Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,296

bit of a joke, that. With so much intermarriage, the family was at least as much English as it was Scottish, perhaps even more so, but with Kilmartin firmly situated in the border counties, the Stirlings clung to their Scottish heritage like a badge of honor.

They found a bench not too far from the Serpentine and sat, idly watching the ducks on the water.

“You’d think they’d find a warmer spot,” Michael said. “France, maybe.”

“And miss out on all the food the children toss at them?” Francesca smiled wryly. “They’re not stupid.”

He just shrugged. Far be it from him to pretend any great knowledge of avian behavior.

“How did you find the climate in India?” Francesca queried. “Is it as hot as they say?”

“More so,” he replied. “Or maybe not. I don’t know. I imagine the descriptions are perfectly accurate. The problem is, no Englishman can truly understand what they mean until he gets there.”

She looked at him quizzically.

“It’s hotter than you could ever imagine,” he said, spelling it out.

“It sounds . . . Well, I don’t know how it sounds,” she admitted.

“The heat isn’t nearly so difficult as the insects.”

“It sounds dreadful,” Francesca decided.

“You probably wouldn’t like it. Not for an extended stay, anyway.”

“I’d like to travel, though,” she said softly. “I’d always planned to.”

She fell silent, nodding in a rather absentminded manner, her chin tilting up and down for so long that he was quite sure she’d forgotten she was doing it. Then he realized that her eyes were fixed off in the distance. She was watching something, but for the life of him he couldn’t imagine what. There was nothing interesting in the vista, just a pinchfaced nursemaid pushing a pram.

“What are you looking at?” he finally asked.

She said nothing, just continued to stare.

“Francesca?”

She turned to him. “I want a baby.”

Chapter 7

. . . had hoped to have received a note from you by now, but of course the post is notoriously unreliable when it must travel so far. Just last week I heard tale of the arrival of a mail pouch that was a full two years old; many of the recipients had already returned to England. My mother writes that you are well and fully recovered from your ordeal; I am glad to hear of it. My work here continues to challenge and fulfill. I have taken up residence outside the city proper, as do most Europeans here in Madras. Nonetheless, I enjoy visiting the city; it is rather Grecian in appearance; or rather, what I must imagine is Grecian, having never visited that country myself. The sky is blue, so blue it is nearly blinding, almost the bluest thing I have ever seen.

—from the Earl of Kilmartin

to the Countess of Kilmartin,

six months after his arrival in India

“I beg your pardon?”

She’d shocked him. He was sputtering, even. She hadn’t made her announcement to elicit this sort of reaction, but now that he was sitting there, his mouth hanging open and slack, she couldn’t help but take a small amount of pleasure from the moment.

“I want a baby,” she said with a shrug. “Is there something surprising in that?”

His lips moved before he actually made sound. “Well . . . no . . . but . . .”

“I’m twenty-six.”

“I know how old you are,” he said, a little testily.

“I’ll be twenty-seven at the end of April. I don’t think it’s so odd that I might want a child.”

His eyes still held a vaguely glazed sort of quality. “No, of course not, but—”

“And I shouldn’t have to explain myself to you!”

“I wasn’t asking you to,” he said, staring at her as if she’d grown two heads.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I overreacted.”

He said nothing, which irritated her. At the very least, he could have contradicted her. It would have been a lie, but it was still the kind and courteous thing to do.

Finally, because the silence was simply unbearable, she muttered, “A lot of women want children.”

“Right,” he said, coughing on the word. “Of course. But . . . don’t you think you might want a husband first?”

“Of course.” She speared him with an aggravated glare. “Why do you think I came down to London early?”

He looked at her blankly.

“I am shopping for a husband,” she said, speaking to him as if he were a halfwit.

“How mercenarily put,” he murmured.

She pursed her lips. “It’s what it is. And you had probably best get used to it for your own sake. It’s precisely how the ladies will soon be talking about