“Didn’t Michael say that he would be joining us for supper this evening?”

Francesca looked up at her mother, who was standing before her with concerned eyes. She had been thinking the exact same thing, actually, wondering what was keeping him.

She’d spent the better part of the day dreading his arrival, even though he had absolutely no idea that she had been so distressed by that moment in the park. Good heavens, he probably didn’t even realize there had been a “moment.”

It was the first time in her life that Francesca was thankful for the general obtuseness of men.

“Yes, he did say that he would come,” she replied, shifting slightly in her chair. She had been waiting for some time now in the drawing room with her mother and two of her sisters, idly passing the time until their supper guest arrived.

“Didn’t we give him the time?” Violet asked.

Francesca nodded. “I confirmed it with him when he left me here after our stroll in the park.” She was quite certain of the exchange; she clearly recalled feeling rather sick in her stomach when they had spoken of it. She hadn’t wanted to see him again—not so quickly, anyway—but what could she do? Her mother had issued the invitation.

“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.

“Michael!” She reached out and grabbed his shoulder. None too gently, either. “Don’t you dare try your usual tricks on me. I know exactly how you operate. You always pretend that nothing matters, that water rolls off your back—”

“It does roll off my back,” he mumbled. “Yours as well. Simple science, really.”

“Michael!” She would have smacked him if he weren’t so ill. “You will not attempt to minimize this, do you understand me? I insist that you tell me right now what is wrong with you!”

“I’ll be better tomorrow,” he said.

“Oh, right,” Francesca said, with all the sarcasm she could muster, which was, in truth, quite a bit.

“I will,” he insisted, restlessly shifting positions, every movement punctuated with a groan. “I’ll be fine for tomorrow.”

Something about the phrasing of his words struck Francesca as profoundly odd. “And what about the day after that?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

A harsh chuckle emerged from somewhere under the covers. “Why, then I’ll be sick as a dog again, of course.”

“Michael,” she said again, dread forcing her voice low, “what is wrong with you?”

“Haven’t you guessed?” He poked his head back out from under the sheet, and he looked so ill she wanted to cry. “I have malaria.”

“Oh, my God,” Francesca breathed, actually backing up a step. “Oh, my God.”

“First time I’ve ever heard you blaspheme,” he remarked. “Probably ought to be flattered it’s over me.”

She had no idea how he could be so flip at such a time. “Michael, I—” She reached out, then didn’t reach out, unsure of what to do.

“Don’t worry,” he said, huddling closer into himself as his body was wracked with another wave of shudders. “You can’t catch it from me.”

“I can’t?” She blinked. “I mean, of course I can’t.” And even if she could, that ought not have stopped her from nursing him. He was Michael. He was…well, it seemed difficult precisely to define what he was to her, but they had an unbreakable bond, they two, and it seemed that four years and thousands of miles had done little to diminish it.

“It’s the air,” he said in a tired voice. “You have to breathe the putrid air to catch it. It’s why they call it malaria. If you could get it from another person, we lot would have infected all of England by now.”

She nodded at his explanation. “Are you…are you…” She couldn’t ask it; she didn’t know how.

“No,” he said. “At least they don’t think so.”

She felt herself sag with relief, and she had to sit down. She couldn’t imagine a world without him. Even while he’d been gone, she’d always known he was there, sharing the same planet with her, walking the same earth. And even in those early days following John’s death, when she’d hated him for leaving her, even when she’d been so angry with him that she wanted to cry—she had taken some comfort in the knowledge that he was alive and well, and would return to her in an instant, if ever she asked it of him.

He was here. He was alive. And with John gone…Well, she didn’t know how anyone could expect her to lose them both.

He shivered again, violently.

“Do you need medicine?” she asked, snapping to attention. “Do you have medicine?”

“Took it already,” he chattered.

But she had to do some thing. She wasn’t self-hating enough to think that there had been anything she could have done to prevent John’s death—even in the worst of her grief she hadn’t gone down that road—but she had always hated that the whole thing had happened in her absence. It was, in truth, the one momentous thing John had ever done without her. And even if Michael was only sick, and not dying, she was not going to allow him to suffer alone.

“Let me get you another blanket,” she said. Without waiting for his reply, she rushed through the connecting door to her own suite and pulled the coverlet off her bed. It was rose pink and would most likely offend his masculine sensibilities once he reached a state of sensibility, but that, she decided, was his problem.

When she returned to his room, he was so still she thought he’d fallen asleep, but he managed to rouse himself enough to say thank you as she tucked the blanket over him.

“What else can I do?” she asked, pulling a wooden chair to the side of his bed and sitting down.

“Nothing.”

“There must be something,” she insisted. “Surely we’re not meant to merely wait this out.”

