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“That new man-of-business of yours?”

Gyles nodded Glass in hand, he crossed to his favorite armchair and sank into its leather-cushioned co into a small matter for me”

“Oh? Which matter?”

“Who I should marry”

Horace stared, then straightened “Hell’s bells! You’re serious”

“Marriage is not a subject on which I would jest”

“Glad to hear it” Horace took a large sip of his brandy “Henni said you’d bea move in that direction, but I really didn’t think you would-well, not yet”

Gyles hid a wry suardian since his father’s death; he’d been seven at the tiuided hih adolesence and youth Despite that, he could still surprise Horace His aunt Henrietta, Henni to all, was anotheron all h he was here in London while she resided at his principal estate in Berkshire As for his rateful that she kept her perceptions to herself “It’s not as ifI can avoid”

“There is that,” Horace conceded “Osbert as the next earl is not so any of us could stomach Least of all Osbert”

“So Great-aunt Millicent regularly infore desk farther down the room “That letter there-the thick one? That’ll be anotherI do my duty by the family, pick a suitable chit, and marry with all speed One arrives every ithout fail”

Horace pulled a face

“And, of course, every time I cross Osbert’s path, he looks at me as if I’m his only possible salvation”