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I've been through the desert and I've been 'cross the sea
I've been walking through the mountains
I've wandered through the trees for her
I have been trying to find her, want to give what I got
When last I saw her, she was dancing all alone
Perhaps my chance was then, I'll never know
I'll search the world until there's no place left to go
And if she leaves it, I will follow, yeah, I will follow
She lit a fire, and now she's in my every thought
-Lord Huron, She Lit A Fire
Francesca Stirling bleeds, and thus bleeds away the chances that someone else could inherit this lonely castle where Michaela Stirling’s best friend's ghost echoes.
There goes John Stirling, the ghost of her cousin, her protector, her best friend, the one male family member who would never marry her off, and in his place, Michaela Stirling becomes the Earl Kilmartin.
Francesca weeps, this silent, quiet, aching thing, this sort of thing that makes the strings of Michaela’s own heart echo with the heartbreak, and Michaela feels frozen in the Scottish countryside, in the bustle of London social life, half a ghost herself.
She is in the highlands, she is in the city, she is tangled up in the bright eyes of her cousin's beloved wife, a woman who frustrated and brightened Michaela's life in equal measure.
There are many a woman that Michaela pleasured when their husbands could not, women who married for the sake of money, but Francesca, for all that she captivated Michaela, was not one of those women. John loved her. Michaela loved her.
It is not fair, that Michaela has to live with her dead and her living alike, that the one person who understands what it's like to grieve and love John as much as she does is the one person that she feels this yearning for—
There is a reason why she ran. And yes, it is because she is a coward, but also because she knew that she would burn. That if she touched the snow, blindingly bright, the sky blue and silver and white of Francesca’s skirts, of her eyes, of her smile, then the frostbite would kick in. Then Michaela would lose herself forever.
And how could she do that to John? How could she do that to the cousin that has been her closest companion her entire life? How could she do that to the only man that she has ever trusted, the man that gave her more of a choice in her life than any of his peers ever would, the man that allowed Michaela to live?
How could Michaela let her life turn into a disparagement of John’s death? How could she let her life dishonor his ghost?
There are few things in life that Michaela will let herself feel ashamed of. Not her feelings for the fairer sex, not the way that she chooses to travel, not the way that she lives as more than her station tells her that she should be.
But that?
The idea of doing such a thing to John burrows deep inside of her, wrapping itself around her lungs, choking the air from her throat.
She can’t do it. She can’t do that to the only man she has ever loved.
---
So she runs. She gets in the carriage, and she abandons Francesca, and it is only months later, when she is in France, when she is Germany, when she stops long enough in one place to feel the hollow in her chest that she cannot fill, when she has a pit in her stomach that is threatening to devour her whole, that Michaela thinks—
Maybe John would have wanted someone to watch his widow, even if she didn’t have a son, especially if she didn’t have a son, didn’t have a connection to anyone who could take care of her save her brother—
Michaela is in the middle of burning out the memory of a girl made of slowly melting frost and the delicate crystal of a snowflake’s fractals by fingering a woman in the back room of a salon in Paris when the realization carves itself into her.
But her efforts do not work. She cannot forget Francesca, because frostbite lasts as long as a burn does, because when something is so cold you cannot just carve it out with the warmth of someone else’s body.
Something settles in that pit in her stomach, cold as the frost over the highlands, cold as the inside of the grave.
Maybe this is what John would be ashamed of, more than anything. The fact that once again, at the worst time, Michaela left.
---
The next time that Michaela sees Francesca is two years after their last parting, out on the marriage mart again, and it is not a sight that she ever wished to see.
It is one thing to see a woman that you are half in love with married to your cousin. It is one thing to live in a house with a woman that you in love with when she is married to your best friend.
In that case, at least, you wish nothing but the best for both halves of the relationship. You want nothing but all happiness for all parties involved.
And maybe it hurts—okay, yes, it definitely hurts—but it is that of a bruise, not a knife.
But to see Francesca out during the social season, gloved arms crossed over her chest, mouth pinched, clearly uneasy with all of the attention and socializing that she is supposed to be doing, when she would like as not to be with her pianoforte and her puzzles and away from all of this mess—that is a knife, in a way. A blade slid between the ribs.
And a self-inflicted one, at that.
Because Michaela is the reason why Francesca is here, now. She is the reason why Francesca is alone and has been alone for so long.
Because she ran.
Because she left.
Because she could not bear the press of ghosts against her skin, and thus, could not bear Francesca’s wide, bright eyes.
Now, though, Francesca’s eyes are far less wide that the Francesca that Michaela met that first night, after the wedding that she had missed.
(Perhaps for actual delays, but also, perhaps, for mildly selfish reasons. At the time, Michaela had been so sure that she would never get tied down, would never seek to settle, would never feel the desire for an anchor such as others so sought to acquire through the bonds of matrimony. That could only ever be a chain for her, rather than a way to escape.
She still does not seek matrimony, of course. She has no desire for a man, in any way, shape, or fashion.
But as for an anchor, well—Michaela has always been restless with her heart, but this specific form of reckless romanticism that has gripped her so surely, so desperately, is something all too new and certainly all too searing.)
Seeing Francesca on the edge of the dance floor now, though—the woman is less innocent, now. Less naive.
Before, she was a snowflake, a delicate, lonely creature that men sought to capture instead of understand. John certainly came closer to actually meeting her where she was, with the way that the two of them melded, in a quiet, careful, embracing sort of love, but most men do not have the patience that he does to figure out what a woman truly desires in life, especially not one who is so fine and measured in her fractals.
But Michaela saw, over the course of the marriage, that Francesca was capable of being a storm. That despite any first impression, she was no more brittle to the touch than any lightning strike across the landscape.
That anyone who looked at the quiet girl who stood in the corner of the room and thought her quiet, demure, was mistaken in the human hurricane contained within her slim frame.
