“Less?” Eloise supplied.
“Yes.”
Eloise sat up straighter and opened her eyes. “No.”
“Really?” It wasn’t that Francesca didn’t believe her. She loved her nieces and nephews with every breath in her body; she would have laid down her life for any one of them—Oliver and Amanda included—without even a moment’s hesitation. But she hadn’t ever given birth. She had never carried a child in her womb—not for long, anyway—and didn’t know if somehow that made it different. Made it more.
If she had a baby, one of her own, born of her blood and Michael’s, would she suddenly realize that this love she felt now for Charlotte and Oliver and Miles and all the others—Would it suddenly feel like a wisp next to what was in her heart for her own child?
Did it make a difference?
Did she want it to make a difference?
“I thought it would,” Eloise admitted. “Of course I loved Oliver and Amanda long before I had Penelope. How could I not? They are pieces of Phillip. And,” she continued, her face growing thoughtful, as if she had never quite delved into this before, “they are . . . themselves. And I am their mother.”
Francesca smiled wistfully.
“But even so,” Eloise continued, “before I had Penelope, and even when I was carrying her, I thought it would be different.” She paused. “It is different.” She paused again. “But it’s not less. It’s not a question of levels or amounts, or even . . . really . . . the nature of it.” Eloise shrugged. “I can’t explain it.”
Francesca looked back to the game, which had resumed with new intensity. “No,” she said softly, “I think you did.”
There was a long silence, and then Eloise said, “You don’t . . . talk about it much.”
Francesca shook her head gently. “No.”
“Do you want to?”
She thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know.” She turned to her sister. They had been at sixes and sevens for much of their childhood, but in so many ways Eloise was like the other half of her coin. They looked so alike, save for the color of their eyes, and they even shared the same birthday, just one year apart.
Eloise was watching her with a tender curiosity, a sympathy that, just a few weeks ago, would have been heartbreaking. But now it was simply comforting. Francesca didn’t feel pitied, she felt loved.
“I’m happy,” Francesca said. And she was. She really was. For once she didn’t feel that aching emptiness hiding underneath. She’d even forgotten to count. She didn’t know how many days it had been since her last menses, and it felt so bloody good.
“I hate numbers,” she muttered.
“I beg your pardon?”
She bit back a smile. “Nothing.”
The sun, which had been obscured behind a thin layer of cloud, suddenly popped into the open. Eloise shaded her eyes with her hand as she sat back. “Good heavens,” she remarked. “I think Oliver just sat on Miles.”
Francesca laughed, and then, before she even knew what she was about, stood. “Do you think they’ll let me play?”
Eloise looked at her as if she’d gone mad, which, Francesca thought with a shrug, perhaps she had.
Eloise looked at Francesca, and then at the boys, and then back at Francesca. And then she stood. “If you do it, I’ll do it.”
“You can’t do it,” Francesca said. “You’re pregnant.”
“Barely,” Eloise said with a scoff. “Besides, Oliver wouldn’t dare sit on me.” She held out her arm. “Shall we?”
“I believe we shall.” Francesca linked her arm through her sister’s, and together they ran down the hill, shouting like banshees and loving every minute of it.
“I heard you made quite a scene this afternoon,” Michael said, perching on the edge of the bed.
Francesca did not move. Not even an eyelid. “I’m exhausted” was all she said.
He took in the dusty hem of her dress. “And dirty, too.”
“Too tired to wash.”
“Anthony said that Miles said that he was quite impressed. Apparently you throw quite well for a girl.”
“It would have been brilliant,” she replied, “had I been informed that I wasn’t meant to use my hands.”
He chuckled. “What game, exactly, were you playing?”
“I have no idea.” She let out an exhausted little moan. “Would you rub my feet?”
He pushed himself farther onto the bed and slid her dress up to mid-calf. Her feet were filthy. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed. “Did you go barefoot?”
“I couldn’t very well play in my slippers.”
“How did Eloise fare?”
“She, apparently, throws like a boy.”
“I thought you weren’t meant to use your hands.”
At that, she pushed herself indignantly up on her elbows. “I know. It depended on what end of the field one was at. Whoever heard of such a thing.”
He took her foot in his hands, making a mental note to wash them later—his hands that was, she could take care of her own feet. “I had no idea you were so competitive,” he remarked.
“It runs in the family,” she mumbled. “No, no, there. Yes, right there. Harder. Oooooohhhh . . .”
“Why do I feel as if I heard this before,” he mused, “except that I was having much more fun?”
“Just be quiet and keep rubbing my feet.”
“At your service, Your Majesty,” he murmured, smiling when she realized she was perfectly content to be referred to as such. After a minute or two of silence, save for the occasional moan from Francesca, he asked, “How much longer do you wish to stay?”
“Are you eager to return home?”
“I do have matters to attend to,” he replied, “but nothing that cannot wait. I’m rather enjoying your family, actually.”
She quirked a brow—and a smile. “Actually?”
“Indeed. Although it was a bit daunting when your sister beat me at the shooting match.”
