Chapter Three #2
“Then yes, please, my lady,” said Grace. “Show us the paintings.”
* * *
At the club a few nights later, Fletcher told his friends, “I called on Rotherfeld today and he invited me to luncheon.”
“And you broke bread with him?” asked Lark, looking horrified.
“I am trying to follow Owen’s advice, which was to befriend Rotherfeld so that he knows he can trust me in the company of his future wife.”
Lark wrinkled his nose as if he found this whole business distasteful.
“Do you take issue with Rotherfeld?” Fletcher asked Lark.
“Not as such, I just find him rather dull.”
“I’m right, am I not?” Owen said, mostly to Hugh. “Rotherfeld’s instinct will be to prevent his wife from spending time with her unmarried male friend, but if Rotherfeld understands that Fletcher’s intentions are brotherly, then he may allow their friendship to continue.”
“I would trust my wife in the company of any one of you,” Hugh said.
“Precisely,” said Owen.
“But I have known you all since we were boys,” said Hugh. “Fletcher is unlikely to engender that kind of trust in, what, a month?”
“Let us talk about everyone else’s problems!” Fletcher said, probably too loudly. He was tired of going in circles about this.
Owen laughed. “Well. Since you are not in love with Lady Louisa—”
“I am not!”
“—we’ll let it slide this time. And I don’t have any problems.”
“Of course you don’t,” said Hugh, laughing.
“What can I say? Life is good. Dafydd is very close to saying his first word.” Dafydd was Owen’s son, who was just over a year old.
“He’s been saying mmm a lot lately, which I think means he’s about to say Mama.
I’d feel insulted, but since Grace is also my favorite person, I’ll allow him to bestow the honor upon her first. And he’s terrorizing our nanny now that he’s on foot, but I find that entertaining more than anything else. ”
“Children are small terrors,” Hugh said. “My Edward is a chatterbox. Never stops talking and most of it is nonsense. Adele seems charmed by it, though. And she has been making noise about having another, but I am yet to be convinced. She was so ill with Edward.”
“Women forget,” said Owen. “Apparently it’s nature’s way of tricking them into having more children. That is, according to a book Grace made me read.”
“Perhaps we are not the best judges of what women are capable of,” Fletcher said.
“Probably true,” said Owen.
“What is happening in Parliament?” Lark asked Owen, seeming eager to change the subject.
“Not much. It’s not officially in session, but Lords are in a lather about that assassination attempt on Wellington, and the only real bill on the horizon right now is one to build more churches, a cause about which I have no feelings one way or the other.”
“This is what our government is spending its time on?” asked Fletcher. “Churches?”
“Take it up with the Prince Regent.”
“I’ve read,” Lark said, leaning forward like he had some good gossip, “that the mad race for an heir is on. With the royals, I mean. Cambridge is marrying some German princess.”
“Indeed,” said Owen. “The rumor is that Queen Charlotte has ordered her unmarried sons to find wives and get to fathering an heir as swiftly as possible, now that Princess Charlotte has departed this world and Prinny has essentially put his wife out to pasture.”
It was publicly known that Prince George loathed his wife, so no one expected them to have any more children. Thus the king’s other sons were expected to beget heirs with all possible haste to prevent the collapse of the monarchy.
“There is a running bet going among the Lords in Parliament,” Owen went on, “about how long Prinny lasts once he ascends to the throne. I’ve got money on five years.” By all accounts, the king’s health was failing, and the Prince Regent was not exactly in peak physical condition.
“That’s terrible,” said Lark. “How do I get in on that bet?”
Owen laughed.
It was true, after Prince George’s daughter passed, there was new pressure on his siblings to beget heirs with all possible haste. The Duke of Cambridge, one of the king’s younger sons, was the first to marry, it seemed, but the rest wouldn’t be far behind..
“Perhaps the real bet,” Fletcher said, “is which of the king’s sons succeeds in fathering an heir first.”
“We have a pool on that, too,” said Owen.
“The oldest sons have wives they are either estranged from or who are too old to bear children,” Lark pointed out.
“Wasn’t Clarence married to that actress?” asked Fletcher.
Lark’s eyes practically sparkled. He’d always been a terrible gossip.
“They were never married but the king allowed their relationship to carry on, and all of their sons have titles even though they are not legitimate and cannot be in the line of succession. But the relationship ended some years ago, I think. And Clarence is apparently on the hunt for some European princess or wealthy heiress to marry now, too, even though he’s no spring chicken. He’s in his fifties, I think.”