Now, though, there is a harsh, lonely edge to Francesca, now that she has traded baby blues for widow’s blacks back for silver-blue-ache.
She is not the diamond of the season, her shyness an enticing mystery for men to wish to break through to in order to win prestige and a pretty face at the end of it all; she is a widow who does not even have a son and a landed estate to entice people, a third daughter only kept in her status by a generous brother.
Maybe some might be enticed by the possibility of marrying a virgin, but most will cast their eyes to younger girls rather than the ghost that Francesca Bridgerton cuts in the midst of all of the brighter diamonds. Many will think her tarnished, her glow smudged by other’s fingertips, an echo of the girl that the Queen herself declared her favorite one year before turning her eyes toward her brother the next.
Michaela Stirling, on the other hand, looks at Francesca and sees her as no less lovely than any of the debutantes. More lovely still, truly. No offense to Her Majesty—Michaela certainly understands chasing entertainment and pleasure where one can—but Michaela shall never have a favorite other than Francesca Bridgerton.
And Francesca does not belong here. She never has. The only man that has ever deserved to take her home is John, and John is gone.
John is gone, and Michaela went, as well, because she was scared, because she did not want to step where she was not wanted, and Francesca has been thrust out into the place where all girls who do not have financial safety do.
Francesca is a not a Duchess, not a Countess, not the head of a family, nothing more than a third daughter without a child to claim responsibility over.
Being an ex-Countess does you nothing, in the grand scheme of things.
Now, a current Earl, guaranteed her position by her cousin’s will and the Queen’s decrees regarding succession and the fact that there is no one else in the close line to the previous Earl?
There are a few things that Michaela could do, to make up for what has transpired, to allow Francesca to have a stable place to stay that will not require her to live under her brother’s roof, lonely rather than happily alone, or in a man’s marriage bed, forced to do duties that she does not desire for a man that will not take the time to get to know her well.
Michaela would offer Francesca a place in Scotland in an instant, there at Kilmartin Castle.
If she were a man, she would offer a marriage proposal right now. Even if she wished to taste Francesca’s mouth, she would not force her into the wedding bed, but it would at least give Francesca the stability she has always so clearly wished for.
But as a woman, the solution seems rather similar: not a marriage, but a place at her castle as secretary, as lady-in-waiting, as musician, as muse, as companion.
She could not restore Francesca's name, but she could give her a place in front of the fireplace, a library to call her own, a pianoforte to play at whatever hours she wished.
That is the one small advantage of owning a castle of her own, out in the middle of nowhere, of being a woman—she cannot give Francesca the marriage she so desires, but while a cousin absconding with his brother's widow would be a scandal, even if it was dressed up in the bonds of marriage, as long as no one saw them kissing, no one would ever guess that Michaela had untoward intentions toward Francesca.
But after what Michaela did at the funeral, cutting and dodging to protect her aching heart, she knows that Francesca would never take her up on the offer, regardless of how it felt to dance or to puzzle, regardless of the fact that Michela thinks that them dancing at the funeral was the one bright spot that Francesca has had since John died.
(It certainly has been the only bright spot in Michaela’s life since John died, no matter how much she tried to find herself a lantern elsewhere, in other countries, on other continents. At the end of the day, her heart always found itself drawn back to Francesca Bridgerton, that lovely, lonely light that has managed to keep burning, rather in the ton or in the middle of the mountains.)
Still—there is naught but yearning in her heart when she sees Francesca's face.
Others might be dissuaded by the fact that Francesca is nothing more than a woman carved of ice, stiff and silvered and sparkling against the ton, not moving, not seeking to be anything but a wallflower.
Francesca does not want these men to flirt with her. She does not want to be shunted off to the marriage mart to improve her prospects and get her off of her brother’s hands. She had one great love and she wishes for no other.
(And Michaela cannot help but sympathize. She knows a thing or two about wishing for men to keep their distance from her and her ghosts)
But Michaela is not dissuaded. She is intrigued. She is aching. She is a hollow that has had something carved out of her, by the loss of her beloved cousin, by the loss of Francesca’s music and her stubborn delight in puzzles and her strong, measured hand in trying to run Castle Kilmartin and its staff and the like.
But then Francesca sees Michaela and her mouth twists, her nostrils flaring, and never before did Michaela think Francesca Bridgerton capable of rage—frustration, yes, as displayed the night of their tipsy confrontation, but not fury—and yet, right now, she has the feeling that if they were not in the middle of a ball, a sparkling green gown and a glittering ice-blue gown opposite each other, Francesca might very well scream at her.
Michaela should be afraid. She should be leaving Francesca alone. She should be moving as far away as possible, running away as she always does, chasing sensation and pleasure and delight where she can.
But instead, all she can do is stare.
Michaela sees the thunder that captivated her so, the glimpse at a woman who was capable of so much more than just the strict boredoms that Michaela thought the entirety of her existence. She learned how to appreciate Francesca's quiet idiosyncracies after their fight, one she opened herself up to Francesca in the first place, and some part of Michaela learned to appreciate puzzles and pianoforte and the small, quiet delights that a woman could actually find pleasure in more than what was just what was expected of her.
(Michaela learned how to fall in love with a woman that she shouldn’t have. How to be drawn in by the storm and have no idea how to leave, because the swirl of air and wind and rain was the most alive that she’s ever felt, as forbidden as loving her cousin’s wife was in every sense of the word.)
Francesca turns her face from Michaela, and a sinkhole opens up under Michaela’s stomach.
It’s not fair, truly, to feel this much for someone that she in every way shouldn’t.
Michaela is someone who is built to travel. To run, more specifically.
If you are always running, no one can ever anchor you. No ghosts can ever trap you.
You are never stuck in one place, dealing with the wound that won’t stop bleeding. Maybe, if you keep moving, you don’t have to watch the blood trail your bleeding heart leaves behind.
