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She sipped her brandy again before replying, “Of course I would. Could you imagine me as Viscountess Blakely?”
“No, you might even have to give up drinking brandy.”
“Exactly.” She drained her snifter and held it out to him. “Think of what a hardship that would be for me.”
He shifted her limbs off his lap and rose to refill her glass. Hearing footsteps outside the door, he put a finger up to his lips.
The door rattled as a disembodied voice said, “Lord Huntley must not wish anyone to enter his study. Come along, Lady Langley.”
Once the footsteps moved away, Louisa brows furrowed. “I think that was my sister and Lord Dereham. Thank God, she didn’t find us in here a
lone.”
“Oh yes, that would be dreadful indeed,” he said sardonically. After pouring her another brandy, he returned to his seat.
Louisa had shifted her slender legs under her as if to avoid his touch again. She reached for the brandy he held out to her. “I am far too young to marry anyone.”
At nineteen, she was the exact age most men wanted for a wife. Young enough to mold to their likes. Not that Louisa would ever conform to anyone or anything. It was her indomitable spirit that drew him to her. She would never let a man control her completely.
“I suppose we both are a bit young for marriage,” he mused.
“Of course you are, Harry. No man should marry before...” she paused, tapping her finger against her lips. “Thirty.”
“Thirty?” That was almost six years from now. It seemed like a lifetime from the present. “And what is the appropriate age for a lady to marry?”
“For most ladies or me? There is a vast difference.” She giggled again as she tended to when drinking.
His thumb caressed her ankle again. “For you, then.”
“Hmm. At least twenty-three, maybe twenty-four.”
“Why so late? You would be considered a spinster by then.”
Someone else shook the door handle, silencing them. “I heard a voice in there,” a lady said softly. “A man’s voice.”
“Come along, Clarissa,” a man urged the woman. “If the door is locked, we are not wanted in there.”
Harry shook his head while Louisa cocked hers.
“Who was that?” she whispered with a grin.
“Sutcliff.”
“Ainsley’s younger son? And Clarissa Carter?” She pressed her lips together as if suppressing another giggle, but it finally escaped. “Her father will never tolerate that match. He expects a title for his precious daughter and not a second son with no prospects.”
“You are right.” But Harry doubted his friend would listen to reason with Miss Carter. Finishing his first brandy, he noticed she’d already emptied her second snifter. It wasn’t that unusual for her to drink two glasses, but rarely this early in the afternoon and never so quickly. “What is wrong, Louisa?”
She shrugged as she stared at the bottom of her empty snifter, twisting the glass in her hand. Rising, she snatched his snifter before moving to the corner cabinet. “My mother believes Tessa should accept Dereham.”
“And you’re not happy about that.”
“No,” she replied, returning to her seat. She curled her legs under her again. “There is no need for her to marry so soon. It’s only been a year since Langley passed. Tessa should be able to enjoy the benefits of widowhood before tying herself down with another man.”
“It is up to her, is it not?” he asked, noticing how quickly she had already taken two sips of the brandy. Clearly, the idea of her sister marrying another older man affected her.
“Your father is encouraging the match.”
“Why would my father help Tessa find another husband?”
