“You threaten me with this?”
“I don’t want to. Like I said, my preference would be for us to end the engagement quietly. Louisa will send your regrets to the wedding guests. Louisa and I won’t say anything publicly. We’ll have a small wedding six weeks hence, no one will remember any of this come next season. We don’t need to make this a whole to-do, unless you fail to see reason. Let Louisa go, and all of this goes away.”
Rotherfeld nodded slowly. “And what of my investment?”
“As soon as you leave,” Fletcher said, “I am going to go to the Petty residence and offer to buy Lord Petty’s half of the farm. Maybe he can’t afford to lose the money, but my man Mr. Cox here assures meIcan. I’d prefer not to, but Louisa is more important to me than the money, so I’ve removed that bit of leverage. You and I can do business perhaps, or you can buy me out and we have nothing to do with each other again.”
“I see.”
“The rest is all your reputation. So we can handle this quietly now or publicly on Saturday.”
Fletcher felt he’d done all he could here. He didn’t want to be half-owner of a sheep farm, but he’d make the most of it if he had to. If the farm were profitable, which it seemed to be, perhaps Rotherfeld would buy out Fletcher’s half anyway. Buying out Petty instead of Rotherfeld had been Anthony’s big idea, and Fletcher liked it because it gave him all the leverage now.
“So, let me sum up,” Rotherfeld said. “You will buy out Petty’s half of the investment. And you will likely try to make my life as hard as you can financially. And if I don’t end the engagement, Louisa will jilt me at the altar, and you will leak my affairs to the scandal sheets. Do I have that right?”
“You do. And if you agree today to end the engagement with Louisa, none of that happens. Well, I will still own half a sheep farm and we can further negotiate that, but everything else stays quiet.”
“I see.”
“Have we reached an understanding?” Fletcher asked.
Rotherfeld dropped his head and stared at the ground again. Then he looked up at Fletcher. He nodded. “We have.”
“Perhaps while I speak with Lord Petty this afternoon,” Fletcher said, “you can speak with Lady Louisa.”
“Perhaps I should.”
“I knew you’d see reason.”
* * *
Louisa was not normally one to succumb to despair, but she tossed aside her ruined embroidery and nearly cried. She was glad she had not actually cried, though, when the butler announced that the Duke of Rotherfeld and the Marquess of Greystone had arrived.
That was odd enough, but then only Daniel darkened the sitting room doorway.
“Did you do away with Greystone on your way here from the door?” she asked.
“No,” said Daniel, looking affronted. “He is speaking with your father.”
“Oh.” What did this all mean? “The two of you arrived together.”
Daniel looked down. “Greystone has given me an ultimatum. He has told me either I must end the engagement with you in private now, or he will publicly humiliate me at our wedding. And frankly, I’d prefer to avoid public humiliation.”
Louisa’s heart warmed. She was a little surprised at Fletcher’s ruthlessness, but she was glad for it, too. He’d held up his end of the bargain. He was going to do whatever it took. She assumed he’d gone to talk with Father to sort out the details.
“I suppose,” Daniel said, “I did not realize the extent to which our continued engagement was distressing you.”
“I did try to tell you.”
“You must understand the position I’m in.”
Something in Louisa snapped. She hoped her mother was not in earshot for what she was about to say but couldn’t risk closing the door if this engagement was about to end. “Here’s what I know,” she said, in a hiss of a whisper. “As a woman, I have almost no power to choose who I marry, nor do I have a way around the fact that I must marry if I want any semblance of independence from my family. My father has never put pressure on me to marry and likely will continue to support me for the rest of my life if I need that, but I don’t want that. I wantmore freedom of movement than that. So I knew that, when you offered for me, it was a step toward independence.”
“I can still give you that.”
“No, you can’t. Not with what I know now. That you view me as a means to an end. Well, Greystone and I may have acted foolishly, but I know, at least, that he views me as a person, and that if we marry, we’ll be true partners, and that is what I want for myself.”
Daniel frowned.
