Anthony frowned at him. “Did you have business here tonight?”
“I was hoping the gossip would distract me, but it’s all politics tonight. I cannot sit at home or I’ll drink.”
“So you came to a club where most people drink? Are you no longer drinking?”
“Turns out when you try to destroy your brain with alcohol, you behave abominably in public.”
“Lark.”
“I have not yet ordered my staff to empty my liquor cabinet, but I suppose I must consider it to remove the temptation.”
“I was about to say, if you have no business here tonight, come home with me, and I will keep you away from the liquor.”
“Anthony, we cannot—”
“I am not propositioning you. In my home, we can speak candidly, and I can remove temptation. I would invite myself to yours, but I feel an obligation to be near my son, even though the nurse is with him.”
“Your nurse will not grow suspicious that you have brought a friend home?”
“I find I am too tired to care. And before you lecture me, I am not bringing you home for an assignation, I am asking for your company and some conversation and nothing more. I will help keep you from the drink and you will keep me company fora few more hours, and then you will go home and not antagonize my nurse.”
Lark decided to take the offer for what it was—a rekindling of their friendship. “All right.”
“All right?”
“I shall keep you company for a few hours. We shall save ourselves from our worst impulses for a little while. Gossip more about the Rotherfeld-Louisa-Fletcher love triangle. Speculate wildly about men we do not know well.”
Anthony smiled. “Yes. That is my intent.”
“Then lead the way.”
* * *
Fletcher was at the desk in his study, staring at his ledgers and finding some comfort in the simple act of arithmetic when his butler announced the Earl of Waring.
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?Yousuggested I offer her an alternative.”
“But not like that. Did you tell her you love her? That youwantto 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?”
