Chapter Text
Nine months…
The solicitors call upon Francesca nine months past John’s death, announcing an end to their search for a Kilmartin heir.
Eloise is visiting Kilmartin House when they stop by, having coaxed Francesca to take tea outside for once, a break in her normal routine. The weather is fair, the sky a bit overcast, though not cold enough to truly cause discomfort. It is the wind that bites the most, whipping at the skirts of her dress and causing loose strands of her hair to stick to her dampened lips each time she takes a sip of her tea.
It reminds Francesca of Scotland, a bit. She had expected the rain when she first arrived— it was instead the wind that she struggled to adjust to the most. The way it howled against the castle’s walls, and changed direction so unpredictably.
Well, it was one of the things she found most difficult to acclimate to.
The solicitors join them outside on the veranda, their papers catching in the wind. Mr. Davies does most of the talking, though it is Mr. Welford, the elder of the two men, who delivers the news.
Francesca watches their papers flutter all the while.
The heir. The Kilmartin heir.
Nine months of searching, of poring over lineages and awaiting claims to be brought, have yielded no male heir. In England, such news would see the title returned to the Crown.
Not so, in Scotland.
“Well,” Eloise breaks the silence once the two men have departed, their intentions to remain in contact their last words spoken. “That’s quite something, isn't it?”
“Yes, I suppose,” Francesca nods absently.
“I have always liked the Scottish,” Eloise announces, leaning back in her chair with her familiarly imperfect posture.
Francesca cracks a smile, even though she feels little of it in her heart. She is not surprised by her sister’s declaration. Eloise would indeed find it rather forward-thinking that such Scottish titles might be inherited by a woman, where no male heir could be found. She’d probably wish to see it pushed further, perhaps a woman before men if the woman were simply older— but the idea of a woman inheriting at all still feels positively progressive compared to the English way of things.
“Where is Michaela now?” Eloise asks.
Francesca shrugs. “Last she wrote she’d been in Italy.”
She has received just three letters from Michaela in all the months since John’s death. The first had been written in southern Spain, and the second from Morocco. The third and final had come from Rome, along with a small box containing a folio of piano arrangements for Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. A gift.
All the letters were infuriatingly brief and light. Michaela wrote of her travels, of the sights, and inquired politely as to Francesca’s well-being with no mention of John or Kilmartin or her absence at all. She wrote as if they were friends, separated by the naturally pulling currents of life.
Francesca had not responded to a single one of them. The sheet music had been placed into her music chest, unread and unplayed. She would not give Michaela the satisfaction of it.
Michaela had promised her, and Michaela had left her.
“Well, I imagine she’ll have to return now,” Eloise says. “Countess of Kilmartin,” she muses aloud.
Francesca sips her tea, the wind howling in her ears.
One year and one month…
The weight of John’s death feels painfully quiet on most days, even a year after his passing. Francesca wonders if it is because of the man he was, if it would feel different if he had been more loquacious. She wonders if she would think of him less if that were the case, sitting in the silence of Kilmartin House for hours on end.
Because it is the silence itself that reminds her of him, the way he could sit beside her for hours without uttering a word. Reading a book, going over the finances, or just simply sitting, a peaceful smile upon his kind face.
Her family visits her to fill the silence, though Francesca does not know if she even wants it to be filled.
It is Penelope today. The day before it had been Kate and Anthony, the one before that her mother. They come in shifts, now, seeming to have realized that the more of them present, the quieter Francesca will be.
She has always liked the quiet.
“You should come with us to visit Benedict and Sophie next week,” Penelope says. She reaches out, placing her hand on Francesca’s knee.
Francesca nearly flinches at the touch.
It is not because she is unused to touch— her mother hugs her fiercely when she visits, and Francesca knows to greet her sisters, both by blood and marriage, with a customary embrace. Francesca does not often enjoy the touch of others —and never has, truly— but she has made herself appropriately comfortable with it.
But there is a familiarity to this touch, to the placement of Penelope’s hand, and Francesca remembers another reaching out to her, in the haze of fresh grief.
