He sighed, glancing at her over his shoulder. “They all take the mail. And besides, does it really matter?”
For a moment he thought she would answer in the affirmative, but then she said quietly, “No, of course not. The important thing is that you’re home. Your mother will be thrilled.”
He turned away so that she wouldn’t see his humorless smile. “Yes,” he murmured, “of course.”
“And I—” She stopped, cleared her throat. “I am delighted to have you back as well.”
She sounded as if she were trying very hard to convince herself of this, but Michael decided to play the gentleman for once and not point it out. “Are you cold?” he asked instead.
“Not very,” she said.
“You’re lying.”
“Just a little.”
He stepped to the side, making room for her closer to the fire. When he didn’t hear her move toward him, he motioned toward the empty space with his hand.
“I should go back to my room,” she said.
“For God’s sake, Francesca, if you’re cold, just come to the fire. I won’t bite.”
She gritted her teeth and stepped forward, joining him near the blaze. But she kept herself somewhat off to the side, maintaining a bit of distance between them. “You look well,” she said.
“As do you.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“I know. Four years, I believe.”
Francesca swallowed, wishing this weren’t so difficult. This was Michael, for heaven’s sake. It wasn’t supposed to be difficult. Yes, they’d parted badly, but that had been in the dark days immediately following John’s death. They’d all been in pain then, wounded animals lashing out at anyone in their way. It was supposed to be different now. Heaven knew she’d thought of this moment often enough. Michael couldn’t stay away forever, they’d all known that. But once her initial anger had passed, she’d rather hoped that when he did return, they’d be able to forget that anything unpleasant had ever passed between them.
And be friends again. She needed that, more than she’d ever realized.
“Do you have any plans?” she asked, mostly because the silence was too awful.
“For now, all I can think about is getting warm,” he muttered.
She smiled in spite of herself. “It is exceptionally chilly for this time of year.”
“I’d forgotten how damnably cold it can be here,” he grumbled, rubbing his hands together briskly.
“One would think you’d never escape the memory of a Scottish winter,” Francesca murmured.
He turned to her then, a wry smile tilting one corner of his mouth. He’d changed, she realized. Oh, there were the obvious differences—the ones everyone would notice. He was tan, quite scandalously so, and his hair, always midnight black, now sported a few odd strands of silver.
But there was more. He held his mouth differently, more tightly, if that made any sense, and his smooth, lanky grace seemed to have gone missing. He had always seemed so at ease, so comfortable in his skin, but now he was . . . taut.
Strained.
“You’d think,” he murmured, and she just looked at him blankly, having quite forgotten what he was replying to until he added, “I came home because I couldn’t stand the heat any longer, and now here I am, ready to perish from the cold.”
“It will be spring soon,” she said.
“Ah yes, spring. With its merely frigid winds, as opposed to the icy ones of winter.”
She laughed at that, absurdly pleased to have anything to laugh about in his presence. “The house will be better tomorrow,” she said. “I only just arrived this evening, and like you, I neglected to send advance notice. Mrs. Parrish assures me that the house will be restocked tomorrow.”
He nodded, then turned around to warm his back. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?”
He motioned to the empty room, as if to make a point. “I live here,” she said.
“You usually don’t come down until April.”
“You know that?”
For a moment, he looked almost embarrassed. “My mother’s letters are remarkably detailed,” he said.
She shrugged, then inched a little closer to the fire. She ought not stand so near to him, but dash it, she was still rather cold, and her thin nightrobe did little to ward off the chill.
“Is that an answer?” he drawled.
“I just felt like it,” she said insolently. “Isn’t that a lady’s prerogative?”
He turned again, presumably to warm his side, and then he was facing her.
And he seemed terribly close.
She moved, just an inch or so; she didn’t want him to realize she’d been made uncomfortable by his nearness.
Nor did she want to admit the very same thing to herself.
“I thought it was a lady’s prerogative to change her mind,” he said.
“It’s a lady’s prerogative to do anything she wants,” Francesca said pertly.
