“He’s probably just running late,” said Hyacinth, Francesca’s youngest sister. “I’m not surprised. His sort is always late.”
Francesca turned on her instantly. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve heard all about his reputation.”
“What has his reputation to do with anything?” Francesca asked testily. “And anyway, what would you know of it? He left England years before you made your bow.”
Hyacinth shrugged, jabbing a needle into her extremely untidy embroidery. “People still speak of him,” she said carelessly. “The ladies swoon like idiots at the mere mention of his name, if you must know.”
“There’s no other way to swoon,” put in Eloise, who, although Francesca’s elder by precisely one year, was still unmarried.
“Well, rake he may be,” Francesca said archly, “but he has always been punctual to a fault.” She never could countenance others speaking ill of Michael. She might sigh and moan and belabor his faults, but it was entirely unacceptable that Hyacinth, whose knowledge of Michael was based entirely on rumor and innuendo, would make such a sweeping judgment.
“Believe what you will,” Francesca said sharply, because there was no way she was going to allow Hyacinth to have the last word, “but he would never be late to a supper here. He holds Mother in far too high regard.”
“What about his regard for you?” Hyacinth said.
Francesca glared at her sister, who was smirking into her embroidery. “He-” No, she wasn’t going to do this. She wasn’t going to sit here and get into an argument with her younger sister, not when something might actually be wrong. Michael was, for all his wicked ways, faultlessly polite and considerate to the bone, or at least he had always been so in her presence. And he would never have arrived for supper-she glanced up at the mantel clock-over thirty minutes late. Not, at least, without sending word.
She stood, briskly smoothing down her dove gray skirts. “I am going to Kilmartin House,” she announced.
“By yourself?” Violet asked.
“By myself,” Francesca said firmly. “It is my home, after all. I hardly think that tongues will wag if I stop by for a quick visit.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” her mother said. “But don’t stay too long.”
“Mother, I am a widow. And I do not plan to spend the night. I merely intend to inquire as to Michael’s welfare. I shall be just fine, I assure you.”
Violet nodded, but from her expression, Francesca could see that she would have liked to have said more. It had been like this for years-Violet wanted to resume her role of mother hen to her young widowed daughter, but she held back, attempting to respect her independence.
She didn’t always manage to resist interfering, but she tried, and Francesca was grateful for the effort.
“Do you want me to accompany you?” Hyacinth asked, her eyes lighting up.
“No!” Francesca said, surprise making her tone a bit more vehement than she’d intended it. “Why on earth would you want to?”
Hyacinth shrugged. “Curiosity. I’d like to meet the Merry Rake.”
“You’ve met him,” Eloise pointed out.
“Yes, but that was ages ago,” Hyacinth said with a dramatic sigh, “before I understood what a rake was.”
“You don’t understand that now,” Violet said sharply.
“Oh, but I-”
“You do not” Violet repeated, “understand what a rake is.”
“Very well.” Hyacinth turned to her mother with a sickly sweet smile. “I don’t know what a rake is. I also don’t know how to dress myself or wash my own teeth.”
“I did see Polly helping her on with her evening gown last night,” Eloise murmured from the sofa.
“No one can get into an evening gown on her own,” Hyacinth shot back.
“I’m leaving,” Francesca announced, even though she was quite certain no one was listening to her.
“What are you doing?” Hyacinth demanded.
Francesca stopped short until she realized that Hyacinth wasn’t speaking to her.
“Just examining your teeth,” Eloise said sweetly.
“Girls!” Violet exclaimed, although Francesca couldn’t imagine that Eloise took too kindly to the generalization, being seven and twenty as she was.
And indeed she didn’t, but Francesca took Eloise’s irritation and subsequent rejoinder as an opportunity to slip out of the room and ask a footman to call up the carriage for her.
The streets were not very crowded; it was early yet, and the ton would not be heading out for parties and balls for at least another hour or two. The carriage moved swiftly through Mayfair, and in under a quarter of an hour Francesca was climbing the front steps of Kilmartin House in St. James’s. As usual, a footman opened the door before she could even lift the knocker, and she hurried inside.
“Is Kilmartin here?” she asked, realizing with a small jolt of surprise that it was the first time she had referred to Michael as such. It was strange, she realized, and good, really, how naturally it had come to her lips. It was probably past time that they all grew used to the change. He was the earl now, and he’d never be plain Mr. Stirling again.
“I believe so,” the footman replied. “He came in early this afternoon, and I was not made aware of his departure.”
Francesca frowned, then gave a nod of dismissal before heading up the steps. If Michael was indeed at home, he must be upstairs; if he were down in his office, the footman would have noticed his presence.
She reached the second floor, then strode down the hall toward the earl’s suite, her booted feet silent on the plush Aubusson carpet. “Michael?” she called out softly, as she approached his room. “Michael?”
There was no response, so she moved closer to his door, which she noticed was not quite all the way closed. “Michael?” she called again, only slightly louder. It wouldn’t do to bellow his name through the house. Besides, if he was sleeping, she didn’t wish to wake him. He was probably still tired from his long journey and had been too proud to indicate as such when Violet had invited him to supper.
Still nothing, so she pushed the door open a few additional inches. “Michael?”
She heard something. A rustle, maybe. Maybe a groan.
“Michael?”
“Frannie?”
It was definitely his voice, but it wasn’t like anything she’d ever heard from his lips.
“Michael?” She rushed in to find him huddled in his bed, looking quite as sick as she’d ever seen another human being. John, of course, had never been sick. He’d merely gone to bed one evening and woken up dead.
So to speak.
“Michael!” she gasped. “What is wrong with you?”
“Oh, nothing much,” he croaked. “Head cold, I imagine.”
Francesca looked down at him with dubious eyes. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead, his skin was flushed and mottled, and the level of heat radiating from the bed quite took her breath away.
Not to mention that he smelled sick. It was that awful, sweaty, slightly putrid smell, the sort that, if it had a color, would surely be vomitous green. Francesca reached out and touched his forehead, recoiling instantly at the heat of it.
“This is not a head cold,” she said sharply.
His lips stretched into a hideous approximation of a smile. “A really bad head cold?”
“Michael Stuart Stirling!”
“Good God, you sound like my mother.”
She didn’t particularly feel like his mother, especially not after what had happened in the park, and it was almost a bit of a relief to see him so feeble and unattractive. It took the edge off whatever it was she’d been feeling earlier that afternoon.
“Michael, what is wrong with you?”
He shrugged, then buried himself deeper under the covers, his entire body shaking from the exertion of it.