Michaela had touched her just like that. And then she had left.
There have been no more letters. She wonders if the solicitors ever managed to track down Michaela, if she knows of what she’s inherited.
“Perhaps,” she agrees to Penelope’s offer, though she knows she will likely decline when the day comes, feigning fatigue or illness.
“Good,” Penelope smiles, brightening. “And you must know, you are always welcome to visit us at Featherington House as well. Or stay with us for a spell, or however long you wish,” she offers in a rush of words. “It must be… Well, I would not presume, but I only mean to say that you are welcome in our home, should you find yourself wishing for a change of scenery.”
Francesca smiles politely. “Thank you, Pen. But truly, I am… content here.”
She knows she is not happy, but she does not think she would be any happier, away from Kilmartin House, away from the silence.
John sits steadily in the quiet of it all. Michaela, reaching across the distance between them, a hand on her knee.
One year and seven months…
Francesca first entertains the idea of remarrying just over a year and a half after John’s death.
It is Daphne who raises the idea on one of her visits, gently and with the sort of tact that only Daphne truly has in asking such a forward question.
“Do you ever wish to remarry, when the time is right?” Daphne asks, her arm linked with Francesca’s as they walk through the park. It is not yet the marriage season— in fact, they are far from it, with the first breaths of autumn finally filling the air. But Francesca imagines her elder sister is nevertheless imagining this very park in the height of the season, filled to the brim with promenading lords and debutantes.
“No,” Francesca answers immediately.
She does not have a wish for it. A wish is a want, a desire for something one does not already have. And Francesca had her marriage already. She loved, and she lost. She debuted and did her duty— as best she could, anyway, though there had been no child to show for it.
The pain of that shortcoming still hurts. She should have been able to give John that, at the very least.
“Fran, you are so very young, still,” Daphne looks at her sadly. “You are deserving of love once again.”
Fran shakes her head. She does not think it possible. John had been an exception, in a way. No other suitor had made her feel so… at peace with herself. It had felt like performance with the others, a mask she had to keep on at all times just to belong.
And even still, even with John, sweet and quiet John, there had been moments —those of intimacy— where she felt like the mask slipped back into place.
“Do you not think yourself deserving of it?” Daphne asks. She looks hurt on Francesca’s behalf, as if the thought causes her some physical pain.
“It is not a matter of deserving,” Francesca says. She looks down at the ground, growing uncomfortable at her sister’s sadness. “I just do not see myself loving another man.”
“Well, perhaps one day you will feel different. I would not rush you through your grief, but I only hope that you do not close yourself off to the possibility of happiness.”
They walk on in silence.
“From all Eloise has said, it does seem like the new Lady Kilmartin has a kind heart, and I’m certain she would let you stay at Kilmartin House,” Daphne continues. “But you might wish to find a different residence, once she returns. I imagine she’ll start a family of her own, soon, and they may decide to take residence in London.”
Francesca stares at the ground.
Michaela is quite insistent on marching into spinsterhood, John had once told her.
Francesca wonders if that has changed, wherever in the world Michaela might be.
She has the briefest moment where she conjures up the image Daphne has suggested— Michaela, returning to London. Finding a husband during the next season. Settling into Kilmartin House. Having a child with him.
She bites her lip hard enough to draw blood. She does not want to think of that.
“Of course, you’ll still have your jointures, and you may move into one of the Kilmartin dower houses,” Daphne quickly assures her. She must see the look of consternation on Francesca’s face, and has read it to be something it is not. Though, Francesca does not know what it is, exactly. “You will never want for anything in the material sense, Fran. I just meant that you might like to make a home of your own again.”
Francesca continues to stare at the ground. She doesn’t like the unsettled feeling in her stomach.
“I will consider it,” she says.
One year and eleven months…
Michaela returns to Kilmartin House nearly two years to the day of John’s death —of her broken promise and furtive departure— blowing open the front doors like a tempest come to ruin Francesca’s precariously rebuilt peace.
