Archive of Our Own

The glen was wet that morning, though it was not quite raining. A fine spray hung in the air, too slight to fall with any purpose, settling instead upon the windows and the grass and whatever else was foolish enough to remain outdoors for long. Beyond Kilmartin the hills appeared and disappeared beneath it, their upper slopes occasionally lost altogether, though it was July and the light had been gathering behind the clouds since well before Francesca woke, which she had done at six and, despite several determined attempts, had not managed to undo.

The room was not hers, a fact that surprised her each time she opened her eyes, first because the curtains were wrong, then because the bed faced the opposite direction, and finally because Michaela was not in it. The last of these was entirely Francesca’s doing, for she had decided three days earlier, and with a conviction she had been unable satisfactorily to explain, that they ought not spend the night before the handfasting together. Michaela had pointed out that they had been sharing a bed for months, and that much of what they had done in it could hardly be described as sleeping, facts of which Francesca was perfectly aware; but there were, she insisted, traditions to be observed, though when Michaela asked which traditions these might be, Francesca had found it neither necessary nor convenient to elaborate.

And so she had removed herself for the night to the wing of the castle presently surrendered to the Bridgertons, where she had slept remarkably poorly in an excellent bed while Michaela, she presumed with some resentment, had enjoyed the entirety of theirs. It was not nerves, Francesca had decided, since nerves suggested doubt and she had none; it was simply difficult to sleep through a day one had already imagined too many times, and she had imagined this one in every possible arrangement of Scottish weather, in sunshine because Violet insisted upon optimism, in rain because Michaela insisted upon Scotland, and beneath a clear blue sky which neither of them genuinely expected.

The castle had begun to stir around her some time ago, first with footsteps beyond her door and the distant opening and closing of others, then with Gregory and Hyacinth conducting an argument somewhere below with sufficient volume to prove that even Kilmartin’s stone walls were no match for a pair of Bridgertons. When the first notes of the pipes carried across the glen, the hounds in the kennels answered with a chorus of barking, followed almost immediately by Anthony’s voice from somewhere beneath her window demanding that somebody quiet them, as though two nights beneath Kilmartin’s roof had already conferred upon him responsibility for the castle and everything living within its grounds, and Francesca, despite herself, smiled into the pillow.

She remained there a little longer, listening as the pipes continued somewhere beyond the castle, distant enough that the sound softened as it travelled across the wet grounds and occasionally disappeared altogether beneath the wind. She had known there would be a piper, of course, although she was reasonably certain Michaela had not; Janet had been unusually pleased with herself when the arrangements were discussed, which Francesca had learnt was generally an indication that some detail had been deliberately withheld from her niece.

Francesca took a deep breath, knowing that Violet would appear soon enough with Eloise and Hyacinth in tow and every intention of involving herself in Francesca’s preparations whether her assistance was required or not, and found herself wondering whether Helen would be doing much the same with Michaela. She suspected not, for Michaela possessed a particular talent for making interference seem considerably more trouble than it was worth, although Francesca doubted even she would manage to escape her mother entirely on a morning such as this.

A maid arrived before any of them did, carrying a tray of tea, toast and preserves which she set beside the window before wishing Francesca happiness with such unaffected warmth that Francesca found herself unexpectedly touched by it. The tea had been prepared exactly as she liked it, one of those small comforts she had ceased to notice in the years since Kilmartin had become home, and she took it with her to the window, where she discovered that the spray had begun to lift from the glen, not disappearing exactly, since Scottish weather rarely surrendered so completely, but thinning enough that the hills beyond the castle had started to return, dark green beneath the low cloud, their outlines becoming clearer by degrees.

Beside the teapot lay a letter which Francesca had not noticed at first, addressed in Daphne’s hand and delivered to Kilmartin the previous evening. She had known for weeks that Daphne and Simon would be unable to come, although her sister had written often enough in the days leading up to the handfasting that Francesca had scarcely been permitted to feel her absence, and the note waiting now contained precisely the mixture of affection and sisterly instruction she might have expected had Daphne been there in person. She wished them both every happiness, made Francesca promise to write as soon as the family had departed and, in a final line squeezed beneath the others, asked that Michaela be told she was officially forgiven for giving the rest of them another reason to travel all the way to Scotland.

Francesca smiled as she folded it again, making a note to show it to Michaela later, although she suspected Michaela would object principally to the suggestion that Scotland required an excuse.

She drank her tea and attempted the toast, managing half before appetite deserted her altogether, which was unfortunate considering how little she had eaten the previous evening and how perfectly well she knew that tea alone was insufficient preparation for several hours spent standing, speaking, being stared at and, if Violet had anything to do with it, being embraced by every person currently occupying the castle. Francesca considered the remaining toast with the grim determination of someone facing a task of considerable importance and discovered that determination did very little to improve her appetite.

It had not felt like this when she married John, a thought which came without guilt now, although there had been a time when even noticing the difference would have seemed a kind of betrayal. She had loved him; of that Francesca had never entertained the slightest doubt, and neither grief nor the strange fact of having survived it had altered what their marriage had been. Still, the morning of that wedding had carried a different sort of anticipation, gentler perhaps, a happiness that had seemed to settle around her rather than disturb anything within her, while this morning something restless had lodged beneath her ribs with such insistence that she could scarcely finish a piece of toast.

Perhaps the difference belonged as much to Francesca as it did to either love. She had been very young when she married John, certain that happiness, once recognised, ought to feel peaceful, and she knew now that it could; she had had that with him, in mornings when happiness had been nothing more remarkable than waking to find him still asleep beside her, and evenings when it had consisted of reading in the same room without speaking for an hour. What she felt for Michaela did not diminish any of that merely by refusing to resemble it, though this particular happiness seemed determined to make itself known, sitting beneath her ribs and in the tips of her fingers, making her listen for a woman on the opposite side of a castle and look repeatedly towards a door through which she knew Michaela would not come. It had kept her awake in a strange bed of her own choosing and had now, apparently, rendered her incapable of eating breakfast, so Francesca gave the remaining half of her toast one last accusing look and reached instead for her tea.

The door opened without a knock, and when Francesca looked up expecting her mother, she discovered that Violet had brought reinforcements, entering already dressed and carrying the unmistakable air of someone who had been awake for hours despite having no practical reason to be, with Eloise immediately behind her and Hyacinth bringing up the rear.

“Why are there three of you?”

“Good morning to you too,” Eloise said, closing the door behind them.

“I was invited,” Hyacinth announced, at which Francesca looked at Violet and Violet looked at Hyacinth with an expression that answered the question before she spoke.

“She was not.”

“I knew you would need me.”

“For what?”

Hyacinth considered this with greater seriousness than the question deserved. “Moral support.”

