“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.”