“Touché,” Michael murmured. He looked at her again, more closely this time. “You haven’t changed.”
Her lips parted. “How can you say that?”
“Because you look exactly as I remembered you.” And then, devilishly, he motioned toward her revealing nightwear. “Aside from your attire, of course.”
She gasped and stepped back, wrapping her arms more tightly around her body.
It was a bit sick of him, but he was rather pleased with himself for having offended her. He’d needed her to step away, to move out of his reach. She was going to have to set the boundaries.
Because he wasn’t sure he’d prove up to the task.
He’d been lying when he’d said she hadn’t changed. There was something different about her, something entirely unexpected.
Something that shook him down to his very soul.
It was a sense about her—all in his mind, really, but no less devastating. There was an air of availability, a horrible, torturous knowledge that John was gone, really, truly gone, and the only thing stopping Michael from reaching out and touching her was his own conscience.
It was almost funny.
Almost.
And there she was, still without a clue, still completely unaware that the man standing next to her wanted nothing so much than to peel every layer of silk from her body and lay her down in front of the fire. He wanted to nudge her thighs apart, sink himself into her, and—
He laughed grimly. Four years, it seemed, had done little to cool his inappropriate ardor.
“Michael?”
He looked over at her.
“What’s so funny?”
Her question, that’s what. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” she dared.
“Oh, I think not.”
“Michael,” she prodded.
He turned to her and said with deliberate coolness, “Francesca, there are some things you will never understand.”
Her lips parted, and for a moment she looked as if she’d been struck.
And he felt as horrid as if he’d done so.
“That was a terrible thing to say,” she whispered.
He shrugged.
“You’ve changed,” she said.
The sad thing was, he hadn’t. Not in any of the ways that might have made his life easier to bear. He sighed, hating himself because he couldn’t bear to have her hate him. “Forgive me,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “I’m tired, and I’m cold, and I’m an ass.”
She grinned at that, and for a moment they were transported back in time. “It’s all right,” she said kindly, touching his upper arm. “You’ve had a long journey.”
He sucked in his breath. She used to do this all the time—touch his arm in friendship. Never in public, of course, and rarely even when it had just been the two of them. John would have been there; John was always there. And it had always—always—shaken him.
But never so much as now.
“I need to go to bed,” he mumbled. He was usually a master at hiding his unease, but he just hadn’t been prepared to see her this evening, and beyond that, he was damned tired.
She withdrew her hand. “There won’t be a room ready for you. You should take mine. I’ll sleep here.”
“No,” he said, with far more force than he’d intended. “I’ll sleep here, or . . . hell,” he muttered, striding across the room to yank on the bellpull. What the devil was the point of being the bloody Earl of Kilmartin if you couldn’t have a bedchamber readied at any hour of the night?
Besides, ringing the bell would mean that a servant would arrive within minutes, which would mean that he would no longer be standing here alone with Francesca.
It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been alone together before, but never at night, and never with her in her nightgown, and—
He yanked the cord again.
“Michael,” she said, sounding almost amused. “I’m sure they heard you the first time.”
“Yes, well, it’s been a long day,” he said. “Storm in the Channel and all that.”
“You’ll have to tell me of your travels soon,” she said gently.
He looked over at her, lifting a brow. “I would have written to you of them.”
Her lips pursed for a moment. It was an expression he’d seen countless times on her face. She was choosing her words, deciding whether or not to spear him with her legendary wit.
And apparently she decided against it, because instead she said, “I was rather angry with you for leaving.”
He sucked in his breath. Trust Francesca to choose stark honesty over a scathing retort.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it, even though he wouldn’t have changed any of his actions. He’d needed to leave. He’d had to leave. Maybe it meant he was a coward; maybe it meant he’d been less of a man. But he hadn’t been ready to be the earl. He wasn’t John, could never be John. And that was the one thing everyone had seemed to want of him.
Even Francesca, in her own halfway sort of manner.
