Chapter Text
“. . . I wouldn’t call it a jolly good time, but it’s not as bad as that. There are women, after all, and where there are women, I’m bound to make merry.”
Written from the pen of Michaela Stirling to her cousin John, the Earl of Kilmartin, posted from their family castle in the Scottish Highlands. In every life, there is a turning point. A moment so tremendous, so sharp and clear that one feels as if one’s been hit in the chest, all the breath knocked out, and one knows, absolutely knows without the merest hint of a shadow of a doubt that one’s life will never be the same.
For Michaela Stirling, that moment came the first time she laid eyes on Francesca Bridgerton.
After a lifetime of chasing women in dark corners, of smiling slyly as they chased her, of allowing herself to be caught and then turning the tables until she was the victor, of caressing and kissing and making love to them behind their husbands’ back but never actually allowing her heart to become engaged, she took one look at Francesca Bridgerton and fell so fast and so hard into love it was a wonder she managed to remain standing.
Unfortunately for Michaela, however, Francesca’s surname was to remain Bridgerton a mere thirty-six hours longer; the occasion of their meeting was, lamentably, a supper celebrating her imminent wedding to Michaela’s cousin.
Life was ironic that way, Michaela liked to think in her more polite moods. In her less polite moods, she used a different adjective entirely. And her moods, since falling in love with her first cousin’s wife, were not often polite. Oh, she hid it well. It wouldn’t do to be visibly out of sorts. Then some annoyingly perceptive soul might actually take notice, and — God forbid — inquire as to her welfare.
And while Michaela Stirling held a not unsubstantiated pride in her ability to dissemble and deceive (she had, after all, seduced more women than anyone cared to count, and had somehow managed to do it all without ever once being exposed — Well, the sodding truth of it was that she’d never been in love before, and if ever there was a time that a woman might lose her ability to maintain a façade under direct questioning, this was probably it.
And so she laughed, and was very merry, and she continued to seduce women behind closed doors, trying not to notice that she tended to close her eyes when she had them in bed, and she stopped going to church entirely, because there seemed no point now in even contemplating prayer for her soul.
Besides, the parish church near Kilmartin dated to 1432, and the crumbling stones certainly couldn’t take a direct strike of lightning. And if God ever wanted to smite a sinner, he couldn’t do better than Michaela Stirling.
Michaela Stirling, Sinner.
She could see it on a calling card. She’d have had it printed up, even — hers was just that sort of black sense of humour — if she weren’t convinced, it would kill her mother on the spot.
Spinster she might be, but there was no need to torture the woman who’d borne her.
Funny how she’d never seen all those other women as a sin.
She still didn’t.
They’d all been willing, of course; you couldn’t seduce an unwilling woman, at least not if you took seduction at the true sense of the word and took care not to confuse it with rape. They had to actually want it, and if they didn’t — if Michaela sensed even a hint of unease, she turned and walked away. Her passions were never so out of control that she couldn’t manage a quick and decisive departure.
And besides, she’d never seduced a virgin, and she’d never slept with a married woman. Oh, very well, one ought to remain true to oneself, even while living a lie — she’d slept with married women, plenty of them, but only the ones whose husbands were rotters. A woman had to have rules of conduct, after all.
But this . . . This was beyond the pale. Entirely unacceptable.
This was the one transgression (and she’d had many) that was finally going to blacken her soul, or at the very least — and this was assuming she maintained the strength never to act upon her desires — make it a rather deep shade of charcoal. Because this... this—
She coveted her cousin’s wife.
She coveted John’s wife.
John.
John, who, damn it all, was more of a brother to her than one of her own could ever have been. John, whose family had taken her in when father had died. John, whose father had raised her and taught her to be a woman with the ambition of a man. John, with whom—
Ah, bloody hell. Did she really need to do this to herself?
She could spend a sennight cataloguing all the reasons why she was going straight to hell for having chosen John’s wife with whom to fall in love. And none of it was ever going to change one simple fact.
She couldn’t have her.
She could never have Francesca Bridgerton Stirling.
But, she thought with a snort as she slouched into the sofa and propped her ankle over her knee, watching them across their drawing room, laughing and smiling, and making nauseating eyes at each other, she could have another drink.
