Page 21 of Courting the Country Miss

Inside the club, a porter wearing a stylish tailcoat met him. He stopped short, blinked, but recovered his astonishment. “Good evening, Mr. Barrett. May I take your hat?”

“Of course.” Tristan offered a weak smile, surprised the man knew him after all these years. After surrendering his hat, Tristan sauntered into the main room as if he came here every day.

A gentleman glanced over his newspaper, took a second look, blinked, and lowered his paper. A group of men in conversation abruptly stopped talking, while two others whispered, eyes riveted to Tristan.

Perhaps coming here had been a bad idea. Still, he had come for Leticia’s sake and he would see this though—even if it killed him.

“Tristan.” Richard’s voice boomed across the room. His brother strode to his side. “I’m….glad to see you here.”

Tristan lifted a brow. “Surprised, you mean.”

Richard’s smile flashed. Tristan looked away, hoping Richard didn’t see how much his rescue meant.

“Do join us. We were about to order beefsteak.”

Richard led the way back to a circle of peers. “May I introduce my brother Tristan Barrett? This is the Duke of Suttenberg.”

Tristan bowed to the young duke who had a blond streak running through his dark hair. Keen intelligence glittered in his eyes. Tristan had heard Suttenberg lauded as a paragon of an Englishman but had never met him until now. Richard launched into introductions such as, “I’m sure you remember lord thus and such, and of course you know lord so and so.” And on it went with gentlemen too old for Leticia.

Within moments, Tristan dug into an excellent beefsteak as conversation roiled around him. Keeping his mouth full and ears open, he resumed his hunt for potential husbands for Leticia, ruling out those married and those too old to be suitable.

“…got what was coming. Can’t go around destroying expensive equipment, after all,” one lord said.

“No, but capital punishment?” Richard shook his head. “That’s too much. The fellows didn’t kill anyone, merely damaged some looms.”

“It’s the law,” the first man stated.

“The damage cost the factories thousands,” added a second, “in replacing the equipment and loss of business.”

Richard nodded. “Yes, yes, I agree that they committed a crime with significant losses, but execution is too harsh. After all, they didn’t commit murder or treason. Besides, they are desperate; their jobs were replaced by machines. How are they to support their families?”

The first man snorted. “Not by destroying property.”

“No, but how else are they to be heard? If they remain silent, no one will learn of their plight. Nothing will change for them.”

Tristan stared. Who knew his brother would be sympathetic to the Luddites?

“There’s a price to progress.” A third man thumped the tabletop.

Tristan leaped into the discussion. “And while everyone is busy crowing about the advantages of automated looms, they fail to consider the consequences to skilled laborers. Rich factory owners get fat while their former laborers starve.”

Five pairs of eyes trained on Tristan. He raised his chin in silent challenge.

Richard had never needed Tristan’s help in a fight, except one year in school, when fifteen-year-old Richard had been targeted by a group of boys who had jumped him without warning. Tristan, only a first-year student, had sprung to Richard’s aid without hesitation; his brother’s tormenters outnumbered him, and Tristan had acted. He’d received a bloodied nose for his trouble, but Richard’s surprise and gratitude that Tristan had entered the fray for his sake—against much older boys, no less—had left Tristan puffing out his chest for days.

That same surprise and gratitude also shone in Richard’s eyes when Tristan and Kensington had freed Richard from the clutches of the criminal ring run by Mr. Black. Of course, that act of heroism earned Tristan a bullet in the shoulder, but the bond it strengthened between them had been worth the pain.

Surprise and gratitude reappeared in Richard now. With luck, today’s encounter would not result in Tristan losing any blood.

His brother shifted his posture and moved his gaze back to the other men. “I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but if we keep our minds open to options, a better solution can be found to the problem.”

The first man nodded. “Perhaps.”

The second let out a humph. “Next thing, you’ll be noising about how you think we should educate all the poor and free all the women in prison.”

Richard gave him a cold smile. “One battle at a time, Lord Petre.”

The first man nudged Lord Petre. “Averston’s wife is already crusading for that.”