“Because it can’t.” Looking at her cousins set against her, and Lady what’s-her-name looking just as agitated, Reggie gave in. “Oh, very well. I’ll settle for a hired chaise or a chair, Marshall, if you’ll just send one of the footmen to fetch one for me. I’ll join you at the ball as soon as I’m finished.”
“Out of the question.”
Marshall was annoyed. It was just like his cousin to try and involve him in something foolish so that he, being the oldest, would be the one to get in trouble later. Well, not this time, by God. He was older and wiser, and she couldn’t talk circles around him anymore the way she used to.
Marshall said adamantly, “A hired conveyance? At night? It’s not safe and you know it, Reggie.”
“Travis can come with me.”
“But Travis doesn’t want to,” the escort in question was quick to reply. “And never mind turning those baby blues on me, Reggie. I’ve no mind to be late for the ball either.”
“Please, Travis.”
“No.”
Reggie looked at all those unsympathetic faces. She wouldn’t give in. “Then I shan’t go to the ball. I didn’t want to go in the first place.”
“Oh, no.” Marshall shook his head sternly. “I know you too well, dear cousin. No sooner do we leave here than you sneak out of the house and walk over to Uncle Anthony’s. Father would kill me.”
“I have more sense than that, Marshall,” she assured him tartly. “I’ll send another message to Tony and wait for him to come here.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Marshall pointed out. “He’s got better things to do than jump at your beck and call. He may not even be at home. No. You’re coming with us and that’s final.”
“I won’t.”
“You will!”
“She can use my carriage.” All eyes turned to their guest. “My driver and the attendant have been with me for years and can be trusted to see her safely on her errand and then to the ball.”
Reggie’s smile was dazzling. “Famous! You really are a savior, Lady—?”
“Eddington,” the lady supplied. “We met earlier in the week.”
“Yes, in the park. I do remember. I’m just terrible with names after meeting so many people this last year. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Don’t mention it. I am happy to oblige.”
And Selenawashappy—anything to get them on their way, for heaven’s sake. It was bad enough that she’d had to settle for Marshall Malory as escort totheball of the season. But he was the only one of the dozen men she had sent notes to that morning who hadn’t put her off with one excuse or another. Malory, younger than she, had been only a last resort. And there she was in the middle of a family squabble, all because of this young chit.
“There now, Marshall,” Reggie was saying. “You certainly can’t object now.”
“No, I suppose not,” he said grudgingly. “But just remember you said a half hour, cousin. You had betterbeat the Shepfords’ before Father happens to notice that you’re not. There will be the devil to pay otherwise, and you know it.”
Chapter 3
“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?”
