But he’d not even risen from his seat before Janet said quietly, “Michael? The tailor.”

He froze.

Janet smiled at him sweetly. ‘Tomorrow would be perfectly acceptable.“

Francesca rather thought she heard his teeth grind.

Janet just tilted her head ever so slightly to the side. “You do need new evening clothes. Surely you would not dream of missing Lady Bridgerton’s birthday ball?”

Francesca quickly forked a bite of eggs into her mouth so that he wouldn’t catch her grinning. Janet was devious in the extreme. Her mother’s birthday party was the one event that Michael would feel positively obligated to attend. Anything else he could shrug off without a care.

But Violet?

Francesca didn’t think so.

“When is it?” he sighed.

“April eleventh,” Francesca said sweetly. “Everyone will be there.”

“Everyone?” he echoed.

“All the Bridgertons.”

He brightened visibly.

“And everyone else ” she added with a shrug.

He looked at her sharply. Define everyone. “

Her eyes met his. “Everyone.”

He slumped in his seat. “Am I to get no reprieve?”

“Of course you are,” Helen said. “You did, in fact. Last week. We called it malaria.”

“And here I was looking forward to health,” he muttered.

“Fear not,” Janet said. “You will have a fine time, I’m sure.”

“And perhaps meet a lovely lady,” Helen put in helpfully.

“Ah, yes,” Michael murmured, “lest we forget the real purpose of my life.”

“It’s not such a bad purpose,” Francesca said, unable to resist the small chance to tease him.

“Oh, really?” he asked, swinging his head around to face her. His eyes settled on hers with startling accuracy, leaving Francesca with the extremely unpleasant sensation that perhaps she shouldn’t have provoked him.

“Er, really,” she said, since she couldn’t back down now.

“And what are your purposes?” he asked sweetly.

Out of the corner of her eye, Francesca could see Janet and Helen watching the exchange with avid and unconcealed curiosity.

“Oh, this and that,” Francesca said with a blithe wave of her hand. “Presently, just to finish my breakfast. It is most delicious, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Coddled eggs with a side portion of meddling mothers?”

“Don’t forget your cousin as well,” she said, kicking herself under the table as soon as the words left her lips. Everything about his demeanor screamed not to provoke him, but she just couldn’t help it.

There was little in this world she enjoyed more than provoking Michael Stirling, and moments like this were simply too delicious to resist.

“And how will you be spending your season?” Michael asked, tilting his head slightly into an obnoxiously patient expression.

“I imagine I’ll begin by going to my mother’s birthday party.”

“And what will you be doing there?”

“Offering my felicitations.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, I won’t be inquiring after her age, if that’s what you’re asking,” Francesca replied.

“Oh, no,” Janet said, followed by Helen’s equally fervent, “Don’t do that.”

All three ladies turned to Michael with identical expectant expressions. It was his turn to speak, after all.

“I’m leaving,” he said, his chair scraping along the floor as he stood.

Francesca opened her mouth to say something provoking, since it was always her first inclination to tease him when he was in such a state, but she found herself without words.

Michael had changed.

It wasn’t that he’d been irresponsible before. It was just that he’d been without responsibilities. And it hadn’t really occurred to her how well he might rise to the occasion once he returned to England.

“Michael,” she said, her soft voice instantly gaining his attention, “good luck with Lord Liverpool.”

His eyes caught hers, and something flashed there. A hint of appreciation, maybe of gratitude.

Or maybe it was nothing so precise. Maybe it was just a wordless moment of understanding.

The sort she’d had with John.

Francesca swallowed, uncomfortable with this sudden realization. She reached for her tea with a slow and deliberate movement, as if her control over her body might extend to her mind as well.

What had just happened?

He was just Michael, wasn’t he?

Just her friend, just her longtime confidant.

Wasn’t that all?

Wasn’t it?

Chapter 10

…

– nothing more than hatchmarks, caused by the tapping of the Countess of Kilmartin’s pen against paper, two weeks after the receipt of the Earl of Kilmartin’s third missive to her

“Is he here?”

“He’s not here.”

“Are you certain?”

“I’m quite certain.”

“But he is coming?”

“He said he was.”

“Oh. But when is he coming?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Oh. Right. Well… Oh, look! I see my daughter. Lovely seeing you, Francesca.”

Francesca rolled her eyes-not an affectation she espoused except under the most severe of circumstances- as she watched Mrs. Featherington, one of the ton’s most notorious gossips, toddle off toward her daughter Felicity, who was chatting amiably with a handsome, albeit untitled, young man at the edge of the ballroom.