But he thought about slamming it open, which provided some satisfaction in and of itself.
And then he stomped up the stairs to his room—which still felt too bloody much like John’s room, not that there was anything he could do about that just then—and yanked off his boots.
Or tried to.
Bloody hell.
“Reivers!” he bellowed.
His valet appeared—or really, it seemed rather more like he apparated—in the doorway.
“Yes, my lord?”
“Would you help me with my boots?” Michael ground out, feeling rather infantile. Three years in the army and four in India, and he couldn’t remove his own damned boots? What was it about London that reduced a man to a sniveling idiot? He seemed to recall that Reivers had had to remove his boots for him the last time he’d lived in London as well.
He looked down. They were different boots. Different styles, he supposed, for different situations, and Reivers had always taken a stunningly ridiculous pride in his work. Of course he’d have wanted to outfit Michael in the very best of London fashion. He’d have—
“Reivers?” Michael said in a low voice. “Where did you get these boots?”
“My lord?”
“These boots. I do not recognize them.”
“We have not yet received all of your trunks from the ship, my lord. You didn’t have anything suitable for London, so I located these among the previous earl’s belong—”
“Jesus.”
“My lord? I’m terribly sorry if these don’t suit you. I remembered that the two of you were of a size, and I thought you’d want—”
“Just get them off. Now.” Michael closed his eyes and sat in a leather chair—John’s leather chair—marveling at the irony of it. His worst nightmare coming true, in the most literal of fashions.
“Of course, my lord.” Reivers looked pained, but he quickly went to work removing the boots.
Michael pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and let out a long breath before speaking again. “I would prefer not to use any items from the previous earl’s wardrobe,” he said wearily. Truly, he had no idea why John’s clothing was still here; the lot of it should have been given to the servants or donated to charity years ago. But he supposed that was Francesca’s decision to make, not his.
“Of course, my lord. I shall see to it immediately.”
“Good,” Michael grunted.
“Shall I have it locked away?”
Locked? Good God, it wasn’t as if the stuff were toxic. “I’m sure it is all just fine where it is,” Michael said. “Just don’t use any of it for me.”
“Right.” Reivers swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed uncomfortably.
“What is it now, Reivers?”
“It’s just that all of the previous Lord Kilmartin’s accouterments are still here.”
“Here?” Michael asked blankly.
“Here,” Reivers confirmed, glancing about the room.
Michael sagged in his chair. It wasn’t that he wanted to wipe every last reminder of his cousin off the face of this earth; no one missed John as much as he did, no one.
Well, except maybe Francesca, he allowed, but that was different.
But he just didn’t know how he was meant to lead his life so completely and smotheringly surrounded by John’s belongings. He held his title, spent his money, lived in his house. Was he meant to wear his damned shoes as well?
“Pack it all up,” he said to Reivers. “Tomorrow. I don’t wish to be disturbed this evening.”
And besides, he probably ought to alert Francesca of his intentions.
Francesca.
He sighed, rising to his feet once the valet had departed. Christ, Reivers had forgotten to take the boots with him. Michael picked them up and deposited them outside the door. He was probably overreacting, but hell, he just didn’t want to stare at John’s boots for the next six hours.
After shutting the door with a decisive click, he padded aimlessly over to the window. The sill was wide and deep, and he leaned heavily against it, gazing through the sheer curtains at the blurry streetscape below. He pushed the thin fabric aside, his lips twisting into a bitter smile as he watched a nursemaid tugging a small child along the pavement.
Francesca. She wanted a baby.
He didn’t know why he was so surprised. If he thought about it rationally, he really shouldn’t have been. She was a woman, for God’s sake; of course she’d want children. Didn’t they all? And while he’d never consciously sat down and told himself that she’d pine away for John forever, he’d also never considered the idea that she might actually care to remarry one day.
Francesca and John. John and Francesca. They were a unit, or at least they had been, and although John’s death had made it sadly easy to envision one without the other, it was quite something else entirely to think of one with another.
And then of course there was the small matter of his skin crawling, which was his general reaction to the thought of Francesca with another man.
He shuddered. Or was that a shiver? Damn, he hoped it wasn’t a shiver.
He supposed he was simply going to have to get used to the notion. If Francesca wanted children, then Francesca needed a husband, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. It would have been rather nice, he supposed, if she had come to this decision and taken care of the whole odious matter last year, sparing him the nausea of having to witness the entire courtship unfold. If she’d just gone and gotten herself married last year, then it would have been over and done with, and that would have been that.
