“A romantic assignation?”
Fletcher choked on his lemonade. “No! I have a business meeting and then I’m having dinner with my mother. Nothing scandalous.”
“I suppose I shall rejoin my future husband and pretend I know the difference between a goldfinch and a parakeet.” The prospect did not excite her.
“Chin up, my friend. And goldfinches are the yellow ones, I think.”
“Hmm.”
He smiled and patted her arm. “I do need to leave, but we shall talk soon.”
“I’m holding you to that.”
“You could also…” But he shook his head.
“What were you going to say?”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Fletcher.”
He sighed. “If you don’t like him, well, you aren’t married yet.”
And with that, he handed his glass to a server, kissed her cheek, and walked away, leaving Louisa to wonder what, exactly, he meant.
Chapter Nine
Fletcher received a note from Louisa asking him to meet with her with all possible haste. Worried she had found herself in a spot of trouble—and perhaps hoping, with no reason to do so, that she’d decided to toss over Rotherfeld—he wrote back agreeing but asked where, suggesting his mother’s house. She agreed, and so now Fletcher was in his mother’s sitting room, drinking cooling tea as he waited for Louisa.
The thought had been that at least here, they’d be chaperoned by Fletcher’s mother, but he’d quite forgotten that she’d gone to Bath for a few days, so, aside from the staff, he and Louisa would be quite alone. Perhaps Louisa could tell her parents and fiancé that the dowager Marchioness of Greystone was here; if Fletcher had forgotten she’d left town, society probably had, too.
Not that he had any untoward plans. He intended simply to speak with Louisa, to let her have her say. He worried she’d gotten herself in some kind of trouble. But he knew that if he went to her home or she came to his, anyone who spotted them could talk—and keep Louisa from speaking freely—and Fletcher would prefer not to have to meet Rotherfeld with pistols at dawn.
Although Fletcher was a damned good shot, so maybe he’d be all right.
But, no, he should not be harboring fantasies about doing away with Louisa’s fiancé.
Lord, what a mess.
When Hoskins, the elderly Greystone butler, creaked that Lady Louisa had arrived, Fletcher stood as she swept into theroom. Hoskins knew Louisa as well as anyone, had watched her grow up, and understood the nature of her relationship with Fletcher, at least until recently.
“Leave us, Hoskins,” Fletcher said, a bit loudly, “but ask Mrs. Stone to send up tea.”
“Yes, my lord.” Hoskins bowed and left.
Fletcher turned to look at Louisa. She seemed in a tizzy. She was, of course, as artfully put together as she always was, in a lavender day dress, a yellow overcoat, and her hair pinned up in an elaborate design. But the expression on her face looked harried.
This did not stop Fletcher from glancing at her bosom. It was right there, after all.
“I am having a bit of a crisis,” said Louisa.
Hoskins came back and helped her out of her coat. He left again, saying he’d hang her coat near the door. Poor Hoskins had, perhaps, gotten too slow to catch Louisa when she was worked up like this.
“Will you sit?” He gestured to the settee.
“Oh, all right.” She perched at the edge of it while he took a chair opposite her. She glanced at the open door, seeming agitated.
“I forgot until I found the house empty that Mother is taking in the waters at Bath for a few days.”
