able to create!
I hope that you all enjoyed this one, I wanted to give it very vulnerable moments that pull at your heart strings and possibly pain you at times, but underneath it all, there is a depth of love that I hope came to light the way that I feel it has!❤