Page 29 of His Stolen Duchess (Stolen by the Duke #7)
Chapter Twenty-Three
A va welcomed Lysander and Georgina into her home.
“Please, come through and have something to drink. The others are already here, as is Uncle Francis. Oliver has found some wonderful musicians, and there will be music for us through the night, and the men would like to play cards later if that is favorable. Oliver also brought in some of the finest brandy from the Continent, cigars, too.”
“We appreciate the effort you have both put into welcoming us,” Lysander said.
It was unofficial and unspoken, but the dinner at Ava and Oliver’s house had been arranged to finally celebrate Georgina’s marriage and welcome Lysander into the family.
Lysander didn’t need to have a celebration for any of that.
Their marriage was an arranged one, and there was no need to celebrate it, but he assumed the husbands had a need for more family than they started with, and thought he needed the same.
It is better for me to be as alone as possible.
He and Georgina walked into the fine residence and were led to the drawing room. Georgina’s two other sisters, Juliana and Emily, along with the sisters’ three husbands, Vincent, Oliver, and Ambrose, were in the room, along with Uncle Francis.
“Some brandy, Your Grace?” Ava asked.
“Wonderful,” Lysander said.
“And I shall pour a sherry for you,” Ava said to Georgina. “Then you must come and converse with us. I’m afraid the men have been talking about boring things for a while now, and you will find it extremely dull.”
“Then I suppose I shall join the boring conversation,” Lysander noted.
“Oh, my!” Ava gasped. “No, I didn’t mean it quite like that, Your Grace. I was only jesting.”
“As is he,” Georgina added. “In his own way.”
“Oh yes, good,” Ava said. “I don’t mean to offend anyone.”
“You didn’t. Thank you for the brandy.” Lysander turned to Georgina. “I shall try to liven up the conversation if I can.”
“Good luck,” she replied.
Lysander took his brandy over to the small group of men, and as he approached, he saw Francis eyeing him eagerly.
“Your Grace!” Francis bellowed, looking and sounding like he had already enjoyed a few drinks. “A pleasure to see you again.”
Francis held out his hand, and Lysander shook it firmly. There were more introductions and greetings with the men, but much less frantic than Francis’s. He might not need to have a large family around him, but he had to admit that it was fine to be in the company of a group of his peers.
“Your Grace,” Francis said after the introductions had been made.
“I have two things I must talk to you about.” He gestured with his arms, his drink swishing in the glass, to say he was now addressing all four men.
“It is such a proud day for me to see all four of my nieces with husbands. And not only with husbands, but with good men, too. I am so glad to have you all as a part of my family.”
Lysander followed the others in raising his glass to the warm welcome from Uncle Francis.
When he looked around at the other three men who were included in the toast, he realized he didn’t know all that much about them.
Still, he knew they were good men. He was an astute judge of character, and he considered them to be decent.
“Now, to the second thing,” Uncle Francis said. “The last time we spoke, we were having a conversation about the war, and I was fascinated to hear your take on it. When we last met, you told me that you fought in the Napoleonic War.”
“Yes, your information is correct, but that is something we spoke of already and is not worth revisiting,” Lysander countered.
He had no inclination to discuss the war with anyone, least of all someone who had not been to war and was fueled with liquor, which would only give him a thirst to hear more about its atrocities.
“I have something I need to consider, and I hoped you might help me.”
“Me?” Francis asked.
“All of you, really,” Lysander continued. “It concerns some of my business interests, and I assume you all have some business holdings and have faced all manner of problems over the years. It is nothing really, but I’d like to bend your ear on it in any event.”
Francis puffed out his chest again. “Oh yes, of course.”
The business problem was merely a distraction, but it was a problem he had been considering for a while. Any advice given might not change his decision, but he would certainly take it into account.
“Careful,” Oliver warned. “I have already been told by Ava that my conversations with other lords are utterly dry and dull. Now, a new member of the family has joined us, and he wants to talk about business. You are doing my reputation for dullness no favors, Your Grace.”
“Yes, but if we turn the conversation to something more interesting, they will have nothing to tease us about, and we all know how much our wives love to do that,” Lysander offered.
Vincent laughed first. “An astute observation, and one I shall drink to.”
“Don’t look, but some of them are looking over here,” Oliver commented. “They heard you laugh, Vincent. They might think our conversations are becoming more interesting. We must turn it back to business as quickly as possible.”
