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“Looking for a drink?”

Andrew whipped his focus forward and found Wessex’s glare upon him.

He angled his head. Well, at least there would be some hint of pleasantries now. That was a good deal more promising. “No, I—”

“I’m not offering one, Waters,” Wessex said sharply. “I’m asking why in hell you’re ogling my damned sideboard.”

Andrew had opened his mouth to speak when he registered the shadow beside him.

Glancing up, he found his brother-in-law, impressively stealthy for his size, had quit his place alongside Wessex and positioned himself at Andrew’s shoulder.

Resisting the urge to squirm, feeling like the boy he’d been when he’d first met the other man, Andrew looked at his brother-in-law. “Would you mind perhaps joining us in a seat?”

“I’m quite comfortable as I am,” the marquess said coolly.

“Of course you are,” Andrew muttered. Anything to make a chap squirm or remind him of his mere humanness.

Rutland quirked an icy brow. “What was that?” he asked in a silken growl.

Well, to hell with him. To hell with them all. He fought the sudden need to swallow and shook his head. “Nothing at all.” Rutland’s opinion didn’t matter in this moment anyway, not his usual disgust or disapproval. Dismissing the other man outright, Andrew retrained his attention on the one man whose opinion this day did matter. “I want to begin by apologizing,” Andrew said.

“An apology?” Wessex barked, slamming a fist onto the edge of his desk.

His brother-in-law did sit then, a tacit show of support. Yes, Rutland might be disgusted by Andrew and disappointed, but at the end of the day, he’d stand beside him, even when that was the last thing he deserved.

“What were you thinking, Andrew?” Rutland asked, his voice as graveled as always, but gentle in the ways it had increasingly become over the years of being married to Phoebe. He gave Andrew an opening to speak, asking that same question that he had several hours ago.

Andrew bungled his reply for the second time. “I—”

“He wasn’t,” Wessex snapped.

Andrew bristled. “Hey now. I’ll have you know…” Except to say anything more would be to implicate Marcia. It would mean revealing that she’d come to him in confidence and solicited his help. And he’d not betray that trust. He flattened his lips into a line.

Wessex frowned. “What will you have me know?”

“I’ll have you know I regret very much what happened,” he weakly substituted.

With a sound of disgust, the more respectable viscount looked away.

“I’ve come to make the situation right,” Andrew said, and even as Wessex whipped his attention back towards Andrew, Rutland’s features remained impassive, etched in stone.

“And just how do you intend to do that?” Wessex rejoined coldly, in a way that warned.

“I will marry—”

“No.”

“—her.”

“Marcia won’t marry just because she has no other choice. Marcia will marry a good man who is respectable and honorable,” her father said.

Andrew couldn’t resist. “A man like Thornton?”

The viscount jerked like he’d taken a blow to the belly.

Andrew wasn’t through with him, though. “Because, as I see it, the fellow youdidapprove of proved unworthy and broke her heart.”

“And do you think you are worthy of her?”