Chapter Text
It was a cold and dreary day and rain pelted down the windows of their salon. John had installed a pianoforte by the tall, glass windows that overlooked the open, green canvas of grass outside, so that Francesca could enjoy the view while she played. Raindrops dribbled down, onto lush, picturesque gardens, flooding the recent exposure of plotting soil.
Francesca roamed her fingers across the keys, losing herself quite pleasantly into a Haydn concerto.
Or she had been.
The room’s calm stirred, John Stirling, Lord of Kilmartin, sat up from his cozy perch on the couch to see his cousin and Eloise striding down the hallway.
Then right towards them.
Fran made a horrible sound, an accident that turned into a long drawn note from the piano and gave a deep flush, going to right it. She steadied her fingers and heard John give a murmur of hello in the backdrop as she fixed her notes back into their proper places.
Once the song continued, she braved a glance up at their new compatriots.
“So much for riding!” Eloise groaned. She dove back onto one of the chairs and threw her head dramatically. “It was a picture-perfect day only a moment ago!”
Michaela Stirling hovered by the fireplace.
She would not meet Francesca’s eyes.
She never did.
Fran gave a shy smile to Eloise.
“What will we do? What can two single spinsters get up to on a day like this? When it’s so miserable out.”
Francesca gave her legs a tentative flex and stretched her wrists, abandoning the now-too-hard tune once again, and John looked at her mournfully. She would have very much liked a walk outside too. But she didn’t say it. Instead, she gave Eloise a soft, but reproving look. “You’re not a spinster.”
“No. I’m resigned to my life of spinsterdom! I just hope I don’t turn into some Scottish witch while I’m up here in my wing of the castle. You may turn the corner one day, dear sister, and see me cursing some Thane of Fife,” Eloise raised a brow towards Michaela. “Have you no plots to marry, Michaela? Surely you don’t lack for suitors.”
Fran drew her hands back from the piano keys again. She felt a spike of some terrible feeling, equilibrium disturbed. She turned to look at Michaela.
John gave a coy grin from his seat. “She does not.”
“Men must come breaking down the door of Kilmartin castle. I’d imagine.” Said Eloise.
No Michaela would not lack for suitors, Fran thought idly. Not with her cherubic features. Her warmly, rounded face, plush lips, and deep, brown eyes. She was gorgeous. It wasn’t a matter of debate. Michaela Stirling was gorgeous.
And she could have anyone she wanted.
“I’d have no talent for it.”
“You’ve never tried such a thing,” said Francesca, speaking up, suddenly, “How could you possibly know you have no talent for it?”
“Francesca.” John said now, still smiling, but a little wary. He was looking at his cousin with a little more concern now. Michaela leaned back against the fireplace, folding her arms against her chest. Michaela looked back. Rescue me. Her face seemed to say.
Fran withered a bit. Embarrassed now. Surprised at her own boldness.
But Michaela was still watching her from across the parlor. “Am I to become your project, then?”
"N-no." Francesca stammered back. "No. Of course not."
Michaela smiled. Eloise snickered.
“Finally, one of us turns into our mother—and it’s Francesca!” Eloise’s smile went wide. “But perhaps she has a point. We should introduce you to our brother, Benedict!”
Fran turned to her, “Benedict!?!”
“I didn’t say she had to marry him. Just dance with him once or twice. Maybe you have something in common! Other than good bone structure and good looks.”
Michaela broke out into a smile. Francesca did not.
“That’s absurd.” Said Fran.
“I don’t know about that,” said Eloise, proud of her own designs now, “I think they’d make a rather dazzling couple.”
“As wonderful as becoming a Bridgerton sounds,” Michaela started, “Some people aren’t meant for marriage. Or for love, for that matter.”
Francesca pursed her lips but she didn’t argue the matter any further.
She didn’t ask where Michaela had been when the woman came home at odd hours, in various states of dress.
She didn’t ask about her drinking or her hangovers, either.
Nor did John.
On bad weather days like this one, Eloise would come take room tea with her, or they’d sneak down to the kitchens for pudding or cranachan to eat in front of large library glass windows, or some days Eloise would tuck off with a bottle of wine to ‘split with Michaela,’ and invite Francesca to join them, but Fran would always decline.
“For someone who comports themselves so civilly in every respect of society, I find it vastly intriguing the offense you seem to take in your—cousin-in-law? Is that what Michaela would be? I suppose that sounds appropriate. You know, we get along splendidly, she and I—yet, it never seems to be just the three of us.”
Francesca slowed her steps, cheeks growing red. She gave the ground in front of them a long, shy look in favor of meeting her sister’s probing eye.
“Is this shyness or hate?” Eloise asked. Gently.
“We’re strangers. That’s all.”
That wasn’t all. Not really.
But Francesca wasn’t sure how to explain it. When Michaela was around she felt…felt…suffocated.