“I think I will,” she announced, downing it in one gulp.
“What was that, Michaela?” John asked, his hearing superb, as always, damn it.
Michaela produced an excellent forgery of a smile and lifted her glass aloft.
“Just thirsty,” she said, maintaining the perfect picture of a bon vivant.
They were at Kilmartin House, in London, as opposed to Kilmartin (no House, no Castle, just Kilmartin), up in Scotland, where the family had grown up, or the other Kilmartin House, in Edinburgh — not a creative soul among her forebearers, Michaela had often reflected; there was also a Kilmartin Cottage (if one could call twenty-two rooms a cottage), Kilmartin Abbey, and, of course, Kilmartin Hall.
Michaela had no idea why no one had thought to offer their surname to one of the residences; “Stirling House” had a perfectly respectful ring to it, in her opinion.
She supposed that the ambitious—and unimaginative—Stirlings of old had been so damned besotted with their newfound earldom that they couldn’t think to put any other name on anything.
She snorted into her glass of whisky.
It was a wonder she didn’t drink Kilmartin Tea and sit on a Kilmartin-style chair. In fact, she probably would be doing just that if her grandmother had found a way to manage it without actually taking the family into trade. The old martinet had been so proud one would have thought she’d been born a Stirling rather than simply married into the name. As far as she’d been concerned, the Countess of Kilmartin (herself) was just as important as any loftier personage, and she’d more than once sniffed her displeasure when being led into supper after an upstart marchioness or duchess.
The Queen, Michaela thought dispassionately. She supposed her grandmother had knelt before the Queen, but she certainly couldn’t imagine her offering deference to any other female.
She would have approved of Francesca Bridgerton. Grandmother Stirling would surely have turned her nose up upon learning that Francesca’s father was a mere viscount, but the Bridgertons were an old and immensely popular — and, when the fancy took them, powerful — family. Plus, Francesca’s spine was straight, and her manner was proud, and her sense of humour was sly and subversive. If she’d been fifty years older and not nearly so attractive, she would have made quite a fine companion for Grandmother Stirling.
And now Francesca was the Countess of Kilmartin, married to Michaela’s cousin John, who was one year her junior but in the Stirling household always treated with the deference due the elder; he was the heir, after all. Their fathers had been twins, but John’s had entered the world seven minutes before Michaela’s.
The most critical seven minutes in Michaela Stirling’s life, and she hadn’t even been alive for them.
“What shall we do for our second anniversary?” Francesca asked as she crossed the room and seated herself at the pianoforte.
“Whatever you want,” John answered.
Francesca turned to Michaela, her eyes startlingly blue, even in the candlelight. Or maybe it was just that she knew how blue they were. She seemed to dream in blue these days.
Francesca blue, the colour ought to be called.
“Michaela?” she said, her tone indicating that the word was a repetition.
“Sorry,” Michaela said, offering her the lopsided smile she so frequently affixed to her face. No one ever took her seriously when she smiled like that, which was, of course, the point. “Wasn’t listening.”
“Do you have any ideas?” she asked.
“For what?”
“For our anniversary.”
If Francesca had an arrow, she couldn’t have jammed it into Michaela’s heart any harder. But she just shrugged, since she was appallingly good at faking it.
“It’s not my anniversary,” she reminded her.
“I know,” she said.
She wasn’t looking at her, but she sounded like she rolled her eyes. But she hadn’t. Michaela was certain of that. She’d come to know Francesca agonisingly well in the past two years, and she knew she didn’t roll her eyes.
When she was feeling sarcastic, or ironic, or sly, it was all there in her voice and the curious tip of her mouth. She didn’t need to roll her eyes. She just looked at you with that direct stare, her lips curving ever so slightly, and—
Michaela swallowed reflexively, then covered it with a sip of her drink. It didn’t really speak well of her that he’d spent so much time analysing the curve of her cousin’s wife’s lips.
“I assure you,” Francesca continued, idly trailing the pads of her fingertips along the surface of the piano keys without actually pressing any into sound, “I’m well aware of whom I married.”
“I’m sure you are,” she muttered.
