Chapter Eleven #2
“Grace told me once that she thought becoming a mother had robbed her of some of her faculties. She suspects it is because she does not sleep as well anymore. She has taken an…unorthodox approach to child-rearing in that she has a nanny but does not rely on her. So her son sleeps in an adjacent room and Grace wakes up when he does.”
“What does Caernarfon think of this?”
Louisa fought back a physical reaction. Why should Caernarfon get a say? Instead, she said, “He allows it, I suppose, because he loves his family.”
“Hmm.”
“Did I know we were attending the Atherton ball?” Louisa asked.
“Did I not invite you? I plan to attend because a mate of mine from my Cambridge days will be in town, and I would be honored if you’d accompany me.”
Louisa plastered a smile on her face. “Then I shall be there.”
* * *
It was nearly impossible to get a single woman to whom one was not engaged alone, especially once her parents began to suspect one’s motives.
Two notes that Fletcher had sent to Louisa had been thwarted by her mother, who’d curtly told him Louisa was not available, but the third—which Fletcher hired a boy to deliver directly into Louisa’s hand—was returned with a note from Louisa saying the best she could do was the Atherton ball.
It was the opposite of his request, which had been to speak to her in private.
He stared at the note and then pocketed it before he left for the club.
He asked his driver to let him out a few blocks from the club so that he could walk to clear his head. He’d spent the better part of the last day trying to mentally rehearse exactly what he wanted to say to Louisa, but maybe he needed something else to obsess over.
As he walked, he was struck by a memory from when he was a teenager.
Louisa must have been thirteen or fourteen at the time, and Fletcher was home after his first year at Oxford.
They were too old by then to play as they had as children, but he let Louisa challenge him to a game of chess.
While she was setting up the game, Fletcher’s mother pulled him aside and said that Louisa fancied him, which Fletcher had instantly dismissed.
But then, when they were partway through the game, Louisa asked him who he was going to marry.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I reckon that’s something I can deal with after I finish school. It’s not like there are many women at Oxford.”
“You could marry me.”
“You’re too young.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know that. I mean, when I’m old enough.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why should I marry you?”
She shrugged. “We get along. We understand each other. I’m smarter than you.”
“You are not!”
“I’m about to defeat you at chess.”
“No, you aren’t.” He moved his rook. “Check.”
“Fletcher.” She moved her knight. “Checkmate.”
He’d instantly forgotten the conversation and had never brought it up again, but he wondered now if it really was that simple.
And she was definitely smarter than he was.
He arrived at the club and found his friends. Owen handed him whiskey before he sat down.
Fletcher was so lost in thought he barely heard anything his friends said, but he sipped his whisky and then noticed that Hugh was clearly in his cups, swaying in his chair.
“Hugh?” Fletcher asked. “Is everything all right?”
“Adele is expecting,” Hugh said, sounding dazed. “I found out this afternoon.”
“He’s a little overwhelmed,” said Owen.
“I suppose I always knew we would have more children, but not so soon. I was just getting used to the first one.”
“It’ll be a little girl,” said Lark. “Just to terrorize you.”
“I will run every male under eighteen out of England if I need to,” said Hugh. “Send them to Australia, I say.” His speech was a little slurred, so Hugh was definitely drunk.
Fletcher laughed. “Well, all right, then. A healthy attitude.”
Hugh sat back in his chair. He motioned for the discussion to carry on.
Owen looked at Fletcher expectantly. “Have you proposed to Louisa yet?”
Fletcher sighed. “No. Her mother keeps thwarting me. But Louisa promised to speak with me at the Atherton ball.”
“Oh, that,” said Owen. “Grace sent our acceptance, but I keep forgetting it’s happening.”
“I’ve never much liked Atherton,” said Lark. “He’s very loud.”
Owen laughed at that. “Isn’t his wife your cousin?”
“Distantly,” said Lark. “She’s got some charm. It runs in the family.” He preened. “But he’s like a walking headache. I think I accepted the invitation, too, though.”
Hugh rolled his eyes. He turned to Fletcher and asked, “Why is Louisa’s mother thwarting you?”
“I don’t know.” Although Fletcher suspected she saw him as a threat to Louisa’s future marriage.
“Because Rotherfeld is younger, richer, better looking, and more connected than you are,” said Lark. “Only the best for Lady Louisa, so she is doing everything in her power to make sure Louisa and Rotherfeld both show up at the altar.”
“Younger, richer, and better looking? You wound me,” said Fletcher.
“Am I wrong?” asked Lark.
Fletcher sighed. “I don’t know for certain about him being richer, but you are probably right that Lady Petty will allow nothing to interfere with the wedding.”
“Lady Petty wants only the best husband for her daughter, and on paper, Rotherfeld is very appealing.”
Fletcher understood all this, but he wished Lark would not rub it in. “I know. But do I want to tussle with a mama of the ton?”
“Do you want the woman you love or not?” asked Lark.
“I do.”
“Then you’ll have to tussle.”
“Wait,” said Owen. “You plan to propose to Louisa at the Atherton ball?”
“No,” said Fletcher. “I plan to apologize for saying something she…took the wrong way.”
“Was offended by,” corrected Lark.
“Yes. I said something that offended her, but I did not intend it the way she took it. I plan to apologize, and then possibly tell her that her fiancé is…of Lark’s kind.”
Hugh’s eyes went wide. “How do you know that?”
“Beresford,” said Lark.
Hugh nodded. “I suppose he would know.”
“We should really have our own club,” said Lark.
“I believe they call those molly houses,” said Owen.
“Something more reputable,” Lark replied.
“Like this, but for men seeking other men, and not so seedy or full of young prostitutes as a molly house. There is a club that has an open policy of men being able to find whatever they desire, but I’ve always found it a bit…
well, I wouldn’t want to touch anything inside, let’s put it that way. ”
“Anyway,” said Fletcher. “I plan to talk to Louisa and tell her that I believe she and Rotherfeld are not well suited for several reasons, and that I love her and want to marry her if that’s what she wants, too, and generally make the argument that I am a superior choice to Rotherfeld, but I do not plan to get on one knee or anything. That would be gauche, don’t you think?”
“The way Rotherfeld announced their engagement?” said Owen. “A little too loudly, I should add. Yes. Gauche. Not the done thing.”
“I fear,” said Lark, quietly, “that he is using Louisa to avoid being found out, and she deserves better than that.”
Fletcher had come to think the same thing, which made him think Louisa was about to be trapped in a loveless marriage to a man she found dull.
And every time he rehearsed his big apology speech, he ended up rambling, but he knew he needed to be more direct.
He should just tell Louisa how he felt plainly.
He loved her. Rotherfeld had ulterior motives. She should marry him.
“Lark?” said Hugh, cutting through Fletcher’s thoughts.
“Yes?”
“You are being careful, right? I know you and Anthony are speaking again. I’d like for you to avoid that fate as well.”
“I am always careful,” said Lark. “And my relationship to Anthony is not dissimilar from Fletcher’s to Louisa. I love him, but he’s not capable of loving me back right now. I have not so much as touched him in more than a year.”
“We are pathetic,” said Fletcher.
“Indeed,” said Lark, sipping a cup of tea.