Chapter Five
“Are you sure this is appropriate,” said Louisa’s mother. They stood in the family’s sitting room as Louisa waited for Fletcher to pick her up to head to the opera.
“Mother. Fletcher and I will sit in the family box, well in view of hundreds of people eager to report any wrong move to the scandal sheets, and so Fletcher will act as he always does, which is as a gentleman.”
“You couldn’t go to the opera on a night when your future husband was available?”
“This is a one-night-only performance with this soprano from France, and Rotherfeld doesn’t like the opera much anyway. Fletcher has long been my opera companion, and no one has ever thought ill of him for it before. I don’t see why that should change.”
“You are engaged to Rotherfeld now.”
“As everyone ceaselessly reminds me. Yes, Mother, I am aware.”
“I suppose if Rotherfeld does not object...”
“He does not.” Likely because Louisa did not tell him.
“Then fine. But do not do anything to get yourselves in the scandal sheets. It would be terrible if your engagement to Rotherfeld ended.”
Louisa was not certain that was the case, but she nodded. “I promise to be on my best behavior.”
The Petty butler appeared in the doorway. “The Marquess of Greystone.”
“Show him in,” said Louisa.
Fletcher appeared a moment later. He was dressed in a dark blue coat and breeches, one of his finer suits, with a crisp white cravat and a white waistcoat with little blue flowers embroidered on it.
He looked quite handsome, in fact, although as was his want, he’d combed his short hair away from his face instead of over his forehead, as was the mode.
Fletcher would never be a paragon of fashion, but he wore a suit very well.
What a ridiculous thing to be thinking about a man she would not be marrying.
“Good evening, my lady,” Fletcher said to Louisa’s mother. “’Tis a pleasure to see you.”
“Take care of Lady Louisa tonight. Do nothing to jeopardize her engagement.”
“I would never,” said Fletcher, looking alarmed.
“Indeed.”
Louisa rolled her eyes. “Come, Fletcher. The carriage is waiting. We don’t want to be late. Some of us go to the opera to see the opera and I want to be there for the first note.”
In Fletcher’s carriage, Fletcher said, “What was all that about?”
“My mother is concerned that, even though you and I have attended the opera countless times without incident, me being seen with you will end my engagement.”
“Surely anyone who cares about such things knows about our sibling-like relationship.”
“One would think.” Louisa grunted.
Fletcher looked at his pocket watch. “We have plenty of time. The curtain won’t rise for another forty minutes.”
“I know, but my mother was being overbearing.”
Fletcher raised an eyebrow. “Right.”
Louisa let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry, but I hate this.
I should be able to go to the bloody opera with my friend without it creating speculation about the health of my engagement, especially since I actually like the opera.
” It was fashionable to go to the opera just to be seen, and many in the ton tolerated the art without truly loving it, but Louisa loved music, and she loved the drama of opera, and she always gave the performances her whole attention.
Or as much of her attention as she could, depending on the company.
“I don’t disagree, but you’ll recall I had this same concern. I’m still an unmarried man escorting an engaged woman to a public event.”
Louisa looked Fletcher over. He did look very nice tonight. Handsome. Attractive, even. Fletcher’s eyes looked intense in the dim light of the carriage. He smelled alluring, too, come to think of it. Louisa wanted to lean closer to get a better whiff but couldn’t possibly without looking strange.
She shook her head. “It is not fair to put women in these boxes in which we must always be at our best behavior when men… when men can just do whatever they want. There is nothing inappropriate about this. You and I are attending the opera. That is all. But if I should spend three seconds with you without a chaperone, I will be irrevocably compromised? But you could spend all night in a pile of women, and no one would bat an eyelash. It is all so dreadfully unfair.”
Fletcher stared at her when she stopped ranting. “Feel better?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“A pile of women. Is that how you think I spend my spare time?”
“I don’t know what you get up to when I’m not around.”
Fletcher chuckled. “I appreciate the depths of your imagination.”
“But you see my point.”
Fletcher picked up his hand. He reached over and moved something off Louisa’s forehead.
She held her breath as he did it. Which was all wrong because the entire point of this conversation was that there was nothing inappropriate about their relationship, and so Louisa would not read anything more to this than was there.
No matter how handsome Fletcher was or how good he smelled tonight.
