"No!" Reginald said firmly, uncrossing his legs and straightening out of his slouch. "I will not marry simply to please you, sir. Not even if you were able to persuade one of the royal princesses to have me."
His father's heavy eyebrows soared halfway up his forehead.
"To please me?" he said. "You do not please me at all, Reginald. You have not pleased me—or your mother—for some time now. She pleads your case by telling me that you are merely sowing your wild oats. If that is so, you have sown far too many of them for long enough. You will marry, lad, as soon as I have found you a suitable bride, and you will settle down and live a respectable life."
"I beg your pardon," Reggie said, a thread of steel in his voice now even though he spoke politely enough, "but you cannot force me, sir."
"You are right," his father said, his voice dipping ominously in volume. "I cannot. But I can cut off your funds, Reginald, and that would be like cutting off the air you breathe. I can and I will do it if you refuse to offer marriage to the first lady I find for you."
Reggie leaned back in his chair and stared at his father's angry, implacable face. The threat was explicit now.
"You ought to be thankful," he said, "that I have never done anything actually to disgrace you, sir, as some members of the nobility have done to their fathers. Ladies as well as gentlemen. You have heard about Lady Annabelle Ashton, I suppose?"
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