Chapter Ten #2
Fletcher’s head was not focused on his work.
He’d spent the night before at a perfectly nice dinner party at Rotherfeld’s.
He’d been seated at the other end of the table from Louisa, well out of her earshot, at dinner, something Fletcher expected was done purposefully.
He’d spent a great deal of dinner trying to read her face—was she bored, distressed, overcome with lust?
—but he’d found it impossible. She’d be good at cards if she ever decided to play.
The whole night had been an exercise in frustration, though, with Hugh egging him on to go talk to her and Rotherfeld keeping him and Louisa apart in less subtle or convincing ways as the night went on.
Louisa avoided Fletcher so assiduously, Fletcher began to suspect that Rotherfeld was guarding her at her own instruction.
So Fletcher had suffered through dinner—the food was good at least—and shared a cigar with the men, but had barely spoken to Louisa at all.
And now Lark darkened his doorstep. Fletcher stood and invited him to have a seat in one of the plush chairs across the room from his desk.
“How was the dinner party?” Lark asked.
“Dreadful. Rotherfeld has all the conversational skill of an old stocking, and Louisa and I argued over something ridiculous a few days ago, so she barely spoke to me all evening.”
Lark tilted his head. “What did you argue about?”
“Normally I’d tell you to bugger off, but this is kind of your fault. I told her that if she was worried about remaining unmarried if she broke her engagement to Rotherfeld, I would marry her. She took this as me offering to marry her out of pity.”
“Poorly done, old chap.”
“How so? You suggested I offer her an alternative.”
“But not like that. Did you tell her you love her? That you want to marry her?”
Oh. “No.”
Lark raised an eyebrow. “You can see where she might have misinterpreted what you said. Louisa is proud, no?”
“All right. I will try again.” Fletcher sighed and rubbed his forehead. How had he bungled this so badly? “Did you come here just to badger me?”
“No. I have some news.”
“Good news or bad news?”
“Depends on what you want to happen next with Louisa.”
“Is it about Rotherfeld?”
“It is. I learned something about him last night.”
Fletcher couldn’t decide what he wanted that to be. “Please tell me he’s guilty of a crime. It doesn’t need to be violent. He moonlights as a pickpocket, perhaps. Or he’s in a great deal of gambling debt.”
“No, no. He…how shall I put this? He’s had relations with someone we know.”
Fletcher slapped his hands on his desk. “That liar. He told Louisa he had no experience with women.”
“Oh, no,” said Lark. “He doesn’t have experience with women.”
Fletcher’s heart might have stopped. “With men?”
“With Anthony. Years before he and I got to know each other. I told Anthony last night that Rotherfeld was engaged to Louisa, and Anthony was shocked because he found it unlikely Rotherfeld was interested in women.”
That would explain some things. If Rotherfeld wasn’t attracted to Louisa, perhaps he would kiss her like a fish. “I don’t know what to do with this information.”
“I don’t either, but I came here to tell you so that you can tell Louisa if you like. Perhaps it is another arrow in your quiver to slay Rotherfeld once and for all and win the girl.”
“I’m not certain she’d listen to me.” He couldn’t imagine how he’d begin to tell her.
“You don’t think this is information she needs to know?”
“I do, but…” But would she even believe him? “She was cross with me. Stormed out of my mother’s house.” Fletcher stood and started to pace. “And there’s no reason to think Rotherfeld couldn’t…perform marital duties.” Saying that made Fletcher want to vomit.
“I take it from how pale your face just got that you are picturing it.”
“He’s all wrong for her, Lark. And I don’t think that’s just my jealousy talking.
He’s boring and proper and hadn’t so much as even kissed Louisa until she practically begged him to.
He thinks art is scandalous. He hates most things that she loves.
And now I find out that he’s interested in men?
Not that…I mean, it’s not a judgment, I just question whether he is a fit husband for Louisa.
But if I tell her all that, she may misinterpret it, because apparently I am incapable of explaining that she should be with me without putting my foot in my mouth. ”
Lark stared at him. “Owen was right. You’ve got it bad.”
“She should be with me. You agree with that, right?”
“I do. But if you are unwilling to mount a case for yourself…”
“It’s not that. It’s difficult to balance this.
If I tell her I love her and want to be with her, but she doesn’t feel the same way, that would be devastating, especially if she still wants to marry Rotherfeld.
Not to mention, she’d have to break an engagement, something our peers are not exactly supportive of.
” Fletcher had been mulling this over for a few days.
While he suspected that Louisa was unhappy in her engagement, that didn’t necessarily mean she wanted Fletcher, especially not if he’d offended her by inadvertently implying he wanted to marry her out of pity.
And, true, she wasn’t married yet, but throwing over Rotherfeld to marry Fletcher—or not marry at all—would be a huge scandal.
“To the devil with what our peers think.”
“Lark.” Well, Fletcher didn’t care much what others thought of him, either, but Louisa might, and her parents definitely would.
“No, I’m…I’m just so tired. I know you don’t understand what Anthony and I are to each other, and I know you do not understand what it’s like to desire those of your own sex, but I was so terrified of what society would do to us if they discovered our affair that I broke things off with Anthony, sent him into the arms of his now late wife, and visited unspeakable misery on both of us.
And I’m tired, Fletcher. I’m sick of trying to keep things proper and appropriate for the sake of a society that would just as soon see me hanged.
I love Anthony just as dearly as you love Louisa, and I don’t view that as sinful.
And now I may never get the chance to be with him again because of the events of the last year, and…
life is too short. If you love Louisa, you must tell her how you feel. ”
Fletcher paused to absorb all that. He had never heard Lark put it so passionately or succinctly. But Lark had a point. Fletcher let out a breath. “And what if she rejects me?”
“Then you can join me in the bottom of a bottle. I’ve still got a lot of good whiskey at home.”
Fletcher sat with that for a moment. He’d been mealy-mouthed and equivocating when he’d tried broaching the subject with Louisa.
He really had made a hash of things. No wonder she was cross with him.
Clearly, what this situation called for was for Fletcher to lay out a case, to make an argument for why he was the man Louisa should choose.
He should tell her how he felt. And if she rejected him, well, that would be terrible, but at least he would have put his full effort into it.
If he kept acting foolishly, she could very well marry Rotherfeld and consign herself to misery, and Fletcher could not live with himself if he did not at least try to win her over.
So, he needed a new approach. No more dancing around things or trying to keep things proper. He should just lay it out for her.
“I will talk to her,” he said.
“Good.”
Something else occurred to Fletcher. “If Anthony told you all this, you must be spending more time together.”
“We are, we are. I ran into him at the club last night. We got to talking. I don’t know if a romantic relationship is in the cards, but it is nice to be able to speak with him again.”
“That is something.”
“Yes. But learn from my example. If you love her, you should act on it.”
Yes. Of course. Because Lark and Anthony had once been in love and Lark had ended it and now look at them.
Fletcher hoped to avoid the sort of misery that would send him to seek solace in a bottle, and he thought if he could just convince Louisa, he might avoid that fate.
“I will, I will. I will speak with her as soon as I can.”