“I have Eloise.”

“Better moral support.”

“I should send you away for that alone,” Eloise said, and Francesca laughed, feeling something beneath her ribs loosen at last.

Violet had already begun looking around the room, though with considerably less interest in its contents than in Francesca herself, and her gaze eventually settled upon the breakfast tray. She regarded the half-eaten toast, then her daughter, but, to her credit, offered no lecture; instead she crossed the room, picked up the abandoned half and placed it back into Francesca’s hand with such quiet finality that Francesca knew resistance would only prolong the matter.

“Mama.”

“You may continue.”

“I am not hungry.”

“I did not ask.”

Eloise made a sound suspiciously like a laugh, while Francesca looked down at the toast and then back at her mother, whose attention had already moved elsewhere.

“Where is the dress?”

“Over there.”

All three Bridgerton women turned towards the chaise beneath the windows, where the gown lay in the grey morning light, its pale pink silk almost colourless beneath the fine cream gauze that would fall from beneath Francesca’s bust to the floor. Thistles and smaller Highland flowers had been embroidered upward from the hem, their stems climbing irregularly through the fabric, with tiny seed pearls worked among them, not enough to make the gown glitter but enough to catch the light when it moved, and for once even Hyacinth seemed to find herself without an immediate observation.

Violet approached it slowly, and the softness of her expression made Francesca suddenly regret having looked at her at all.

“Oh, Francesca.”

“It is only a dress,” Francesca said, taking another bite of toast as all three women turned towards her with varying degrees of disbelief. “I see we disagree.”

Hyacinth, who had apparently required those few moments of silence merely to gather sufficient enthusiasm, crossed the room and bent over the gown with the reverence she usually reserved for jewellery she had not been permitted to touch.

“The thistles have pearls.”

“I am aware.”

“And there are flowers beneath them.”

“I chose those too.”

“May I touch it?”

Francesca looked at her youngest sister, surprised by the question. “Yes.”

That was all the permission Hyacinth required. Her fingers went immediately to the embroidery, following one of the stems upward before stopping at a cluster of seed pearls, and when she looked back at Francesca there was such undisguised delight on her face that Francesca could not help smiling.

“I love weddings,” Hyacinth said.

Francesca looked at her through the mirror. “It is not a wedding.”

Hyacinth sighed. “I know.”

“It is a handfasting. Michaela explained this to all of you.”

“At considerable length,” Eloise said.

“She explained it beautifully,” Violet corrected, although the slight movement at the corner of her mouth suggested that considerable length was not entirely inaccurate.

“And I listened,” Hyacinth said. “There will be a cord, your hands will be bound together, you will make promises to one another, and according to Michaela the old custom lasts a year and a day, although neither of you intends to pay the slightest attention to that part.”

Francesca looked at her with some surprise. “You did listen.”

“I told you I did.”

“Then why do you keep calling it a wedding?”

Hyacinth seemed genuinely puzzled by the question. “Because you are marrying Michaela.”

“I am being handfasted to Michaela.”

“Yes.”

“They are not the same thing.”

“I know they are not the same thing.”

“Then why...?”

“Francesca,” Eloise interrupted, with the patience of someone who had already heard some version of this argument several times since arriving at Kilmartin, “Hyacinth understands perfectly well what a handfasting is. Unfortunately, she is also Hyacinth.”

“I am excited,” Hyacinth said, as though this explained everything. “There are two brides, which means twice as many pretty dresses.”

“That,” Eloise said, “is an extraordinarily poor basis upon which to reorganise society.”

“I did not say anything about society.”

“No, but given another five minutes I suspect you will.”

Violet laughed softly as she lifted the gown from the chaise. “We know what today is, darling.”

There was enough tenderness in her mother’s voice to make Francesca abandon the argument, though not enough to convince her she had been wrong.

“Handfasting,” she muttered.

“Yes,” Violet said. “Your handfasting.”

Hyacinth nodded eagerly. “With two brides.”

Francesca closed her eyes as Hyacinth added, with undiminished satisfaction, “And twice as many pretty dresses.”

“I heard you the first time.”

The room soon acquired the particular disorder that seemed inevitably to accompany four Bridgerton women attempting to accomplish anything together. Hyacinth developed several strong opinions about Francesca’s hair, Violet rejected most of them before they had been fully expressed, and Eloise, having sensibly declined to participate in either side of the dispute, remained beside Francesca while the pins and ribbons accumulated across the dressing table.

It was Eloise who offered her hands when Francesca stepped into the pale pink silk, allowing her sister to use them for balance as Violet and Hyacinth carefully settled the gown around her. The cream gauze came afterwards, light enough that Francesca could feel the movement of air through it, and as Violet arranged it over the silk beneath, the embroidered thistles seemed to acquire colour from the pink showing faintly through them. Hyacinth immediately dropped to her knees to straighten a section of the hem that did not require straightening, while Eloise continued holding Francesca’s hands even after there was no practical reason for her to do so.

Francesca glanced down at their joined fingers. “You may let go now.”

“I know.”

Eloise did not, and Francesca, who understood her sister well enough to know that asking again would only embarrass them both, turned her hands instead and held Eloise’s properly.

Of all her siblings, Eloise had always been the least persuaded by marriage, regarding it as an arrangement in which a woman was expected to surrender rather a great deal in exchange for the privilege of being congratulated upon it. Francesca had never considered this entirely unreasonable, even if her own experience with John had taught her that marriage could contain far more than the institution itself promised, yet she had noticed something different in Eloise since the handfasting had been decided upon, not a sudden conversion to romance, which would have been alarming, but a curiosity where there had once been only dismissal.

Perhaps it was because there was so little to surrender here. No man waited beyond the castle to receive Francesca from one family into another; no law would give Michaela possession of her property or authority over her life, and no register would transform the promises they made that morning into something more legitimate than they had been the night before. There was only the choice itself, made freely in front of the people they loved, and perhaps Eloise was beginning to suspect that marriage, or something resembling it closely enough to satisfy Hyacinth, need not always mean becoming less oneself in order to belong to someone else.

“You really are happy,” Eloise said, so quietly that Violet and Hyacinth, still occupied with the fall of the gauze, seemed not to hear it.

“Very.”

Eloise nodded, looking down briefly at their hands. “Good.”

It was such an Eloise answer that Francesca smiled, squeezing her fingers once before letting them go, and neither of them said anything more about it.

Hyacinth, meanwhile, had risen and was staring at Francesca with both hands clasped beneath her chin.

“Oh, Frannie.”

“Do not start.”

“I have not said anything.”

“You are about to.”

“I was only going to say that Michaela is going to lose her mind.”

“Hyacinth,” Violet said, though without much conviction.

