Bridgerton Collection, Volume 2 - Julia Quinn Page 0,323

with a dumbstruck expression.

“Not over me,” she said quickly, almost blushing at the thought. “My word, not that.”

“Then what?” he asked, his voice quiet and clipped.

“Well, just—I mean—” She motioned to the flowers, a clear display of her sudden popularity. “Well, we’re both after much the same goal this season, aren’t we?”

He just stared at her blankly.

“Marriage,” she said. Good heavens, he was particularly obtuse this morning.

“Your point?”

She let out an impatient breath. “I don’t know if you had thought about it, but I’d naturally assumed you would be the one to be relentlessly pursued. I never dreamed that I would . . . Well . . .”

“Emerge as a prize to be won?”

It wasn’t the nicest way of putting it, but it wasn’t exactly inaccurate, so she just said, “Well, yes, I suppose.”

For a moment he said nothing, but he was watching her strangely, almost wryly, and then he said, his voice quiet, “A man would have to be a fool not to want to marry you.”

Francesca felt her mouth form a surprised oval. “Oh,” she said, quite at a loss for words. “That’s . . . that’s . . . quite the nicest thing you could have said to me just now.”

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. She decided not to tell him that he’d just deposited a streak of yellow pollen into the black strands.

“Francesca,” he said, looking tired and weary and something else.

Regretful?

No, that was impossible. Michael wasn’t the sort to regret anything.

“I would never begrudge you this. You . . .” He cleared his throat. “You should be happy.”

“I—” It was the strangest moment, especially after their tense words the night before. She hadn’t the faintest clue how to reply, and so she just changed the subject and said, “Your turn will come.”

He looked at her quizzically.

“It already has, really,” she continued. “Last night. I was besieged with far more admirers for your hand than for my own. If women could send flowers, we’d be completely awash with them.”

He smiled, but the sentiment didn’t quite reach his eyes. He didn’t look angry, just . . . hollow.

And she was struck by what a strange observation that was.

“Er, last night,” he said, reaching up and tugging at his cravat. “If I said anything to upset you . . .”

She watched his face. It was so dear to her, and she knew every last detail of it. Four years, it seemed, did little to smudge a memory. But something was different now. He’d changed, but she wasn’t sure how.

And she wasn’t sure why.

“Everything is fine,” she assured him.

“Nonetheless,” he said gruffly, “I’m sorry.”

But for the rest of the day, Francesca wondered if he knew exactly what he was apologizing for. And she couldn’t escape the feeling that she wasn’t sure, either.

Chapter 12

. . . rather ridiculous writing to you, but I suppose after so many months in the East, my perspective on death and the afterlife has slid into something that would have sent Vicar MacLeish screaming for the hills. So far from England, it is almost possible to pretend that you are still alive and able to receive this note, just like the many I sent from France. But then someone calls out to me, and I am reminded that I am Kilmartin and you are in a place unreachable by the Royal Mail.

—from the Earl of Kilmartin

to his deceased cousin, the previous earl,

one year and two months

after his departure for India,

written to completion and

then burned slowly over a candle

It wasn’t that he enjoyed feeling like an ass, Michael reflected as he swirled a glass of brandy at his club, but it seemed that lately, around Francesca at least, he couldn’t quite avoid acting like one.

There she had been at her mother’s birthday party, so damned happy for him, so delighted that he had uttered the word love in her presence, and he had simply snapped.

Because he knew how her mind worked, and he knew that she was already thinking madly ahead, trying to select the perfect woman for him, and the truth was . . .

Well, the truth was just too pathetic for words.

But he’d apologized, and although he could swear up and down that he wasn’t going to behave like an idiot again, he would probably find himself apologizing again sometime in the future, and she would most likely just chalk it all up to a cranky nature on his part, never mind that he’d been a model of good humor