The time Michael and Francesca spend together in Scotland escalates their romantic dynamic while complicating the theme of The Gap Between Social Duty and Private Longing. When Michael decides to visit Francesca in Scotland unannounced, he does so with the intention of proposing marriage. However, when his logical arguments for why they should marry fail to convince her, he endeavors to seduce her instead. After Francesca’s refusal in the rose drawing room, Michael’s interior monologue reveals a shift in his outlook on their relationship: “He’d tried to appeal to her mind, to her innate sense of the practical and wise, and it wasn’t working. And it couldn’t be about emotion, because that, he knew, was one-sided. So it would have to be passion” (259). His perceived social responsibilities (to offer Francesca a desirable marital arrangement) remain in conflict with his personal longings (his age-old love for and desire to be with her).

Unable to reconcile these competing spheres, Michael opts for passion. Intense intimate sequences pepper these chapters and convey how chemistry between two lovers can be defined by mutual consent, respect, and pleasure—whether or not obligation or love are part of the equation. Throughout the encounters, Michael asks questions like “Shall I kiss you?” and “Do you want me to stop?” (261, 268). Meanwhile, his internal monologue reveals that his questions are also fueled by his private longing for affirmation; he “need[s] the yes” because his heart “c[a]n’t survive another puncture” (269). He wants to satisfy his personal desires, but he also wants to treat Francesca well; duty and desire prove more compatible in such moments. Further, Michael’s lines of dialogue paired with his physical seduction convey how one’s social obligations might align with one’s wants; he wants to give Francesca a title, household, and a man she can trust while offering her a passionate relationship that satisfies his longings for romantic connection.

Francesca’s repeated refusals of Michael’s marriage proposals underscore her fears of betraying her own perceived social responsibilities while furthering the theme of The Pressures of Fertility on Intimate Life. Since emerging from her mourning period, Francesca has only regarded marriage as a means to becoming a mother. Because Michael has been a close friend for so long, his proposals change her outlook and the novel’s representations of the marriage plot. At the gardener’s cottage, she tells Michael that she’ll give him an answer once she knows if she’s pregnant with his child; she and Michael have engaged in repeated passionate, sexual encounters, yet Francesca limits their exchanges to the possibility of conception. Michael understands her meaning, recognizing that “she [i]s essentially telling him that the only way she w[ill] marry him [i]s for the sake of a baby” (287). He had hoped that passion would foster a more lasting, emotional connection with her, but Francesca still struggles to regard a prospective second marriage as anything more than a route to motherhood.

At the same time, the scenes in which she’s depicted alone reveal her private longings for a more romantic connection. In Chapter 18, for example, she flees at dawn into the rain instead of facing Michael because she feels guilty for having “felt desire for a man other than John, and really hate[s] that the desire had gone beyond anything she’d felt with her husband” (271). Francesca is so afraid of acknowledging her burgeoning feelings for Michael that she clings to her maternity plans as the reason for her interest in him—she has no other familiar way of categorizing the intensifying dynamic with her late husband’s best friend. In the earlier chapters, Francesca’s hope for a baby was a private ache, but in these chapters, having a baby becomes a caveat to her potential romantic future with Michael. It’s easier (and more socially acceptable) for Francesca to articulate her desire for children than her desire for passionate connection with her late husband’s cousin.

At the same time, the escalating intimacy between Francesca and Michael reify Francesca’s passionate and sexual nature—and her desire to express these facets of herself. Such moments simultaneously further the theme of Finding Love Again After Loss. The bedroom scene in Chapter 19 reverses the power that Michael claimed in Chapter 17, and this reversal tests what loving again will require of the two characters. Francesca pushes Michael back, strips while forbidding him to touch her, and announces her terms: “You answer to me, Michael. If you want me, you can have me. But I’m in charge” (295). They aren’t engaging in role-play; rather, Michael has “awakened the wanton within [Francesca], and she want[s] her revenge” (291). Sex with Michael starkly contrasts with sex with John, which complicates Francesca’s ability to let go of her late husband and embrace his cousin. At the same time, Francesca’s assertive behavior in the bedroom shows her claiming her autonomy and power; she refuses to let Michael determine her fate simply because he’s a man and pities her widowhood. She takes charge of her fate and of how she finds love again. She’s so determined for autonomy over her story, for example, that she doesn’t hear the “other words” that Michael whispers to her in bed. His words remain inaudible because Francesca isn’t yet ready to hear them; the love that would replace what she lost is spoken into the dark, representing her desire to quiet Michael’s version of their affair before she has made sense of it herself.

Chapter 20’s closing sequence—the courting tea in the library—shows Michael adjusting tactics once he realizes that John would have given his blessing. Alone in his room, he asks himself “for the very first time” what his cousin would have thought and concludes that John “would have wanted Francesca to be loved and cherished the way that Michael love[s] and cherishe[s] her” (311). That permission, granted internally, changes Michael’s behavior with Francesca: Instead of pursuing her, he sends meal trays, lets her wander the grounds for hours, and then offers a posy and a hand kiss in the least seductive room in the house. When Francesca asks what he’s doing, he answers, “Why, I’m courting you” (318); at the same time, by giving her space, Michael is showing her respect and creating room for her independence. He can’t tell Francesca yet that he loves her because he believes that the admission would make her “feel awkward” and doesn’t want to overstep. He ultimately can’t claim her through language or sex. Courtship offers him a more distant, respectful, and patient means of showing Francesca that he cares while waiting for her answer. The chapter ends with Francesca staying with Michael for a second encounter in the library. Her decision to remain with him even after refusing him in the previous chapters marks a shift in their dynamic and suggests that believing in John’s blessing has liberated the lovers from their mutual grief and guilt.