“It shall be our secret,” Francesca said, leaning down to whisper in her niece’s ear. “And anytime you wish to come visit us in Scotland, you may. We bend rules all the time.”
Charlotte’s eyes grew huge. “You do?”
“Sometimes we have breakfast for supper.”
“Brilliant.”
“And we walk in the rain.”
Charlotte shrugged. “Everybody walks in the rain.”
“Yes, I suppose, but sometimes we dance.”
Charlotte stepped back. “May I go back with you now?”
“That’s up to your parents, poppet.” Francesca laughed and reached for Charlotte’s hand. “But we can dance right now.”
“Here?”
Francesca nodded.
“Where everyone can see?”
Francesca looked around. “I don’t see anyone watching. And even if there were, who cares?”
Charlotte’s lips pursed, and Francesca could practically see her mind at work. “Not me!” she announced, and she linked her arm through Francesca’s. Together they did a little jig, followed by a Scottish reel, twisting and twirling until they were both breathless.
“Oh, I wish it would rain!” Charlotte laughed.
“Now what would be the fun in that?” came a new voice.
“Uncle Michael!” Charlotte shrieked, launching herself at him.
“And I am instantly forgotten,” Francesca said with a wry smile.
Michael looked at her warmly over Charlotte’s head. “Not by me,” he murmured.
“Aunt Francesca and I have been dancing,” Charlotte told him.
“I know. I saw you from inside the house. I especially enjoyed the new one.”
“What new one?”
Michael pretended to look confused. “The new dance you were doing.”
“We weren’t doing any new dances,” Charlotte replied, her brows knitting together.
“Then what was that one that involved throwing yourself on the grass?”
Francesca bit her lip to keep from smiling.
“We fell, Uncle Michael.”
“No!”
“We did!”
“It was a vigorous dance,” Francesca confirmed.
“You must be exceptionally graceful, then, because it looked completely as if you’d done it on purpose.”
“We didn’t! We didn’t!” Charlotte said excitedly. “We really did just fall. By accident!”
“I suppose I will believe you,” he said with a sigh, “but only because I know you are far too trustworthy to lie.”
She looked him in the eye with a melting expression. “I would never lie to you, Uncle Michael,” she said.
He kissed her cheek and set her down. “Your mother says it’s time for dinner.”
“But you just got here!”
“I’m not going anywhere. You need your sustenance after all the dancing.”
“I’m not hungry,” she offered.
“Pity, then,” he said, “because I was going to teach you to waltz this afternoon, and you certainly cannot do that on an empty stomach.”
Charlotte’s eyes grew to near circles. “Really? Father said I cannot learn until I am ten.”
Michael gave her one of those devastating half smiles that still made Francesca tingle. “We don’t have to tell him, do we?”
“Oh, Uncle Michael, I love you,” she said fervently, and then, after one extremely vigorous hug, Charlotte ran off to Aubrey Hall.
“And another one falls,” Francesca said with a shake of her head, watching her niece dash across the fields.
Michael took her hand and tugged her toward him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Francesca grinned a little and sighed a little and said, “I would never lie to you.”
He kissed her soundly. “I certainly hope not.”
She looked up into his silvery eyes and let herself ease against the warmth of his body. “It seems no woman is immune.”
“How lucky I am, then, that I fall under the spell of only one.”
“Lucky for me.”
“Well, yes,” he said with affected modesty, “but I wasn’t going to say it.”
She swatted him on the arm.
He kissed her in return. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
“And how is the clan Bridgerton?” he asked, linking his arm through hers.
“Rather wonderful,” Francesca replied. “I am having a splendid time, actually.”
“Actually?” he echoed, looking vaguely amused.
Francesca steered him away from the house. It had been over a week since she’d had his company, and she didn’t wish to share him just then. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“You said ‘actually.’ As if you were surprised.”
“Of course not,” she said. But then she thought. “I always have a lovely time when I visit my family,” she said carefully.
“But . . .”
“But it’s better this time.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why.”
Which wasn’t precisely the truth. That moment with her mother—there had been magic in those tears.
But she couldn’t tell him that. He’d hear the bit about crying and nothing else, and then he’d worry, and she’d feel terrible for worrying him, and she was tired of all that.
Besides, he was a man. He’d never understand, anyway.
“I feel happy,” she announced. “Something in the air.”
“The sun is shining,” he observed.
She gave him a jaunty, single-shouldered shrug and leaned back against a tree. “Birds are singing.”
“Flowers blooming?”
“Just a few,” she admitted.
He regarded the landscape. “All the moment needs is a cherubic little bunny hopping across the field.”
She smiled blissfully and leaned into him for a kiss. “Bucolic splendor is a marvelous thing.”
“Indeed.” His lips found hers with familiar hunger. “I missed you,” he said, his voice husky with desire.
She let out a little moan as he nipped her ear. “I know. You said that.”
“It bears repeating.”
Francesca meant to say something witty about never tiring of hearing it, but at that moment she found herself pressed rather breathlessly against the tree, one of her legs lifted up around his hips.
“You wear far too many clothes,” he growled.
“We’re a little too close to the house,” she gasped, her belly clenching with need as he pressed more intimately against her.
“How far,” he murmured, one of his hands stealing under her skirts, “is ‘not too close’?”
“Not far.”
He drew back and gazed at her. “Really?”
“Really.” Her lips curved, and she felt devilish. She felt powerful. And she wanted to take charge. Of him. Of her life. Of everything.
“Come with me,” she said impulsively, and she grabbed his hand and ran.
Michael had missed his wife. At night, when she was not beside him, the bed felt cold, and the air felt empty. Even when he was tired, and his body was not hungry for her, he craved her presence, her scent, her warmth.
He missed the sound of her breathing. He missed the way the mattress moved differently when there was a second body on it.
He knew, even though she was more reticent than he, and far less likely to use such passionate words, that she felt the same way. But even so, he was pleasantly surprised to be racing across a field, letting her take the lead, knowing that in a few short minutes he would be buried deep within her.
“Here,” she said, skidding to a halt at the bottom of a hill.
“Here?” he asked dubiously. There was no cover of trees, nothing to block them from sight should anyone stroll by.
She sat. “No one comes this way.”
“No one?”
“The grass is very soft,” she said seductively, patting a spot beside her.
“I’m not even going to ask how you know that,” he muttered.
“Picnics,” she said, her expression delightfully outraged, “with my dolls.”
He took off his coat and laid it like a blanket on the grass. The ground was softly sloped, which he would imagine would be more comfortable for her than horizontal.
He looked at her. He looked at the coat. She didn’t move.
“You,” she said.
“Me?”
“Lie down,” she ordered.
He did. With alacrity.
And then, before he’d had time to make a comment, to tease or cajole, or even really to breathe, she’d straddled him.
“Oh, dear G—” he gasped, but he couldn’t finish. She was kissing him now, her mouth hot and hungry and aggressive. It was all deliciously familiar—he loved knowing every little bit of her, from the slope of her breast to the rhythm of her kisses—and yet this time, she felt a little . . .
New.
Renewed.
One of his hands moved to the back of her head. At home he liked to pull the pins out one by one, watching each lock tumble from her coiffure. But today he was too needy, too urgent, and he didn’t have patience for—