“BUT I am serious, Tony!” Reggie exclaimed as she eyed him carefully across his sitting room. “How can you doubt me? This is an emergency, Tony.” He was the only one of her uncles who insisted she call him simply by his Christian name.

She had had to wait twenty minutes for him to be roused from sleep, for he had spent the whole day at his club drinking and gambling, then come home and fallen into bed. Another ten minutes had been wasted just trying to get him to believe how serious she was. Her thirty minutes were already up and she’d barely begun. Marshall was going to kill her.

“Come now, puss. You wouldn’t be a week in the country before you were missing gay old London. If you need a rest, tell Eddie boy you’re sick or something. A few days in your room and you’ll thank me for not taking you seriously about this.”

“I have had nothing but the gay life for the last year,” Reggie went on determinedly. “I traveled from party to party on my tour, not country to country. And it’s not only that I’m tired of the constant entertainments, Tony. I could withstand that well enough. I’m not even suggesting I spend the whole season at Haverston, only a few weeks, so I can recuperate. It’s this husband hunting that is going to be the death of me. Truly it is.”

“No one said you had to marry the first man you met, puss,” Anthony said reasonably.

“The first man? There’ve been hundreds, Tony. I’ll have you know they now call me the ‘cold fish.’ ”

“Who does, by God?”

“The name is perfectly appropriate. I have been cold and cutting. I’ve had to be, because I refuse to give a man hope when there is no hope.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Anthony demanded brusquely.

“I hired Sir John Dodsley long before the last season was over.”

“That old reprobate? Hired him for what?”

“To act as, well, an adviser, you might say,” she confessed. “That old reprobate, as you call him, knows everyone. He also knows everything there is to know about everyone. After my sixth serious suitor failed to pass muster with you and your brothers, I felt it was useless disappointing myself or any more young men by having to go through it all again. I paid Dodsley to attend every affair I did. He had a list of what you and your brothers might disapprove of in a man, and he shook his head at me for nearly every single man I met. It saved me time and disappointment, but it got me my quaint nickname, too. It’s impossible, Tony. I can please Jason, but not you… you, but not Edward. Thank heaven Uncle James isn’t also here to express his opinion. There isn’t a man in existence who would please all of you.”

“That’s absurd,” he protested. “I can think of a dozen off hand who would do very well.”

“Would they, Tony?” she asked softly. “Would you really want me to marry any of them?”

He pulled an aggrieved face, then suddenly grinned. “No, I suppose not.”

“So you see my predicament then?”

“But don’t you want to marry, puss?”

“Of course I do. And I’m sure the man you and your brothers find for me will make me very happy.”

“What?” He glared at her. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not putting that responsibility on my shoulders, Reggie.”

“All right then,” she agreed. “We’ll leave it to Uncle Jason.”

“Don’t be foolish. He’d have you married to a tyrant just like him.”

“Come now, Tony, you know that’s not true.” She grinned.

“Well, close to it,” he grumbled.

“You see, Tony, at least I wouldn’t have to keep on summing up every man I meet. I want to enjoy myself again, be able to talk to a man without analyzing him, dance without wondering if my partner is husband material. It’s gotten so that every man I look at, I ask myself, Shall I marry him? Could I love him? Would he be as good and kind to me as—” She stopped, blushing.

“As?” he prompted.

“Oh, you might as well know,” she said with a sigh. “I compare every man to you and my other uncles. I can’t help it. I almost wish you all didn’t love me so well. You’ve pampered me outrageously. I want my husband to be a combination of all of you.”

“What have we done to you?”

He was about to burst into laughter and she lost her temper. “You think it’s funny, do you? I don’t see you facing this problem. And if I don’t get a vacation from it, I swear I will try and reach Uncle James and have him take me away.”

He sobered instantly. Though he was the closest to James, even he had been furious and unforgiving over what his brother had done.

“Don’t say that, Reggie,” he warned. “You’re not thinking clearly. Calling James into this will make matters worse, not better.”

She pressed the point mercilessly. “Then will you tell Uncle Jason I want to come home for a while? That I’m done with looking for a husband and will wait until the three of you can agree on whom I should marry?”

“Blister it, Reggie, Jason isn’t going to like this any more than I do. You should be making your own choice, finding someone you love.”

“I tried that.” There was an awkward silence.

Anthony scowled. “Lord Medhurst was a pompous ass!”

“Did I know that? I thought he was quite the one. Well, so much for my falling in love.”

“You could have had Newel if Eddie hadn’t been convinced he would make a terrible father.” Tony continued to scowl.

“Yes, well, Uncle Edward was undoubtedly right. Again—so much for my falling in love.”

“You certainly know how to depress a fellow, puss. We only wanted what was best for you, you know.”

“I do know that, and I love you for it. I just know I’ll adore whomever the three of you decide will make a perfect husband.”

“Will you?” He grinned. “I’m not so sure. If Jason agrees to this, for example, he’ll be determined to find a man who’s nothing like me.”

He was teasing. If there was anyone who would disapprove of someone like him for her, that someone was Tony himself. She laughed. “Well, you know you can always convert my husband, Tony—after I’m safely married.”