“Beg your pardon?”
“Continue,” Michaela said.
Her lips pursed in a peevish crease. Micheala had seen her with that expression quite frequently, usually in her dealings with her brothers. “I was asking your advice,” she said, “because you are so often merry.”
“I’m so often merry?” she repeated, knowing that was how the world saw her — they called her the Merry Spinster, after all— but hating the word on her lips. It made her feel frivolous, without substance.
And then she felt even worse, because it was probably true.
“You disagree?” she inquired.
“Of course not,” Michaela murmured. “I’m simply unused to being asked for advice regarding anniversary celebrations, as it is clear I have no talent for marriage.”
“That’s not clear at all,” she said.
“You’re in for it now,” John said with a chuckle, settling back in his seat with that morning’s copy of the Times.
“You have never tried marriage,” Francesca pointed out.
“How could you possibly know you have no talent for it?”
Michaela managed a smirk. “I think it’s fairly clear to all who know me. Besides, what need have I? I have no title, no property—”
“You have property,” John interjected, demonstrating that he was still listening from behind his newspaper.
“Only a small bit of property,” Michaela corrected, “which I am more than happy to leave for your children, since it was given to me by John, anyway.”
Francesca looked at her husband, and Michaela knew exactly what she was thinking — that John had given her the property because John wanted her to feel she had something, a purpose, really.
Michaela had been at loose ends since the war several years back. And although John had never said so, Michaela knew that he felt guilty for having not fought for England on the Continent, for remaining behind while Scotland faced danger alone. But John had been heir to an earldom. He had a duty to marry, be fruitful and multiply. No one had expected him to go to war.
Michaela had often wondered if the property — a rather lovely and comfortable manor house with twenty acres — was John’s form of penance. And she rather suspected that Francesca wondered the same. But she would never ask.
Francesca understood men with remarkable clarity — probably from growing up with all of those brothers. Francesca knew exactly what not to ask a man. Which always left Michaela a little worried. Because what if Francesca's knowledge went beyond men? She thought she hid her feelings well, but what if she knew?
She would never speak of it, of course, never even allude to it. She rather suspected they were, ironically, alike that way; if Francesca suspected she was in love with her, she would never alter her manner in any way.
“I think you should go to Kilmartin,” Michaela said abruptly.
“To Scotland?” Francesca asked, pressing gently against B-flat on the pianoforte. “With the season so close?”
Michaela stood, suddenly rather eager to depart. She shouldn’t have come over in any case.
“Why not?” she asked, her tone careless. “You love it there. John loves it there. It’s not such a long journey if your carriage is well sprung.”
“Will you come?” John asked.
“I think not,” Michaela said sharply. As if she cared to witness their anniversary celebration. Truly, all it would do was remind her of what she could never have, which would then remind her of the guilt. Or amplify it. Reminders were rather unnecessary; she lived with it every day.
Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Cousin’s Wife.
Moses must have forgotten to write that one down.
“I have much to do here,” Michael said.
“You do?” Francesca asked, her eyes lighting with interest. “What?”
“Oh, you know,” she said wryly, “all those things I have to do to prepare for a life of dissolution and aimlessness.”
Francesca stood.
Oh God, she stood, and she was walking to her.
This was the worst — when she actually touched her. She laid her hand on Michaela’s upper arm. Michaela did her best not to flinch.
“I wish you wouldn’t speak that way,” she said.
Michaela looked past her shoulder to John, who had raised his newspaper just high enough so that he could pretend he wasn’t listening.
“Am I to become your project, then?” Michaela asked, a bit unkindly.
She drew back. “We care about you.”
We. We. Not I, not John. We.
A subtle reminder that they were a unit. John and Francesca. Lord and Lady Kilmartin. She hadn’t meant it that way, of course, but it was how Michaela heard it all the same.
“And I care for you,” Michaela said, waiting for a plague of locusts to stream through the room.
“I know,” she said, oblivious to her distress. “I could never ask for a better cousin. But I want you to be happy.”
Michaela glanced over at John, giving him a look that clearly said: Save me.
