“We have not yet received all of your trunks from the ship, my lord. You didn’t have anything suitable for London, so I located these among the previous earl’s belong-”
“Jesus.”
“My lord? I’m terribly sorry if these don’t suit you. I remembered that the two of you were of a size, and I thought you’d want-”
“Just get them off. Now.” Michael closed his eyes and sat in a leather chair-John’s leather chair-marveling at the irony of it. His worst nightmare coming true, in the most literal of fashions.
“Of course, my lord.” Reivers looked pained, but he quickly went to work removing the boots.
Michael pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger and let out a long breath before speaking again. “I would prefer not to use any items from the previous earl’s wardrobe,” he said wearily. Truly, he had no idea why John’s clothing was still here; the lot of it should have been given to the servants or donated to charity years ago. But he supposed that was Francesca’s decision to make, not his.
“Of course, my lord. I shall see to it immediately.”
“Good,” Michael grunted.
“Shall I have it locked away?”
Locked? Good God, it wasn’t as if the stuff were toxic. “I’m sure it is all just fine where it is,” Michael said. “Just don’t use any of it for me.”
“Right.” Reivers swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed uncomfortably.
“What is it now, Reivers?”
“It’s just that all of the previous Lord Kilmartin’s ac-couterments are still here.”
“Here?” Michael asked blankly.
“Here,” Reivers confirmed, glancing about the room.
Michael sagged in his chair. It wasn’t that he wanted to wipe every last reminder of his cousin off the face of this earth; no one missed John as much as he did, no one.
Well, except maybe Francesca, he allowed, but that was different.
But he just didn’t know how he was meant to lead his life so completely and smotheringly surrounded by John’s belongings. He held his title, spent his money, lived in his house. Was he meant to wear his damned shoes as well?
“Pack it all up,” he said to Reivers. “Tomorrow. I don’t wish to be disturbed this evening.”
And besides, he probably ought to alert Francesca of his intentions.
Francesca.
He sighed, rising to his feet once the valet had departed. Christ, Reivers had forgotten to take the boots with him. Michael picked them up and deposited them outside the door. He was probably overreacting, but hell, he just didn’t want to stare at John’s boots for the next six hours.
After shutting the door with a decisive click, he padded aimlessly over to the window. The sill was wide and deep, and he leaned heavily against it, gazing through the sheer curtains at the blurry streetscape below. He pushed the thin fabric aside, his lips twisting into a bitter smile as he watched a nursemaid tugging a small child along the pavement.
Francesca. She wanted a baby.
He didn’t know why he was so surprised. If he thought about it rationally, he really shouldn’t have been. She was a woman, for God’s sake; of course she’d want children. Didn’t they all? And while he’d never consciously sat down and told himself that she’d pine away for John forever, he’d also never considered the idea that she might actually care to remarry one day.
Francesca and John. John and Francesca. They were a unit, or at least they had been, and although John’s death had made it sadly easy to envision one without the other, it was quite something else entirely to think of one with another.
And then of course there was the small matter of his skin crawling, which was his general reaction to the thought of Francesca with another man.
He shuddered. Or was that a shiver? Damn, he hoped it wasn’t a shiver.
He supposed he was simply going to have to get used to the notion. If Francesca wanted children, then Francesca needed a husband, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. It would have been rather nice, he supposed, if she had come to this decision and taken care of the whole odious matter last year, sparing him the nausea of having to witness the entire courtship unfold. If she’d just gone and gotten herself married last year, then it would have been over and done with, and that would have been that.
End of story.
But now he was going to have to watch. Maybe even advise.
Bloody hell.
He shivered again. Damn. Maybe he was just cold. It was March, after all, and a chilly one at that, even with a fire in the grate.
He tugged at his cravat, which was starting to feel unaccountably tight, then yanked it off altogether. Christ, he felt like the very devil, all hot and cold, and queerly off balance.
He sat down. It seemed the best course of action.
And then he just gave up all pretense of being well, stripping off the rest of his clothing and crawling into bed.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter 8
… wonderful lovely nice good to hear from you. I am glad you are faring well. John would have been proud. I miss you. I miss him. I miss you. Some of the flowers are still out. Isn’t it nice that some of the flowers are still out?
– -from the Countess of Kilmartin to the Earl of Kilmartin, one week after the receipt of his second missive to her,
first draft, never finished, never sent
“Didn’t Michael say that he would be joining us for supper this evening?”
Francesca looked up at her mother, who was standing before her with concerned eyes. She had been thinking the exact same thing, actually, wondering what was keeping him.