“She is.”

Eloise stepped back to examine Francesca. “For once, I am inclined to agree with her.”

“That makes two of us,” Violet said.

Francesca turned towards her mother and immediately wished she had not, because Violet was looking at her in precisely the manner Francesca had hoped to avoid. There were no tears yet, but they were sufficiently near that Francesca knew any attempt to acknowledge them would bring about disaster.

“Mama.”

“I am perfectly well.”

“I did not ask.”

“No, but you were going to.”

Francesca smiled. “I wonder where I learnt that.”

Violet ignored this and came closer, adjusting a fold at Francesca’s shoulder that needed no adjustment at all. Her fingers lingered there before moving to Francesca’s cheek, and for a moment she seemed about to say something before thinking better of it, which Francesca was grateful for; there were too many things that might have been said between them, too many memories belonging to another morning and another dress, and she did not want John made absent by refusing to think of him any more than she wanted him summoned into every happy moment that followed his death. Violet seemed to understand this, as she so often understood the things Francesca could not bear to explain, and merely kissed her forehead before stepping away.

“There,” Violet said. “Now look at yourself.”

Francesca turned towards the mirror and found a woman dressed in pink, though the cream gauze softened the colour until it seemed almost to exist beneath the surface rather than upon it, appearing more strongly wherever the fabric moved. The embroidered thistles climbed from the hem in uneven clusters, their tiny pearls catching what little light had begun to reach the room as the mist outside continued to lift, and there was something unmistakably Scottish about the gown without anything in it resembling costume.

She had been a bride before and remembered the strange experience of recognising herself in a mirror while simultaneously seeing the role everyone else was about to recognise her by: John’s bride, then his wife, then his widow, each word arriving with expectations she had not entirely understood until she was already living inside them. No such word would be bestowed upon her today, for nothing would change in law when she and Michaela bound their hands together, and tomorrow morning the world beyond Kilmartin would know no more about what had happened than it knew today, yet looking at herself with Eloise beside her, Hyacinth practically vibrating with excitement and Violet reflected just over her shoulder, Francesca did not feel the absence of anything. She knew what she was about to become, even if nobody else had thought to make a proper word for it.

Outside, the pipes carried across the glen again, and Hyacinth immediately moved towards the window.

“They are still playing.”

“They will be playing for some time,” Violet said.

Hyacinth turned back towards Francesca, positively radiant. “It is nearly time.”

Francesca looked once more at her reflection, at the pearls scattered among the thistles and the faint pink beneath the cream, and felt the restlessness beneath her ribs return with such force that she laughed quietly at herself.

“Yes,” she said. “I suppose it is.”

Helen had been fastening Michaela into her dress for several minutes before Michaela realised that the hounds had begun barking again. The pipes had been playing beyond the castle for nearly an hour, courtesy of Janet, who had apparently decided that no Scottish handfasting could begin without ensuring that everyone within several miles knew about it, and the dogs had spent much of the morning alternating between objecting to the noise and attempting, with considerable enthusiasm, to join it.

Michaela had managed to ignore them until a familiar voice rose from somewhere beneath the window, carrying enough authority to be heard above dogs and pipes alike.

She turned her head. “Is he commanding my dogs?”

Helen did not need to ask whom she meant. “It would appear so.”

“He has been here two days.”

Helen’s mouth twitched, though she continued fastening the back of Michaela’s gown without comment, and Michaela was left to contemplate the extraordinary ease with which Anthony Bridgerton had apparently assumed jurisdiction over the Kilmartin kennels. She might have gone to the window to investigate had her mother not anticipated the attempt and placed a firm hand against her shoulder.

“Your dogs will survive Viscount Bridgerton.”

Michaela was not entirely convinced, but allowed herself to be turned back around, deciding that Anthony’s interference had at least provided a useful distraction from the fact that she was presently being dressed for her own handfasting.

That thought had become increasingly difficult to examine directly. She had been perfectly capable of discussing the practical arrangements when the day itself remained comfortably distant, and had offered opinions about the food, stronger opinions about the number of Bridgertons Francesca intended to accommodate at Kilmartin, and several objections to the piper before Janet informed her that the matter had already been settled. The ceremony itself had been similarly easy to contemplate when it existed several weeks away; it was considerably less so now that her mother was fastening her into an apricot gown while Francesca was somewhere on the opposite side of the castle being dressed in pink.

The colour had been Francesca’s idea, or nearly so. Michaela had rejected several darker fabrics before Francesca had placed a hand upon the apricot silk and looked at her in that particular way which suggested a decision had already been made while allowing Michaela the courtesy of believing otherwise. In the weak morning light it appeared almost cream until she moved, when warmth emerged through the folds, and although Michaela had initially accused Francesca of attempting to dress her like a summer fruit, she had secretly liked it from the beginning.

Helen finished with the last fastening and came around to look at her daughter properly, her expression lingering just long enough for Michaela to recognise the danger of sentiment.

“Do not.”

“I have not said anything.”

“You were about to.”

Helen smiled rather than deny it, and Michaela looked away before either of them could make matters worse, finding her attention caught instead by her own hands and, inevitably, by the promises they would shortly be bound together to make.

The year and a day had seemed charming when she first explained the custom to Francesca, or at least the version of it she had grown up hearing, in which two people might bind themselves to one another for that length of time and afterwards choose whether they wished to remain so. Francesca had liked the idea immediately, which should perhaps have been predictable in a woman who could find romance in anything provided it came with sufficient history, and Michaela had teased her about the convenient opportunity for escape until Francesca, without looking up from her book, informed her that she would be perfectly welcome to take it.

Michaela had laughed then because the possibility of either of them treating its conclusion as an escape had seemed sufficiently absurd to be amusing, but standing there now, with the pipes carrying intermittently through the castle and her mother adjusting the sleeve of the gown she would wear while making those promises, a year seemed an astonishingly brief measure to place against something she had no intention of allowing to end.

She crossed towards the window while Helen gathered the discarded ribbons behind her, watching through the glass as the fine rain that had covered the glen began to thin and the hills beyond Kilmartin emerged gradually beneath the cloud. The grounds remained mostly quiet, as they had intended, save for the occasional servant passing between the castle and the place they had chosen for the ceremony and the piper who could be heard more often than he could be seen. There would be no procession of neighbouring carriages that morning, no acquaintances arriving out of curiosity or obligation, and no one whose presence required either woman to pretend that what they were about to do meant something other than precisely what it did. Everyone they wanted there was already beneath Kilmartin’s roof, which had been surrendered for several days to the Bridgertons, the Stirlings and the handful of others who had been trusted with the truth of the occasion.

