Wlw smut

Empty halls

I couldn't put this anywhere on the Bridgerton timeline sometime after John's death, kind of maybe a bit cannon

I wish I could have a regency erotica dictionary, bc I lowk lose the regency shi during the smut 🫩

Francesca's POV

I sat before my pianoforte, fingers hovering above the keys, I couldn't bring myself to play.

There was dust upon the ivory, the neglect now visible. I brushed my fingertips across the keys and felt it gather against my skin. With a faint exhale, I wiped my hand upon my skirt and rose.

The room no longer felt like mine.

"See that the pianoforte is cleaned," I murmured to a passing maid, my voice distant even to my own ears. She curtsied and hurried to obey.

The corridors of Kilmartin were quiet. No laughter. No hurried footsteps. No debates about pamphlets and politics echoing throughout the halls.

No Eloise.

I felt her absence most keenly in the afternoons — when the house ought to have been alive with her restless energy and ceaseless curiosity.

I missed her voice. Her certainty. The way she would burst into a room as though the very walls had been inconveniencing her.

I miss my sister.

And Michaela...

Michaela was so very far.

She had not come to John's funeral.

I told myself she had been grieving in her own way. That perhaps she had been unable to bear the sight of it. Of me.

Yet loneliness is a cruel companion. It does not accept reason.

I lay upon my bed, staring at the canopy above me.

A knock at the door startled me from my thoughts.

"Countess of Kilmartin," a maid called gently. "You have a guest."

A guest?

I wasn't sure if I was glad to have company or scared of whom it could be.

"I shall be down presently," I replied, forcing a smile.

I changed into a gown, something dignified, something that suggested I was not a woman crazed by solitude. When I reached the staircase, I paused at its crest.

And then I saw her.

Michaela.

She stood in the entryway as though she had never left. As though four years had not passed between us like an unspoken war. She looked up slowly.

Dressed in an all black dress that flowed down to her shoes, a bag draped on her arm.

"Miss Bridgerton," she said, her voice softer than I remembered.

I gripped the banister to steady myself. It was infuriating how she could be so— composed enchanting even.

"It's been some time," she added, offering a small smile that quickly faded.

Some time?

Four years of silence reduced to pleasantry.

"I do not wish to speak with you," I said, hurt has a way of sharpening the tongue.

She moved closer to the foot of the staircase. "I had hoped—"

"Why, Michaela?" The question escaped before I could soften it. "Why weren't you there?"