That summer with Francesca and John was the longest she'd been in one place for ages, and it was because she was reckless enough to get drawn up into something that she knew that she shouldn’t.
But right now—
Something tells her she needs to apologize, to stay, to make things right, for Francesca, for John, for herself.
And so she tries to keep an eye on Francesca, throughout the evening.
Michaela watches as Francesca is approached by men. How they try to speak to her, and she tries to speak to them back, because she knows that she should, because she knows that that is what is expected of her, and it doesn’t go well, because Francesca doesn’t know quite how to do it, and neither do the men, and so the conversations die in fits and starts, and the entire time, Michaela becomes more and more sure of what she needs to do, for everyone’s sake, but mostly for her own and for Francesca’s.
So as the night goes on, as she sees Francesca finally flee her suitors and her mother and her sister’s gazes, Michaela leaves the main ball, those men who wish to marry the Earl Kilmartin and gain her title, and she follows the only person she truly has an interest in back here in London.
When Michaela slips into the study with the pianoforte, Michaela doesn’t meant to trap Francesca. She merely wishes to speak to her. To—to apologize, if she can, and Michaela is not someone who apologizes to anyone save Francesca, it seems, as this is the second, third, who knows how many times that she’s done the thing, and that says more than Michaela would like to admit to, even if she can hear John’s ghost in the back of her head calling her out for it.
But regardless of Michaela’s intentions, when she says, “Francesca. It is a privilege to see you,” trying to be as polite as possible, things go astray. Because of course they do.
Francesca seems a wild animal, the target of a hunt, as she whirls around, eyes wide, and Michaela remembers a newlywed girl saying you are the source of my distress, but this is far more than that, because that night they were both tipsy, Francesca powered only by the anxiety of a new marriage, a maiden’s woes.
Today, though? Francesca is not a maiden frightened by duty. She is a widow haunted by ghosts. A woman who was abandoned twice over, by each Stirling cousin.
A woman who has frozen, alone, for so long, that she might have entirely forgotten the warmth that was once shared.
And now that the woman who abandoned her returns to her side, well—
Michaela cannot blame her for her ire. For the way that Francesca blisters. The way that she breaks like a lightning bolt.
“I bled in that room, alone,” Francesca hisses, a lightning bolt crashing to earth to split the trees asunder, “And that doctor made sure that I was not carrying his child, and you—you soared away to Scotland, to the continent, to be Earl Kilmartin, to waste away your worries, after I begged you to stay.” Each word is a lash. Each phrase a condemnation of Michaela’s actions, her cowardice, her ache, her grief. “Did you not think about the fact that I did not want to leave without you or John? That I had to sit there, and feel useless, and empty, and I did not have even you there, after you promised to be my friend, after my husband died—"
There is a grief that cannot be spoken except in a scream. In a sob. In the crash of lightning into the valley, slicing through the trees, barreling into the one other person that can understand, even a little bit, what Francesca has gone through.
And yes, Michaela knows that she cannot understand everything that makes Francesca ache. There is a part of her that wants to sob for the violation that Francesca must have experienced at the hands of the doctor that checked her for pregnancy, for how much she wanted a child, for how much she wanted to have part of John to carry her forward.
But there is also a part of Michaela that knows that it was her right to grieve, for she loved John, too. He was her cousin, her best friend, the only true confidante she has ever had.
Does she not get to grieve his loss as well? Does she not get to have her chance to wallow in the ache, the loss, the hollow?
“Do you not think me capable of grief? He was my best friend since we were children running around the castle. He was the one person that I trusted with my thoughts, with my dreams, with my secrets. He knew me as no one else did, understood that I loved in a way that no one could understand, and you did not know me like that.”
It is a correct point. For all that Michaela was drawn to the flame, to the lightning strike, like a moth to a fire, Francesca was fire. There was every chance that she could burn Michaela. And Michaela—it was half-cowardice, half self-preservation that saw her leave. That saw her run from the fire that she could wanted to devour her whole—
“And you left me. You did not give me the chance to get to know you, after you insisted that I try. But how can someone try when the other leaves? I wanted to get to know you, Michaela Stirling, and you stole that chance from both of us.”
And Michaela cannot hold onto her own anger for any longer. How could she, when Francesca is crumbling, when Michaela knows—and has known, in truth—that she should never have left in the first place. That when she went to chase her own solitude, her own distance from her own grief, she abandoned someone who had far less power than she did. Who had no way out of the reminders of everything that that she’d lost.
Michaela left because she could not bear the reminder of John, the reminder of what Francesca was, that lightning strike, that storm, but also because she was afraid of what might happen if she’d stayed.
Michaela sees the storm, the wretched ache bound up in the stormclouds, in the pouring rain, and she deflates.
Michaela swallows. “You are not useless. John never would have thought that of you. You must know that. If a child did not result from your union, then—it is certainly not your fault.”
There is something breaking in Francesca’s eyes, ice shattering beneath the weight of a boulder chucked onto the surface of the frozen lake, and Michaela does not know what passed in Francesca’s marriage bed—nor does she want to imagine such activities, certainly not, she and John supported each other’s disparate love lives, but that was not the sort of thing that they discussed—but she knows that many a woman has blamed herself for a quickening or a lack of quickening in her womb.
Michaela has never wanted children, but she understands the way that a woman makes her identity by her perceived duty, her need to fulfill what is expected of her.
And she remembers Francesca falling apart, yelling, finally snapping, about how she was having a hard time being a wife, fulfilling her duties.
Michaela knows that she has had a certain fortune not having to think about a life where her cousin would not support her lifestyle. Where he would not allow her to be who she wished, with who she wished.
The story was always supposed to end with Michaela ending any potential line with herself, and then John and his wife continuing on the Kilmartin fortunes with their progeny.
