Page 117

But she was very much a coward, because even knowing he didn’t want her around, she couldn’t stand being suffocated by her own silence, lonely and scared, as she’d been since their arrival at his home.

She made a show of studying the table, and while the three gentlemen silently observed her, Marcia brought the cue stick into place.

From the corner of her eye, she caught Landon’s smile.

It was, however, Rothesby who took mercy on her.

“It is upside down, my dear. Like this,” he explained, and stepping forward, he slid the stick from her fingers and repositioned for her. “If I may?” Even as he asked, he was already helping guide her into the proper stance at the table.

“Like this?” she asked.

Rothesby shifted her forward slightly and murmured his approval. “Like so, my lady. Now, the red ball is the object ball.” He guided the stick held between them in the direction of each ball as he named it. “And the white is the cue one. In order to determine who shoots first, players perform a lag.” All the while, he retained his hold upon her.

She cast a quizzical glance over her shoulder.

“Each player simultaneously hits a cue ball up the table, bouncing it off the top cushion so that it returns to the balkline.” He shifted her stick slightly. “That refers to this area of the table.” He traced a gentle circle over the indicated area upon the red velvet table.

The duke proceeded to run through the remainder of the directions of game play and a breakdown of the scoring system.

Andrew remained stonily silent the entire time. Where was his usual mirth?

Probably it’s only hit him what he’s done, that he’s now married.

Shoving aside that taunting voice, she trained all her focus on the game with the duke.

“You, however, can go first, my lady,” he was saying, forgoing the lag.

“That is very generous of you, Your Grace. Given we are friends now, however, I trust using each other’s more familiar names is permitted?”

Landon slanted a glance Andrew’s way.

Rothesby, with a confidence befitting either a duke or a consummate rake, or mayhap both, flashed a wicked half grin that she expected made many a lady’s heart flutter. “Far be it from me to reject a young lady’s request, Marcia,” he murmured and winked.

She braced for her heart to respond in the same way it did when Andrew smiled at her the way this man now did, but God help her, it did not. Even as he took her hands in his stronger, more powerful ones and guided her back into place, her heart remained remarkably steady in its beat.

“Get your damned hands off my wife, Rothesby,” Andrew snapped, and she and Rothesby glanced over at him, and this time, her heartdidpound. “I’ll give her the damned lesson,” he muttered, stomping over.

In all the years they’d known each other, she’d never known him to be so out of sorts.

Andrew reached for the stick.

Heat filled her cheeks, and Marcia drew it close. “You don’t have to give me a lesson if you don’t want to,” she said archly as Rothesby stepped aside. “Rothesby has quite generously offered to see to the task himself.”

“I’ll see to it,” Andrew gritted out.

Fury blazed from his eyes, and she opened her mouth to debate him and then stopped. Something in those fiery specks in his eyes gave her pause. Why, it was as though he were jealous. Surely he was not, though. Such a thought was preposterous. He didn’t care about her in that regard. He’d been clear about that from the moment of his emotionless offer of marriage, and yet, right now, as he shoved Rothesby aside and took her in his arms, she could almost believe he did care about her in that way.

As Andrew positioned the cue, her heart did pound. Dangerously so. And as he held her in a makeshift embrace, guiding their frames in perfect harmony over the table, he drew her arm back.

She trembled.

“Steady,” he murmured, and with his body layered against hers, his breath fanning her ear, tickling her neck, the task he’d given her proved Herculean.

Marcia briefly closed her eyes and drew in a slow, steadying breath.

This is just a billiards lesson. It is no different than the one you received from the Duke of Rothesby mere moments ago, and Andrew is holding you only because it’s part of his lesson on the game.

She told herself as much. Over and over.