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“Finally.”
His sigh is met with her smile, her blue eyes twinkling in the twilight.
“Were you in such a hurry to be back home?”
He closes his eyes, tilting his head back a bit more. “I enjoy London, your family, and even Edinburgh, but there is just something, about being back in a man’s own drawing room...”
She smiles, softly as her heart swells with love for this man – a quite familiar feeling, a known intensity that makes her very skin tingle, her arms long to hold him tight and never let go. All the signs are there, were there, but that she had never recognised before that fateful afternoon in this very room. In which their story took a whole different turn. Or the one always meant for them, she doesn’t know anymore.
“We’re back home,” Francesca whispers at last, her gaze on his boyish grin, her fingers itching to cross the room and kiss him, despite their weariness and the tea that will be brought in but a few minutes.
Surely, she’s not so wanton; she can wait a few minutes before launching herself at her husband and demanding he starts having his way with her.
A small laugh, a happy one, threatens to break their comfortable silence. They’ve just arrived, and already she’s thinking of how best to convince her husband that they should lock themselves in their rooms, away from the world, from society, from everyone but their own bubble, her own wicked needs.
“I have plans for you.”
This time, he’s the one smirking.
It’s that time again, and Francesca looks away.
She can’t bear to look at anyone, not even at herself.
Michael stays quietly by her side, his kisses on her brow sweet and serene.
If it was anyone else, she would be screaming, running away, say that no , she doesn’t want their pity, and she’s fine .
But it’s Michael, her friend, her best friend, and she knows him. She trusts him; better yet, she loves him.
She lays her head on his shoulder, lets him hold her just a bit tighter than he normally would. As if she’s a bit more fragile than usual, as if she could break into tiny pieces. As if she didn’t decide to get married just so she could have children.
But Francesca is not afraid. She knows she will someday be a mother – how could she not? She’s a Bridgerton, her own mother had 8 children, all her siblings have their own brood: it’s only a matter of time.
The blood on the sheets mocks her.
“We’re back. Again.”
His fingers are drawing lines on the chair he settled in, his eyes glinting as he ask her the usual question that follows their arrival at home. “Do you have plans?”
She knows that he’s trying to cheer her up. She knows it. He’s such an amazing man, her very best friend. How blessed is she? To have married twice and for love both times. That all she has ever known have been husbands who have cherished her, who would do anything for her?
She is so loved. If only it was enough. If only it would prevent the tears at night, when he’s asleep and she should be too.
Her answering smile is a bit less bright than last time, and the time before.
If he knows, and he probably does, he doesn’t say anything as tea is served.
She offers him a cup that he gladly takes, their hands touching each other but not holding on; why would they? There’s nothing wrong, it is all perfectly common, and Francesca is glad to be home.
That night, Michael joins her in bed with a tenderness he rarely lavishes upon her.
He worships her, whispers words of love, eternity with her, his lips on her skin, his mouth on her body, his fingers in her core.
He makes her come, and come again, says how much she pleases him and that is enough, she is enough, more than enough for him.
She falls asleep, exhausted, sated, a smile on her face that belies the emptiness in her womb.
The tea is cold by now, but she keeps stirring her spoon in it. Her mind is miles away, in another drawing room, with different hues and colours.
And she sees it happening again, how Aggie walked. Francesca had not expected it, Penelope, Aggie’s mother, had not expected it, and Colin, her brother, started laughing loudly despite not expecting it either.
Michael never cared for children. Not that he dislikes them, it was just never expected of him.
Until he became the earl and then it suddenly was part of his legacy.
Not that he cared.
He ran away half across the world, without leaving any heir, any indication to his return, anything suggesting he planned on picking up the mantel at all.
“We could go abroad? Travel to France, Italy... Maybe even Spain.”
They can run away together, that’s what he means.
Francesca shakes her head. No, she’s staying. If all she gets is to be a doting aunt, then so be it and God forbid she misses these moments.
Michael nods, whatever she wants, he’s happy if she is.
Her heart warms at his unwavering support. Come what may, they are facing it together, he is standing by her and will approve of all her choices.
When she raises to close the door, she reminds him how much she appreciates being married to him, how lucky she is, and how deliciously stretched out he makes her feel.
Her fingers are tight around his.
“Michael... Can we pretend as if nothing’s changed?”
She feels different. She knows she is different. She didn’t at first, not until she realises she has stopped counting, had stopped waiting. Not until Michael asks her, because he hasn’t stopped.
How peculiar, that he would keep going in the back of his mind while she stopped living in dread. That it would happen here, where she was born herself.
But she doesn’t want to think about it. It never works out when she thinks about things first.
He merely laughs, waving a last time to her mother as their carriage leaves the drive. She only loves him more, that he obviously has no intention to treat her like a precious doll while on the way back home.
She settles against his chest, firmly decided to behave as if nothing has changed. She’s going to love him, read books, take long walks and soak in his warmth in their drafty ancestral home. Until the time is right, until she’s ready to share this last secret with others.
Her breaths come out shallower than usual, her chest risen in anticipation.
His wipes her sweaty brow, kisses her forehead softly.
“Can we... Can we still pretend?”
He smiles, nods as the grimace on her face leaves little doubt to the pain she experiences. That she welcomes. Pain means she’s alive,
“Nothing changes until you decide it, Frannie.”
She doesn’t have to ask, he’s been ready to lay down his life for her a whole time ago.
Her best friend, her very best friend, and her husband. Who would have thought?