And that wife, that widow, is here in front of Michaela, no child to her body and name, not even the Stirling name to her own.
“How can you—" Francesca swallows, drawing herself back, and there is something shining in her eyes, the sort of thing that makes Michaela want to reach out and brush the tears from her cheeks. Francesca Bridgerton should not be ice or water, should not be the waterfall of tears or the iceberg cracking in the distance as the spring turns on the North Sea. “How can you know such a thing?”
“Because I know John. Or, I—" Michaela’s voice stumbles over the words, but she knows that she must persist, and so she does, “Well, I knew him, I suppose.” Michaela swallows, hard, and glances to the side, at the pianoforte, away from Francesca’s bright, piercing eyes. “I am sorry for leaving you, I must say. But please—do not think me heartless. I have been living alone, with my ghosts, since I left you, the one and only person that could have understood me and my grief. And it was cowardice, yes, but also—self-preservation. And yet, it left me adrift, nowhere to go home to. Because what is home when the ones you love are gone?”
It is a mistake, to let the plural form of the noun slip through, to let the smallest of confessions public, but Michaela, at least, does not think that Francesca catches onto the true meaning. The woman, for all that she has grown as a widow, has been too sheltered in her earlier life, Michaela is sure, to know the truth of Michaela’s inclinations.
Still—something that Michaela said must get through, must strike a chord, because Francesca breathes in sharply. When Michaela looks up, she finds Francesca's eyes wide as she stammers out a small: “I am sorry for your loss, Your Grace,” as she wrings her gloved fingers together. “I suppose—it hurt that you left, yes, but at least—" she swallows. “You have returned.” Francesca’s lips press tight together as she adds: “Though, I suppose you are like as not to leave quickly again.”
It might be just a trick of a hopeless romantic’s mind (and what has Michaela become, that she thinks of herself as such), that she thinks she hears disappointment in Francesca’s voice at such a statement, but it is a trick that she wants to believe in. That she wants to reach for.
And this, at least, is something that Michaela can jump in on.
Michaela knows that it is a fancy that Michaela should not attempt to speak, except:
“Come with me back to Scotland. I shall set you up in your own set of rooms, with your pianoforte, with your puzzles, and you shall have all of the space and quiet that you wish for."
Please say yes, is on the tip of Michaela’s tongue, a prayer she cannot bear to see unaswered, so she does not speak it, no matter how much she needs it.
Francesca swallows. "I do not wish to return to the place where the man I loved haunts like a ghost—" Michaela’s heart seizes in her chest, her lungs losing air, except—“But I—I do not wish to be lonely anymore. Can you promise me that, Your Grace? Can you promise me that you won’t abandon me again? I am—" Francesca’s voice chokes. “I am lonely enough here, in the ton, surrounded by those who are married, those who have found their romances and had their children and the rest. Because yes, I like having my alone time, my space, but I—I could not bear it, if we went back to Scotland and you distanced yourself again.”
It almost feels like a marriage vow as Michaela nods and swears, “I shall never let you be lonely again, Francesca. From now until my dying day.”
And for the first time since the funeral years ago, Michaela sees the smallest flicker of a smile on Francesca’s lips.
There is an almost painful hope in Francesca’s voice as she takes a deep breath and nods. “I shall start packing as soon as possible, then. I wish to be away from this damned marriage mart as quickly as I can.”
Michaela grins. “Is that a curse I hear from your lips, Ms.—Bridgerton?” It is the smallest of pauses as she remembers to use Bridgerton instead of Stirling, because Francesca belongs with a Stirling no matter what, if not her, then definitely John, and if there had been a babe, she would have been able to keep the last name.
(No matter where they go and how they grow, they shall always have a ghost between them, Michaela knows.)
Francesca’s smile is harder than anything Michaela has previously seen on her lips, a thin line forged of steel. “I have grown since the last time that we saw each other,” Francesca says, and it is a sorrow, but also—
Michaela is somehow more caught up in the brightness of Francesca Bridgerton’s flame. “Then I shall look forward to getting to know this new version of you just as well.”
---
The fog rolls in.
Francesca and Michaela come home.
It’s a strange thing, to call a place home that you have so rarely been to.
Michaela Stirling has a wanderer’s soul. She’s always felt better when travelling, when tasting new skies, when eating new foods, when smelling new markets, than she does when she’s here in Castle Kilmartin’s walls.
And yet—there is something in her that knows itself, here. That settles within these walls with her ghosts.
Francesca didn’t live here nearly as long as she has lived in the Bridgerton Estate, Michaela knows. A few months at most, and all of them with John, in John’s arms, in John’s tender, firm spirit and his arms, fully in love with the husband that is now nothing more than bones and ghost—
There is something terrifying about ending up back with John’s spirit. Within the walls that his ghost once called home before dying far, far away from it.
(For all that Michaela loved to travel, John was her home, at the end of the day. The people she loved most.
She knows that John was a homebody. That the mountains were his home.
But she also knows, with all her heart, that John dying in the house with Francesca and Michaela was where he would have wanted to go. Not so early, not leaving them behind, but at least with them.)
But there is also something freeing, in a way, about being away from the ton, away from its expectations, away from the marriage mart that Francesca clearly didn’t want to set herself back into.
The line of Francesca’s shoulders ease within the walls of the castle, within the patio in the highlands, within the valley of the mountains that surround them.
And Michaela understands such an instinct, that is for sure. There is something about being here that is a breath of fresh air to lungs starved of air.
Yes, she loves to travel. Yes, there is something about travelling that sets her bones at ease. When she is travelling, she doesn’t have to bend to the weight of expectations. She doesn’t have to follow duty before love. She doesn’t have to live with her beloved cousin’s ghost.
