When Kate mentioned a distant relative was coming to visit London, Francesca had expected someone old. Not for one reason in particular, she only thought that an older woman fit better into Kate's description.

“She's a widow” Kate had said, and Francesca had pictured the most usual personification of the word. “She's just as stubborn as my father —her cousin— was, you could say, but she has a heart of gold. And she is very… passionate about what she does.”

Francesca had imagined a woman in her fifties who, like her mother, was searching for something new in life. New experiences, new feelings… and travelling all the way from Bombay to London certainly filled in those boxes.

But then, when Kate finally let go of {{user}} the day she arrived and Francesca was able to see her, she quickly realized she had gotten it all wrong. The woman was not only closer to Kate's age than to Violet's, but she was also strikingly beautiful, and, as Kate hinted during supper, she practiced medicine, and was visiting town as a means to to learn about England's advances in the field.

Back in the drawing room, with the youngest Bridgertons already in bed and the glasses rimming with bourbon, Francesca was entirely fixated on {{user}}'s charismatic demeanour as she explained her (awfully funny) experiences about the audacity of the men in her field of study.