“She beats everyone. She always has. Shoot with Gregory next time. He can’t hit a tree.”
Michael moved on to the other foot. Francesca looked so happy and relaxed. Not just now, but at the supper table, and in the drawing room, and when she was chasing her nieces and nephews, and even at night, when he was making love to her in their huge four-poster bed. He was ready to go home, back to Kilmartin, which was ancient and drafty but indelibly theirs. But he’d happily remain here forever, if it meant Francesca would always look like this.
“I think you’re right,” she said.
“Of course,” he replied, “but about what, exactly?”
“It’s time to go home.”
“I didn’t say that it was. I merely inquired as to your intentions.”
“You didn’t have to say it,” she said.
“If you want to stay—”
She shook her head. “I don’t. I want to go home. Our home.” With a stiff groan, she sat up all the way, curling her legs beneath her. “This has been lovely, and I have had such a wonderful time, but I miss Kilmartin.”
“Are you certain?”
“I miss you.”
He lifted his brows. “I’m right here.”
She smiled and leaned forward. “I miss having you to myself.”
“You need only say the word, my lady. Anytime, anywhere. I’ll whisk you off and let you have your way with me.”
She chuckled. “Perhaps right now.”
He thought that was an excellent idea, but chivalry forced him to say, “I thought you were sore.”
“Not that sore. Not if you do all the work.”
“That, my dear, is not a problem.” He pulled his shirt over his head and lay down beside her, giving her a long, delicious kiss. He pulled back with a contented sigh and then just gazed at her. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “More than ever.”
She smiled—that lazy, warm smile that meant she’d been recently pleasured, or knew she was about to be.
He loved that smil
e.
He went to work on the buttons at the back of her frock and was halfway down when all of a sudden a thought popped into his head. “Wait,” he said. “Can you?”
“Can I what?”
He stopped, frowning as he tried to count it out in his head. Oughtn’t she be bleeding? “Isn’t it your time?” he asked.
Her lips parted, and she blinked. “No,” she said, sounding a little bit startled—not by his question but by her answer. “No, I’m not.”
He shifted position, moving back a few inches so that he could better see her face. “Do you think . . . ?”
“I don’t know.” She was blinking rapidly now, and he could hear that her breathing had grown more rapid. “I suppose. I could . . .”
He wanted to whoop with joy, but he dared not. Not yet. “When do you think—”
“—I’ll know? I don’t know. Maybe—”
“—in a month? Two?”
“Maybe two. Maybe sooner. I don’t know.” Her hand flew to her belly. “It might not take.”
“It might not,” he said carefully.
“But it might.”
“It might.”
He felt laughter bubbling within him, a strange giddiness in his belly, growing and tickling until it burst from his lips.
“We can’t be sure,” she warned, but he could see that she was excited, too.
“No,” he said, but somehow he knew they were.
“I don’t want to get my hopes up.”
“No, no, of course we mustn’t.”
Her eyes grew wide, and she placed both hands on her belly, still absolutely, completely flat.
“Do you feel anything?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “It would be too early, anyway.”
He knew that. He knew that he knew that. He didn’t know why he’d asked.
And then Francesca said the damnedest thing. “But he’s there,” she whispered. “I know it.”
“Frannie . . .” If she was wrong, if her heart was broken again—he just didn’t think he could bear it.
But she was shaking her head. “It’s true,” she said, and she wasn’t insisting. She wasn’t trying to convince him, or even herself. He could hear it in her voice. Somehow she knew.
“Have you been feeling ill?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Have you— Good God, you shouldn’t have been playing with the boys this afternoon.”
“Eloise did.”
“Eloise can do what she damned well pleases. She isn’t you.”
She smiled. Like a Madonna, she smiled, he would have sworn it. And she said, “I won’t break.”
He remembered when she’d miscarried years ago. It had not been his child, but he had felt her pain, hot and searing, like a fist around his heart. His cousin—her first husband—had been dead a scant few weeks, and they were both reeling from that loss. When she’d lost John’s baby . . .
He didn’t think either one of them could survive another loss like that.
“Francesca,” he said urgently, “you must take care. Please.”
“It won’t happen again,” she said, shaking her head.
“How do you know?”
She gave him a bewildered shrug. “I don’t know. I just do.”
Dear God, he prayed she was not deluding herself. “Do you want to tell your family?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head. “Not yet. Not because I have any fears,” she hastened to add. “I just want—” Her lips pressed together in the most adorably giddy little smile. “I just want it to be mine for a little while. Ours.”
He brought her hand to his lips. “How long is a little while?”
“I’m not sure.” But her eyes were growing crafty. “I’m not quite sure . . .”
One year later . . .
Violet Bridgerton loved all her children equally, but she loved them differently as well. And when it came to missing them, she did so in what she considered a most logical manner. Her heart pined the most for the one she’d seen the least. And that was why, as she waited in the drawing room at Aubrey Hall, waiting for a carriage bearing the Kilmartin crest to roll down the drive, she found herself fidgety and eager, jumping up every five minutes to watch through the window.
“She wrote that they would arrive today,” Kate reassured her.