John gave up his pretence of reading and set the paper down. “Francesca, darling, Michaela is a grown woman. She’ll find her happiness as she sees fit. When she sees fit.”
Francesca’s lips pursed, and Michaela could tell she was irritated. She didn’t like to be thwarted, and she certainly did not enjoy admitting that she might not be able to arrange her world — and the people inhabiting it — to her satisfaction.
“I should introduce you to my sister,” she said.
Good God.
“I’ve met your sister,” Michaela said quickly. “All of them, in fact. Even the one still in leading strings.”
“She’s not in—” She cut herself off, grinding her teeth together. “I grant you that Hyacinth is not like you, but Eloise is—”
Michaela smirked, “I’m not marrying Eloise.” In the room, it was lighthearted humour, but a slight stammer betrayed her.
“Please, Michaela.” Francesca wasn’t in the mood for comedy. “Obviously, not to marry.”
“Francesca,” John said. His voice was gentle, but his meaning was clear. Stop.
Michaela could have kissed him for his interference. John, of course, just thought that he was saving his girl-kissing cousin from needless feminine nagging; there was no way he could know the truth — that Michaela was trying to compute the level of guilt one might feel for being in love with one’s cousin’s wife and one’s wife’s sister.
Was Francesca trying to kill her?
It was at times like this that Michaela was thankful John knew about her shameful romancing habits. In fact, it was John who encouraged her to pursue the desire of women in their youth — she joined him in offering little girls their age flowers and daisy chains. In response, John would get a giggle, and Michaela would get a very platonic, very un-romantic hug.
“We should all go for a walk,” Francesca said suddenly.
Michaela glanced out the window. All vestiges of daylight had left the sky. “Isn’t it a bit late for that?” she asked.
“Not with servants as escorts,” she said, “and besides, the streets in Mayfair are well lit. We shall be perfectly safe.”
She turned to her husband. “What do you say, darling?”
“I have an appointment this evening,” John said, consulting his pocket watch, “but you should go with Michaela.” More proof that John had no idea of Michaela’s feelings. “The two of you always have such a fine time together,” John added.
Francesca turned to Michaela and smiled, worming her way another inch into her heart.
“Will you?” she asked. “I’m desperate for a spot of fresh air now that the rain has stopped. And I’ve been feeling rather odd all day, I must say.”
“Of course,” Michaela replied, since they all knew that she had no appointments. Hers was a life of carefully cultivated dissolution.
Besides, she couldn’t resist her. She knew she should stay away, knew she should never allow herself to be alone in Francesca’s company. She would never act upon her desires, but truly, did she really need to subject herself to this sort of agony? She’d just end the day alone in bed, wracked by guilt and desire, in almost equal measures.
But when she smiled at her, she couldn’t say no. And Michaela certainly wasn’t strong enough to deny herself an hour in her presence. Because her presence was all she was ever going to get. There would never be a kiss, never a meaningful glance or touch. There would be no whispered words of love, no moans of passion.
All she could have was her smile and her company, and pathetic idiot that Michaela was, she was willing to take it.
“Just give me a moment,” she said, pausing in the doorway. “I need to get my coat.”
“Be quick about it,” John said. “It’s already after seven.”
“I’ll be safe enough with Michaela to protect me,” she said with a jaunty smile, “but don’t worry, I’ll be quick.” And then she offered her husband a wicked smile. “I’m always quick.”
Michaela averted her eyes as her cousin actually blushed. Lord above, but she truly did not want to know the meaning behind I’ll be quick. Unfortunately, it could have been any number of things, all of them deliciously sexual. And she was likely to spend the next hour cataloguing them all in her mind, imagining them being done to her.
She smoothed at her dress. Maybe she could get out of this jaunt with Francesca. Maybe she could go home and draw a cold bath. Or better yet, find herself a willing woman with long chestnut hair. And if Michaela was lucky, blue eyes as well.
“I’m sorry about that,” John said, once Francesca had left. Michaela’s eyes flew to her face. Surely John would never mention Francesca’s innuendo. “Her nagging,” John added. “You’re young enough. You don’t need to be... married... yet.”
“You’re younger than I,” Michaela said, mostly to be contrary.
