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Michaela had started to feel unwell during the carriage ride back to the estate.
It was nerves, she assured herself, for did she not have much to be nervous about? She'd fled after the celebration for John’s life, fled when she'd promised Francesca she would stay. Only, how could she have? When everywhere she looked she saw either her dead cousin or his softly grieving widow, whose very tears were diamonds in wide, sad eyes and who had looked at Michaela like she were salvation, like her presence alone could bolster them both if they just kept close enough.
It was too much pressure. Too much responsibility on top of everything else John's death had heaped upon her.
She didn't know how to be someone's rock when she'd only just lost her own.
So, she'd gone. Fled. Into the night and into the arms of woman after woman, who didn't look at her with salvation or sadness in their eyes and who had no expectations of her besides pleasure.
Now, she was back, or near to it, and a chill, sharper than any Scottish wind was wracking its way through her. Michaela shivered for the upteenth time and wrapped her shawl tighter around herself. There was sunlight pouring through the window and warmth should have followed it, but she still felt cold seeping into her bones.
It was only the headache creeping in at her temples that frightened her. John's visage flashed behind her eyelids, his image only growing stronger the tighter she squeezed her eyes shut.
"I have had headaches before," she murmured to herself. "I will be fine. Of course, I'll be fine."
"Ye alright, Miss?" The driver tossed behind him.
"Fine!" She raised her voice, cheery, bright. "How long to the estate?"
"'nother hour or two, I'd say. If you're hoping for some time to nap, you've got plenty ahead of you."
She chirped her thanks and leaned back in her seat; grateful she was alone in the carriage. She'd never been one for chaperones and they'd never been ones to keep up with her, either. The scoldings she'd received for her evasion! As if it were her fault some middle-aged matron couldn't keep pace.
Michaela chuckled to herself and then sobered up as another chill wracked her, as her headache pinged at her temple and flashed across her vision like a strike of too-close lightning. She shut her eyes. If she calmed her breathing, if she kept her eyes shut, she'd awaken right as rain.
And right at home.
~~~
Francesca frowned at the puzzle piece in her hand.
The puzzle she'd been working on for the past week typically helped keep her sane, but as afternoon slipped into evening, it was doing the opposite. Something was wrong. Missing. Which shouldn't have been possible considering how meticulously they were all kept and organized. Had she misplaced it one night? Had she mixed one up with another? All she knew was that the latest piece in her hand, the 5th of the remaining 7 that she'd tried, did not match the gaping hole staring back at her.
"Dowager Countess," a soft, muted voice came from the doorway, "dinner is served in the dining hall."
Francesca was learning better how to hide her flinch every time. Dowager. It was such a sad word, one she'd thought had belonged to the unlucky, like her mother, or the elderly. Now it was hers. It sat upon like a crown, or a weight; smothering her with every utterance.
"The dining hall," she repeated. "Can it not be served elsewhere? There is only I here."
Sure, she wasn't always alone. Eloise visited often and Kate, Anthony, and Edmund had even visited her a few times to assure, "with their own eyes", Kate had said, that she was well.
And she was. Well, that is.
Well, and utterly lonely.
"You've a guest, Lady Francesca," said Mary patiently. She stood with her hands folded at her sides, a soft smile on her face as she slipped into the more familiar title and cadence.
Francesca placed the puzzle piece carefully on the table. "A guest?"
No one had written her concerning their arrival. John's mother was in Mayfair, as was the majority of her own family. She had few friends, and none who would make the trip out to Scotland. The only person she could think of was—
Her heart stuttered to a stop as her mind cut itself off mid-thought.
There was no point in hoping nor in longing. Francesca smoothed down her skirts. She had a guest to greet, surprise or not.
"Please," she said, "show me to them."
"Frannie!" Michaela exclaimed. "Have you missed me?"
Francesca paused in the doorway, blinking once, twice. Her breath caught and she exhaled shakily. She urged her lips to part, her tongue to move. Neither obeyed her.
Missed you? she wanted to say, angrily, as angrily as she could. Have I missed you? Terribly. Endlessly. But I wouldn't have needed to if you'd stayed like you'd promised you would.