Michaela preferred it that way. She had spent enough of her life understanding what could safely be said and before whom, and had no desire to carry any of that caution into the promises she would make to Francesca. If the world beyond Kilmartin required them to be cousins when convenient, companions when necessary and something altogether less definable whenever either word invited too many questions, then it could remain beyond Kilmartin for the morning; inside its grounds there was no one before whom Michaela intended to make herself smaller.

When she admitted to Helen that the year and a day had begun to seem rather less charming now that she was about to promise it, her mother joined her at the window and slipped a hand into hers. It was not Francesca she doubted, nor even herself, but faced with so many ways for the world to diminish what existed between them simply by refusing to name it, Michaela found herself suddenly greedy for permanence, for something belonging entirely to the two of them which might continue for as long as they chose to keep choosing it.

“A year and a day is not an ending unless you make it one,” Helen said.

Michaela knew this, of course, but there was something reassuring in hearing her mother say it while holding her hand beside the window, the glen opening quietly beyond them and everyone who mattered already gathered safely within the castle walls, and after considering the matter with perhaps more seriousness than any piece of folklore deserved, she decided that the solution was really very simple.

“Then I shall take another.”

“I thought you might.”

“And another after that.”

“I suspect Francesca will have organised them in advance.”

Michaela laughed, because the possibility was so plausible that she could almost imagine Francesca producing a list of dates already calculated for the next decade, and the image loosened whatever anxiety had attached itself to the old story. If a year and a day was what tradition offered them, they could take it, and when it was finished they could take another, and another after that, until repetition rendered the original limitation meaningless.

Helen smoothed one final crease from Michaela’s shoulder and stepped back, apparently satisfied with her work, while Michaela glanced towards the mirror without making any effort to cross the room and inspect herself. She had seen the gown before and knew perfectly well what she looked like; somewhere across the castle, however, Francesca was wearing pale pink beneath cream gauze, with pearls worked among embroidered thistles, and the realisation that Michaela had not yet seen her in it made her suddenly uninterested in her own reflection.

Another burst of barking rose from somewhere below, and Michaela looked towards the window with immediate suspicion.

“He is upsetting my dogs.”

“I am sure they will recover.”

“He should leave them alone.”

Helen’s mouth twitched as she took her gently by the arm and turned her towards the door, reminding her that Francesca was waiting somewhere beyond it, which proved considerably more effective than any argument concerning the welfare of the hounds. Michaela allowed herself to be led from the room, leaving Anthony and the dogs to settle their differences without her while her thoughts moved instead across the castle to the woman she had very foolishly agreed not to see until the ceremony.

By the time Violet came to collect her, the pipes had changed. Francesca could not have said precisely what was different, only that the music which had drifted in and out of the castle all morning now seemed to be drawing everyone towards the same place, and the corridors through which she and her mother walked were quieter than they had been an hour earlier, her siblings and nearly everyone else having already gone outside and left behind the peculiar stillness of a house temporarily emptied of the people who had spent the better part of the week filling it with noise.

Violet had offered her arm before they left the room and Francesca had taken it without comment, though by the time they reached the stairs she had become aware that her mother was holding her rather more tightly than the descent required. She said nothing about this either, partly because she suspected Violet would deny it and partly because Francesca had begun to appreciate the pressure of her arm beneath her own.

They descended slowly, obliged by the length of Francesca’s gown rather than any desire to prolong the journey, while the sound of the pipes grew clearer with every turn of the staircase. Through the tall windows on the landing she could see that the fine rain had finally stopped, leaving the stone dark and the summer grass wet enough to shine beneath a sky which remained resolutely grey, though the mist had lifted almost entirely from the glen.

“I had hoped for sunshine,” Violet said.

Francesca smiled. “Michaela told you not to.”

“She said I ought not expect it. That is different.”

“You have been in Scotland for less than a week and already you are arguing with the weather.”

“I merely think July ought to make some effort.”

Francesca laughed, and Violet’s hand tightened briefly over hers before they continued down.

It was only when they reached the entrance hall that Francesca realised her mother had stopped walking. She turned, expecting some forgotten detail concerning her hair or dress, and instead found Violet simply looking at her, with an expression so unguarded that Francesca felt something in her own composure begin to give way. There had been another morning on which Violet had stood beside her before a ceremony, and neither woman needed to say so; John belonged to that memory too completely to require summoning into this one, and Francesca could remember the young woman she had been and the man she had loved without asking either memory to account for the happiness waiting beyond the doors now.

Violet reached up and touched her cheek.

“My darling girl.”

“Mama,” Francesca said, softly enough that it was less a warning than a plea not to make either of them cry before they had even reached the door.

Violet understood, as she usually did, and whatever else she might have said became instead a kiss pressed briefly to Francesca’s temple before she offered her arm again.

They had agreed from the beginning that Violet would walk beside her, rather than give her away. The distinction had mattered to Francesca in a way she had initially struggled to explain, until Michaela, listening to her become increasingly irritated by her own inability to do so, had simply observed that neither of them belonged to anyone else in the first place. That had settled the matter rather neatly, and Helen would walk with Michaela for precisely the same reason: not to transfer either woman from one family to another, but because there were some distances one ought not have to cross alone.

The doors ahead of them stood open, admitting the cool smell of wet grass and the clearer sound of the pipes, and beyond them Francesca could see the first sweep of the glen, intensely green after the morning rain.

Violet glanced at her. “Ready?”

Francesca had been asked the question several times already that morning and had answered it each time without difficulty, but now, with the open doors before her and everyone she loved waiting somewhere beyond them, she understood that all the previous answers had been theoretical. She drew her hand more securely through her mother’s arm and answered yes before they stepped outside together.

The air was cooler than Francesca had expected and still carried the dampness left behind by the morning rain, so that for the first few steps she was conscious chiefly of the wet grass beneath her shoes and Violet’s arm linked securely through her own. The pipes were still playing somewhere ahead, though more softly now, the melody no longer travelling across the glen so much as settling into it, while even the hounds, having spent the morning objecting loudly to the festivities and to Anthony’s attempts at silencing them, appeared at last to have accepted that nothing further was required of them.

Everyone they had asked to share the morning with them was already gathered there, close enough that Francesca could see the smiles appearing as she approached: Anthony beside Kate, looking considerably more composed than a man who had spent part of the morning interfering with someone else’s dogs had any right to look; Benedict and Sophie together nearby; Eloise and Hyacinth nearer the front, the latter so visibly delighted that maintaining silence had clearly become an act of considerable self-control; Gregory craning slightly to see past his sisters; and Penelope with one hand tucked into Colin’s arm. Janet made no attempt whatsoever to conceal her satisfaction with the proceedings, Elizabeth Ashworth remained among the Stirlings with the easy warmth of someone who required no explanation for why she was there, and Lady Danbury stood a little apart from the families, one hand resting upon the head of her cane and an expression of immense satisfaction upon her face, as though the entire affair had proceeded according to a plan she had devised herself and was graciously permitting everyone else to believe otherwise.