But here—this place is a home, to her. Because some part of her heart will always lie in the valley between the mountains, in this place where she was birthed and raised, Scottish to the core.
---
They eat dinner together some nights and others Francesca requests to dine separately, and Michaela tries not to take it to heart.
She knew, when asking Francesca here, that Francesca was a lonely, quiet soul, who desired time to herself and to her music and her puzzles and who still couldn’t handle the reminders of John as much as Michaela couldn’t.
Michaela, on the other hand, is the opposite. She is someone who chafes at being stuck inside, at being stuck in one place, at being anchored.
So in between dealing with the estate, speaking to the servants, all of those things that John and his homebody nature was so much better at handling, Michaela takes the opportunity to go riding. To go dress shopping in the town. To make her own mischief.
But where she might have once gone down to the brothel to have some furtive fun with women who would not share a word of her proclivities, some part of her cannot do it, now, not when she has a widow in her keeping, when she has Francesca so deeply wedged in her heart that she fears that if Francesca were to leave, it would be like releasing a knife from a wound—the blood would flow and would never stop.
Michaela itches to leave. To go. To travel, to touch, to be more than the confines of the castle—
But she stays. She stays, for John, for Francesca, for her ghosts, even when the world is slow and aching and it feels like she’s trapped in amber, in molasses, in all the syrupy sweet slumber that she has been running from for so long—
But she doesn’t want to run away any longer. She wants to stay. To be with Francesca. To be here, in the castle her cousin trusted her with in his will.
So to get some measure of freedom and flight into her veins, she goes to the rowan tree that she and John used to spend time under during the heat waves of the summer, him with his books, her climbing the trees until she learned that those were things that girls did not do.
And then she hikes up her skirts and she climbs up, regardless of the dirt that she is kicking up on her stockings, and she sits in the branches to stare across the mountains.
She is the Earl, here, as she never expected to be, but she is also still the girl that was raised here, the cousin of John Stirling, her own ghost haunting these halls and this valley.
And when she breathes in the air from the top of the tree, she can remember that.
---
When Michaela returns to the castle, she finds Francesca speaking with the butler and the maids. Despite the larger size of the castle, there are less servants here than at the Bridgerton Estate, considering the fact that the family living here consists of solely Michaela and Francesca.
Francesca, for all her discomfort of larger parties and balls and the like, seems rather at ease speaking one-on-one with the staff here at the castle, a proper lady in the sort of way that always chafed at Michaela. Her quiet voice, her curiosity, her head for patterns and routines—she would have made a rather excellent Countess, at least behind the scenes, even if she did not prefer to host larger gatherings.
(Michaela can handle those sorts of things, some voice in Michaela’s head thinks, the two of them complementary in their skillsets, in their personalities, and that would be a great thing for the Earl and the Countess of Kilmartin to share, a fact that feels as much a flame for a moth as ever.)
Michaela can’t help but smile at the sight. At Francesca sliding into a spot that would have been hers, in another life. She doesn’t have the title that she deserves, for such a position, but Michaela can’t help but notice that the line of Francesca’s shoulders isn’t as tight as it was at the party where she tried to keep herself together and to pawn Michaela off onto suitors, and maybe Francesca is actually doing better without the title to guide her expectations. Maybe Francesca is better suited to figuring out a place for herself, picking up the responsibilities that suit her best.
And at dinner that night, Michaela makes her appreciation known. “You are doing a rather impressive job around here,” Michaela says, and she means every glowing word. As a matter of fact—she’s almost worried that her voice might betray too much of the truth of her fondness.
For a moment, Francesca frowns, as if she can’t believe Michaela’s compliment—a sorrow that Michaela shall do her best to relieve as quickly as possible, because she is determined to make Francesca believe her in truth—but then she offers a small smile. “I am doing my best to suit what is needed for you, Your Grace.”
Don’t call me Your Grace, Michaela wants to instruct, All I want is to hear my name on your tongue, but she’s never been one well suited to making orders, to wielding the sort of power that she never expected to pick up.
“Well, whatever you are doing it for—you are doing a lovely job,” Michaela says, “Between the way that you are able to keep the running of things in order around here, plus the sound of your pianoforte in the air—the atmosphere in Castle Kilmartin is certainly changed, and much for the better.”
This earns Michaela a true smile, and she shall treasure it greatly, she knows.
---
The first afternoon that Francesca offers up a spot solving puzzles with Michaela, it almost feels like a gasp of air that she has been suffocating for for so long.
They eat dinner together, supping on wine, and Francesca starts to seem more at ease with the set-up as time passes, as they begin to sit around the hearth at night together, though there are always nights where presence is too much, where Francesca locks herself away in her room with her ghosts and Michaela has to dwell with her own.
---
Michaela sighs after an hour of struggling to fall asleep one night.
It is not an unusual thing, for her to have a hard time sleeping when she is stuck in one place—especially since that one place has been the place haunted by her cousin and his widow—and so she knows how to handle this sort of thing, how to ease her aching mind.
Michaela wraps a robe around herself and makes to head for the kitchens to grab a piece of bread to nibble on to soothe her racing, haunted thoughts.
But she pauses in the hallway, her house slippers halting in the middle of the corridor, when she hears the music.
In the distance, in the parlor, Michaela can hear the sounds of Francesca’s beloved pianoforte echoing, a melancholic tune on the mountain breeze drifting through this giant place.
Michaela takes a deep breath and turns away from the kitchens—away from a snack, away from her usual haunts—and follows the melody to Francesca.
The windows in the parlor are large things, and ever since Francesca moved back in, the curtains have been kept swept back from blocking the glass. Thanks to the open windows and the full moon high in the sky above the highlands, Francesca Bridgerton is bathed in the moonlight through the window, her fingers a dizzying pattern of frosted fractals, a snowflake, an icicle, in a Bridgerton blue and white dressing gown and robe.