"No words of greeting? Not even a hug for your c—"
Michaela cut herself off even as she threw her arms wide. Cousin was no longer a relationship they shared; the person that had connected them had gone. The connection hadn't, of course, but cousin didn't, wouldn't, had never, covered it.
Breathless anger flooded Francesca but it faded just as quickly the longer she laid her eyes on Michaela. And she was doing so with greed, eyes flitting over her every inch of her, covered and bared. Beneath the extravagant cheeriness and the breadth of her smile, there was something tight by the corner of eyes that Francesca noted, even in her muddled state of confusion and damning, fiery hope. Her chest rose and fell laboriously and there was perspiration on her brow and decolletage and the barest of visible flushes in her cheeks and spread across her chest.
Francesca let herself take a step forward. "Are you well?"
Michaela's grin widened. "Better now that—"
She broke off with a violent shiver. She swallowed hard. When her smile returned it was wan and exhausted. "Forgive me," she said, softer than Francesca had heard her. "I'm afraid the journey has rather worn me out more than anticipated." She chuckled dryly. "Typically my stamina is much more improved than this."
Francesca ignored her words. She focused only on the drowsiness of Lady Kilmartin's movements, the glassiness of her eyes. It was easiest that way, to compartmentalize: Michaela and her illness and their titles and what existed between them and that inescapable, horrid marriage market that clamored to see them both back on it.
Carefully, she took Michaela's gloved hand. It burned. She refused to yank hers back. "You're ill."
"Merely tired."
"Merely ill," Francesca insisted. "Mary," she called behind her, "please send word for the doctor and ask him to make haste. Lady Kilmartin is quite unwell after her journey."
She didn't wait for affirmation from either Mary nor Michaela herself before she whisked away the latter to her bedroom. She hadn't been inside, before nor after Michaela had fled, and there was only the briefest hesitation before she crossed the threshold and urged Michaela to lie down.
"How improper of you, Countess," Michalea murmured, the title teasing and soft on her lips. "Getting me into your bed."
"Your bed."
"Will you unlace my corset yet? Get me down to my chemise and—"
"Please," the word escaped Francesca like a gasp, her face flaming. "Just...lie down."
Michaela's grin bloomed and quickly faded. She pressed a hand to the bed to steady herself before lowing herself to a seat. "Perhaps I will," she whispered. "The travel, you understand."
"Of course," Francesca said. She busied herself with removing Mickie's shoes, eyes on the fashionable buckles instead of her ankles, her calves. "Of course."
~~~
Heat and pain and relief.
Cold wetness against her wrists, her forehead.
Pain and chills and pain and pain and pain.
It was never alone. Ghosts came with the pain, too. The faintest wafts of perfume she remembered Frannie wearing, the familiar feel of a tattered ear from a ratty stuffed toy her mother lamented that she still had. Soft, silky hair tickled her face but whenever she reached out to try and grab it, her arms wouldn't move.
Michaela
She heard her name on the wind; she felt a fire blazing near enough to make her sweat. She turned her head—fire that way. She turned it again but the voice was no closer in either direction.
Michaela
Again, her name. Again, no voice, no body, to match. But she recognized the tenor. She knew the affection woven into it, the emphasis, the softness, that no one put into it. No one...except her.
Mickie
"Francesa." A feverish murmur. A longing. God, a continuous longing. "Where are you?"
Right where I've always been.
Michaela tried to open her eyes but all she could do was squint and all she got were flashes of light and fire and a face she hoped was real.
"I didn't mean to leave you. I wanted...I wanted to stay."
Why didn't you?
Tears burned as they leaked from her eyes, running painfully down feverish cheeks.
"I wanted to," she repeated. "I did, I promise."
She shuddered at the word, reminded of another promise, one she'd made and promptly broken.
"I was scared, Frannie. Do you understand how perfect you are? And what you and John had was? And I...I am simply here...non-permament. Flighty. Free from responsibility." Another violent shiver; a whimper of pain. "Not now. Not now."
A hand on her brow. Her cheek. A ghost. How she wished it were real. She leaned in anyway, her mind supplying the softness, the hint of perfume.
"We cannot...we could never have..."