It was such a small gathering that Francesca could take them all in at once, not an audience assembled to observe them but the people who had already known, in one way or another, what she and Michaela were to each other long before either woman had decided to bind a cord around their hands and say it aloud.

The pipes began to quiet as she and Violet reached the edge of the gathering, their final notes thinning gradually into the damp air until Francesca became aware of all the smaller sounds they had concealed: the movement of grass beneath the wind, the faint rustling of skirts and the shifting of feet upon wet ground, even the distant hounds finally fallen silent after the morning’s excitement. The change drew everyone’s attention towards the path on the opposite side, and when Francesca followed their gaze she saw Helen approaching with Michaela on her arm.

For weeks Francesca had known precisely what Michaela would wear, having seen the fabric before it was cut, argued shamelessly in favour of the colour and watched Michaela pretend to dislike it while knowing from the beginning that she would eventually win, yet none of this proved remotely useful in preparing her for the sight of Michaela actually wearing it. The apricot silk seemed warmer against the grey-green of the glen than it ever had indoors, pale where the cloud caught it and almost golden where the fabric moved, and Michaela, who had spent several weeks insisting that Francesca was making far too much of a dress, was smiling at her as though she had momentarily forgotten that anyone else was there.

Francesca suspected she was doing much the same, because the distance between them, though not great, seemed suddenly to contain everything she had been trying not to think about since waking: Helen beside Michaela and Violet beside herself, their families gathered around them, the cord waiting to bind their hands and the promises which had seemed so easy to discuss when they belonged to some future morning rather than this one. She had expected that seeing Michaela might make the restlessness beneath her ribs worse, yet instead it disappeared so completely that Francesca almost laughed at herself, for there was nothing unfamiliar waiting for her at the end of Violet’s arm, nothing she had not already chosen a hundred times in smaller and less ceremonial ways, but simply Michaela coming towards her through the wet grass.

Something in Michaela’s expression softened as they drew nearer, her broad smile becoming smaller and more private, and Francesca had the peculiar impression that whatever recognition had just settled inside her had somehow passed between them without requiring speech. By the time they reached one another, neither seemed particularly aware of the gathering beyond them, though Violet’s hand covering Francesca’s brought her attention briefly back to where they stood.

Violet turned first to Francesca, taking both her hands and looking at her for a moment before smoothing a thumb across her cheek and kissing her there, while Helen did the same with Michaela, the tenderness of the gestures making both daughters suspiciously unwilling to look too closely at their mothers’ faces. Neither woman stepped away when she had finished, however, and Helen instead crossed the small space between them to take Francesca’s hands between her own, holding them with a familiarity that required no explanation before leaning forward to kiss her cheek. Francesca had been part of Helen’s family in one form or another for years, first through John and then through all that remained after him, and there was something unexpectedly moving in the ease with which Helen now acknowledged that the shape of that family might change without requiring Francesca to leave it.

Violet had meanwhile turned to Michaela, whose expression briefly acquired the wary amusement of someone who knew enough about Violet Bridgerton to recognise that resistance to affection was unlikely to succeed. Violet took her hands just as Helen had taken Francesca’s, her expression softening as she said something too quiet for anyone beyond the four of them to hear, at which Michaela’s amusement gave way to something more vulnerable before Violet kissed her cheek and released her. Only then did the two mothers turn towards one another, exchanging a brief kiss upon the cheek and a smile which seemed to contain both affection and relief, as though after all the months of preparation there was nothing left for either of them to arrange, advise upon or quietly worry over.

There had never been any question of either woman giving her daughter away, and the gestures required no such meaning to make them ceremonial. Their mothers had walked beside them because Francesca and Michaela had wanted them there, had kissed their own daughters and then each other’s because the family gathered around them was no longer divisible quite so neatly into Bridgertons and Stirlings, and when Violet and Helen finally stepped back together, they left Francesca and Michaela facing one another with the last small distance between them theirs alone to close.

Michaela’s gaze travelled briefly over Francesca’s gown, catching upon the embroidered flowers before returning to her face with an expression of such transparent satisfaction that Francesca knew immediately what she had noticed.

“You wore the thistles.”

“You knew I would.”

“I hoped.”

“And you wore the apricot.”

“I was given very little choice.”

“You had every choice.”

“Yes,” Michaela said, the corner of her mouth lifting. “That was the problem.”

Francesca laughed softly, the sound remaining almost entirely between them despite the family gathered only a few feet away, although Hyacinth’s delighted expression suggested that privacy had become a relative concept. Michaela seemed to notice it too and smiled before extending her hand into the small space remaining between them, palm turned upwards in an invitation so ordinary that Francesca was struck by how often she had accepted the same gesture before: stepping from a carriage, crossing uneven ground, rising from a chair, finding Michaela’s hand beneath a table simply because it was there.

This time everyone they loved was watching, and yet the choice itself felt no different. Francesca placed her hand into Michaela’s, Michaela’s fingers closed around hers, and somewhere behind them the last lingering note of the pipes disappeared completely into the glen.

Before they turned fully towards the handfasting, Francesca allowed herself one glance at the people gathered around them and discovered, with some alarm, that composure had become a scarce resource. Violet and Helen had retreated to their places wearing expressions which suggested that neither intended to be the first to cry, while Janet, beside Helen, seemed to have made no such promise to herself and was already blinking rather more frequently than the weather required; Kate had slipped her hand through Anthony’s arm, Penelope was smiling with suspiciously bright eyes, and even Eloise was biting her lip in an effort to keep her expression under control.

The sight of her sister nearly undid Francesca more thoroughly than either of their mothers had managed. She and Eloise had spent most of their lives being mistaken, at least from a distance, for twins, born scarcely a year apart and raised so closely together that childhood had often seemed to happen to both of them at once, yet in matters of love they had grown into almost perfect opposites. To see Eloise now struggling against tears at the sight of Francesca choosing it again made something tighten unexpectedly in her throat, although when Eloise caught her looking she immediately pressed her lips together more firmly, as though daring her sister to acknowledge what she had seen. Francesca knew better than to embarrass her and merely smiled, receiving in return the smallest shake of Eloise’s head and an expression which made it perfectly clear that any accusation of sentimentality would later be denied.

Nearby, Benedict had turned towards Sophie, and whatever passed between them required no words, only the slight tightening of Sophie’s fingers around his and the tenderness with which Benedict looked at her before returning his attention to the brides. Their obstacles had not been the same, but Francesca remembered enough of the uncertainty surrounding their beginning to understand why this particular morning might mean something different to them, for Benedict and Sophie too had once chosen one another before knowing whether the world intended to make room for the choice, and had built a life inside the space they made for themselves.