End of story.
But now he was going to have to watch. Maybe even advise.
Bloody hell.
He shivered again. Damn. Maybe he was just cold. It was March, after all, and a chilly one at that, even with a fire in the grate.
He tugged at his cravat, which was starting to feel unaccountably tight, then yanked it off altogether. Christ, he felt like the very devil, all hot and cold, and queerly off balance.
He sat down. It seemed the best course of action.
And then he just gave up all pretense of being well, stripping off the rest of his clothing and crawling into bed.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 8
. . . wonderful lovely nice good to hear from you. I am glad you are faring well. John would have been proud. I miss you. I miss him. I miss you. Some of the flowers are still out. Isn’t it nice that some of the flowers are still out?
—from the Countess of Kilmartin
to the Earl of Kilmartin,
one week after the receipt
of his second missive to her,
first draft, never finished, never sent
“Didn’t Michael say that he would be joining us for supper this evening?”
Francesca looked up at her mother, who was standing before her with concerned eyes. She had been thinking the exact same thing, actually, wondering what was keeping him.
She’d spent the better part of the day dreading his arrival, even though he had absolutely no idea that she had been so distressed by that moment in the park. Good heavens, he probably didn’t even realize there had been a “moment.”
It was the first time in her life that Francesca was thankful for the general obtuseness of men.
“Yes, he did say that he would come,” she replied, shifting slightly in her chair. She had been waiting for some time now in the drawing room with her mother and two of her sisters, idly passing the time until their supper guest arrived.
“Didn’t we give him the time?” Violet asked.
Francesca nodded. “I confirmed it with him when he left me here after our stroll in the park.” She was quite certain of the exchange; she clearly recalled feeling rather sick in her stomach when they had spoken of it. She hadn’t wanted to see him again—not so quickly, anyway—but what could she do? Her mother had issued the invitation.
“He’s probably just running late,” said Hyacinth, Francesca’s youngest sister. “I’m not surprised. His sort is always late.”
Francesca turned on her instantly. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve heard all about his reputation.”
“What has his reputation to do with anything?” Francesca asked testily. “And anyway, what would you know of it? He left England years before you made your bow.”
Hyacinth shrugged, jabbing a needle into her extremely untidy embroidery. “People still speak of him,” she said carelessly. “The ladies swoon like idiots at the mere mention of his name, if you must know.”
“There’s no other way to swoon,” put in Eloise, who, although Francesca’s elder by precisely one year, was still unmarried.
“Well, rake he may be,” Francesca said archly, “but he has always been punctual to a fault.” She never could countenance others speaking ill of Michael. She might sigh and moan and belabor his faults, but it was entirely unacceptable that Hyacinth, whose knowledge of Michael was based entirely on rumor and innuendo, would make such a sweeping judgment.
“Believe what you will,” Francesca said sharply, because there was no way she was going to allow Hyacinth to have the last word, “but he would never be late to a supper here. He holds Mother in far too high regard.”
“What about his regard for you?” Hyacinth said.
Francesca glared at her sister, who was smirking into her embroidery. “He—” No, she wasn’t going to do this. She wasn’t going to sit here and get into an argument with her younger sister, not when something might actually be wrong. Michael was, for all his wicked ways, faultlessly polite and considerate to the bone, or at least he had always been so in her presence. And he would never have arrived for supper—she glanced up at the mantel clock—over thirty minutes late. Not, at least, without sending word.
She stood, briskly smoothing down her dove gray skirts. “I am going to Kilmartin House,” she announced.
“By yourself?” Violet asked.
“By myself,” Francesca said firmly. “It is my home, after all. I hardly think that tongues will wag if I stop by for a quick visit.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” her mother said. “But don’t stay too long.”
“Mother, I am a widow. And I do not plan to spend the night. I merely intend to inquire as to Michael’s welfare. I shall be just fine, I assure you.”
Violet nodded, but from her expression, Francesca could see that she would have liked to have said more. It had been like this for years—Violet wanted to resume her role of mother hen to her young widowed daughter, but she held back, attempting to respect her independence.
She didn’t always manage to resist interfering, but she tried, and Francesca was grateful for the effort.
“Do you want me to accompany you?” Hyacinth asked, her eyes lighting up.
“No!” Francesca said, surprise making her tone a bit more vehement than she’d intended it. “Why on earth would you want to?”
