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Somewhere in an inn on the outskirts of Glasgow, there is a woman underneath Michaela, gently moaning her name. In all honesty, Michaela doesn’t remember the woman’s name back. She met her at a bar in a quiet part of the city - she charmed her with her tales of her adventures through Europe, bought her a drink, and she looked a little like Francesca. And that is the only reason why she is fully undressed on top of her now, her hand between her legs.
“Please,” the woman rasps, pleadingly. “I need you inside.” Obligingly, she pushes two fingers inside of her, feels as she writhes beneath her. She doesn’t look her in the eyes as she pushes in further, not properly. They’re dark brown, not hazel like Francesca’s. And her hair is ginger, much redder than Francesca’s. Francesca. She pushes her fingers deeper inside the woman, imagining that it is indeed Francesca tightening around her instead, that the soft moans she can hear close to her ear is Francesca vocalising her pleasure to her. Her face contorted with ecstasy. Francesca. She methodically pushes in and out, imagining it is Francesca she is pleasuring, and that is what keeps her pushing so steadily, so passionately, even as her wrist begins to ache. Francesca.
She creeps her hand down between her own legs, until the thought of Francesca alone is what tips her over the edge. The woman beneath her reaches her climax just after. She feels as she flutters around her, her fingernails digging into her back, before she pulls out hastily.
“Wow,” she gasps out. “That was incredible. Thank you.” The woman is clearly flustered. “How are you so skilled?”
Michaela smiles meekly at her in response, although the gesture doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
They lie together in the bed, their naked limbs entangled together between bedsheets, before she feels the woman’s arms snake around her waist.
“Do you want… to lay here a while? I have no-where to be.”
Michaela feels her skin bristle under her touch, the realisation dawning on her that the woman staring back at her, the woman touching her, and who she was touching, does not have Francesca’s face. She is not Francesca, and suddenly everything about this situation feels overbearingly uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry,” Michaela replies in a faux cheerful tone, as she detaches her hands from her body and rises off the bed. “I have to leave. My coachman will be waiting for me outside in the cold, and I cannot have him falling ill. It is very easy to catch a sickness at this time of year. Even the flu can be deadly.”
“Very well. Perhaps you can write me your address instead?”
“That will not be possible. I apologise,” she replies, already beginning to dress herself.
She notices the woman’s face fall, and feels her stomach twist with guilt. Looking back, she cannot remember just how unintentionally unclear she was with her about the intended nature of their hook-up in her slightly tipsy state.
She must think I’m just using her she thinks. And the most difficult thing to admit to herself is, is that she cannot fully deny it. If she could not imagine the woman she was inside of was Francesca, she would not be enjoying herself at all. She painstakingly continues to fully dress herself, putting on her dress, her shoes, her jewellery. So much jewellery.
She’s always cared about ensuring the women she beds are fully satisfied with their encounter, pleasuring them the way their husbands oftentimes cannot. It’s what she’s good at. But she also cannot pretend that she hasn’t been treating the women she’s been sleeping with in an even more casual, detached manner since leaving Francesca. That for the past two years, she’s been bedding these women in a miserable attempt to get over Francesca, and been failing, in the most shockingly abominable way.
Just one more woman. One more, and she will finally abandon my every thought.
“Will you be able to travel home safely? My coachman will be willing to transport you to whichever location you please,” Michaela asks, finally fully adorned in her simple white dress, her figure softened by candlelight.
There are half-drunken glasses of red wine still standing on the wooden cabinet, the woman’s garments still strewn over the floral bedsheets.
“I will be fine. Do not worry about me,” the woman replies, as she begins to dress herself.
“Are you sure? I am able to-“
“I am sure.”
Feeling racked with even more guilt, she gives her a curt nod, and abandons the bedchamber - a half-naked woman still inside.
Her search for short-term pleasure has not numbed her to the pain of losing John, the pain of leaving Francesca, and the guilt that arises from loving her.
She finds the nearest public lavatory to use, cleans her hands, and takes a moment to look up at her melancholic expression in the bronze framed mirror. Oh, Michaela. What are you going to do?
