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But the older viscount wasn’t who commanded his attention.

Something tightened in Andrew’s chest, shifting weirdly at the sight of her.

She wore the ivory silk gown with gold beading along her hem and waist that she’d worn at Almack’s the day she’d made her Come Out.

An event she’d insisted since she’d been a girl of thirteen that he attend so they could suffer through the affair together.

A tiara rested on her flaxen curls, giving her the look of a golden Aphrodite, and he drank in the sight of her, her cheeks flush with color, her eyes bright… and smiling.

Aside from George, Marcia was the lone smiling person in the room, and with her approach, the tension left him, the stiffness easing from his shoulders, as for the first time that day, there was an absolute sense of… rightness to this moment. To his marrying Marcia.

It had always been easy with Marcia, and that remained true this day, too.

It was why he needn’t fear this moment and this marriage.

Because nothing would change between them.

Not really.

At last, she reached him.

Wessex hesitated for a long while, and then with all the eagerness of the Lord and Savior inviting Satan to supper, Marcia’s father placed her fingertips upon Andrew’s sleeve. The warmth of her touch penetrated the fabric of Andrew’s jacket. Then, after standing for a moment more, the viscount left Marcia and Andrew alone with only Andrew’s best man at his side.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” he murmured for her ears alone, then winced as she discreetly pinched him. “Ouch.”

“Do you believe I’ve the honor of Thornton?” she asked with a frown.

He believed Thornton unworthy of so much as licking the soles of her slippers.

The vicar opened his book and called out to the room at large: “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation to join together this man and this woman in holy matrimony, which is an honorable estate instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency…”

“There is one thing,” Marcia whispered to Andrew as the graying gentleman began the ceremony.

Andrew leaned down. “What is that?”

“I need your loyalty, Andrew.”

He froze. “Beg pardon?”

“It occurred to me we did not speak about… other women. I do not want you bedding them. I don’t want to be cuckolded.”

“It was ordained for a remedy against sin,” the vicar continued, “and to avoid fornication that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry and keep themselves undefiled…”

Oh, God. This was the discussion they were having while the wedding took place, and their families and friends watched on?

“A man is the cuckold,” he pointed out.

She rolled her eyes. “Well,thatis ridiculous. Why should there be a name specifically applied to the man to whom a woman has been unfaithful and not the woman?”

“I’m not sure, Marcia,” he said in a strained whisper.

Her frown deepened. “Do you mean you aren’t sure about the definition, or whether you can be faithful to me?”

Oh, hell.

He fought his cravat for a moment before realizing precisely what he did in front of a room of some thirty-five or so guests. “Marcia, this isn’t really the time—”

“I think this is the perfect time,” she interrupted, and something in her eyes, the worry there, sent the bells of worry clamoring away in his brain.