Hyacinth shrugged. “Curiosity. I’d like to meet the Merry Rake.”
“You’ve met him,” Eloise pointed out.
“Yes, but that was ages ago,” Hyacinth said with a dramatic sigh, “before I understood what a rake was.”
“You don’t understand that now,” Violet said sharply.
“Oh, but I—”
“You do not,” Violet repeated, “understand what a rake is.”
“Very well.” Hyacinth turned to her mother with a sickly sweet smile. “I don’t know what a rake is. I also don’t know how to dress myself or wash my own teeth.”
“I did see Polly helping her on with her evening gown last night,” Eloise murmured from the sofa.
“No one can get into an evening gown on her own,” Hyacinth shot back.
“I’m leaving,” Francesca announced, even though she was quite certain no one was listening to her.
“What are you doing?” Hyacinth demanded.
Francesca stopped short until she realized that Hyacinth wasn’t speaking to her.
“Just examining your teeth,” Eloise said sweetly.
“Girls!” Violet exclaimed, although Francesca couldn’t imagine that Eloise took too kindly to the generalization, being seven and twenty as she was.
And indeed she didn’t, but Francesca took Eloise’s irritation and subsequent rejoinder as an opportunity to slip out of the room and ask a footman to call up the carriage for her.
The streets were not very crowded; it was early yet, and the ton would not be heading out for parties and balls for at least another hour or two. The carriage moved swiftly through Mayfair, and in under a quarter of an hour Francesca was climbing the front steps of Kilmartin House in St. James’s. As usual, a footman opened the door before she could even lift the knocker, and she hurried inside.
“Is Kilmartin here?” she asked, realizing with a small jolt of surprise that it was the first time she had referred to Michael as such. It was strange, she realized, and good, really, how naturally it had come to her lips. It was probably past time that they all grew used to the change. He was the earl now, and he’d never be plain Mr. Stirling again.
“I believe so,” the footman replied. “He came in early this afternoon, and I was not made aware of his departure.”
Francesca frowned, then gave a nod of dismissal before heading up the steps. If Michael was indeed at home, he must be upstairs; if he were down in his office, the footman would have noticed his presence.
She reached the second floor, then strode down the hall toward the earl’s suite, her booted feet silent on the plush Aubusson carpet. “Michael?” she called out softly, as she approached his room. “Michael?”
There was no response, so she moved closer to his door, which she noticed was not quite all the way closed. “Michael?” she called again, only slightly louder. It wouldn’t do to bellow his name through the house. Besides, if he was sleeping, she didn’t wish to wake him. He was probably still tired from his long journey and had been too proud to indicate as such when Violet had invited him to supper.
Still nothing, so she pushed the door open a few additional inches. “Michael?”
She heard something. A rustle, maybe. Maybe a groan.
“Michael?”
“Frannie?”
It was definitely his voice, but it wasn’t like anything she’d ever heard from his lips.
“Michael?” She rushed in to find him huddled in his bed, looking quite as sick as she’d ever seen another human being. John, of course, had never been sick. He’d merely gone to bed one evening and woken up dead.
So to speak.
“Michael!” she gasped. “What is wrong with you?”
“Oh, nothing much,” he croaked. “Head cold, I imagine.”
Francesca looked down at him with dubious eyes. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead, his skin was flushed and mottled, and the level of heat radiating from the bed quite took her breath away.
Not to mention that he smelled sick. It was that awful, sweaty, slightly putrid smell, the sort that, if it had a color, would surely be vomitous green. Francesca reached out and touched his forehead, recoiling instantly at the heat of it.
“This is not a head cold,” she said sharply.
His lips stretched into a hideous approximation of a smile. “A really bad head cold?”
“Michael Stuart Stirling!”
“Good God, you sound like my mother.”
She didn’t particularly feel like his mother, especially not after what had happened in the park, and it was almost a bit of a relief to see him so feeble and unattractive. It took the edge off whatever it was she’d been feeling earlier that afternoon.
“Michael, what is wrong with you?”
He shrugged, then buried himself deeper under the covers, his entire body shaking from the exertion of it.
“Michael!” She reached out and grabbed his shoulder. None too gently, either. “Don’t you dare try your usual tricks on me. I know exactly how you operate. You always pretend that nothing matters, that water rolls off your back—”
“It does roll off my back,” he mumbled. “Yours as well. Simple science, really.”
“Michael!” She would have smacked him if he weren’t so ill. “You will not attempt to minimize this, do you understand me? I insist that you tell me right now what is wrong with you!”