It seems that Francesca is just as aching for sleep as Michaela is. That Francesca might be as much of a wanderer as Michaela is, at the end of the night.
Michaela knows that Francesca’s passion is the pianoforte. Is puzzling. Is things that have order, that have pattern, that make sense.
That maybe this is how she not only finds her voice, but finds her control, at the end of the day. That when the world feels like it’s slipping from between her shaking fingers, this is how she finds a way to anchor herself.
Where Michaela runs away from her problems, Francesca holds on tight so that they do not escape her. So that the recklessness of others cannot wreck her.
When Michaela gets closer, she sees the tear slipping down Francesca’s cheek, glimmering in the moonlight, in the starlight, in the single guttering lantern light that Francesca carried down here from her room to settle on the table next to the pianoforte.
Something in Michaela aches for the ghost that haunts these halls—not just John, not just the dead, but the ghost of a marriage that was strangled in its infancy before it could even set down roots, much less bloom into the sort of flower that she knows that John had hoped against hope for when he went to London.
When John had gone to London for the social season three years ago, she had not expected him to come back with a wife that suited him. She wasn’t sure if John would come back with a wife at all—she had had suspicions, once or twice, about John not being interested in any sex at all, man or woman or otherwise—but she knew that he was dedicated to do duty and that he would do whatever he deemed necessary to fulfill his role as Earl.
But when she had met Francesca Bridgerton, that first fateful evening, when she’d seen Francesca’s bright eyes and stuttering words and sweet, bashful smile—
She hadn’t been sure, at first, if this was the sort of woman that could capture John’s eyes. But the longer that she’d gotten to know her, well—
John had good taste. The best of the taste, for the best of men. A woman who met him exactly where he was, in his quiet, stubborn heart, in his quiet, beautiful way of loving, with her own interests as well, her own delights that she carried with her, her own ghosts.
As the current song tapers off, Michaela kneels down next to Francesca. “I do believe it’s time for you to sleep,” she says, voice soft, and Francesca jerks slightly, turning to face her, turning with wide eyes.
But Francesca isn’t frightened this time. She’s just tired. There is red rimming her eyes, restless sleep on her tongue.
“Don’t worry,” Michaela says, “I’ll keep the ghosts away.” She offers out a hand to Francesca, who takes it with trembling, tired fingers.
Francesca is exhausted beyond belief, it seems, from the way that she leans a bit too heavily against Michaela’s side, and Michaela remembers an evening where Francesca, tipsy, had slumped into her side like this, so much happier, so much less grief.
Michaela would do anything not to see Francesca in such a state again. To make sure that Francesca was not weighed down by the anchor of grief, but rather buoyed by delight, by a life that loves her.
So Michaela hums her an old lullaby as she escorts Francesca back to bed, a gift of song, and it’s not quite the gentle melody of a piano, but it is music, a sweet song to ease Francesca’s aches, and with each step, Francesca relaxes, just a bit.
Michaela lays Francesca down in her bed, tucking her in herself instead of bothering one of the maids aslumber at this hour.
Then, as she leaves—
And Michaela knows that she shouldn’t. She knows that she should have self-control. She knows that she should back away, that she shouldn’t indulge, that she should give Francesca space, that she should allow the world to keep turning as it has been—
But some part of Michaela Stirling has always been selfish. Has always sought to have what she wants.
And her selfish heart craves, more than anything, a smile from Francesca Bridgerton’s lips. Craves the soft smile that Francesca wore when she was dancing with John, when she was puzzling, when she was laughing, tipsy in that sitting room, delighted in the sort of way that made Michaela forgive her for trying to meddle where she shouldn’t.
She wants to see Francesca happy. She wants to see Francesca at ease again, not the loose-limbedness that Michaela finds so easy, but Francesca Bridgerton’s small, easy smile, the fondness of living with someone that she loves.
Michaela knows that it is a selfish thing to want of a widow, of a woman that she isn’t even sure likes her most days, but it is still something that she aches for.
So she makes her theft as gentle as she can: she kisses Francesca on the forehead and then turns to leave—
But Francesca, half asleep, leans up and kisses her, firm on the lips, and Francesca tastes of the wine that they had with dinner, of the ink on the parchment, not of ghosts but of the living warmth of the heart, the moonlight dripping through Michaela’s veins to wash her heart with light—
And then Francesca slumps backward, falling asleep with a murmur of, “You’re sweet, Michaela,” nothing but fondness in her voice, and Michaela thinks that she has never tasted anything sweeter than her name fond on Francesca Bridgerton’s mouth.
---
The next day, Francesca discards the premise of breaking a fast separately entirely, as she shows up to the study in quite the harried state, as if she worked herself up into a state since they parted last night, Michaela heading back to her room with a smile on her lips.
"I must beg your pardon, Your Grace, what happened last night—it was a gross misstep of the boundaries between us, me taking advantage of your generosity—"
But Michaela shakes head, setting down the sums she has been puzzling over. "It was not an overstep at all, my dear."
Michaela steps forward and takes Francesca’s hands in hers, and at the touch of their bare fingers together, some measure of the frantic energy boiling through Francesca’s body eases.
And Michaela does what she can to settle it further with: “This place is yours as much as mine,” Michaela says, “John would have wanted it this way, and so do I, as the Earl Kilmartin.”
Stay, Michaela wants to beg, but she would not do that, not to Francesca, no matter how much the words tug at her lips, no matter how much the instinct tugs at her heart.
“But I cannot guarantee that you will not discard my position here, if I mess this up, if I overstep, if I—" Francesca swallows. “You cannot allow me to stay here, when I have forced such—such unwanted—I knew that my time here was short, before I returned to the marriage mart, but I have ruined things—"
Francesca is not filled with fire, the spark of lightning, like she was that original argument in the sitting room, both of them tipsy—she is trembling with fear, with anxiety, a prey animal knowing that she is caught, that she is going to be pinned down, that she is going to be ruined.