Francesca is taking breakfast when she arrives, because it is nine thirty, and it is time for breakfast.
“Lady Kilmartin,” she hears the greeting from the hall— she had expected the commotion by the door to be one of the household staff, perhaps bringing in the post, or tidying the entryway.
Lady Kilmartin.
Francesca has worn that title for several years, now, and it makes her look up instinctively. But there is now another who bears it too.
Michaela enters the room before Francesca has the chance to ready herself for it.
The other woman is changed— not as much as Francesca would have expected after two years of absence, but it is still visible. Her hair is braided now, tightly plaited against her scalp, and falling into styled curls at her back, just a few strands left loose to frame her face at the front. She wears black, still, like Francesca herself, an unadorned overcoat for her travels and a pair of black gloves to match.
“Good morning, Francesca,” Michaela says, and her voice is as deep and rich as Francesca remembered.
“Good morning,” Francesca repeats out of instinct. She presses her fingers into the palms of her hands, taking a shaky breath. She needs time to think, to decide how she’s meant to feel.
It’s all happening too fast, throwing her off kilter in a way that only Michaela seems able to do with such ease. She feels like she’s back in Scotland, violent winds whipping at her face and stinging her eyes.
“I did not miss the weather, I must say,” Michaela says conversationally, undoing the buttons of her coat. A servant quickly comes by to take it from her. “It rained a great deluge from the moment we docked till the carriage reached Mayfair. Truly a dreadful sight.”
Michaela speaks like they are friends, as if it has been mere days or weeks since they last spoke. Francesca breathes quicker, her eyes burning. The phantom wind is threatening to bowl her over, now.
Michaela is here.
Angry. Francesca is angry.
She stands abruptly from the table, her chair scraping loudly across the floor.
“I do not wish to break fast now,” she announces to no one in particular, even though it is nine thirty. She flees the room without casting a glance in Michaela’s direction, even though she feels the other woman’s eyes on her all the while.
Her face stings, and her breath comes ragged.
Michaela is here.
Two years…
Francesca realizes one morning that it has been two years since John’s passing, and she has been a widow longer than she ever was a wife.
Her silence breaks for just that moment, and she cries for the first time in years.
“Francesca?”
She hears footsteps enter the library, and then the sofa cushion sinks beside her. Michaela always carries with her a certain scent— some perfume unlike that which most ladies of the Ton wear, more spiced and warm instead of floral.
Francesca purses her lips together and looks away, but the tears do not stop. Her shoulders shake with them, and she wants— she needs something she does not have a name for.
“Would you like for me to hug you?” Michaela asks.
Francesca turns abruptly, pressing herself into Michaela’s side. Michaela’s arms wrap around her shoulders, squeezing ever so gently. Not hard enough.
“Can you hold me tighter?” Francesca asks. Her tears are staining Michaela’s dress at her shoulder, the skin of her neck warm against Francesca’s cheek.
Michaela immediately tightens her embrace, one hand on the small of Francesca’s back, the other just below the nape of her neck. She squeezes, and it releases a pressure in Francesca’s chest, allowing her sobs to come without restraint.
She cries until the pressure disappears. Her throat is sore, and her eyes burn, but she feels lighter for it.
“Thank you,” she says quietly, allowing herself to pull away.
Michaela drops her arms. She does not say anything, though she doesn’t leave, either.
They have been avoiding each other for the past month.
Or rather, Francesca has avoided Michaela, and Michaela has done little to remedy it. They live in parallel at Kilmartin House, Francesca managing the household and Michaela meeting with the solicitors and minding the books. Francesca rises early and goes to bed early— though she does not fall asleep till later. Michaela rises late, after nine thirty, and sometimes stays out until the early hours of the morning. Sometimes she does not return at all.
Those nights, Francesca waits by her bedroom window until dawn, with a heavy dread sitting low in her stomach. Watching for a carriage. For proof that Michaela has not left permanently once more.
