The Duke And His Four Wards

"This is spurious. I'm twenty-three and already under pressure from father to find the lass with the right breeding. Who talks like that nowadays?" Emery says poking at his baked beans and crisp toast.

"I hear you Knipschild. I thought being the next Baron of Chesterfield meant hot desperate lasses wanting to please me, use me and abuse me; but old Baron Chesterfield wills none of that." Koen grunts into his sunny side up.

I sit back and look at my friends

"Knipschild, your father had you in his mid thirties and you're his first." I point out

"I know!" He exclaims agitatedly

"That's some attractive twaddle right there. He ought to be taken up by the devil." Hilliard announces passionately

"Hodge, hold your horses, perhaps old Lord Knipschild has a point in his intentions for Emery." Leigh says

"I'll none of it! He had his fun in his youth and wants to deny his son any. That's blasphemy and treachery sliced maliciously and malevolently by the very green hands of self intent." Hilliard preaches prudently

"I second that." Emery announces with a nod and a salute of his glass of orange

"And I join the wagon baron Hadley." Koen concurs fully

"I say to Hades with those bureaucrats, we have minds of our own. We ought not be told what to do with titles we didn't ask for at the origins! In fact what we should do is teach those old chums a lesson in modern society." Hilliard declares, flaring his red head of hair like he was already in the House of Lords making a speech on pressing issues.

"And what lesson might this be?" I inquire hiding my smile behind a cup of tea

"We ought to break their backs in a match of polo where we will cast lots on our independent minds." He announces.

And therein the fault in his highness the next Baron of Hadley lies. Hilliard cut a tall figure in his coat. I'd be the first to admit he had too many pints of charisma in his blood, but all that seemed to do was place ideas of grandeur in his head, make him ignite fires he couldnt feed as you have just witnessed.

"You barely play." I point out

"Must you be so wet a blanket duke Angelford?" he passionately inquires

"I must be the sense in your fiery endeavours Baron Hadley." I reply

"I second the duke." Leigh announces

"Thank you baron Burlington." I nod at him appreciatively

"I do however understand Hadleys distaste. His mother is at the moment chatting up Lady Harris." Leigh adds

"I fear were back in the eighteenth century and not the twenty first." Emery dramatically announces making a house of his crisp toast

"I may have a ploy to get us out of this." Koen brightly announces, flashing his aqua eyes at us.

This ought to be interesting!

"And what could it possibly be?" Hilliard encourages him

"Charlton's impact." Koen divulges saucily.

I sit back, the tension of hope that for once something cheerily intelligent would spew from the rose-lipped next Baron of Chesterfield dying away like a rose in old water.

"Chesterfield you have the sensational intelligence of a headless spring chicken." Hilliard says glaring his hazel eyes at him.

"Perchance there is a connection twixt the dethroned Baron and our situation if Chesterfield was but given the pulpit to explain." Emery says flashing a smile at the auburn haired Baron to be.

I sense this is more from desperation than endearment.

"Charlton, like us, was under pressure to wed at a morosely early age was he not?" Koen points out indeed.

Leigh seconds him "and thus he went for the worst possible match he could find; Gloria Durante." He adds

"She was glorious indeed!" Emery chuckles dipping the roof of his crisp house into the beans

"Marvelously sculpted." Hilliard agrees with a smile

"But she was so badly bred his parents would never have approved if she had been finished." Leigh states in distaste. That was slightly exaggerated.

Lady Haris' finishing school taught many a future duchess how to be a lady and would have done the same for Gloria Durante. But something told me Charlton was not into ladies. Leigh must be the only real blue blood at this table, the rest of us would have had a go at Gloria if she as much as liked teenage boys back then!

"As a result his parents lowered the standards of expectation allowing him to mingle with any woman in the ton he wished as long as it wasn't Gloria; which is what we want to happen is it not?" Koen arrives at his point