Michaela inhaled, deeply, shakily. Her voice a whisper. "You were never meant for me. It's why I fled. I wanted you too much. The wanting was too much."
She squeezed her eyes tight and then opened them. Firelight, blazing, but a silhouette too. Familiar. Breathtaking. She reached a hand toward what had to be a mirage, a manifestation of her feverish mind. "Too painful."
The manifestation took her hand. Pressed it to its own cheek. Warmth. A different warmth than the fire. And the perfume and—
"Frannie," she croaked. "You're here."
"You're here," Francesca corrected softly. "You're here now. With me." She turned her head faintly and Michaela felt the soft brush of lips against her palm.
"With you," Michaela agreed.
Her vision blurred before it cleared, haze giving way to a face she knew, one she'd turned over and over in her mind for as long as she'd been gone.
Francesca.
Her cheeks were as flushed as Michaela's felt, though much more visible, and her brows were furrowed with worry, the eyes beneath them bright with something she felt stirring in her own chest. Now, Michaela could see her lips against her palm. The shiver she gave had nothing to do with her fever.
Francesca pressed a kiss to the underside of her wrist. Another and another, until Michaela pressed her hand back to her cheek, their eyes locking as she pulled her closer until only breath separated them.
~~~
Francesca's breath trembled in her chest but she didn't look away and she didn't step back. Her lips still tingled from being pressed against Michaela's bare skin and the shock of her own actions was quickly being wiped away by the desire for more, to act even further.
Her eyes flickered between Mickie's, searching, asking. An answer was given instantly and just as quickly, Francesca's lips were on hers. They were hot and full and where she herself was full of fire and wanting, Michaela's pace was slow, like she was savoring rather than languishing in potential illness. Francesca stepped closer to the bed and, when that wasn't enough, rearranged her skirts so that she kneeled upon it, bending closer to Michaela's prone form so they didn't have to separate for even a moment.
"Michaela," she murmured. Her lips already felt swollen. Her face, she was sure, was on fire. "Shall I stop?"
Micki's response landed on her lips, not an inch of space between them. "To do so would kill me, I fear."
Francesca started to pull away and Micki laughed, burning hands coming up to wrap around her waist before she could. "I speak of wanting, sweet girl, not death." She pulled back to peck her lips gently. "Forgive me. Forgive me for it all."
Francesca answered with another surge forward, another deep, consuming kiss. It hadn't been like this with John, every kiss, every touch, a fire, a maelstrom. The sensation of someone else's tongue in her mouth was new, even, but she found she was fascinated by it, in love with it. She gave it an experimental tug and shivered in delight when Micki moaned, low and guttural, deep into her own mouth.
The ruffle of fabric and the crackling of the fire was louder than their soft moans and it was only by chance that Francesca heard the faint knocking at the door. She bolted backwards off the bed, catching herself and pulling herself up taut in the chair she'd been sitting in for hours before Michaela had returned to herself, fever finally breaking after endless rags of cold water and murmured prayers.
The door creaked open, the low whine of the hinges a type of dread.
Francesca adjusted her skirts. Michaela shut her eyes against both the firelight and her blooming disappointment.
Mary's voice cut through it all. Soft—and nearly apologetic. "Doctor's here for Lady Kilmartin."
Francesca nodded. "Yes. Of course." She stood, smoothing her skirts, ignoring the urge to run her thumb over her lips. "I should away, then."
Quicker than Francesca knew she could move, Michaela's fingers reached out to grab her wrist. "Stay." Her voice was hoarse, though with illness or desire, it was hard to parse. "My mind is clouded; I shan't remember a thing the good doctor tells me without you."
It might have been proper to refuse. Good etiquette stated Michaela couldn't insist twice. But etiquette and Michaela were hardly acquaintances and, besides, Francesca had no true desire to stray from her side.
"Alright," she said, sinking carefully back into her seat as their eyes locked. "I will stay."
"Many such thanks will I show you when I am well," Michaela said, eyes twinkling in the orange glow of the fire. "Many."
Francesca dropped her eyes but her slowly blooming smile lingered. "You shall have to stay yourself, then."
"Yes," Michaela said. Gone was the teasing. There was only earnestness. Only promise. "I shall stay."