“Sorry, you had a loose bit of hair. I’ve restored it to its proper place.
” He smiled. “I do see your point, though. I also think it grossly unfair that we cannot attend the opera as friends without your mother, who has known me since I was in short pants, thinking something could happen between us. She knows that is not the relationship we have and that I want you to marry Rotherfeld, if that’s what you want. ”
The caveat struck Louisa as odd. If that’s what you want. It was what she wanted. Wasn’t it? What would Fletcher do if she suddenly decided it wasn’t?
No sense in worrying about it now. “Well, thank you.”
“And I agree that the way society treats men and women differently is unfair.”
Louisa nodded, the wind going out of her sails. Of course she wouldn’t have to convince Fletcher. He’d always treated her like an equal.
Something else occurred to her. She really didn’t know what he got up to when he was not with her, and she felt like this might be information she needed.
She didn’t know much about what men did at night, for example, aside from what she’d heard from her friends in the form of oblique references to sex and liquor.
But Fletcher would know what the gentlemen of the ton did when gently bred ladies were not about.
What did her future husband do without her?
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Have you been with many women?”
Fletcher choke-coughed, clearly surprised by the question. “I don’t see how—”
“I am curious about what is normal for men to experience before they commit to marriage. How much knowledge and experience my husband may have gained prior to asking me to marry him. You see, the only men I’ve been…
familiar with are sculpted of marble, so I am not certain what to expect, but I imagine Rotherfeld does, and I… ”
Fletcher gave her a wary look. “This does not feel like an appropriate conversation to have.”
“Just tell me, Fletcher. We’ve never kept secrets.”
He frowned. “I can’t speak for Rotherfeld. I don’t know the man, really. Some men arrive at their marriage beds without having bedded a woman before. Some leave a string of conquests in their wake. For most it’s something in between. You won’t really know unless you ask him.”
Louisa’s face was suddenly on fire. “I couldn’t do that.”
“But you can ask me?”
She shrugged. She trusted Fletcher in a way she did not trust Rotherfeld yet. “I see your point. I will ask him when next I see him, but now I’m curious. What about you, specifically?”
Fletcher’s eyes went wide. “I don’t see the relevance of that.”
“You are an average man, I would say. Well, perhaps average is the wrong word. I think you are a fine man. But you are typical of other lords of the ton, from what I can tell.”
Fletcher sputtered. “We cannot…that is, it is inappropriate to discuss—”
“Come on, Fletcher. We’re friends. Surely you discuss things like this with your male friends.”
She knew she was pushing him, and he looked utterly terrified, but now she really wanted to know.
Likely Fletcher’s level of experience with women and sex would not shed any light on what Rotherfeld had gotten up to in his misspent youth, but Fletcher and Louisa never talked about these things, and now she needed to know.
“Yes,” Fletcher said. “I do talk about these things with my male friends. You are a woman.”
“Did we not just finish establishing that we that we are friends, and, dare I say, equals, of a sort?”
“I do not go into details with my male friends, either.”
“I have no experience with men and am not shy about telling you. I’ve reached this ripe old age still pure as the driven snow…”
Fletcher rolled his eyes. “All right, all right. No need for dramatics.”
“You have been with women, yes?” Louisa decided the direct approach might yield more results.
“Yes,” Fletcher said, with some reluctance.
“Anyone I know?”
He frowned. “I doubt it.”
That meant yes. She leaned closer to him. “Who?”
“If I tell you, it can’t leave this carriage.”
“Who would I tell?”
Fletcher shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this. But it’s possible I had an affair with Lady Richelieu.”
Louisa gasped. Lady Richelieu was a much older woman—nearly fifty now. “You didn’t.”
“It was after her husband passed, in my defense.”
“How long did it last?”
“A few months. And this was two years ago. It wasn’t…it was not romantic. It was… No. I can’t talk about this with you.”
“Fletcher.” Louisa was growing increasingly frustrated by his reticence. Usually, he was candid with her. “Do you think I do not understand? Do you think I do not also have desires?”
“I’m certain you do and that I need not know about them. I don’t want to talk about any of this, but you asked.”
“So, you had a purely physical relationship, just pleasure and gratification, with the widow Richelieu, who is, what, twenty years older than you?”
“Something like that.”
“And other women?”
“Yes, but you definitely do not know them.”
“Prostitutes?”