“That is hardly an age of infirmity,” said Hugh. “I hope to still be able to make love to my wife regularly when I am in my fifties.”
“Godspeed,” said Fletcher.
“I know Lark is a sad sack now,” said Owen, “but do you, Fletcher, intend to find some beautiful heiress to marry this Season?”
“I suppose I must eventually. I currently have no prospects.”
“Why didn’t you marry Louisa again?” asked Hugh.
“That is not the nature of our relationship.”
“Surely there are worse outcomes than marrying a friend,” said Lark.
“Yes, but as we’ve just discussed, the begetting of heirs is an important aspect of marriage, and I’ve never viewed Louisa in that light.”
“You’ve never imagined her and… bedsport?” Owen asked. “Never.”
Fletcher sighed. To say never would be an exaggeration.
“All right, fine. I have eyes. I can see she is a beautiful woman. So not never. But definitely not seriously. It is possible for men and women to be friends with each other without there being sexual attraction between them. And even if I did find her attractive, she clearly doesn’t find me attractive, because she’s marrying Rotherfeld. ”
“Hence the luncheon today,” said Owen. “And how did that go? You didn’t tell us.”
Fletcher frowned. How to describe it? “Do any of you know Rotherfeld?”
Everyone shook their heads. Owen said, “Not well.”
“Not well?”
Owen shrugged. “Our paths have crossed but if I’ve ever had a conversation with him about anything more substantive than the weather, I’ve forgotten it.”
“See, this is my issue. Rotherfeld is…boring.”
“As I said,” Lark said, lifting his hand.
“Boring?” asked Hugh.
“Dull. Uninteresting. He does not care for culture. Dislikes the opera. Thinks theater is vulgar, even Shakespeare. Doesn’t read much beyond newspapers and the occasional history but nothing so uncouth as a novel.
He mentioned that he escorted Louisa to the Duchess of Devonshire’s gallery a few days ago, but he found the art troubling. ”
“Troubling in what way?” asked Hugh.
Lark raised an eyebrow. “I was there yesterday to see her new Caravaggio. It is a sensual depiction, I will grant you, but I didn’t find it troubling.”
“You wouldn’t,” said Owen. “I heard it was a male nude.”
“It is not. The painting depicts a young man with one shoulder exposed. I daresay, I see more in the mirror when my valet dresses me in the morning. The younger Devonshire has acquired a nude Venus, a depiction by Rubens if I remember correctly, and it obviously is meant to titillate, too, although Rubens had a type that is not to all men’s tastes.
I thought the painting was lovely, though.
Perhaps the Caravaggio is not the sort of thing prudish young dukes want their fiancées to see, but it is hardly a scandal. It’s art, after all.”
“Well, the Duke of Rotherfeld does not approve of art,” said Fletcher. “He does not approve of much. I found him quite puzzling. And boring. Did I mention that? The luncheon felt like it went on for five years. I can’t imagine what he and Louisa talk about.”
“He’s a good-looking gent,” said Lark. “That’s all most women are looking for.”
Fletcher bristled at that. “Louisa is not most women. She’d be dissatisfied in a typical ton marriage.
She’d want a marriage like you fellows have, with a spouse who loves her and wants to spend time with her.
Not some oaf who… God!” Just the mental image of Louisa enduring a husband who was the sort of man who only rutted against his wife a few times a year for the purposes of conceiving an heir… it made Fletcher nauseous.
Owen gave Fletcher a curious look, but said, “And you don’t think Rotherfeld is that man?”
“I suppose I don’t know, but luncheon today was not encouraging.”
When Fletcher arrived home an hour later, this was still on his mind.
His butler, Gerald, took his coat and then held out a silver tray with a letter on it.
Fletcher disliked this level of formality, but his late father had insisted, and Fletcher hadn’t had the nerve to make things more relaxed at home. He picked up the letter with a sigh.
It was from Louisa. Fletcher scanned it. …alas, Rotherfeld has plans elsewhere Thursday night. It would please me if you accompanied me to the opera in his stead. Rossini’s new opera, La Cenerentola. I’m told it’s a comedy…
Fletcher walked into his office, scrawled a reply that he would absolutely accompany her, and told Gerald to send it first thing in the morning.
This, at least, Fletcher could do. He could spend as much time with Louisa as possible before her marriage, because undoubtedly everything would change after the wedding.