“Yes, but I met Francesca.” John shrugged helplessly, as if that ought to be explanation enough. And of course it was.
“I don’t mind her nagging,” Michaela said.
“Of course you do. I can see it in your eyes.”
And that was the problem. John could see it in her eyes. There was no one in the world who knew Michaela better. If something was bothering her, John would always be able to tell. The miracle was that John didn’t realise why Michaela was distressed.
“I will tell her to leave you alone,” John said, “although you should know that she only nags because she loves you.” Michaela managed a tight smile. She certainly couldn’t manage words. “Thank you for taking her for a walk,” John said, standing up. “She’s been a bit peckish all day, with the rain. Said she’s been feeling uncommonly closed in.”
“When is your appointment?” Michaela asked.
“Nine o’clock,” John replied as they walked out into the hall. “I’m meeting Lord Liverpool.”
“Parliamentary business?”
John nodded. He took his position in the House of Lords very seriously. Michaela had often wondered if she’d have approached the duty with as much gravity had she been born a lord or even better: a man.
Probably not. But then again, it didn’t much matter, did it? Michaela watched as John rubbed his left temple.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You look a little…” She didn’t finish the sentence, since she wasn’t quite certain how John looked. Not right. That was all she knew.
And Michaela knew John. Inside and out. Probably better than Francesca did.
“Devil of a headache,” John muttered. “I’ve had it all day.”
“Do you want me to call for some laudanum?”
John shook his head. “Hate the stuff. It makes my mind fuzzy, and I need my wits about me for the meeting with Liverpool.”
Michaela nodded. “You look pale,” she said. Why? She didn’t know. It wasn’t as if it was going to change John’s mind about the laudanum.
“Do I?” John asked, wincing as he pressed his fingers harder into the skin of his temple. “I think I’ll lie down, if you don’t mind. I don’t need to leave for an hour.”
“Right,” Michaela murmured.
“Do you want me to have someone wake you?” John shook his head. “I’ll ask my valet myself.”
Just then, Francesca descended the stairs, wrapped in a long velvet cloak of midnight blue.
“Good evening, all,” she said, clearly basking in the undivided attention. But as she reached the bottom, she frowned. “Is something wrong, darling?” she asked John.
“Just a headache,” John said. “It’s nothing.”
“You should lie down,” she said.
John managed a smile. “I’d just finished telling Michaela that I was planning to do that very thing. I’ll have Simons wake me in time for my meeting.”
“With Lord Liverpool?” Francesca queried.
“Yes. At nine.”
“Is it about the Six Acts?”
John nodded. “Yes, and the return to the gold standard. I told you about it at breakfast, if you recall.”
“Make sure you—” She stopped, smiling as she shook her head. “Well, you know how I feel.”
John smiled, then leaned down and dropped a tender kiss on her lips. “I always know how you feel, darling.” Michaela pretended to look the other way.
“Not always,” she said, her voice warm and teasing.
“Always when it matters,” John said. “Well, that is true,” she admitted. “So much for my attempts to be a lady of mystery.” He kissed her again. “I prefer you as an open book, myself.”
Michaela cleared her throat. This shouldn’t be so difficult; it wasn’t as if John and Francesca were acting any differently than was normal. They were, as so much of society had commented, like two peas in a pod, marvellously in accord, and splendidly in love.
“It’s growing late,” Francesca said. “I should go if I want that spot of fresh air.” John nodded, closing his eyes for a moment. “Are you sure you’re well?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “Just a headache.”
Francesca looped her hand into the crook of Michaela’s elbow. “Be sure to take some laudanum when you return from your meeting,” she said over her shoulder, once they’d reached the door, “since I know you won’t do it now.”
John nodded, his expression weary, then headed up the stairs.
Poor John,” Francesca said, stepping outside into the brisk night air. She took a deep inhale, then let out a sigh. “I detest headaches. They always seem to lay me especially low.”
“Never get them myself,” Michaela admitted, leading her down the steps to the pavement.
“Really?” She looked up at her, one corner of her mouth quirking in that achingly familiar way.
“Lucky you.”
It almost made Michaela laugh. Here she was, strolling through the night with the woman she loved. Lucky her.