Her coachman rides her back to Kilmartin Castle, as the rising sun bleeds into the familiar sight of the towering, jagged mountains of the Scottish Highlands. When they depart, she returns to her bedchambers, slips into a silky red robe, and steps into her private study - a room not even her staff have access to.
It is a small space, perforated by the lingering smell of dusty book covers and the remnants of burning candles. Wooden shelves rest on every wall of the room, decorated with heavy books, with a small wooden desk nestled in the middle, scattered with wax candles, yellowed paper, and quill pens dipped in ink.
She runs her fingertips over the leather bound books, many she has purchased from abroad, written in a multitude of languages that she diligently learns, and many filled with tales, stories, and poems of women intimately loving other women, albeit often within the constraints of censorship.
Tucked within those books are more personal pieces of paper; personal letters, poems, and sketches of the nude female form, women pleasuring themselves, and of women pleasuring each other. Some of the drawings, poems and letters are gifts from women she has spent the night with, from her travels through Ireland, France, and Italy, as a reminder of the night they shared together. Other sketches she drew herself.
She runs her eyes over one of the sketches that falls from a book; depicting the nude figure of a woman she drew, whom she was intimate with in the French countryside after meeting her in a queer bar in Paris. They drank wine and ate bread, meat and cheese, bedding together until the sun rose, and the cockerels began crowing.
When she looks back at those casual relationships she had with women, she was not in love with any of them. She enjoyed herself, of course, but a lot of the women she slept with had husbands to return home to, or were planning to go out into society to find one. Even if they had decided on a life of spinsterhood, she never had the courage to commit to one woman. There were always other women to charm, to enjoy, and there was no woman she met that quelled her fear of that type of commitment. Of the risk and instability that commitment would involve, in a society that by and large would not accept their love. It is easier to run, and become unknowable, time and time again.
Loneliness rests heavily in her chest tonight. She has friends back in London, but John was the only person who ever truly knew her. Outside of him, there is no-one she has ever fully opened her heart to, that she truly trusted and felt safe with. Who she felt loved by, unconditionally. A lot of the letters in her study are from women expressing their interest in her, but she never wrote back to any of them.
In a moment of impulse, she removes some of the sketches and letters from the books, and shreds them to pieces. If she never writes back, has no interest in pursuing any of these women further, she realises she has no use for them anymore. She pulls out the wooden chair from under the desk and sits down, lights a candle, and lowers her quill pen to paper.
Dear Francesca…
To her surprise, the ink blotches with a tear stain.
I apologise again for leaving so promptly for Scotland. I hope you are doing well.
She imagines her, alone in London, without John, and without her, and feels her heart tighten impossibly in her chest. She worries why she has not responded to any of her letters. She hates that she worries about her so much.
I’m sorry Francesca… she whispers aloud. I love you.
What is this feeling she’s feeling towards her, if not love? As much as she tries to ignore it, to deny it, it is such a profound feeling, a feeling that ignites every cell in her body so fervently, in a way she has never felt before meeting Francesca, it feels impossible to do so.
Michaela closes her eyes. She imagines tracing her fingers over Francesca’s bare skin, her bare chest, making her feel an intensity of pleasure she’s never experienced before. Cupping her face in her hands, so gently, so tenderly, caressing her cheek with her thumb, treating her with a type of care she didn’t realise she possessed, and making love to her. She imagines Francesca touching her back, in an equally tender and passionate manner, reaching through the carefully constructed armour she’s built around herself, being the first woman to not just touch her skin but to touch her, reach into her soul and reveal all her vulnerabilities, in a way no other woman has done so before. She longs for touches that are not a distraction, but are fuelled by love and intention.
I love you, Francesca…
With a frustrated sigh, she crumples the paper into a tight ball, returns to her bedchambers, and proceeds to ring the bell on her bedside to call for her coachman.
“This same morning next week, at the strike of nine, will you ride me down to Kilmartin House?”
She has earldom responsibilities to attend to, parliamentary duties she’s been putting off for far too long that can only be completed back in London. She cannot keep letting her emotions prevent her from travelling down to the city. Although she still feels guilty inheriting John’s title, she cannot avoid her familial responsibilities forever. She would also like to see her friend Elizabeth again. She misses the lively culture of the capital city and the bustle of people, she tells herself. No other reason.