When He Was Wicked (Bridgertons #6)(17)

She didn’t know.

She had no idea.

And as long as she remained in the dark about his feelings for her, as long as she couldn’t understand why he had no choice but to hate himself for every step he took in John’s shoes, he couldn’t be near her. Because she was going to keep saying things like that.

And he simply didn’t know how much he could take.

And so, as he stood in his study, his body taut with misery and guilt, he realized two things.

The first was easy. The whisky was doing nothing to ease his pain, and if twenty-five-year-old whisky, straight from Speyside, didn’t make him feel any better, nothing in the British Isles was going to do so.

Which led him to the second, which wasn’t easy at all. But he had to do it. Rarely had the choices in his life been so clear. Painful, but painfully clear.

And so he set down his glass, two fingers of the amber liquid remaining, and he walked down the hall to his bedchamber.

“Reivers,” he said, upon finding his valet standing at the wardrobe, carefully folding a cravat, “what do you think of India?”





Part Two

March, 1824

Four years later





Chapter 5




…you would enjoy it here. Not the heat, I should think; no one seems to enjoy the heat. But the rest would enchant you. The colors, the spices, the scent of the air—they can place one in a strange, sensuous haze that is at turns unsettling and intoxicating. Most of all, I think you would enjoy the pleasure gardens. They are rather like our London parks, except far more green and lush, and full of the most remarkable flowers you have ever seen. You have always loved to be out among nature; this you would adore, I am quite sure of it.

—from Michael Stirling (the new Earl of Kilmartin) to the Countess of Kilmartin, one month after his arrival in India

Francesca wanted a baby.

She had for quite some time, but it was only in recent months that she’d been able to admit as much to herself, to finally put words to the sense of longing that seemed to accompany her wherever she went.

It had started innocently enough, with a little pang in her heart upon reading a letter from her brother’s wife Kate, the missive filled with news of their little girl Charlotte, soon to turn two and already incorrigible.

But the pang had grown worse, into something more akin to an ache, when her sister Daphne had arrived in Scotland for a visit, all four of her children in tow. It hadn’t occurred to Francesca just how completely a gaggle of children could transform a home. The Hastings children had altered the very essence of Kilmartin, brought to it life and laughter that Francesca realized had been sadly lacking for years.

And then they left, and all was quiet, but it wasn’t peaceful.

Just empty.

From that moment on, Francesca was different. She saw a nursemaid pushing a pram, and her heart ached. She spied a rabbit hopping across a field and couldn’t help but think that she ought to be pointing it out to someone else, someone small. She traveled to Kent to spend Christmas with her family, but when night fell, and all of her nieces and nephews were tucked into bed, she felt too alone.

And all she could think was that her life was passing her by, and if she didn’t do something soon, she’d die this way.

Alone.

Not unhappy—she wasn’t that. Strangely enough, she’d grown into her widowhood and found a comfortable and contented pattern to her life. It was something she never would have believed possible during the awful months immediately following John’s death, but she had, a bit through trial and error, found a place for herself in the world. And with it, a small measure of peace.

She enjoyed her life as Countess of Kilmartin—Michael had never married, so she retained the duties as well as the title. She loved Kilmartin, and she ran it with no interference from Michael; his instructions upon leaving the country four years earlier had been that she should manage the earldom as she saw fit, and once the shock of his departure had worn off, she’d realized that that had been the most precious gift he could have bestowed upon her.

It had given her something to do, something to work toward.

A reason to stop staring at the ceiling.

She had friends, and she had family, both Stirling and Bridgerton, and she had a full life, in Scotland and London, where she spent several months of each year.

So she should have been happy. And she was, mostly.

She just wanted a baby.

It had taken some time to admit this to herself. It was a desire that seemed somewhat disloyal to John; it wouldn’t be his baby, after all, and even now, with him gone four years, it was difficult to imagine a child without his features woven across its face.

And it meant, first and foremost, that she’d have to remarry. She’d have to change her name and pledge her troth to another man, to vow to make him first in her heart and her loyalties, and while the thought of that no longer struck pain in her heart, it seemed…well…strange.

But she supposed there were some things a woman simply had to get past, and one cold February day, as she was staring out a window at Kilmartin, watching the snow slowly wrap a shroud around the tree branches, she realized that this was one of them.

There were a lot of things in life to be afraid of, but strangeness ought not be among them.

And so she decided to pack her things and head down to London a bit early this year. She generally spent the season in town, enjoying time with her family, shopping and attending musicales, taking in plays and doing all the things that simply weren’t available in the Scottish countryside. But this season would be different. She needed a new wardrobe, for one. She’d been out of mourning for some time, but she hadn’t completely shrugged off the grays and lavenders of half-mourning, and she certainly hadn’t paid the attention to fashion that a woman in her new position ought.