Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,284

she blurted out.

He went pale, deathly pale. So much so that for a moment she couldn’t breathe.

“What do you mean?” he whispered.

“It would have needed a father,” she said, shrugging helplessly. “I—You—It would have had to be you.”

“You have brothers,” he choked out.

“They didn’t know John. Not the way you did.”

He moved away, stood, and then, as if that weren’t enough, backed up as far as he could, all the way to the window. His eyes flared slightly, and for a moment she could have sworn that he resembled a trapped animal, cornered and terrified, waiting for the finality of the kill.

“Why are you telling me this?” he said, his voice flat and low.

“I don’t know,” she said, swallowing uncomfortably. But she did know. She wanted him to grieve as she grieved. She wanted him to hurt in every way she hurt. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t nice, but she couldn’t help it and she didn’t feel like apologizing for it, either.

“Francesca,” he said, and his tone was strange, hollow and sharp, and like nothing she’d ever heard.

She looked at him, but she moved her head slowly, scared by what she might see in his face.

“I’m not John,” he said.

“I know that.”

“I’m not John,” he said again, louder, and she wondered if he’d even heard her.

“I know.”

His eyes narrowed and focused on her with dangerous intensity. “It wasn’t my baby, and I can’t be what you need.”

And inside of her, something started to die. “Michael, I—”

“I won’t take his place,” he said, and he wasn’t shouting, but it sounded like maybe he wanted to.

“No, you couldn’t. You—”

And then, in a startling flash of motion, he was at her side, and he’d grabbed her shoulders and hauled her to her feet. “I won’t do it,” he yelled, and he was shaking her, and then holding her still, and then shaking her again. “I can’t be him. I won’t be him.”

She couldn’t speak, couldn’t form words, didn’t know what to do.

Didn’t know who he was.

He stopped shaking her, but his fingers bit into her shoulders as he stared down at her, his quicksilver eyes afire with something terrifying and sad. “You can’t ask this of me,” he gasped. “I can’t do it.”

“Michael?” she whispered, hearing something awful in her voice. Fear. “Michael, please let me go.”

He didn’t, but she wasn’t even sure he’d heard her. His eyes were lost, and he seemed beyond her, unreachable.

“Michael!” she said again, and her voice was louder, panicked.

And then, abruptly, he did as she asked, and he stumbled back, his face a portrait of self-loathing. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, staring at his hands as if they were foreign bodies. “I’m so sorry.”

Francesca edged toward the door. “I’d better go,” she said.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“I think—” She stopped, choking on the word as she grasped the doorknob, clutching it like her salvation. “I think we had better not see each other for a while.”

He nodded jerkily.

“Maybe . . .” But she didn’t say anything more. She didn’t know what to say. If she’d known what had just happened between them she might have found some words, but for now she was too bewildered and scared to figure it all out.

Scared, but why? She certainly wasn’t scared of him. Michael would never hurt her. He’d lay down his life for her if the opportunity forced itself; she was quite sure of that.

Maybe she was just scared of tomorrow. And the day after that. She’d lost everything, and now it appeared she’d lost Michael as well, and she just wasn’t sure how she was supposed to bear it all.

“I’m going to go,” she said, giving him one last chance to stop her, to say something, to say anything that might make it all go away.

But he didn’t. He didn’t even nod. He just looked at her, his eyes silent in their agreement.

And Francesca left. She walked out the door and out of his house. And then she climbed into her carriage and went home.

And she didn’t say a word. She climbed up her stairs and she climbed into her bed.

But she didn’t cry. She kept thinking she should, kept feeling like she might like to.

But all she did was stare at the ceiling.

The ceiling, at least, didn’t mind her regard.

Back in his apartments in the Albany, Michael grabbed his bottle of whisky and poured himself a tall glass, even though a glance at the clock revealed the day to be still younger than noon.

He’d sunk to a new low,