“We’re meant,” he said weakly, “to merely wait this out.”

“I can’t believe that’s true.”

He opened one eye. “Do you mean to challenge the entire medical establishment?”

She ground her teeth together and hunched over in her chair. “Are you certain you don’t need more medicine?”

He shook his head, then moaned at the exertion of it. “Not for another few hours.”

“Where is it?” she asked. If the only thing she could truly do was to locate the medication and be ready to dispense it, then by God, she would at least do that.

He moved his head slightly to the left. Francesca followed the motion toward a small table across the room, where a medicinal bottle sat atop a folded newspaper. She immediately rose and retrieved it, reading the label as she walked back to her chair. “Quinine,” she murmured. “I’ve heard of that.”

“Miracle medicine,” Michael said. “Or so they say.”

Francesca looked at him dubiously.

“Just look at me,” he said with a lopsided—and feeble—grin. “Proof positive.”

She inspected the bottle again, watching the powder shift as she tilted it. “I remain unconvinced.”

One of his shoulders attempted to move in a blithe gesture. “I’m not dead.”

“That’s not funny.”

“No, it’s the only funny thing,” he corrected. “We’ve got to take our laughter where we can. Just think, if I died, the title would go to—how does Janet always put it—that—”

“Awful Debenham side of the family,” they finished together, and Francesca couldn’t believe it, but she actually smiled.

He could always make her smile.

She reached out and took his hand. “We will get through this,” she said.

He nodded, and then he closed his eyes.

But just when she thought he was asleep, he whispered, “It’s better with you here.”

The next morning Michael was feeling somewhat refreshed, and if not quite his usual self, then at least a damn sight better than he’d been the night before. Francesca, he was horrified to realize, was still in the wooden chair at his bedside, her head tilted drunkenly to the side. She looked uncomfortable in every way a body could look uncomfortable, from the way she was perched in the chair to the awkward angle of her neck and the strange spiral twist of her torso.

But she was asleep. Snoring, even, which he found rather endearing. He’d never pictured her snoring, and sad to say, he had imagined her asleep more times than he cared to count.

He supposed it had been too much to hope that he could hide his illness from her; she was far too perceptive and certainly far too nosy. And even though he would have preferred that she didn’t worry over him, the truth was, he’d been comforted by her presence the night before. He shouldn’t have been, or at least he shouldn’t have allowed himself to be, but he just couldn’t help it.

He heard her stir and rolled to his side to get a better look. He had never seen her wake up, he realized. He wasn’t certain why he found that so strange; it wasn’t as if he’d been privy to many of her private moments before. Maybe it was because in all of his daydreams, in all of his fantasies, he’d never quite pictured this—the low rumbling from deep in her throat as she shifted position, the small sigh of sound when she yawned, or even the delicate ballet of her eyelids as they fluttered open.

She was beautiful.

He’d known that, of course, had known that for years, but never before had he felt it quite so profoundly, quite so deeply in his bones.

It wasn’t her hair, that rich, lush wave of chestnut that he was rarely so privileged as to see down. And it wasn’t even her eyes, so radiantly blue that men had been moved to write poetry—much, Michael recalled, to John’s everlasting amusement. It wasn’t even in the shape of her face or the structure of her bones; if that were the case, he’d have been obsessed with the loveliness of all the Bridgerton girls; such peas in a pod they were, at least on the outside.

It was something in the way she moved.

Something in the way she breathed.

Something in the way she merely was.

And he didn’t think he was ever going to get over it.

“Michael,” she murmured, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Good morning,” he said, hoping she’d mistake the roughness in his voice for exhaustion.

“You look better.”

“I feel better.”

She swallowed and paused before she said, “You’re used to this.”

He nodded. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I don’t mind the illness, but yes, I’m used to it. I know what to do.”

“How long will this continue?”

“It’s hard to say. I’ll get fevers every other day until I just…stop. A week in total, maybe two. Three if I’m fiendishly unlucky.”

“And then what?”

He shrugged. “Then I wait and hope it never happens again.”

“It can do that?” She sat up straight. “Just never come back?”

“It’s a strange, fickle disease.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t say it’s like a woman.”

“Hadn’t even occurred to me until you brought it up.”

Her lips tightened slightly, then relaxed as she asked, “How long has it been since your last…” She blinked. “What do you call them?”

He shrugged. “I call them attacks. Certainly feels like one. And it’s been six months.”

“Well, that’s good!” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Isn’t it?”

“Considering it had only been three before that, yes, I think so.”

“How often has this happened?”

“This is the third time. All in all, it’s not too bad compared with what I’ve seen.”

“Am I meant to take solace in that?”

“I do,” he said bluntly. “Model of Christian virtue that I am.”