“It’s been two years,” Michaela breaks the silence.
Francesca nods.
“Why did you leave?” She asks, unable to bear it any longer. Those cursed letters used to taunt her with their lack of explanation, as if Michaela did not think Francesca deserving of one.
Michaela doesn’t answer.
“Michaela,” she demands. She is angry again. She’s been angry for the past month, and she needs to know why.
“Because I could not stay.”
“But why?” Francesca asks, frustrated. She does not like when people speak in circles. Michaela is often so forward with her words, except when she isn’t.
Michaela sighs, slumping against the back of the sofa. “I felt things I did not have the constitution to face. It was better for me to escape from it.”
“I grieved him too, you know,” Francesca responds, her lower lip trembling. Michaela was not the only one with a weakened constitution. Michaela knew him much longer, that Francesca will not deny, and perhaps she felt the grief worse for it— but they both did grieve, and Michaela had left her to do it alone.
“And you left me alone,” she accuses. “I needed you with me through it, as I asked you to be.”
“And I needed to be alone for it,” Michaela says. Her eyes are sad, but still entirely resolute. “I’m sorry.”
Francesca digs her fingers into her skirts, her body tensing in frustration. “Why did you tell me you would stay, then? Why be so cruel about it?”
That was the worst part of it. Thinking Michaela would stay, taking comfort in it, latching onto the promise, and then finding out she’d been left without a goodbye.
“I did not intend to.” Michaela says. It is not an answer at all. Did not intend to be cruel? Did not intend to leave? Did not intend to promise?
“I’m sorry, Francesca.”
Francesca leaves the room.
Two years and two months…
Two years and two months after John’s death, Francesca decides to reenter the marriage mart.
It is a decision she ponders in private for some time. She thinks of her conversation with Daphne. She thinks of Eloise, declaring herself to be ‘on the shelf’ and happily devoted to spinsterhood, yet she is acting strangely these days, enough so for even Francesca to notice. She thinks of Michaela, living and sleeping within the same house once more, yet inexplicably out of reach.
Francesca does not wish to love again, nor does she wish to reenter society, but she is being pragmatic about things.
“I’ve thought to reenter the marriage mart,” she announces to Michaela in the parlor, keeping her hands laced across her stomach. She had rehearsed the announcement before bringing it to Michaela.
Michaela looks up from her book. She is sitting on the floor once more, though Francesca still does not know why she does so, when there are three suitable sofas just steps away.
“It’s been two years since—” She exhales shakily, clasping and unclasping her hands. Michaela’s dark eyes gaze up at her beneath thick lashes from her place on the floor, making Francesca distinctly nervous, a hot tugging in her lower belly.
“It’s sensible for me to do so. I do not wish to overburden.”
She has thought this through. Michaela will marry eventually, because it is the expectation of the Countess of Kilmartin, and Francesca will not be here for it when the time comes.
Michaela stands, dropping her book to the floor.
“If this relates to the jointure or your residence, they are certainly no burden,” she says slowly. Her brow is furrowed. “And if you prefer, the dower house is always—”
“It is not the jointure, nor the residence.”
Francesca is young, and she is not expected to remain a widow forever, living off of John’s family’s wealth in perpetuity when she could not even provide him with an heir in return.
Michaela looks at her in silence.
Francesca stares back, even though it is difficult to do so without looking away. She feels exposed, like the fabric of her dress has turned sheer under a sudden downpour, clinging to every contour of her body.
“Well, I wish you luck, then,” Michaela says eventually. She licks her lips, reaching down to retrieve her book.
Francesca blinks. “That’s it?”
“What do you wish for me to say?” Michaela asks. “John would want you to be happy, Francesca. He would never fault you for seeking love once more,” she says. She pauses, her jaw tensing for a moment. The spine of the book crackles in her hand. “And nor would I.”
“I know,” Francesca says. John was good. Impossibly so. She knows he would not fault her for it.
She does not know what she’d hoped for Michaela to say.
Do not do it, perhaps. Stay.