Lady Danbury alone appeared entirely composed, although when Francesca happened to catch her eye she received a small inclination of the head, followed by the faintest smile, and somehow that nearly proved as dangerous to her composure as Eloise’s trembling lip had been.

Michaela’s thumb moved once across Francesca’s hand, drawing her attention back to where their fingers remained intertwined, and when Francesca looked at her she found that Michaela had been surveying the increasingly emotional gathering with an expression caught somewhere between affection and alarm.

“If they all start crying,” Michaela murmured, “I am leaving.”

“You would have to take me with you.”

Michaela glanced sideways at her, the solemnity of the occasion apparently doing nothing to suppress the mischief that appeared almost immediately in her eyes. “When I say run, we run.”

Francesca bit back a laugh, though not quite successfully, and tightened her fingers around Michaela’s as they turned together towards the handfasting, surrounded by mothers attempting not to cry, siblings pretending not to notice that they were doing much the same, and the small collection of people who had loved them well enough to come to Kilmartin and witness a promise the rest of the world might never know they had made.

There was no one waiting to marry them, which had been the point from the beginning, and when Francesca and Michaela turned towards one another there was nothing before them but the promises they had chosen to make and, resting upon the small table nearby, the cord Violet, Helen and Janet had woven for them.

It was not perfectly made, although Francesca suspected this was one of the reasons she loved it. The three women had worked upon it over several afternoons, weaving together lengths of wool and ribbon in colours chosen from both families, and if one looked closely there were places where the weave tightened unexpectedly and others where one colour appeared rather more enthusiastically than its neighbour. Violet had suggested more than once that they ought to begin again; Janet had refused on principle, while Helen maintained that anything intended to represent a union between two families ought to contain some evidence of the difficulty involved.

Michaela reached for it without announcement, and the movement quieted whatever small sounds remained among the people gathered around them. She ran the cord once through her fingers before looking at Francesca, and there was something in the familiarity of the gesture, in Michaela simply picking up an object made for them by the women who loved them and preparing to bind their hands with it herself, that made the absence of any priest or officiant feel not like an omission but the very purpose of what they were doing.

“Give me your hand.”

Francesca did, and Michaela laid her palm against her own before passing the cord around their joined wrists. They had practised the binding once, several evenings earlier, and badly enough that Michaela had suggested the tradition had perhaps survived only because generations of Scots had been too embarrassed to admit they could not manage the knot, but there was none of that clumsiness now. Francesca took the loose end when it came to her and passed it back around Michaela’s wrist, their movements slow without having been agreed upon as such, until the woven colours crossed between them and every turn of the cord brought their hands a little closer together.

By the time they had finished, their palms were pressed together and their fingers had found one another beneath the binding, the cord loose enough that either might have slipped free had she wished to and secure enough that neither could move without the other feeling it. Francesca looked down at the colours Violet, Helen and Janet had woven together and then at Michaela, who was already watching her with the peculiar mixture of amusement and feeling she seemed determined to maintain for as long as possible.

“Well,” Michaela murmured, “there goes the running plan.”

“You devised a remarkably poor escape.”

“I had expected more time.”

“You have had months.”

Michaela smiled, though it faded into something softer as her thumb moved once against Francesca’s hand beneath the cord, and when she spoke again her voice carried easily enough through the quiet glen that there was no need for anyone to ask the gathering to listen.

“I have loved you for more than a twelvemonth and a day,” she said, “and this morning I discovered that a twelvemonth and a day is a very small thing.”

Francesca smiled, though the pressure of Michaela’s fingers beneath the cord and the sudden brightness in her eyes made it considerably more difficult to pretend that the words had not already affected her.

“When I first told you of the custom, I thought the beauty of it was in the choice it offered, because a year might pass and then another choice could be made, freely and without obligation to the one that came before it. I still believe that, although I find myself rather less interested in the freedom to leave now that the possibility is no longer theoretical.” Michaela’s mouth curved slightly as she looked down at their bound hands. “So I will promise you what tradition asks of me, Francesca, but I reserve the right to be unreasonable about its limits. I will have you for a twelvemonth and a day, and when the twelvemonth has passed and the day with it, I will ask you for another.”

Her gaze returned to Francesca’s, and whatever humour had allowed her to begin seemed to give way gradually to something more vulnerable, though her voice remained steady as she continued.

“I will choose you when we are here, where everyone knows precisely what you are to me, and when we are elsewhere and must allow them to believe whatever is easiest. I will choose you in all the ordinary days for which no promises are usually made, when there are no ribbons around our hands and no family gathered to witness us, because I have loved you in those days already and they are the ones I want most. I cannot promise you that I shall always be sensible, nor agreeable, and I think it would be dishonest to suggest that I shall suddenly acquire patience merely because I am handfasted, but I can promise that there will be no version of my life in which loving you becomes something I regret having chosen.”

Francesca’s fingers tightened around hers, and Michaela gave the smallest answering pressure before finishing with a smile that was already threatening to become something less composed.

“I have loved you for more than a twelvemonth and a day, and I shall love you for more than the next. After that, I suppose you shall have to ask me again.”

“I thought you were asking me.”

“I have done most of the talking.”

“You usually do.”

The laughter around them was quiet but immediate, and Michaela’s eyes narrowed with enough affection to make Francesca’s own smile impossible to suppress. She had spent days considering what she might say when her turn came, writing sentences and abandoning them, attempting to find words sufficiently important for the occasion without making them so important that she could no longer recognise herself inside them, yet now that Michaela stood before her with their hands bound together, Francesca found that answering her seemed much simpler than making a speech.

“I will ask you again,” she said, “although I think it rather unfair that I must wait an entire year.”

“You may ask sooner.”

“Then I shall ask now.”

Something in Michaela’s expression changed, and Francesca felt the answering movement of her fingers beneath the cord.

“I have loved you for more than a twelvemonth and a day, Michaela, and I will have you for the next, and for the day after it, since I know you will insist upon accuracy. When that time is finished I will choose you again, and when the next is finished I will do the same, until we have repeated ourselves so often that the counting becomes ridiculous and even you agree that we may stop.”

“That may take some time.”

“I have accounted for that.”

Michaela laughed, though the sound caught slightly at the end, and Francesca kept her attention upon her, upon the brightness in her eyes and the small movements of the cord whenever either of them tightened her hands.