He looked at her. He was quite sure she still didn’t understand why he’d left. She probably thought she did, but how could she? She didn’t know that he loved her, couldn’t possibly understand how damned guilty he felt at assuming John’s life.
But none of that was her fault. And as he looked at her, standing fragile and proud as she stared at the fire, he said it again.
“I’m sorry.”
She acknowledged his apology with the barest hint of a nod. “I should have written to you,” she said. She turned to him then, her eyes filled with sorrow and perhaps a hint of their own apology. “But the truth was, I just didn’t feel like it. Thinking of you made me think of John, and I suppose I needed not to think of him so much just then.”
Michael didn’t pretend to understand, but he nodded nonetheless.
She smiled wistfully. “We had such fun, the three of us, didn’t we?”
He nodded again. “I miss him,” he said, and he was surprised by how good it felt to voice that.
“I always thought it would be so lovely when you finally married,” Francesca added. “You would have chosen someone brilliant and fun, I’m sure. What grand times the four of us would have had.”
Michael coughed. It seemed the best course of action.
She looked up, broken from her reverie. “Are you catching a chill?”
“Probably. I’ll be at death’s door by Saturday, I’m sure.”
She arched a brow. “I hope you don’t expect me to nurse you.”
Just the opening he needed to move their banter back to where he felt most comfortable. “Not necessary,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I shouldn’t need more than three days to attract a bevy of unsuitable women to attend to my every need.”
Her lips pinched slightly, but she was clearly amused. “The same as ever, I see.”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “No one ever really changes, Francesca.”
She cocked her head to the side, motioning to the hall, where they could hear someone moving toward them on swift feet. The footman arrived, and Francesca took care of everything, allowing Michael to do nothing but stand by the fire, looking vaguely imperial as he nodded his agreement.
“Good night, Michael,” she said, once the footman had left to do her bidding.
“Good night, Francesca,” he said softly.
“It’s good to see you again,” she said. And then, as if she needed to convince one of them of it—he wasn’t sure which, she added, “It truly is.”
Chapter 6
. . . I’m sorry I haven’t written. No, that’s not true. I’m not sorry. I don’t wish to write. I don’t wish to think of—
—from the Countess of Kilmartin
to the new Earl of Kilmartin,
one day after the receipt
of his first missive to her,
torn to bits, then soaked with tears
By the time Michael arose the next morning, Kilmartin House seemed to be back up and running as befitted the home of an earl. There were fires in every grate, and a splendid breakfast had been laid out in the informal dining room, with coddled eggs, ham, bacon, sausage, toast with butter and marmalade, and his own personal favorite, broiled mackerel.
Francesca, however, was nowhere to be found.
When he inquired after her, he was given a folded note she’d left for him earlier that morning. It seemed she felt that tongues might wag at their living alone together at Kilmartin House, and so she had removed herself to her mother’s residence at Number Five, Bruton Street, until either Janet or Helen arrived down from Scotland. She did, however, invite him to call upon her that day, as she was certain they had much to discuss.
And Michael supposed she was right, so once he’d finished with his breakfast (finding, much to his great surprise, that he rather missed the yogurts and dosas of his Indian morning meal), he stepped outside and made his way to Number Five.
He elected to walk; it wasn’t very far, and the air had warmed appreciably since the icy gusts of the day before. But mostly, he just wanted to take in the cityscape, to remind himself of the rhythms of London. He’d never noticed the particular smells and sounds of the capital before, how the clip-clop of horses’ hooves combined with the festive shout of the flower seller and low rumble of cultured voices. There was the sound of his feet on the pavement, and smell of roasting nuts, and the vague heft of soot in the air, all combining to make something that was uniquely London.
It was almost overpowering, which was strange, because he remembered feeling precisely the same way upon landing in India four years earlier. The humid air, redolent with spice and flowers, had shocked his every sense. It had felt almost like an assault, leaving him drowsy and disoriented. And while his reaction to London wasn’t quite that dramatic, he still felt rather like the odd man out, his senses buffeted by smells and sounds that shouldn’t have felt so unfamiliar.