“No,” her mother said quickly. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
“You should be delighted for them.”
“I am!”
“More delighted for them than you are sorry for me,” Francesca choked out.
“Francesca . . .”
Violet tried to reach for her, but Francesca pulled away. “Promise me,” she said. “You have to promise me that you will always be more happy than you are sorry.”
Violet looked at her helplessly, and Francesca realized that her mother did not know what to say. For her entire life, Violet Bridgerton had been the most sensitive and wonderful of mothers. She always seemed to know what her children needed, exactly when they needed it—whether it was a kind word or a gentle prod, or even a giant proverbial kick in the breeches.
But now, in this moment, Violet was lost. And Francesca was the one who had done it to her.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” she said, the words spilling out. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“No.” Violet rushed forward to embrace her, and this time Francesca did not pull away. “No, darling,” Violet said again, softly stroking her hair. “Don’t say that, please don’t say that.”
She shushed and she crooned, and Francesca let her mother hold her. And when Francesca’s hot, silent tears fell on her mother’s shoulder, neither one of them said a word.
By the time Michael arrived two days later, Francesca had thrown herself into the preparations for little Isabella’s christening, and her conversation with her mother was, if not forgotten, at least not at the forefront of her mind. It wasn’t as if any of this was new, after all. Francesca was just as barren as she’d been every time she came to England to see her family. The only difference this time was that she’d actually talked to someone about it. A little bit.
As much as she was able.
And yet, somehow, something had been lifted from her. When she’d stood there in the hall, her mother’s arms around her, something had poured out from her along with her tears.
And while she still grieved for the babies she would never have, for the first time in a long time, she felt unreservedly happy.
It was strange and wonderful, and she positively refused to question it.
“Aunt Francesca! Aunt Francesca!”
Francesca smiled as she looped her arm through that of her niece. Charlotte was Anthony’s youngest, due to turn eight in a month’s time. “What is it, poppet?”
“Did you see the baby’s dress? It’s so long.”
“I know.”
“And frilly.”
“Christening dresses are meant to be frilly. Even the boys are covered in lace.”
“It seems a waste,” Charlotte said with a shrug. “Isabella doesn’t know she’s wearing anything so pretty.”
“Ah, but we do.”
Charlotte pondered this for a moment. “But I don’t care, do you?”
Francesca chuckled. “No, I don’t suppose I do. I should love her no matter what she was wearing.”
The two of them continued their stroll through the gardens, picking the grape hyacinths to decorate the chapel. They had nearly filled the basket when they heard the unmistakable sound of a carriage coming down the drive.
“I wonder who it is now,” Charlotte said, rising to her toes as if that might actually help her see the carriage any better.
“I’m not sure,” Francesca replied. Any number of relations were due that afternoon.
“Uncle Michael, maybe.”
Francesca smiled. “I hope so.”
“I adore Uncle Michael,” Charlotte said with a sigh, and Francesca almost laughed, because the look in her niece’s eye was one she’d seen a thousand times before.
Women adored Michael. It seemed even seven-year-old girls were not immune to his charm.
“Well, he is very handsome,” Francesca demurred.
Charlotte shrugged. “I suppose.”
“You suppose?” Francesca replied, trying very hard not to smile.
“I like him because he tosses me in the air when Father isn’t looking.”
“He does like to bend the rules.”
Charlotte grinned. “I know. It’s why I don’t tell Father.”
Francesca had never thought of Anthony as particularly stern, but he had been the head of the family for over twenty years, and she supposed the experience had endowed him with a certain love of order and tidiness.
And it had to be said—he did like to be in charge.
“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 anothe
r 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 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—
“What was that for?” he asked. She had yanked his hand away.
Her eyes narrowed languidly. “I’m in charge,” she whispered.
His body tightened. More. Dear God, she was going to kill him.
“Don’t go slow,” he gasped.
But he didn’t think she was listening. She was taking her time, undoing his breeches, letting her hands flutter along his belly until she found him.
“Frannie . . .”
One finger. That’s all she gave him. One featherlight finger along his shaft.
She turned, looked at him. “This is fun,” she remarked.
He just focused on trying to breathe.
“I love you,” she said softly, and he felt her rise. She hoisted her skirts to her thighs as she positioned herself, and then, with one spectacularly swift stroke, she took him within her, her body coming to rest against his, leaving him embedded to the hilt.
He wanted to move then. He wanted to thrust up, or flip her over and pound until they were both nothing but dust, but her hands were firm on his hips, and when he looked up at her, her eyes were closed, and she almost looked as if she were concentrating.
Her breathing was slow and steady, but it was loud, too, and with each exhale she seemed to bear down on him just a little bit heavier.
“Frannie,” he groaned, because he didn’t know what else to do. He wanted her to move faster. Or harder. Or something, but all she did was rock and back and forth, her hips arching and curving in delicious torment. He clutched her hips, intending to move her up and down, but she opened her eyes and shook her head with a soft, blissful smile.
“I like it this way,” she said.
He wanted something different. He needed something different, but when she looked down at him, she looked so damned happy that he could deny her nothing. And then, sure enough, she began to shudder, and it was strange, because he knew the feel of her climax so well, and yet this time it seemed softer . . . and stronger, at the same time.
She swayed, and she rocked, and then she let out a little scream and sagged against him.
And then, to his utter and complete surprise, he came. He hadn’t thought he was ready. He hadn’t thought he was remotely near climax, not that it would have taken long had he been able to move beneath her. But then, without warning,
he had simply exploded.
They lay that way for some time, the sun falling gently on them. She burrowed her face in his neck, and he held her, wondering how it was possible that such moments existed.
Because it was perfect. And he would have stayed there forever, had he been able. And even though he didn’t ask her, he knew she felt the same.
They’d meant to go home two days after the christening, Francesca thought as she watched one of her nephews tackle the other to the ground, but here it was, three weeks out, and they had not even begun to pack.
“No broken bones, I hope.”
Francesca smiled up at her sister Eloise, who had also elected to stay on at Aubrey Hall for an extended visit. “No,” she answered, wincing slightly when the future Duke of Hastings—otherwise known as Davey, aged eleven—let out a war whoop as he jumped from a tree. “But it’s not for lack of trying.”
Eloise took a seat beside her and tilted her face to the sun. “I’ll put my bonnet on in a minute, I swear it,” she said.
“I can’t quite determine the rules of the game,” Francesca remarked.
Eloise didn’t bother to open her eyes. “That’s because there are none.”
Francesca watched the chaos with fresh perspective. Oliver, Eloise’s twelve-year-old stepson, had grabbed hold of a ball—since when had there been a ball?—and was racing across the lawn. He appeared to reach his goal—not that Francesca would ever be sure whether that was the giant oak stump that had been there since she was a child or Miles, Anthony’s second son, who had been sitting cross-legged and cross-armed since Francesca had come outside ten minutes earlier.
But whichever was the case, Oliver must have won a point, because he slammed the ball against the ground and then jumped up and down with a triumphant cry. Miles must have been on his team—this was the first indication Francesca had that there were teams—because he hopped to his feet and celebrated in kind.
Eloise opened one eye. “My child didn’t kill anyone, did he?”
“No.”
“No one killed him?”
Francesca smiled. “No.”
“Good.” Eloise yawned and resettled into her chaise.
Francesca thought about her words. “Eloise?”
“Mmmm?”
“Do you ever . . .” She frowned. There really wasn’t any right way to ask this. “Do you ever love Oliver and Amanda . . .”