“I cannot promise that I know what every one of those years will look like,” Francesca continued, “because I have learnt better than to believe a life can be arranged simply by wanting it to remain as it is, but I can promise that I will not spend them waiting for happiness to be taken from me merely because I have lost it once before. You have never asked me to love you as though nothing came before you, and I will not ask you to live beneath the shadow of what did. I loved John, and I love you, and neither truth requires the other to become smaller.”

Michaela’s eyes closed for the briefest moment before meeting hers again, and Francesca felt something in her own throat tighten at the sight of tears Michaela was making no serious attempt to hide.

“You found me when I believed the happiest part of my life had already happened, and somehow, without asking me to forget any of it, you made me curious about what might happen next. I think that may be the greatest thing anyone has ever given me, and so whatever the world permits me to call you when we leave this glen, I will know what I called you here, with my family and yours beside us and my hands bound willingly to yours. I choose you, Michaela, for the twelvemonth and the day, and for as many more as you are willing to ask of me.”

For a moment Michaela said nothing, though her smile trembled enough that Francesca knew speech had become temporarily unreliable, and behind them the gathering had grown so quiet that the faint movement of the wind through the wet grass seemed suddenly enormous. Helen was wiping beneath one eye without any further pretence of concealment, Violet had long since surrendered to her tears and Janet was crying openly beside them, while Lady Danbury remained composed enough to preserve her reputation despite the suspicious brightness of her eyes. Eloise was still biting her lip, her hand now firmly caught in Hyacinth’s, and Benedict had drawn Sophie closer against his side as they watched the brides.

Michaela swallowed, her thumb moving slowly across Francesca’s fingers beneath the cord, and when she finally managed to speak there was enough of herself restored to her voice that Francesca knew immediately she was about to ruin the solemnity.

“You did forget something.”

Francesca frowned. “What?”

“The day.”

“I said the day.”

“The one after the next twelvemonth.”

Francesca stared at her for a moment before understanding, while Michaela’s mouth began to betray her.

“You are insufferable.”

“And yet you have just promised me another year.”

“And a day.”

“Thank you.”

The laugh that escaped Francesca was joined by the family around them, releasing the emotion that had gathered too tightly during the promises, and Michaela laughed with her until their foreheads nearly touched and the cord between their hands shifted with the movement. Neither woman seemed in any particular hurry to finish, but eventually Francesca looked down at the knot they had made and then back at Michaela, who understood without needing to be told what came next.

They loosened their hands together, carefully reversing enough of the binding to draw their wrists through without disturbing the knot they had made, and when the cord finally slipped free it remained looped upon itself between them, holding the shape of something which no longer required their hands inside it to remain whole. Francesca caught one end before it could fall and Michaela the other, and for a moment they stood looking down at the uneven weave Violet, Helen and Janet had made and the knot they themselves had added to it, while the significance of an object which was, after all, only wool and ribbon seemed to become considerably greater than either woman had anticipated.

Michaela lifted her eyes first, and Francesca knew from the expression on her face that whatever solemnity remained was in immediate danger.

“Are we handfast?”

Francesca looked at the cord between them. “I believe that was the general intention.”

“For a twelvemonth and a day?”

“You have become remarkably attached to the limitation for someone who spent the morning complaining about it.”

“I merely want the terms made clear.”

Francesca folded the cord carefully into one hand before reaching for Michaela with the other. “A twelvemonth and a day.”

Michaela raised an eyebrow.

“And another after that.”

“That will do.”

Francesca had intended to kiss her gently, or at least with sufficient restraint to remember that both their mothers and nearly all of her siblings were standing only a few feet away, but Michaela apparently felt no corresponding obligation to decorum and caught her around the waist before Francesca had properly reached her. Whatever protest she might have made disappeared into laughter against Michaela’s mouth, and by the time they kissed properly the family around them had abandoned every pretence that the occasion required silence.

Hyacinth was unmistakably the first to cheer, though Gregory challenged this almost immediately, while Violet and Helen, having already surrendered any hope of remaining composed, were laughing through tears beside Janet. Eloise clapped with considerably more enthusiasm than Francesca intended ever to allow her to forget, Penelope had both hands pressed together beneath her chin, and Colin shouted something which was lost beneath the sudden return of the pipes. Benedict kissed Sophie’s temple before joining the applause, Anthony drew Kate closer against him with a smile that softened his entire face, and Lady Danbury, though considerably more restrained than the Bridgertons surrounding her, struck the end of her cane once against the ground in unmistakable approval.

The pipes rose fully across the glen then, louder and brighter than they had been all morning, and as though this were the signal they had been awaiting, the hounds began barking again from somewhere near the castle.

Michaela broke the kiss just far enough to look towards the sound.

“Your brother has upset my dogs again.”

Francesca laughed, still held against her. “He is your brother now too.”

Michaela’s expression changed at once. “Absolutely not.”

“You have just bound yourself to the consequences.”

“I was not informed that Anthony was included.”

“It was in the terms.”

“I demand another handfasting.”

“You may have one in a year.”

“And a day.”

Francesca smiled and kissed her again before she could continue, while around them their families began to move closer, the careful arrangement of the ceremony dissolving almost immediately into embraces and congratulations and Hyacinth attempting to inspect the knot Francesca was still holding. There would be food waiting inside, champagne that Anthony had insisted upon bringing despite Michaela pointing out that Scotland possessed perfectly adequate alcohol of its own, and several hours during which Francesca suspected she and Michaela would belong rather more to their families than to one another, but for the moment neither seemed inclined to move.

The rain had not returned, although the clouds remained low over the hills and the grass beneath them was still wet enough to darken the hems of both their dresses, while somewhere between the pipes, the dogs and the voices of everyone they loved, Kilmartin had ceased to feel like the setting of the handfasting and become simply home again. Francesca looked down once at the cord in her hand, its colours now drawn permanently into the knot they had made together, before slipping her fingers back through Michaela’s and allowing herself to be led towards their family.

A twelvemonth and a day later, there were no pipes to mark the occasion, no glen disappearing beneath a veil of summer rain and no castle full of Bridgertons and Stirlings attempting unsuccessfully not to cry, for Francesca and Michaela were in London, where the evening had remained unusually warm long after sunset and the curtains of their bedroom had been left partly open in the hope of admitting what little air the night was willing to provide.

Francesca had gone to bed first, though not with any immediate intention of sleeping, and was sitting against the pillows in a pale silk nightgown with a book open upon her lap when Michaela emerged from her dressing room wearing ivory, her hair already loosened and falling over one shoulder. Francesca had admired the nightgown sufficiently often that its appearance that evening could hardly have been accidental, although Michaela gave no indication that she had chosen it for anyone’s benefit but her own and Francesca, unwilling to grant her the satisfaction, returned her attention to the same paragraph she had been pretending to read for several minutes.