It is not how Michaela wants her. There is nothing that Michaela wants less than to see Francesca thinking that Michaela will not want her forever, that this is only one slip in time on a world-wide trip.
But thankfully, this is a matter on which she can very much soothe Francesca’s worries.
“Why should I not allow you to stay here, when I was created in such a fashion myself?” Francesca’s eyes go wide, but not in disgust—in what almost seems like intrigue, and Michaela’s heart leaps at the possibility, incredible as it is.
So Michaela charges forward, laying the truth at Francesca’s feet. “I have always been this way, Francesca. It is why my cousin dissuaded you from inviting a suitor on my behalf. See me honest—" Michaela steps forward and takes Francesca’s hands in hers, those fingers that are so beautiful on the pianoforte, more talented than any other that Michaela has seen on such an instrument. “I am as you are, if not more inclined. You have had your attractions to both sexes, to man and woman alike—I am only inclined towards the fairer sex myself.”
Francesca’s mouth drops open, just a little, a gentle o, a blessed delighted surprise, and Michaela takes it as an opportunity to continue forward, to try her hand, to give what she has been so worried about pushing if Francesca did not wish for it in return.
“Now,” Michaela says, “I know I cannot legally grant you a place here, with the titles you deserve, but—"
“But I do not wish for a title,” Francesca says, and her voice is a rasp, but there is color in her cheeks, a hope in the curve of her lips just beginning to turn upward. “Just—just a place to call my own. A place where I can be heard.”
“Well, I do so delight in listening to you play,” Michaela says.
Francesca’s smile is a wobbly thing in response. “I could not be sure if I bored you or not—"
Michaela shakes her head. “You—you settle me,” she says, and she means it as a compliment, but the moment the words take flight from her lips, she hears the way that they might be misinterpreted.
And so she leans in and settles her forehead against Francesca’s. “I can only hope that I can do something similar for you.”
Francesca’s breath is warm against Michaela’s mouth, an impossible draw, impossible to look away from—
Especially when Francesca leans in quick, cups Michaela’s cheeks, and pulls her into a kiss.
This time, they are both awake. This is not the gentle bubbling of a river within her veins—it is the lightning striking the ground, finally grounding itself as Michaela presses back into Francesca’s kiss, Francesca’s body curling into hers, the line of her body cleaving to Michaela’s, Francesca’s mouth the air that Michaela breathes—
But then they part, Francesca pulling back, and instead of smiling, Francesca’s face has fallen.
“But John,” she says, and it cracks something open inside of Michaela’s chest, because she understands it all too well. “Doing this to him—I—I want to believe he would want us both to be happy, would want us both to find love, but I—" Francesca swallows, hard, aching. “I don’t know how to—"
Michaela has been puzzling through this guilt for years, now. Has been trying to sort through where she wishes to lay her head and where John would want her to lay her head.
And while he was alive, it would have been a sin, would have been a betrayal, but she can’t help but think that now that he is gone, he would wish for them both to be happy. To find love in a way that loves them back.
“We were the two people he loved most,” Michaela says, and she has to believe it. She must. “And he showed that over and over again, using the power to his name to protect and cherish us both. He wrote me of how he had the music arranged for you, how he sought to have you engaged in the way you loved best—"
“Just as you composed a lullaby for me,” Francesca says, voice soft, half-awed.
Michaela nods. “I wish to be someone that you can trust. Someone that loves you in a way you wish to be loved. But if John is the ghost that bids you hesitate—" Michaela thinks of the highlands, of the mountains, of dancing after John’s funeral, to celebrate him instead of mourn him, and she thinks of the rowan tree and climbing to reach the sky while talking with John over his book. “Here. Let me take you to see something that might allow your ghosts to live a little bit easier. A piece of John. Let me give a part of him back.”
Francesca is clearly hesitant, but she does trust Michaela, and also:
She would do anything for John. Michaela knows that, because she would do the same.
“For John,” Francesca agrees, offers up, and Michaela smiles, because this is the one person that both of them love more than anything.
---
So Michaela takes Francesca out to the rowan tree, and then proceeds to do something that she knows will likely get her marked as insane: she hikes her skirts and she climbs it, because she has always had a reckless, restless soul, because when you have a ghost, you have to set him free.
Francesca takes one moment to stare at Michaela’s stockings—oh, Michaela remembers those days, those newly awakened feelings coursing through her veins like a lightning strike, though she does feel the same way nowadays, when it comes to Francesca’s fingers on a piano, so she can’t blame Francesca one bit, can she—before she focuses enough to get properly worried.
“What are you doing up there?” Francesca demands, “You could get injured, you could hit your head, I could lose you too—"
There is a panic gripping Francesca’s voice, tightening the line of her throat, and Michaela feels for her. She truly does. She does not wish to lose anyone she cares about after John.
“I used to climb this tree while John read his books,” Michaela says, and her voice comes out more wistful than she’d been anticipating. Haunted, yes, but also—full of wishes. Of the sort of golden nostalgia that is tender like a bruise, tender like a soft touch, tender as much as ache. “Trust me, darling, I know what I’m doing. And you—you can join me.”
Francesca is not someone who grew up in the Highlands. She is not someone who climbs trees such as this. She is someone who sits and is delicate and pretty for other’s eyes.
“I am not strong enough,” Francesca protests.
But Michaela shakes her head, because she does not need Francesca to be delicate. She just wants Francesca to do free to do whatever she likes, whether it is puzzling or pianoforte or her own ghosts. “You have hands that are used to hours of piano playing and sewing. You have more callouses than you give yourself credit for.”
Francesca stares up at Michaela, and Michaela wonders what she sees. If she’s looking at Michaela, halloed by the daylight, just as the golden rays of the sun illuminate Francesca’s face from above.