Distracted. When Benedict had hosted a museum gala and stuffed the house from floor to ceiling with grand art and paintings, it had become quite clear to Francesca that some things could not just be looked at once and walked away from. Some things in life were compelling. So elegantly constructed…should you reach out towards it they would close around your fingers like a steel trap.
She frowned and shook her head.
“Well, I’d like to see my sister I love and my new friend get along. Mostly, for selfish purposes.”
“I’ll make an effort.” She promised.
Eloise reached out and gave her hand a warm squeeze. “It’s up to you.”
Francesca did not make an effort.
The next time she bumped into Michaela, she went back, rushing in the opposite direction of the hallway, her stuttered steps, turning into a sprint. And then she was tripping back into the room she had just came, gathering herself from behind the safety of those walls.
Fran straightened up and took a breath and walked away. And Michaela didn’t bring it up at their household’s nightly dinner.
Francesca understood. She was the lady of the house. She should navigate it as she pleased.
Yet.
It was crowded. Too crowded. Too many dangerous things. Dangerously, confusingly, disorienting things.
But it was also lonely.
Strange and lonely.
And when Michaela ran into Fran and John sitting together, reading quietly in the study, she turned right around on her heel to go.
“Cousin,” said John, quicker than she could run.
“Ah!” Michaela turned around and folded her hands in front of her. She gave them both a courteous smile. “I mean not to intrude upon two honeymooners…”
“Michaela,” John said, meaningfully now. “You could never intrude.”
Michaela’s eyes flickered to Fran’s.
Fran swallowed.
“Why don’t you come and let me bore you with details of my paper?” He lifted his newspaper up to show her an example of the article. Michaela said nothing. She drew from the door to the other side of the room, admiring the fixtures on the wall instead.
Francesca gave a deep breath, and reached over to touch John’s arm. “Perhaps, I should go.”
“No!” Michaela spoke quickly then, glancing back behind her at them. “It is I who should go. I have much to do here.”
“You do?” Francesca asked, her eyes lighting with interest. “What?”
“Oh, you know…”
“I’d like to know.” Fran answered. Her cheeks reddening.
How bold. Why so bold? She moved a lock of hair back into place. Embarrassed again by her own discourtesy.
“Well, if the Countess of Kilmartin demands it…”
Fran let out a puff of air. “I do not demand it! I simply ask—”
“Ladies, please.”
They both quieted.
Michaela leaned back against the bannister.
“May I take leave, cousin?”
John nodded. When Michaela left, Fran could see his brow still creased with worry. He didn’t return to his newspaper. He thought upon the subject for a long time then covered her hand in his own.
“Frannie, it took a bit of trust for your mother to…accept me. But now she is approving, but sometimes it might just take…”
“Time.” Answered Francesca.
“My cousin is very dear to me. Michaela is more like a sister than just a cousin. I…you both mean the world to me. I would like the two most important people in my life to get along, but I know it may take—”
Fran already knew.
“Time.”
He nodded. He gave her a soft smile.
“Whatever disinclination you may feel towards each other, I do hope…one day the aversion passes. We’re family now. All of us.”
Fran nodded slowly.
“I hope you can learn to be friends one day.”
“I will try.”
But it was the last thing she wanted to do.
The next time she had seen Michaela, she had been practicing at the pianoforte. When the piece was done, and she had turned around…
There she was. Eyes locked onto hers, in wonder.
“Sorry, sorry.”
Fran looked down at her fingers on the keys then forced herself to look back up, her heart thumping faster in her chest. She closed the fallboard.
“Please, do not let me stop you.” The woman said. Looking unsure of herself since…maybe the first time Francesca had met her. Fran blinked and opened up the board again, peering down at her keys.
“Francesca…”
Fran looked up.
“I must apologize. I have been a terrible host, and I beg that my injury might be forgiven."
Fran shook her head. "There is nothing to apologize for..."
"We must be more than strangers to one another…I have been foolish. I have kept you distant when we should be like sisters.”
Fran pulled at the thread of her skirt.
Michaela took a few steps closer, braving the space between them. Francesca watched her, holding her back too straight. Her hands too carefully folded in her lap. Her legs too still.
She watched as the woman sat across from her, closer than she’d ever been since that night they had met at the dance and felt suddenly petulant. About being ‘sisters.’ I have many sisters, she nearly said. Far too many sisters.
Michaela lifted her arm out.
Francesca looked at that hand. A truce. An open palm like an olive branch.
She reached over and carefully put her hand in hers.
She regretted it.
The little flutters in her stomach twisted up. Her face grew hot. Michaela interlaced their fingers. Her hands so close to Fran’s wrist she was afraid her pulse would jump out at her, racing beneath the skin.
“Would you like to go for a walk around the gardens?”
Francesca nodded, quickly. She jumped up.
Michaela stood up with her. She smoothed down her dress. She looked at Fran with a long, open gaze. Those brown eyes sparkling. A warm smile on her lips. Fran’s pulse jumped again.
“Yes, please.” Said Fran.
And she hurried towards the door. Not looking to see if her cousin-in-law had followed.