“Before that,” Lysander cut in. “I noticed the lack of formality when addressing each other.”
“You needn’t worry.” Ambrose was also a duke. “We have agreed upon informality, but it’s only because we have known each other for some time.”
“Then let’s skip ahead,” Lysander suggested cordially.
“I have no plans to rid myself of my wife, so we can accurately say that I will also know you for some time, and the formalities will be dropped. Let’s not waste precious time and cease the formalities now.
I don’t wish to be addressed by anything other than my first name going forward.
If it is good enough for all of you, then it is good enough for me. ”
“That is something else I can drink to,” Vincent said.
The five men raised their glasses, held them aloft for a moment, then took a drink.
“Before we get into business,” Oliver said, “I have taken to organizing a game of whist when we are all together. Now, and bear with me, Francis, but I would like to extend that invitation to Lysander tonight as we have a perfect foursome with all ladies married. Of course, that would mean having you sit out, Francis.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Francis said. “It is a dream come true to see all four ladies and all four gentlemen get on so well, and I would be more than happy to sit out and watch the game. I am sure the match will be all the more hotly contested with additional young blood in the mix.”
“I’m grateful for the invitation.” He nodded in gratitude to Oliver. “I will accept, though I might be a little rusty. Some time has passed since I last played.”
“Then I certainly don’t want to partner with you,” Ambrose said. “I only play to win, and I will gladly do just that as long as you are rusty, Lysander.”
“Then I will partner with him,” Oliver said. “And teach you what it is to be a gracious host in the process, Ambrose. Not only that, but I have a feeling my superior skills will show through, and we will beat you both comfortably.”
“Superior skills, huh?” Vincent asked. “Have you been somehow hiding that from us all these months? I would love to see some of that skill that you talk about.”
“Who’s to say that I am rusty after all?” Lysander chimed in. “Perhaps I am bluffing.”
Oliver smiled broadly as Ambrose and Vincent studied Lysander, trying to work out if he had been bluffing or if he was bluffing now.
“Was there any business, Your Grace?” Francis asked.
The four men laughed together. Lysander immediately looked over at Georgina, talking with her sisters, to see her staring back at him with a slightly furrowed brow.
He turned back to the matter at hand. “Yes, I do have some business to discuss. I’d hoped someone had a good head for figures, and I value a frank opinion over one meant to placate.
I have a mill on my estate, and the returns last quarter were passable.
Not great, but still a small profit. Now, with the price of cotton wavering, is it the right time for me to enter into a new partnership? ”
Uncle Francis cleared his throat and spoke first. “When it comes to cotton, I find it is the Manchester men who are the boldest, and they will often undercut prices, even running at a deficit to put others out of business before raising prices again when they have the market to themselves. The question is whether a short-term loss is worth it for you. If your production is not large, it might be an inconvenience to continue running a cotton mill when other opportunities come with more profit and fewer problems.”
No one else spoke for a moment, and all four men looked at Francis. He merely sipped his drink and made no further comment.
“The problem for me”—Ambrose took another look at Francis—“is ensuring the proper running of the mill before the cotton is to be sold, and that the product is not being undercut. I always insist upon having a trusted man on the farm to oversee the production.”
“I have many men who are trustworthy, but I worry that none of them are suited for industry,” Lysander said. “I don’t want to put someone there who doesn’t know the business inside out.”
“Such men are hard to come by,” Vincent admitted.
“It is harder to find a trustworthy man than a hardworking one, but the latter can always be taught. In times like these, we all must roll up our sleeves and get stuck in. I’m not only talking about the men we trust, but ourselves.
Wealth is not as gentlemanly as it once was. ”
“Yes, but the ton would have you believe that the only thing you must do is to have enough money to make it grow without doing anything more about it,” Oliver added. “The day someone from the ton gets their hands dirty is the day that pigs fly.”
“That is something I wouldn’t mind seeing,” Francis commented.
The four men burst into laughter again, and even Francis smiled, though he didn’t really know what he was smiling about.
“I see that some glasses are running dry,” Oliver said.
“In this house that is shameful, so allow me to have someone refill your glasses.” He clicked his fingers in the air.
“Once we have that, I must insist we get back to boring topics, or we will never hear the end of it from our wives. We must live up to their expectations and nothing more or less.”
“Another thing we can all drink to,” Vincent said, raising his glass.