Neither woman had mentioned the date all day, which had become increasingly ridiculous as the hours passed, since Francesca knew perfectly well that Michaela remembered and Michaela, she suspected, knew perfectly well that Francesca remembered. They had breakfasted together without acknowledging it, gone separately about the business which had brought them to London, dined together that evening and returned home with both maintaining the pretence so successfully that Francesca had begun to think stubbornness ought perhaps to have been included among the promises they made at Kilmartin.

Michaela climbed into bed beside her and reached for her own book, arranging herself against the pillows with an air of such deliberate unconcern that Francesca was immediately certain the performance was intended for her benefit. For several moments they remained that way, each apparently absorbed in her reading, until Michaela turned a page despite having scarcely looked at the one before it.

“You have not read that quickly in your life,” Francesca said.

“I am engrossed.”

“You have been staring at the same sentence since you sat down.”

Michaela glanced sideways at her. “And you would know this because?”

Francesca lowered her book just enough to meet her gaze, at which Michaela’s expression acquired the particular satisfaction of someone who had successfully caught another person committing the very offence of which she had just been accused.

“That proves nothing.”

“It proves you were watching me.”

“I was observing you.”

“Entirely different.”

“I thought so.”

Michaela allowed the matter to rest for perhaps half a minute before reaching across Francesca and removing the book from her hands, ignoring the objection this produced as she placed it upon the bedside table. In doing so she revealed the small wooden box which had apparently been concealed behind her pillow, and whatever complaint Francesca had been preparing disappeared as soon as she recognised it.

“I wondered where that had gone.”

“You knew where it had gone.”

“I suspected.”

“You searched my things.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You are a terrible liar.”

Francesca made no effort to defend herself while Michaela settled back against the pillows and brought the box into the space between them, opening it to reveal the cord exactly as they had left it the summer before. Its colours had softened slightly during the year, but the weave Violet, Helen and Janet had made remained intact and the knot formed at Kilmartin still held at its centre, preserving within something so small and ordinary the memory of their hands bound together beneath a grey Scottish sky.

The year contained within that knot seemed simultaneously very long and astonishingly brief, filled as it had been with arguments and journeys, illnesses and celebrations, mornings spent unwilling to leave bed and evenings spent equally unwilling to stop talking, dinners surrounded by family and dinners eaten alone, letters sent from separate cities and weeks during which they had scarcely spent an hour apart. Very little of it had resembled the morning on which they made their promises, which seemed to Francesca the best possible evidence that they had kept them; the ceremony had occupied an hour, perhaps less, while everything they had meant by it had been lived in the year that followed.

Michaela lifted the cord from the box and let it fall loosely across the coverlet between them before looking expectantly at Francesca, who understood the question perfectly and had no intention of making matters easy for her.

“Well?” Michaela asked.

“Well what?”

“You know perfectly well.”

“I should like to hear you ask.”

The expression Michaela gave her suggested that she was reconsidering every decision which had brought her into this bed, although the smile beginning at the corner of her mouth somewhat undermined the threat.

“You are enjoying this.”

“Immensely.”

Michaela shook her head, but reached beneath the covers for Francesca’s hand and drew it into the space between them, where the old cord lay against the linen. Her fingers fitted through Francesca’s before either of them had made any conscious effort to arrange them, and the familiarity of the gesture seemed almost absurd beside the object which had once made the same joining feel ceremonial.

“I believe you owe me a twelvemonth,” Michaela said.

“And a day.”

“And a day.”

Francesca turned her hand until their palms met more completely, smiling as she reminded Michaela that she was owed precisely the same, which Michaela observed sounded dangerously like an agreement and Francesca conceded probably was. There was no one to watch when Michaela began winding the cord around their hands, and without the solemnity of the first occasion they were considerably less careful about doing it correctly, the silk at their wrists slipping beneath the wool while Francesca caught the wrong end and Michaela accused her of sabotaging a Scottish tradition she had already successfully performed once.

By the time Michaela became convinced they had somehow bound themselves in a manner from which neither could escape without assistance, Francesca was laughing too hard to be of any practical use, and several minutes passed before they managed to arrange the cord into something resembling the binding they remembered. It was imperfect and private, performed by two women in their nightclothes sitting beneath rumpled bedcovers rather than by two brides standing in a glen, yet when their palms finally rested together and their fingers found one another beneath the weave, Francesca was struck by how little the essential part of it had changed.

“A twelvemonth and a day?” Michaela asked, looking down at their hands.

“I thought we had agreed the counting was foolish.”

“I have changed my mind.”

“I could pretend to be surprised.”

“I rather like asking.”

Francesca looked at her then, at the woman beside her in ivory silk with her hair loose around her shoulders and the cord their mothers had made wound somewhat inelegantly around their hands, and understood with unexpected clarity why Michaela wanted the question. There was something precious in being asked again when either of them might reasonably have assumed the answer, because a year spent choosing one another had not made the choice unnecessary; if anything, it had given them a year’s worth of reasons to make it deliberately once more.

“You may have another,” Francesca said, and when Michaela immediately reminded her of the additional day, she smiled and assured her that she might have that too. Michaela seemed satisfied by this, although she remained thoughtful for a moment, her thumb moving absently against Francesca’s hand beneath the cord before she observed that, if they intended to continue doing this every year, she ought perhaps to consider taking the Bridgerton name and simplifying matters altogether.

Francesca turned to look at her. “What matters would that simplify?”

“None that I can think of, but Michaela Bridgerton sounds rather well.”

“It sounds very strange.”

“Only because you have not given it sufficient consideration.”

Francesca had, despite herself, already begun considering it, and found the result more affecting than she wished to admit. There was no circumstance beyond this room in which Michaela could simply decide to take her name and have the world understand what the change meant, but here, with their hands wound together beneath the cord and no one present to tell them what could or could not follow from it, Michaela Bridgerton could exist for as long as they cared to entertain her.

“You are a Stirling,” Francesca said eventually, though with considerably less conviction than before.

“I could be both.”

“Michaela Stirling Bridgerton?”

Michaela considered it. “It is a great deal of name.”

“You are a great deal of woman.”

The smile this produced was slow enough that Francesca knew immediately she had made a mistake, though Michaela merely tightened her fingers around hers beneath the cord and settled a little closer against her.

“Perhaps I shall remain a Stirling,” she said. “You seem rather attached to it.”

Francesca was, although she found that she was becoming equally attached to the impossible alternative now that Michaela had placed it in her head, and there was something deliciously private about possessing a name for her that could exist nowhere beyond the room.

“I am,” she said. “Though I should not object to Michaela Bridgerton on occasion.”

“Only on occasion?”

“Do not become greedy. I have already given you another year.”

Michaela’s thumb passed over her fingers again. “And a day.”

“And a day.”