Chapter Fifteen
Louisa had thought her parents would be overjoyed that she wanted to marry the son of their closest friends.
In London, they were literally close; until a few years ago when Fletcher’s father’s failing health had inspired him to move to the family’s country house permanently, the Greystone family had lived in the house behind the Pettys’.
As a girl, Louisa occasionally slipped out her bedroom window, climbed down a trestle, and across the garden and snuck into the Greystone house via the kitchen.
Their cook never locked the back door. As an adult, Louisa suspected that everyone in the house knew what she’d been up to, but at the time, she’d really thought she was getting away with something.
She’d sneak through the quiet house and into Fletcher’s room, and they’d talk or play chess until she got tired and snuck back home.
To sneak out of her house now, she didn’t need the window; her parents adjourned for the night on the early side, and by the time Louisa had donned a cloak and decided to sneak out, the staff had all gone to sleep, too. Louisa left through the front door.
Fletcher lived in a town house a short distance from her own home, and she arrived at his door in a matter of minutes.
It was a modest home, not one befitting the kind of wealth and stature that Fletcher possessed, but he’d never been showy.
Families like Fletcher’s, who had been wealthy and titled for several generations, tended to think conspicuous wealth was gauche and not done.
The street was quiet. No one was about. She knocked on Fletcher’s door and was let in by the butler, who installed her in a sitting room and went to find Fletcher.
Fletcher himself walked into the room a few minutes later, wearing a very fine blue dressing gown that went to his ankles.
“What the devil are you doing here?” Fletcher asked, sounding sleepy and irritated.
Louisa decided to get to the point. “I think we should elope.”
Fletcher’s eyes went wide. “You…what?”
In one burst, Louisa said, “I told my mother that I wanted to end my engagement to Rotherfeld, and she told me that I could not because Rotherfeld has a business arrangement with my father, and even if you are willing to marry me, that is not good enough, so I think we need to go to Scotland. Tonight.”
Fletcher just stared at her, his expression incredulous. “I’m sorry. I have a terrible headache. Can you slow down? Your mother will not let you break the engagement?”
“Rotherfeld is in business with my father. I do not know the extent of their agreement, but apparently it is contingent on my marrying Rotherfeld. If I don’t go through with it, my family stands to lose a great deal of money.”
Fletcher frowned. “Oh. So why are you here?”
“You must help me. I want to marry you, Fletcher.”
“You do?” Fletcher looked pained and confused, but a smile briefly peeked through.
“I’ve been thinking about it since the Atherton ball.”
“You have.” He rubbed his forehead and looked dazed. Like all of this was confusing him, but Louisa thought she’d been clear.
“Fletcher…I can’t tell what you’re thinking. You said the night of the ball that you want to marry me.”
“I do. But you seemed…well, not especially enthusiastic about the idea.”
“There’s just so much…” But she frowned.
Perhaps Fletcher misread her the way she’d misread him.
They were both idiots. “Fletcher. I intend to marry you and not Rotherfeld, because I love you. So if my mother will not let me out of my engagement, then I think we should elope. People do that, right? Get married in Scotland?”
“Yes, but…” Fletcher rubbed his head again. “We cannot simply… Louisa, think about what you are saying.”
“I have given this a great deal of thought.”
“You cannot simply throw over one of the most powerful men of the ton and not expect some kind of retaliation. Not to mention your father’s business deal.
If it’s true that if you don’t marry Rotherfeld, your father could lose money, what condition will that leave your family in?
There must be a way out without us eloping. ”
She made a frustrated grunt and said, “Fletcher, you are being too practical.”
He rubbed his temples. “Too practical? I went out tonight and got very drunk because your reaction to my marriage proposal seemed faint at best, but now you tell me we must elope right now, when I’ve barely had time to process what you’ve just said to me.
And you have no consideration of the consequences!
We’d be shunned by society, and your father could potentially lose a lot of money! Is that what you want?”
“No, but I won’t marry Rotherfeld.”
Fletcher sighed. He looked tired and sad. “Please hear me when I say that the last thing in the world I want is for you to marry Rotherfeld. I want you to marry me. But we need to take a minute to think this through.”
“You love me.”
“You bloody well know I do.”
“I kind of like Cranky Fletcher.”
He frowned. “My head is pounding so much I can hear it. I can scarcely think. I’d prefer to discuss this on the morrow. But I suppose, since you are here, we must discuss it now.”
He sat on the sofa and rubbed his temples.
Louisa sat next to him. She was sympathetic to his headache, but she felt what she thought was a reasonable amount of panic at the current situation.
She needed help. Running off to Scotland had felt like a good solution an hour ago, but Fletcher was right, there would be fallout from such an act.
She didn’t much care for what happened to Rotherfeld, nor to her own reputation, but she did care about her father.
“What must I do?”
Fletcher turned to look at her. His eyes were bloodshot.
“I think you must talk to Rotherfeld and tell him the whole truth about what you know, and then ask for him to break the engagement. I suppose I can go to your father and find out…whatever this financial deal is, and also formally ask for your hand. That might grease the wheels.”
“Or you can fight Rotherfeld for my honor with pistols at dawn.”