But then Francesca, the definition of delicate womanhood, the girl who sits primly at the pianoforte and in the corner of ballrooms and never goes anywhere, bites her lip and screws her courage to the sticking place. She hikes up her own skirt and begins to climb.
Sure, her hands are reddened by the time she makes it to the top, she is sweating profusely in a way she isn’t used to, but she is smiling, satisfied, proud of herself, and Michaela is just as proud of her, of the dirt on her skirts and her hands, of the bark that has caught in her gown.
And Michaela cannot help but laugh at the sight of Francesca Bridgerton, leaves in her hair, skin reddened, the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.
And this time, when Michaela leans in and kisses Francesca sweet and long, Francesca kisses her back without worry, without hesitation, without hang-up.
They kiss at the top of the tree and leave just a little bit of their ghosts behind in the boughs, the golden sunlight streaming through the leaves and blessing them with its life-giving warmth.
---
They descend from the trees to bathe, to pluck leaves out of hair, to clean bodies of sweat and the dirt from the tree bark, to change into shifts and dressing gowns, but when they emerge, when Francesca sees Michaela in a shift, well—
There is a certain hunger that comes from a woman who has spent her entire life trying to find someone to connect to, someone who comes to know and see her exactly how she is when she is bare and still wants to see more.
And sure enough, Francesca is eager to pull Michaela down onto her bed, to kiss her long and deep, to lick lightning up her mouth and neck and—
"Do you think," Francesca says, mouth breathless, "That you could show me what a pinnacle is? That is not—that is not something that only happens between husband and wife, correct?"
There is a certain naivety to Francesca, that is certain. But there is also an eagerness to learn. To put a puzzle together.
And Michaela is more than happy to teach Francesca the lesson that she is eager to learn.
So Michaela's fingers go to the edges of Francesca's dressing gown. Beneath her gown there are layers, yes, the shift beneath the petticoat, but there are no small clothes, of course, leaving her entirely open and eager for Michaela's attentions.
"Oh, that is certainly something that I can show you," Michaela murmurs, inching the hem of Francesca's skirts up over her knees as she ducks her head between Francesca’s thighs.
It is here, between Francesca's hips, in the valley of the mountain, that Michaela does her best to worship at the bare skin spread before her, every inch of flesh that she can work her knowledge to set alight, each stretch mark from growth spurts, each holy place between her legs—
Francesca gasps above her, hands actually reaching up to hold her legs in place, to spread her knees for Michaela's attention, as Michaela travels, nibbling at Francesca's thighs, tongue dipping into her sweet spot, mouth making slow, loving worship out of the altar before her.
Every inch of Francesca's skin that Michaela makes her work out of is a revelation. Is a miracle.
Michaela is more than happy to give Francesca the sort of miracle that she knows that Francesca will feel, especially as one of Francesca's hands dips down to twist into the sheets as she cascades over the edge with a moan, Michaela licking up all evidence of the divine.
---
They collapse into bed afterward, Michaela smiling proudly as her head falls onto the pillow next to Francesca's, but then Francesca turns over and in one fell swoop, moves her leg over Michaela's hip so that she is straddling Michaela's legs, fingers pushing up on Michaela's skirts.
Michaela hadn't dreamed that Francesca might return the favor immediately, but it seems as if an enthusastic pupil might wish to implement the lessons immediately.
“You have given me so much,” Francesca says, and she has no idea what her bright, stubborn eyes are doing to Michaela as her fingers dance across the hem of Michaela’s dressing gown, pushing it up. “I wish to give you a gift in return. To make you feel what I feel.”
Trust me, Countess Stirling, Michaela wants to say, I feel what you feel. You are my ghost and I am yours and you make me feel more alive than I felt in a dozen salons across the continent, seeking to drown my sorrows in other people’s bodies—
But Francesca’s fingers are dancing across Michaela’s skin as Francesca nibbles her lower lip in concentration, same as she does when playing the pianoforte, and Michaela nearly falls over the edge on that alone as Francesca says, "I want to take you apart," sweet voice making the intention all the hotter.
And the thing is that Francesca is a piano player, with a pianist’s long, talented fingers, and she’s enthusiastic to learn, and yes, it takes a moment for Michaela to show her how to slather her fingers in the oil that is in her nightstand, for her to adjust to fingers instead of mouth, but once Francesca slips a finger in, she crooks her fingers, wanting to explore, wanting to try new things, wanting to return the gift—
Michaela's back arches. The lightning rolls into the Scottish highlands and finally grounds itself as Francesca's fingers dive deep and make Michaela see the fucking fire.
---
Afterward, Michaela finds her body and Francesca's tangled up together beneath the sheets, sweat and shifts on skin, Francesca’s hair sweaty and caught up at the edges of her face as she plays with Michaela's fingers between their chests.
And god, her joy, her satisfaction, is a radiant thing, impossible to look away from.
---
Others dance at the balls of the marriage mart or in the Bridgerton estate, in groups of people, searching for their lovers, parading about their marriages, anxious to connect, to flaunt, to share with others—
But so many nights here in Kilmartin Castle, Michaela and Francesca dance across the floor in front of the pianoforte, twirling each other around, laughing, swaying, collapsing giggling and in love into the lounge chair next to them, kissing beneath the moonlight in dressing gowns and robes, because this is their castle. Their small, sacred place, where the flowers bloom, where the frost cracks, where the rain finally falls to quench the thirst of the lonely, where the lightning finally grounds itself in the hearth that they call home.
Do you think I'd give up
That this might've shook the love from me
Or that I was on the brink
How could you think darling I'd scare so easily?
My life was a storm
Since I was born
How could I fear any hurricane?
If someone asked me at the end
I'll tell them put me back in it
Darling, I would do it again
-Hozier, Francesca