When He Was Wicked

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2…and if it were as bad as that, I suspect you would not tell me. As for the women, do at least try to make sure they are clean and free of disease. Beyond that, do what you must to make your time bearable. And please, try not to get yourself killed. At the risk of sounding maudlin, I don’t know what I would do without you.

…from the Earl of Kilmartin to his cousin Michael Stirling, sent in care of the 52nd Foot Guards during the Napoleonic Wars.

For all his faults, and Francesca was willing to allow that Michael Stirling had many, he really was the dearest man.

He was a horrible flirt (she’d seen him in action, and even she had to admit that otherwise intelligent women lost all measure of sense when he chose to be charming), and he certainly didn’t approach his life with the gravity that she and John would have liked him to, but even with all that, she couldn’t help but love him.

He was the best friend John had ever had, until he’d married her , of course and over the last two years, he’d become her close confidant as well.

It was a funny thing, that. Who would have thought she’d have counted a man as one of her closest friends? She was not uncomfortable around men; four brothers tended to wring the delicacy out of even the most feminine of creatures.

But she was not like her sisters. Daphne and Eloise, and Hyacinth, too, she supposed, although she was still a bit young to know for sure, were so open and sunny. They were the sorts of females who excelled at hunting and shooting the kinds of pursuits that tended to get them labeled as “jolly good sports.” Men always felt comfortable in their presence, and the feeling was, Francesca had observed, entirely mutual.

But she was different. She’d always felt a little different from the rest of her family. She loved them fiercely, and would have laid down her life for any one of them, but even though she looked like a Bridgerton, on the inside she always felt like a bit of a changeling.

Where the rest of her family was outgoing, she was…not shy, precisely, but a bit more reserved, more careful with her words. She’d developed a reputation for irony and wit, and she had to admit, she could rarely resist the opportunity to needle her siblings with a dry remark. It was done out of love, of course, and perhaps a touch of the desperation that comes from having spent far too much time with one’s family, but they teased Francesca right back, so all was fair. It was the way of her family. They laughed, they teased, they bickered.

Francesca’s contributions to the din were simply a touch quieter than the rest, a bit more sly and subversive.

She often wondered if part of her attraction to John had been the simple fact that he removed her from the chaos that was so often the Bridgerton household.

Not that she didn’t love him; she did. She adored him with every last breath in her body. He was her kindred spirit, so like her in so many ways. But it had, in a strange sort of fashion, been a relief to exit her mother’s home, to escape to a more serene existence with John, whose sense of humor was precisely like hers.

He understood her, he anticipated her.

He completed her.

It had been the oddest sensation when she’d met him, almost as if she were a jagged puzzle piece finally finding its mate. Their first meeting hadn’t been one of overwhelming love or passion, but rather filled with the most bizarre sense that she’d finally found the one person with whom she could completely be herself.

It had been instant. It had been sudden. She couldn’t remember just what it was he’d said to her, but from the moment words first left his lips, she had felt at home. And with him had come Michael, his cousin, although truth be told, the two men were much more like brothers. They’d been raised together, and they were so close in age that they’d shared everything.

Well, almost everything. John was the heir to an earldom, and Michael was just his cousin, and so it was only natural that the two boys would not be treated quite the same. But from what Francesca had heard, and from what she knew of the Stirling family now, they had been loved in equal measure, and she rather thought that was the key to Michael’s good humor.

Because even though John had inherited the title and the wealth, and well, everything, Michael didn’t seem to envy him.

He didn’t envy him. It was amazing to her. He’d been raised as John’s brother, John’s older brother, even, and yet he’d never once begrudged John any of his blessings.

And it was for that reason that Francesca loved him best. Michael would surely scoff if she tried to praise him for it, and she was quite certain that he would point to his many misdeeds (none of which, she feared, were exaggerated) to prove that his soul was black and he was a scoundrel through and through, but the truth of the matter was that Michael Stirling possessed a generosity of spirit and a capability for love that was unmatched among men.

And if she didn’t find a wife for him soon, she was going to go mad.

“What,” she said, aware that her voice was quite suddenly piercing the silence of the night, “is wrong with my sister?”

“Francesca,” he said, and she could hear irritation, and, thankfully, a bit of amusement as well in his voice, “I’m not going to marry your sister.”

“I didn’t say you had to marry her.”

“You didn’t have to. Your face is an open book.”

She looked up at him, twisting her lips. “You weren’t even looking at me.”

“Of course I was, and anyway, it wouldn’t matter if I weren’t. I know what you’re about.”

He was right, and it scared her. Sometimes she worried that he understood her as well as John did.

“You need a wife,” she said.

“Didn’t you just promise your husband that you would stop pestering me about this?”

“I did not, actually,” she said, giving him a rather superior glance. “He asked, of course!”

“Of course,” Michael muttered.

She laughed. He could always make her laugh.

“I thought wives were supposed to accede to their husbands’ wishes,”

Michael said, quirking his right brow. “In fact, I’m quite certain it’s right there in the marriage vows.”

