Page 7 of Tamed By a Duke
"So, there was no talk of rebellion?" Orsino continued, ignoring the banter between his two friends. Jack, who had returned from war the previous year, following his brother's death, still had much of the military man about him. He, like Hugh and Robert, worked as a gatherer of intelligence for Whitehall and took his duties to the Crown very seriously indeed.
Hugh, meanwhile, had been inspired to offer his services as a way of showing solidarity with his brother, who served as a Captain under Wellington. He was as invested as Orsino in his work, but he often felt a stab of guilt when he saw just how seriously Orsino took his duties.
Only a man who has fought knows what it is we are working for, Hugh thought, with a stab of guilt as his mind wandered toward Leo.
"Oh, there was plenty of talk," Hugh shrugged, eager to banish the feeling of unease that had crept over him—as it always did—when his mind turned to Leo. "But I wouldn't worry too much about that lot taking up arms against the Crown. They could hardly listen to five minutes of speeches before they descended into a brawl. All brawn and no brains, I'm glad to say."
"Sir Francis doesn't usually inspire a mob mentality," Orsino interjected thoughtfully.
"Sir Francis was not there," Hugh scowled, "I fear that whoever organised that particular gathering had used his name to add an air of respectability to the affair."
Hugh, though a Tory, held a grudging admiration for Sir Francis and agreed with him on many points. The current government had imposed stifling taxes upon the nation, which had led to suffering and discontent amongst the poor. Discontent led, as it always did, to sedition and talk of rebellion, and whilst the war with France was now at an end, agitation by certain political groups meant that the country was still in peril.
"I suppose the room was full of Whigs thinking it a Hampden Club," Orsino said, with a rather amused laugh.
Hugh grunted noncommittally in reply; he was certain that the red-haired thorn in his side had thought that very thing. He had not, for one minute, bought her tall tale about confusing the meeting of radicals with a gathering of crochet-enthusiasts—even if her silly maid had.
Hugh allowed himself a moment to think again of the young lady, who had possessed the look and manner of a lady of breeding. Her clipped accent and expensive clothing had hinted at a moneyed, perhaps even aristocratic, upbringing, but most ladies of Hugh's acquaintance would not bother themselves with matters political. Politics was far from fashionable.
Which could mean only one thing; his red-haired vixen was a bluestocking. There were few things that Hugh despised more than virtue-signalling ladies who could not see the hypocrisy of their homilies when they were delivered from a position of wealth. Even if they did have bewitching, mocking eyes...
Hugh allowed himself a few moments of indulgent reverie, as Orsino and Montague chatted between themselves, before pulling his attention back to his friends, who had become rather animated.
"Almack's?" Orsino hooted, in response to something that Montague had said, "I would not set foot in there unless someone had a Flintlock held to my temple."
"That can be arranged," Montague replied, with a wide, boyish grin which took the menace from his words.
"Are you thinking of getting leg-shackled?" Hugh asked, glancing at the erstwhile committed bachelor with surprise. A man did not set foot in the fusty rooms of Almack's unless they were of a matrimonial mindset; for there was little else to recommend the place, apart from it being the only venue where one might find a suitable wife. People certainly did not attend for the food, which was notoriously poor, or alcohol, for they served none. Dry cake and bitter lemonade was the order of the day, all to be consumed under the strict gaze of the assembly room's lady patronesses.
"I am not thinking of it at all," Montague replied, a frown furrowing his handsome brow, "But in order to appease my father, I must give the impression that I am."
Ah. Hugh's father had been prudent enough to produce an heir and a spare. Leo was a good five years younger than Hugh and away with the army, but he took away any immediate urgency Penrith might feel to procreate for the sake of the line. Montague was not so lucky; as the only child and heir apparent, his formidable father, the Duke of Staffordshire, thought of little else than his son marrying and producing a brace of brats.
"You'll come with me, Penrith, won't you?" Montague cadged, his expression hopeful.
Hugh was just about to thoroughly abuse his friend for even thinking that he might step within three leagues of Almack's when the arrival of a familiar face to the table halted him.
"Dubarry," Hugh smiled at the sight of his cousin.
Augustus Dubarry was a young man of five and twenty, with an affable, if slightly bumbling, manner which matched his haphazard appearance. Dubarry had a shock of blonde hair, which was always messy and tousled, and he could be counted upon to regularly forget an integral part of dressing.
Today, it was his waistcoat—a painful mustard brocade—which was buttoned up incorrectly, so that portions of Dubarry's white shirt were poking out at odd places.
Hugh, who could not give a fig for appearances, felt a stab of affection for his younger cousin, who though forgetful, was in possession of a musical talent most men would kill for.
"I'm not interrupting a meeting of the Upstarts, am I?" Dubarry asked, with a nervous glance to Orsino and Montague.
"I ruddy hate that name," Orsino grumbled, though Hugh rather thought he looked quite pleased with the idea of notoriety so great that it warranted an appellation. The trio of dukes, or rather the two dukes and the duke in waiting, had been dubbed the Ducal Upstarts by theton, given that, despite their young ages, they were three of the wealthiest and most powerful men in England.
"' Tis better than Disastrous Dubs," Dubarry commented with a wry smile, as he slipped into the chair that Hugh had pulled across for him.
Hugh winced slightly as he heard his cousin repeat his dubious moniker; he had not realised that Dubarry still thought on the cruel nickname he had earned himself in Eton. Hugh, who was five years his cousin's senior, had always thought of Dubarry as a younger brother of sorts and had spent his last years in school defending the lad from the taunts of the other pupils.
Unfortunately, once Hugh had left for Oxford, Dubarry had been left alone, and had been somewhat prone to walking himself into trouble, and equally as woeful at talking himself out of it. Thus, Disastrous Dubs had become his reluctant epithet, which had followed him from Eton to Oxford, and now town.
"I haven't heard anyone call you that for years," Hugh said, with a bracing smile.
"Really?" his cousin raised a disbelieving eyebrow, "Because I heard it just moments ago from Lord Lucas and Lord Horace."
