“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 thetontolerated 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… whenmencan 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? Butyoucould 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 entirepointof 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 reallydidn’tknow 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 aboutwhat 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 thetondid 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.”
