“I know,” he said, even though he knew it wasn’t enough.
“Oh, Michael,” she sobbed. “What am I to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said, because he didn’t. Between Eton, Cambridge, and the army, he’d been trained for everything that the life of an English gentleman was supposed to offer. But he hadn’t been trained for this.
“I don’t understand,” she was saying, and he supposed she was saying a lot of things, but none of it made any sense to his ears. He didn’t even have the strength to stand, and together the two of them sank to the carpet, leaning against the side of the bed.
He stared sightlessly at the far wall, wondering why he wasn’t crying. He was numb, and his body felt heavy, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that his very soul had been ripped from his body.
Not John.
Why?
Why?
And as he sat there, dimly aware of the servants gathering just outside the open door, it occurred to him that Francesca was whimpering those very same words.
“Not John.
“Why?
“Why?”
“Do you think she might be with child?”
Michael stared at Lord Winston, a new and apparently overeager appointee to the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords, trying to make sense of his words. John had been dead barely a day. It was still hard to make sense of anything. And now here was this puffy little man, demanding an audience, prattling on about some sacred duty to the crown.
“Her ladyship,” Lord Winston said. “If she’s carrying, it will complicate everything.”
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “I didn’t ask her.”
“You need to. I’m sure you’re eager to assume control of your new holdings, but we really must determine if she’s carrying. Furthermore, if she is pregnant, a member of our committee will need to be present at the birth.”
Michael felt his face go slack. I beg your pardon? he somehow managed to say.
“Baby switching,” Lord Winston said grimly. “There have been instances-”
“For God’s sake-”
“It’s for your protection as much as anyone’s,” Lord Winston cut in. “If her ladyship gives birth to a girl, and there is no one present to witness it, what is to stop her from switching the babe with a boy?”
Michael couldn’t even bring himself to dignify this with an answer.
“You need to find out if she is carrying,” Lord Winston pressed. “Arrangements will need to be made.”
“She was widowed yesterday,” Michael said sharply. “I will not burden her with such intrusive questions.”
“There is more at stake here than her ladyship’s feelings,” Lord Winston returned. “We cannot properly transfer the earldom while there is doubt as to the succession.”
“The devil take the earldom,” Michael snapped.
Lord Winston gasped, drawing back in visible horror. “You forget yourself, my lord.”
“I’m not your lord,” Michael bit off. “I’m not anyone’s-” He halted his words, sinking into a chair, trying very hard to get past the fact that he was perilously close to tears. Right here, in John’s study, with this damnable little man who didn’t seem to understand that a man had died, not just an earl, but a man, Michael wanted to cry.
And he would, he suspected. As soon as Lord Winston left, and Michael could lock the door and make sure that no one could see him, he would probably bury his face in his hands and cry.
“Someone has to ask her,” Lord Winston said.
“It won’t be me,” Michael said in a low voice.
“I will do it, then.”
Michael leapt from his seat and pinned Lord Winston against the wall. “You will not approach Lady Kil-martin,” he growled. “You will not even breathe the same air. Do I make myself clear?”
“Quite,” the smaller man gurgled.
Michael let go, dimly aware that Lord Winston’s face was beginning to turn purple. “Get out,” he said.
“You will need-”
“Get out!” he roared.
“I will come back tomorrow,” Lord Winston said, skittering out the door. “We will speak when you are in a calmer frame of mind.”
Michael leaned against the wall, staring at the open doorway. Good God, how had it all come to this? John hadn’t even been thirty. He was the picture of health. Michael might have been second in line for the earldom as long as John and Francesca’s marriage remained childless, but no one had truly thought he’d ever inherit.
Already he’d heard that men in the clubs were calling him the luckiest man in Britain. Overnight, he’d gone from the fringe of aristocracy to its very epicenter. No one seemed to understand that Michael had never wanted this. Never.
He didn’t want an earldom. He wanted his cousin back. And no one seemed to understand that.
Except, perhaps, Francesca, but she was so wrapped in her own grief that she could not quite comprehend the pain in Michael’s heart.
And he would never ask her to. Not when she was so wrecked by her own.
Michael wrapped his arms against his chest as he thought of her. For the rest of his life, he would not forgel the sight of Francesca’s face once the truth had finally sunk in. John was not sleeping. He was not going to wake up.
And Francesca Bridgerton Stirling was, at the tendei age of two and twenty, the saddest thing imaginable.
Alone.
Michael understood her despair better than anyone could ever imagine.
They’d put her to bed that night, he and her mother, who had hurried over at Michael’s urgent summons. And she’d slept like a baby, with nary even a whimper, her body worn out from the shock of it all.