“I’ll be better tomorrow,” he said.
“Oh, right,” Francesca said, with all the sarcasm she could muster, which was, in truth, quite a bit.
“I will,” he insisted, restlessly shifting positions, every movement punctuated with a groan. “I’ll be fine for tomorrow.”
Something about the phrasing of his words struck Francesca as profoundly odd. “And what about the day after that?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
A harsh chuckle emerged from somewhere under the covers. “Why, then I’ll be sick as a dog again, of course.”
“Michael,” she said again, dread forcing her voice low, “what is wrong with you?”
“Haven’t you guessed?” He poked his head back out from under the sheet, and he looked so ill she wanted to cry. “I have malaria.”
“Oh, my God,” Francesca breathed, actually backing up a step. “Oh, my God.”
“First time I’ve ever heard you blaspheme,” he remarked. “Probably ought to be flattered it’s over me.”
She had no idea how he could be so flip at such a time. “Michael, I—” She reached out, then didn’t reach out, unsure of what to do.
“Don’t worry,” he said, huddling closer into himself as his body was wracked with another wave of shudders. “You can’t catch it from me.”
“I can’t?” She blinked. “I mean, of course I can’t.” And even if she could, that ought not have stopped her from nursing him. He was Michael. He was . . . well, it seemed difficult precisely to define what he was to her, but they had an unbreakable bond, they two, and it seemed that four years and thousands of miles had done little to diminish it.
“It’s the air,” he said in a tired voice. “You have to breathe the putrid air to catch it. It’s why they call it malaria. If you could get it from another person, we lot would have infected all of England by now.”
She nodded at his explanation. “Are you . . . are you . . .” She couldn’t ask it; she didn’t know how.
“No,” he said. “At least they don’t think so.”
She felt herself sag with relief, and she had to sit down. She couldn’t imagine a world without him. Even while he’d been gone, she’d always known he was there, sharing the same planet with her, walking the same earth. And even in those early days following John’s death, when she’d hated him for leaving her, even when she’d been so angry with him that she wanted to cry—she had taken some comfort in the knowledge that he was alive and well, and would return to her in an instant, if ever she asked it of him.
He was here. He was alive. And with John gone . . . Well, she didn’t know how anyone could expect her to lose them both.
He shivered again, violently.
“Do you need medicine?” she asked, snapping to attention. “Do you have medicine?”
“Took it already,” he chattered.
But she had to do something. She wasn’t self-hating enough to think that there had been anything she could have done to prevent John’s death—even in the worst of her grief she hadn’t gone down that road—but she had always hated that the whole thing had happened in her absence. It was, in truth, the one momentous thing John had ever done without her. And even if Michael was only sick, and not dying, she was not going to allow him to suffer alone.
“Let me get you another blanket,” she said. Without waiting for his reply, she rushed through the connecting door to her own suite and pulled the coverlet off her bed. It was rose pink and would most likely offend his masculine sensibilities once he reached a state of sensibility, but that, she decided, was his problem.
When she returned to his room, he was so still she thought he’d fallen asleep, but he managed to rouse himself enough to say thank you as she tucked the blanket over him.
“What else can I do?” she asked, pulling a wooden chair to the side of his bed and sitting down.
“Nothing.”
“There must be something,” she insisted. “Surely we’re not meant to merely wait this out.”
“We’re meant,” he said weakly, “to merely wait this out.” “I can’t believe that’s true.”
He opened one eye. “Do you mean to challenge the entire medical establishment?”
She ground her teeth together and hunched over in her chair. “Are you certain you don’t need more medicine?”
He shook his head, then moaned at the exertion of it. “Not for another few hours.”
“Where is it?” she asked. If the only thing she could truly do was to locate the medication and be ready to dispense it, then by God, she would at least do that.
He moved his head slightly to the left. Francesca followed the motion toward a small table across the room, where a medicinal bottle sat atop a folded newspaper. She immediately rose and retrieved it, reading the label as she walked back to her chair. “Quinine,” she murmured. “I’ve heard of that.”
“Miracle medicine,” Michael said. “Or so they say.”
Francesca looked at him dubiously.
“Just look at me,” he said with a lopsided—and feeble—grin. “Proof positive.”
She inspected the bottle again, watching the powder shift as she tilted it. “I remain unconvinced.”
One of his shoulders attempted to move in a blithe gesture. “I’m not dead.”
“That’s not funny.”