“Didn’t you just promise your husband that you would stop pestering me about this?”
“I did not, actually,” she said, giving him a rather superior glance. “He asked, of course—”
“Of course,” Michael muttered.
She laughed. He could always make her laugh.
“I thought wives were supposed to accede to their husbands’ wishes,” Michael said, quirking his right brow. “In fact, I’m quite certain it’s right there in the marriage vows.”
“I’d be doing you a grave disservice if I found you a wife like that,” she said, punctuating the sentiment with a well-timed and extremely disdainful snort.
He turned and gazed down at her with a vaguely paternalistic expression. He should have been a nobleman, Francesca thought. He was far too irresponsible for the duties of a title, but when he looked at a person like that, all superciliousness and certitude, he might as well have been a royal duke.
“Your responsibilities as Countess of Kilmartin do not include finding me a wife,” he said.
“They should.”
He laughed, which delighted her. She could always make him laugh.
“Very well,” she said, giving up for now. “Tell me about something wicked, then. Something John would not approve of.”
It was a game they played, even in John’s presence, although John always made at least the pretense of discouraging them. But Francesca suspected that John enjoyed Michael’s tales as much as she did. Once he’d finished with his obligatory admonitions, he was always all ears.
Not that Michael ever told them much. He was far too discreet for that. But he dropped hints and innuendo, and Francesca and John were always thoroughly entertained. They wouldn’t trade their wedded bliss for anything, but who didn’t like to be regaled with tales of debauchery and spice?
“I’m afraid I’ve done nothing wicked this week,” Michael said, steering her around the corner to King Street.
“You? Impossible.”
“It’s only Tuesday,” he reminded her.
“Yes, but not counting Sunday, which I’m sure you would not desecrate”—she shot him a look that said she was quite certain he’d already sinned in every way possible, Sunday or no—“that does leave you Monday, and a man can do quite a bit on a Monday.”
“Not this man. Not this Monday.”
“What did you do, then?”
He thought about that, then said, “Nothing, really.”
“That’s impossible,” she teased. “I’m quite certain I saw you awake for at least an hour.”
He didn’t say anything, and then he shrugged in a way she found oddly disturbing and said, “I did nothing. I walked, I spoke, I ate, but at the end of the day, there was nothing.”
Francesca impulsively squeezed his arm. “We shall have to find you something,” she said softly.
He turned and looked at her, his strange, silvery eyes catching hers with an intensity she knew he didn’t often allow to rise to the fore.
And then it was gone, and he was himself again, except she suspected that Michael Stirling wasn’t at all the man he wished people to believe him to be.
Even, sometimes, her.
“We should return home,” he said. “It’s growing late, and John will have my head if I let you catch a chill.”
“John would blame me for my foolishness, and well you know it,” Francesca said. “This is just your way of telling me you have a woman waiting for you, probably draped in nothing but the sheets on her bed.”
He turned to her and grinned. It was wicked and devilish, and she understood why half the ton—the female half, that was—fancied themselves in love with him, even with no title or fortune to his name.
“You said you wanted something wicked, didn’t you?” he asked. “Did you want more detail? The color of the sheets, perhaps?”
She blushed, drat it all. She hated that she blushed, but at least the reaction was covered by the night. “Not yellow, I hope,” she said, because she couldn’t bear to let the conversation end on her embarrassment. “It makes you look sallow.”
“I won’t be wearing the sheets,” he drawled.
“Nevertheless.”
He chuckled, and she knew that he knew that she’d said it just to have the last word. And she thought he was going to allow her the small victory, but then, just when she was beginning to find relief in the silence, he said, “Red.”
“I beg your pardon?” But of course she knew what he meant.
“Red sheets, I think.”
“I can’t believe you told me that.”
“You asked, Francesca Stirling.” He looked down at her, and one lock of midnight black hair fell onto his forehead. “You’re just lucky I don’t tell your husband on you.”
“John would never worry over me,” she said.
For a moment she didn’t think he would reply, but then he said, “I know,” and his voice was oddly grave and serious. “It’s the only reason I tease you.”
She’d been watching the pavement, looking for rough spots, but his tone was so serious she had to look up.
“You’re the only woman I know who would never stray,” he said, touching her chin. “You have no idea how much I admire you for that.”
“I love your cousin,” she whispered. “I would never betray him.”
He brought his hand back to his side. “I know.”
He looked so handsome in the moonlight, and so unbearably in need of love, that her heart nearly broke. Surely there was no woman who could resist him, not with that perfect face and tall, muscular body. And anyone who took the time to explore what was underneath would come to know him as she did—as a kindhearted man, loyal and true.
With a hint of the devil, of course, but Francesca supposed that was what would attract the ladies in the first place.
“Shall we?” Michael said, suddenly all charm. He tilted his head back in the direction of home, and she sighed and turned around.
“Thank you for taking me out,” she said, after a few minutes of companionable silence. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I was going mad with the rain.”
“You didn’t say that,” he said, immediately giving himself a mental kick. She’d said that she’d been feeling a bit odd, not that she’d been going mad, but only an idiot savant or a lovesick fool would have noticed the difference.
“Didn’t I?” She scrunched her brow together. “Well, I was certainly thinking it. I’ve been rather sluggish, if you must know. The fresh air did me a great deal of good.”
“Then I’m happy to have helped,” he said gallantly.
She smiled as they ascended the front steps to Kilmartin House. The door opened as their feet touched the top stair—the butler must have been watching for them—and then Michael waited as Francesca was divested of her cloak in the front hall.
“Will you stay for another drink, or must you leave immediately for your appointment?” she inquired, her eyes glinting with the devil.
