Love Only Once Read Online Free PDF Page A

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, notcountry 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 nearlyevery 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