“I’d be doing you a grave disservice if I found you a wife like that ,” she said, punctuating the sentiment with a well-timed and extremely disdainful snort.

He turned and gazed down at her with a vaguely paternalistic expression. He should have been a nobleman, Francesca thought. He was far too irresponsible for the duties of a title, but when he looked at a person like that, all superciliousness and certitude, he might as well have been a royal duke.

“Your responsibilities as Countess of Kilmartin do not include finding me a wife,” he said.

“They should.”

He laughed, which delighted her. She could always make him laugh.

“Very well,” she said, giving up for now. “Tell me about something wicked, then. Something John would not approve of.”

It was a game they played, even in John’s presence, although John always made at least the pretense of discouraging them. But Francesca suspected that John enjoyed Michael’s tales as much as she did. Once he’d finished with his obligatory admonitions, he was always all ears.

Not that Michael ever told them much. He was far too discreet for that. But he dropped hints and innuendo, and Francesca and John were always thoroughly entertained. They wouldn’t trade their wedded bliss for anything, but who didn’t like to be regaled with tales of debauchery and spice?

“I’m afraid I’ve done nothing wicked this week,” Michael said, steering her around the corner to King Street.

“You? Impossible.”

“It’s only Tuesday,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but not counting Sunday, which I’m sure you would not desecrate” she shot him a look that said she was quite certain he’d already sinned in every way possible, Sunday or no “that does leave you Monday, and a man can do quite a bit on a Monday.”

“Not this man. Not this Monday.”

“What did you do, then?”

He thought about that, then said, “Nothing, really.”

“That’s impossible,” she teased. “I’m quite certain I saw you awake for at least an hour.”

He didn’t say anything, and then he shrugged in a way she found oddly disturbing and said, “I did nothing. I walked, I spoke, I ate, but at the end of the day, there was nothing.”

Francesca impulsively squeezed his arm. “We shall have to find you something,” she said softly.

He turned and looked at her, his strange, silvery eyes catching hers with an intensity she knew he didn’t often allow to rise to the fore.

And then it was gone, and he was himself again, except she suspected that Michael Stirling wasn’t at all the man he wished people to believe him to be.

Even, sometimes, her.

“We should return home,” he said. “It’s growing late, and John will have my head if I let you catch a chill.”

“John would blame me for my foolishness, and well you know it,” Francesca said. “This is just your way of telling me you have a woman waiting for you, probably draped in nothing but the sheets on her bed.”

He turned to her and grinned. It was wicked and devilish, and she understood why half the ton, the female half, that was, fancied themselves in love with him, even with no title or fortune to his name.

“You said you wanted something wicked, didn’t you?” he asked. “Did you want more detail? The color of the sheets, perhaps?”

She blushed, drat it all. She hated that she blushed, but at least the reaction was covered by the night. “Not yellow, I hope,” she said, because she couldn’t bear to let the conversation end on her embarrassment. “It makes you look sallow.”

“I won’t be wearing the sheets,” he drawled.

“Nevertheless.”

He chuckled, and she knew that he knew that she’d said it just to have the last word. And she thought he was going to allow her the small victory, but then, just when she was beginning to find relief in the silence, he said, “Red.”

“I beg your pardon?” But of course she knew what he meant.

“Red sheets, I think.”

“I can’t believe you told me that.”

“You asked, Francesca Stirling.” He looked down at her, and one lock of midnight black hair fell onto his forehead.

“You’re just lucky I don’t tell your husband on you.”

“John would never worry over me,” she said.

For a moment she didn’t think he would reply, but then he said, “I know,” and his voice was oddly grave and serious. “It’s the only reason I tease you.”

She’d been watching the pavement, looking for rough spots, but his tone was so serious she had to look up. “You’re the only woman I know who would never stray,” he said, touching her chin. “You have no idea how much I admire you for that.”

“I love your cousin,” she whispered. “I would never betray him.”

He brought his hand back to his side. “I know.”

He looked so handsome in the moonlight, and so unbearably in need of love, that her heart nearly broke. Surely there was no woman who could resist him, not with that perfect face and tall, muscular body. And anyone who took the time to explore what was underneath would come to know him as she did, as a kindhearted man, loyal and true.

With a hint of the devil, of course, but Francesca supposed that was what would attract the ladies in the first place.

“Shall we?” Michael said, suddenly all charm. He tilted his head back in the direction of home, and she sighed and turned around.

“Thank you for taking me out,” she said, after a few minutes of companionable silence. “I wasn’t exaggerating when I said I was going mad with the rain.”

“You didn’t say that,” he said, immediately giving himself a mental kick. She’d said that she’d been feeling a bit odd, not that she’d been going mad, but only an i***t savant or a lovesick fool would have noticed the difference. “Didn’t I?” She scrunched her brow together. “Well, I was certainly thinking it. I’ve been rather sluggish, if you must know. The fresh air did me a great deal of good.”