He glanced at the clock at the end of the hall. It was half eight, and while he had no place to be—there was no lady waiting for him, although he could certainly find one at the drop of a hat, and he rather thought he would—he didn’t much feel like remaining here at Kilmartin House.
“I must go,” he said. “I’ve much to do.”
“You’ve nothing to do, and you know it,” she said. “You just wish to be wicked.”
“It’s an admirable pastime,” he murmured.
She opened her mouth to offer a retort, but just then Simons, John’s recently hired valet, came down the stairs.
“My lady?” he inquired.
Francesca turned to him and inclined her head, indicating that he should proceed.
“I’ve rapped on his lordship’s door and called his name—twice—but he seems to be sleeping quite soundly. Do you still wish me to wake him?”
Francesca nodded. “Yes. I’d love to let him sleep. He’s been working so hard lately”—she directed this last bit at Michael—“but I know that this meeting with Lord Liverpool is very important. You should—No, wait, I’ll rouse him myself. It will be better that way.”
She turned to Michael. “I shall see you tomorrow?”
“Actually, if John hasn’t yet left, I’ll wait,” he replied. “I came on foot, so I might as well avail myself of his carriage once he’s done with it.”
She nodded and hurried up the stairs, leaving Michael with nothing to do but hum under his breath as he idly examined the paintings in the hall.
And then she screamed.
Michael had no recollection of running up the stairs, but somehow there he was, in John’s and Francesca’s bed-chamber, the one room in the house he never invaded.
“Francesca?” he gasped. “Frannie, Frannie, what is—”
She was sitting next to the bed, clutching John’s forearm, which was dangling over the side. “Wake him up, Michael,” she cried. “Wake him up. Do it for me. Wake him up!”
Michael felt his world slip away. The bed was across the room, a good twelve feet away, but he knew.
No one knew John as well as he did. No one.
And John wasn’t there in the room. He was gone. What was on the bed—
It wasn’t John.
“Francesca,” he whispered, moving slowly toward her. His limbs felt strange and funny and gruesomely sluggish. “Francesca.”
She looked up at him with huge, stricken eyes. “Wake him up, Michael.”
“Francesca, I—”
“Now!” she screamed, launching herself at him. “Wake him up! You can do it. Wake him up! Wake him up!”
And all he could do was stand there as she beat her fists against his chest, stand there as she grabbed his cravat and shook and yanked until he was gasping for breath. He couldn’t even embrace her, couldn’t offer her comfort, because he was every bit as devastated and confused.
And then suddenly the fire left her, and she collapsed in his arms, her tears soaking his shirt. “He had a headache,” she whimpered. “That’s all. He just had a headache. It was just a headache.” She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face, looking for answers he’d never be able to give her. “It was just a headache,” she said again.
And she looked broken.
“I know,” he said, even though he knew it wasn’t enough.
“Oh, Michael,” she sobbed. “What am I to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said, because he didn’t. Between Eton, Cambridge, and the army, he’d been trained for everything that the life of an English gentleman was supposed to offer. But he hadn’t been trained for this.
“I don’t understand,” she was saying, and he supposed she was saying a lot of things, but none of it made any sense to his ears. He didn’t even have the strength to stand, and together the two of them sank to the carpet, leaning against the side of the bed.
He stared sightlessly at the far wall, wondering why he wasn’t crying. He was numb, and his body felt heavy, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that his very soul had been ripped from his body.
Not John.
Why?
Why?
And as he sat there, dimly aware of the servants gathering just outside the open door, it occurred to him that Francesca was whimpering those very same words.
“Not John.
“Why?
“Why?”
“Do you think she might be with child?”
Michael stared at Lord Winston, a new and apparently overeager appointee to the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords, trying to make sense of his words. John had been dead barely a day. It was still hard to make sense of anything. And now here was this puffy little man, demanding an audience, prattling on about some sacred duty to the crown.
“Her ladyship,” Lord Winston said. “If she’s carrying, it will complicate everything.”
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “I didn’t ask her.”
“You need to. I’m sure you’re eager to assume control of your new holdings, but we really must determine if she’s carrying. Furthermore, if she is pregnant, a member of our committee will need to be present at the birth.”
Michael felt his face go slack. “I beg your pardon?” he somehow managed to say.
“Baby switching,” Lord Winston said grimly. “There have been instances—”
“For God’s sake—”
“It’s for your protection as much as anyone’s,” Lord Winston cut in. “If her ladyship gives birth to a girl, and there is no one present to witness it, what is to stop her from switching the babe with a boy?”
Michael couldn’t even bring himself to dignify this with an answer.
“You need to find out if she is carrying,” Lord Winston pressed. “Arrangements will need to be made.”
“She was widowed yesterday,” Michael said sharply. “I will not burden her with such intrusive questions.”
“There is more at stake here than her ladyship’s feelings,” Lord Winston returned. “We cannot properly transfer the earldom while there is doubt as to the succession.”
“The devil take the earldom,” Michael snapped.
Lord Winston gasped, drawing back in visible horror. “You forget yourself, my lord.”
“I’m not your lord,” Michael bit off. “I’m not anyone’s—” He halted his words, sinking into a chair, trying very hard to get past the fact that he was perilously close to tears. Right here, in John’s study, with this damnable little man who didn’t seem to understand that a man had died, not just an earl, but a man, Michael wanted to cry.
And he would, he suspected. As soon as Lord Winston left, and Michael could lock the door and make sure that no one could see him, he would probably bury his face in his hands and cry.
“Someone has to ask her,” Lord Winston said.
“It won’t be me,” Michael said in a low voice.
“I will do it, then.”