She reached out abruptly and touched his forehead. “You’re much cooler,” she remarked.

“Yes, I will be. It’s a remarkably consistent disease. Well, at least when you’re in the midst of it. It would be nice if I knew when I might expect an onset.”

“And you’ll really have another fever in a day’s time? Just like that?”

“Just like that,” he confirmed.

She seemed to consider that for a few moments, then said, “You won’t be able to hide this from your family, of course.”

He actually tried to sit up. “For God’s sake, Francesca, don’t tell my mother and—”

“They’re expected any day now,” she cut in. “When I left Scotland, they said they would be only a week behind me, and knowing Janet, that really means only three days. Do you truly expect them not to notice that you’re rather conveniently—”

“Inconveniently,” he cut in acerbically.

“Whichever,” she said sharply. “Do you really think they won’t notice that you’re sick as death every other day? For heaven’s sake, Michael, do credit them with a bit of intelligence.”

“Very well,” he said, slumping back against the pillows. “But no one else. I have no wish to become the freak of London.”

“You’re hardly the first person to be stricken with malaria.”

“I don’t want anyone’s pity,” he bit off. “Most especially yours.”

She drew back as if struck, and of course he felt like an ass.

“Forgive me,” he said. “That came out wrong.”

She glared at him.

“I don’t want your pity,” he said repentantly, “but your care and your good wishes are most welcome.”

Her eyes didn’t meet his, but he could tell that she was trying to decide if she believed him.

“I mean it,” he said, and he didn’t have the energy to try to cover the exhaustion in his voice. “I am glad you were here. I have been through this before.”

She looked over sharply, as if she were asking a question, but for the life of him, he didn’t know what.

“I have been through this before,” he said again, “and this time was…different. Better. Easier.” He let out a long breath, relieved to have found the correct word. “Easier. It was easier.”

“Oh.” She shifted in her chair. “I’m…glad.”

He glanced over at the windows. They were covered with heavy drapes, but he could see glimmers of sunlight peeking in around the sides. “Won’t your mother be worried about you?”

“Oh, no!” Francesca yelped, jumping to her feet so quickly that her hand slammed into the bedside table. “Ow ow ow.”

“Are you all right?” Michael inquired politely, since it was quite clear she’d done herself no real harm.

“Oh…” She was shaking her hand out, trying to stem the pain. “I’d forgotten all about my mother. She was expecting me back last night.”

“Didn’t you send her a note?”

“I did,” she said. “I told her you were ill, but she wrote back and said she would stop by in the morning to offer her assistance. What time is it? Do you have a clock? Of course you have a clock.” She turned frantically to the small mantel clock over the fireplace.

It had been John’s room; it still was John’s room, in so many ways. Of course she’d know where the clock was.

“It’s only eight,” she said with a relieved sigh. “Mother never rises before nine unless there is an emergency, and hopefully she won’t count this as one. I tried not to sound too panicked in my note.”

Knowing Francesca, it would have been worded with all the coolheaded calmness she was known for. Michael smiled. She’d probably lied and said she’d hired a nurse.

“There’s no need to panic,” he said.

She turned to him with agitated eyes. “You said you didn’t want anyone to know you had malaria.”

His lips parted. He had never dreamed that she would hold his wishes quite so close to her heart. “You would keep this from your mother?” he asked softly.

“Of course. It is your decision to tell her, not mine.”

It was really quite touching, rather tender even—

“I think you’re insane,” she added sharply.

Well, maybe tender wasn’t quite the right word.

“But I will honor your wishes.” She planted her hands on her hips and regarded him with what could only be described as vexation. “How could you even think I would do otherwise?”

“I have no idea,” he murmured.

“Really, Michael,” she grumbled. “I do not know what is wrong with you.”

“Swampy air?” he tried to joke.

She shot him A Look. Capitalized.

“I’m going back to my mother’s,” she said, pulling on her short gray boots. “If I don’t, you can be sure she will show up here with the entire faculty of the Royal College of Physicians in tow.”

He lifted a brow. “Is that what she did whenever you took ill?”

She let out a little sound that was half snort, half grunt, and all irritation. “I will be back soon. Don’t go anywhere.”

He lifted his hands, gesturing somewhat sarcastically to the sickbed.

“Well, I wouldn’t put it past you,” she muttered.

“Your faith in my superhuman strength is touching.”

She paused at the door. “I swear, Michael, you make the most annoying deathly ill patient I have ever met.”

“I live to entertain you!” he called out as she was walking down the hall, and he was quite certain that if she’d had something to throw at the door, she would have done so. With great vigor.

He settled back down against his pillows and smiled. He might make an annoying patient, but she was a crotchety nurse.

Which was just fine with him.