When He Was Wicked (Bridgertons, #6)

by Julia Quinn

In every life there is a turning point. A moment so tremendous, so sharp and clear that one feels as if one’s been hit in the chest, all the breath knocked out, and one knows, absolutely knows without the merest hint of a shadow of a doubt that one’s life will never be the same.

For Michael Stirling, that moment came the first time he laid eyes on Francesca Bridgerton.

Michael Stirling possessed a generosity of spirit and a capability for love that was unmatched among men.

She’d lost John, and now it seemed she’d lost Michael, too.

“You can’t abandon her,”

“She was never mine to abandon.”

“No one ever really changes, Francesca.”

“It’s good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back,”

“John would have wanted you to be happy.”

when a man asks for your hand, you will have to judge him on his merits and not by some arbitrary standard you have set out ahead of time.”

“It isn’t gossip,” Hyacinth retorted. “It’s the honest dissemination of information.”

It was like a sickness with him, a sixth sense. He couldn’t be in a room with Francesca and not know where she was.

“A man would have to be a fool not to want to marry you.”

This time it wasn’t about his control or his sacrifice or his guilt. This time was for him. And he was going to kiss her.

It was the sort of kiss that seduced with subtlety, sent tingles through her body and left her desperate for more.

It was wrong. Forgive me.

Nothing had the power to irritate like the reflection of one’s own behavior in someone else.

“You do realize, Kilmartin,” Colin said, his voice so soft it was almost chilling, “that there is no reason you can’t marry her. None at all. Except, of course,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “the reasons you manufacture for yourself.”

“Did you wonder?” he whispered. “Did you leave me and wonder what I hadn’t told you?” He leaned in, just so she’d feel his lips move whisper-light against her ear. “Did you want to know,” he whispered, “what I did when I was wicked?”

And he, who had slept with countless women, suddenly realized that he’d been nothing but a green boy. Because it had never been like this. That had been his body. This was his soul.

“If you can’t be with me, if you can’t give all of yourself to me, then I want you gone.”

“I can’t bear this halfway existence,”

“Why? It’s because I love you, damn me to hell. Because I’ve always loved you. Because I loved you when you were with John, and I loved you when I was in India, and God only knows I don’t deserve you, but I love you, anyway.”

“I love you. I love you, my cousin’s wife. I love you, the one woman I can never have. I love you, Francesca Bridgerton Stirling, who—”

“If you’re not mine, I don’t want you anymore.”

“If this is to end, you will have to do it. You will have to walk away, Francesca. Because now . . . after everything . . . I’m just not strong enough to say goodbye.”

Six years he’d loved her, and it had all come to this.

She felt cherished. Worshipped. Loved. It was humbling. It was exquisite. It was sacred and seductive, and it took her breath away.

Francesca’s breath caught. She loved him? Michael?

It was because she loved him. This thing between them, this bond—it wasn’t just passion, and it wasn’t wicked. It was love, and it was divine.

Michael. She loved Michael.

She loved him with the depth and intensity she’d felt for John.

“I love him,”

“I love Michael. I do, and John—” She touched his name, etched in the headstone. “I think you would approve,” she whispered. “Sometimes I almost think you arranged the whole thing.

“I spent so much time thinking to myself that I would never fall in love again. How could I possibly? And when anyone asked me what you would have wanted for me, of course I replied that you ...

“Inside I knew it wouldn’t happen. I wasn’t going to fall in love. I knew it. I absolutely knew it. So it didn’t really mat...

“It happened, and I never expected it. It happened, and it happened with Michael. I...

“I kept trying to tell myself that I didn’t, but when I thought he was dying, it was just too much, and I knew . . . oh God, I knew it, John. I need him. I love him. I can’t live without him, and I just ne...

“If you feel it, then you have to say it. I’m a greedy bastard, and I want it all.”

Now that she’d said it, now that he knew, now that his heart had soared, he knew better. This was heaven. This was bliss. This was something he’d never dared hope to feel, something he never could have dreamed existed. This was love.

“For the rest of my life,” he vowed, “I will love you. For the rest of my life. I promise you. I will lay down my life for you. I will honor and cherish you. I will—”

he turned back toward John’s grave and mouthed the words, Thank you. And then he let his wife lead him home.

It did not require much time or thought to realize that you and Francesca are an ideal match. I don’t know how I did not see it before.

You were, it is clear, born for each other.

And I hope you will not think me foolish when I also extend my thanks. Thank you, Michael, for letting my son love her first.

She loved him. With every breath in her body, she loved him.

All he wanted in the world was to make her happy.