“I know,” Violet replied with a sheepish smile. “It’s just that I haven’t seen her for an entire year. I know Scotland is far, but I’ve never gone an entire year without seeing one of my children before.”
“Really?” Kate asked. “That’s remarkable.”
“We all have our priorities,” Violet said, deciding there was no point in trying to pretend she wasn’t jumping at the bit. She set down her embroidery and moved to the window, craning her neck when she thought she saw something glinting in the sunlight.
“Even when Colin was traveling so much?” Kate asked.
“The longest he was gone was three hundred and forty-two days,” Violet replied. “When he was traveling in the Mediterranean.”
“You counted?”
Violet shrugged. “I can’t help myself. I like to count.” She thought of all the counting she’d done when her children were growing up, making sure she had as many offspring at the end of an outing as she’d had at the beginning. “It helps to keep track of things.”
Kate smiled as she reached down and rocked the cradle at her feet. “I shall never complain about the logistics of managing four.”
Violet crossed the room to peek down at her newest grandchild. Little Mary had been a bit of a surprise, coming so many years after Charlotte. Kate had thought herself done with childbearing, but then, ten months earlier, she’d got out bed, walked calmly to the chamber pot, emptied the contents of her stomach, and announced to Anthony, “I believe we’re expecting again.”
Or so they’d told Violet. She made it a point to stay out of her grown children’s bedrooms except in the case of illness or childbirth.
“I never complained,” Violet said softly. Kate didn’t hear, but Violet hadn’t meant her to. She smiled down at Mary, sleeping sweetly under a purple blanket. “I think your mother would have been delighted,” she said, looking up at Kate.
Kate nodded, her eyes misting over. Her mother—actually her stepmother, but Mary Sheffield had raised her from a little girl—had passed away a month before Kate realized that she was pregnant. “I know it makes no sense,” Kate said, leaning down to examine her child’s face more closely, “but I would swear she looks a bit like her.”
Violet blinked and tilted her head to the side. “I think you’re right.”
“Something about the eyes.”
“No, it’s the nose.”
“Do you think? I rather thought—Oh look!” Kate pointed toward the window. “Is that Francesca?”
Violet straightened and rushed to the window. “It is!” she exclaimed. “Oh, and the sun is shining. I’m going to wait outside.”
With nary a backward glance she grabbed her shawl off a side table and dashed into the hall. It had been so long since she’d seen Frannie, but that wasn’t the only reason she was so eager to see her. Francesca had changed during her last visit, back at Isabella’s christening. It was hard to explain, but Violet had sensed that something had shifted within her.
Of all her children, Francesca had always been the most quiet, the most private. She loved her family, but she also loved being apart from them, forging her own identity, making her own life. It was not surprising that she had never chosen to share her feelings about the most painful corner of her life—her infertility. But last time, even though they had not spoken about it explicitly, something had still passed within them, and Violet had almost felt as if she’d been able to absorb some of her grief.
When Francesca had departed, the clouds behind her eyes had been lifted. Violet didn’t know whether she had finally accepted her fate, or whether she had simply learned how to rejoice in what she had, but Fran
cesca had seemed, for the first time in Violet’s recent memory, unreservedly happy.
Violet ran through the hall—really, at her age!—and pushed open the front door so that she could wait in the drive. Francesca’s carriage was nearly there, starting the final turn so that one of the doors would be facing the house.
Violet could see Michael through the window. He waved. She beamed.
“Oh, I’ve missed you!” she exclaimed, hurrying forward as he hopped down. “You must promise never to wait so long again.”
“As if I could refuse you anything,” he said, leaning down to kiss her cheek. He turned then, holding his arm out to assist Francesca.
Violet embraced her daughter, then stepped back to look at her. Frannie was . . .
Glowing.
She was positively radiant.
“I missed you, Mother,” she said.
Violet would have made a reply, but she found herself unexpectedly choked up. She felt her lips press together, then twitch at the corners as she fought to contain her tears. She didn’t know why she was so emotional. Yes, it had been over a year, but hadn’t she gone three hundred and forty-two days before? This was not so very different.
“I have something for you,” Francesca said, and Violet could have sworn her eyes were glistening, too.
Francesca turned back to the carriage and held out her arms. A maid appeared in the doorway, holding some sort of bundle, which she then handed down to her mistress.
Violet gasped. Dear God, it couldn’t be . . .
“Mother,” Francesca said softly, cradling the precious little bundle, “this is John.”
The tears, which had been waiting patiently in Violet’s eyes, began to roll. “Frannie,” she whispered, taking the baby into her arms, “why didn’t you tell me?”
And Francesca—her maddening, inscrutable third daughter—said, “I don’t know.”
“He’s beautiful,” Violet said, not caring that she’d been kept in the dark. She didn’t care about anything in that moment—nothing but the tiny boy in her arms, gazing up at her with an impossibly wise expression.
“He has your eyes,” Violet said, looking up at Francesca.
Frannie nodded, and her smile was almost silly, as if she couldn’t quite believe it. “I know.”