“I truly hope it does not come to that.” Fletcher let out a ragged breath.
“Are you ill?”
“Too much drink.” He bent over and put his head in his hands.
“Because of me?”
“I was upset. I felt like I had given you my heart and you seemed to lack what I thought was the requisite enthusiasm.”
“Fletcher.”
“I hope you know, I would not be marrying you as a favor or to keep you away from Rotherfeld. I’ll marry you because I want to, because we belong together. Because I love you.”
She splayed her hand on his back. His body was hot beneath the fine fabric of his dressing gown. “I am sorry. This situation is vexing.”
“It is.”
“I’d be marrying you not to escape Rotherfeld, but because I want to.
Because Rotherfeld is dull, but when you and I kissed, I felt…
excited. Because I do love you, Fletcher.
I think you might be my best friend, but you are also handsome and clever, and I know you’d defend me to the death.
You’ve been trying to do right be me all this Season, even though it must have pained you to do so. ”
“I just want you to be happy.”
Louisa smiled. “And that is how I know that you love me. You want what’s best for me, not what you most want.
If I told you right now that I loved Rotherfeld and I planned to marry him no matter what, you would let me, even though it broke your heart.
And you’d hold your tongue about how you felt about it. ”
“To you, yes. Then I’d go meet my friends at my club and drink a significant amount of whisky.”
“Rotherfeld doesn’t love me. I’ve grown convinced he offered for me to salvage his own reputation and is likely determined to see it through, which is why he must have made a nice offer to my father, something my father didn’t feel he could turn down. Rotherfeld is acting selfishly.”
“Yes.”
“Fletcher, you have been at my side my whole life, and it’s a true shame that we never understood what we really meant to each other, at least not before now. We didn’t have an opportunity to explore what’s between us, and now we’ve arrived at a crisis point.”
“I do not believe the situation to be that dire. We still have a week and a half until the wedding.” Fletcher offered her a weak smile.
“You think I’m beautiful.”
His expression softened. “I do. I’ve thought so for a long time. I did not recognize my own feelings about it, though, and I regret that I’ve been so foolish for so long. I could have saved us both from all of this anguish.”
“I don’t see why my father should turn down your suit.”
“We shall see, I suppose.”
So resolved, Louisa knew she should leave. They had something of a plan, but Louisa found she did not want to leave Fletcher’s company. In fact, she wanted stay.
“Fletcher, I…”
“You should…”
She kissed him. She ran her hand down his back and nudged him closer and opened her mouth to let him in.
He let out a huff of surprise, but he kissed back, moving his lips against hers and then tentatively licking into her mouth.
He put a hand at the base of her neck to hold her there, and he kept kissing her.
Louisa’s skin began to tingle and something warm spread across her chest. She wanted more, was suddenly insatiable, and she put her arms around him and pushed him back onto the sofa.
He laughed when he hit his head on the arm of the sofa, but he kept kissing her, putting his arms fully around her and holding her close.
Louisa lay on top of him, and she couldn’t remember her body ever feeling this alive.
This was what people made such foolish decisions about.
This was what she wanted. Not Daniel’s cold fish kisses.
She ran a hand down Fletcher’s chest, surprised by how hard and muscular he seemed. His big hands pressed into her back and pulled her to him. They writhed together for a moment, and then she gasped because she thought she could feel—
“Oh,” Fletcher said.
“Oh?”
“I just realized, you are fully dressed, and I am in nought but my nightshirt.”
He gently eased her away. His dressing gown had come untied to reveal a soft blue nightshirt that looked like it had been washed many times. He hastily pulled the dressing gown closed, concealing what was happening below his waist, if anything.
“You want to stop?” Louisa asked.
“No, but I am barely dressed, and you are engaged to another man, and so we must.”
Louisa touched her lips, which still tingled from his kisses. They may not have done much more than kiss, but Louisa felt like she had a notion for the kind of pleasure she would find on her wedding night, assuming she married Fletcher and not Daniel.
“I don’t want to stop, either.”
Fletcher stood, adjusted his dressing gown so that it covered his body again, and then held out a hand to Louisa. “If all goes to plan, we’ll have years and years to explore each other. But for now, you should go home.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know. But you must. The rest will come in good time.” He leaned over and kissed her lips briefly again. “I love you. I can’t keep myself from saying it. But we’ve got a week and a half to get a wedding called off, so we best get to work.”
“I love you, too. Thank you for…everything.”
“I can’t believe you snuck out of your house.”
She shrugged and adjusted her cloak.
“I’m going to make one of my footmen escort you home so that I know you made it back okay.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do. And I’m guessing that marriage to you means I shall never have a dull moment again. Sneaking out of your house like we’re children again.” He shook his head.
“As I recall, you snuck out of your house a time or two. Someone certainly left sweets on my bedroom windowsill on my birthday every year.”
Fletcher grinned. “I’d do it again if I thought I wouldn’t get caught. I bet I could find increasingly clever places to hide sweets on your birthday from here on.”
She grinned back at him. “I’m sure you will. After all, who wants a dull life?”
“Not me. Not at all.”