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Because it is Marcia,a voice whispered simply in his head.

He stilled.

It is Marcia.

With that, reality came crashing in, as did the truth of what he’d done.

He’d made love to her, cemented the vows they’d taken, atop a billiards table like she was a common doxy. Because he knew absolutely nothing about being with a respectable lady. The women who’d come before her had all been as ruthless in their wants as he. They’d been as knowledgeable, and more, in carnal matters.

But this was Marcia, who’d been innocent and who was good.

And he was only going to muck this up. That much was a certainty. Because he invariably ruined anything and everything he touched. It was a failure of his blood that he could not separate himself from. And now it would touch this woman about whom he cared.

He’d convinced himself that, with the offer Rutland and Huntly had put to him, he could change, refusing to consider until now the obvious truth: what happened if he did not change.

There would be Marcia, hurt, because of him.

Nausea churned in his belly, and he waited until he detected the shift in her breathing, from rapid and ragged to smooth and even, before he disentangled himself from her. Reaching for his jacket, he pulled it closer and removed the kerchief.

As she slept, Andrew gently cleaned between her legs, and when he went to tend to himself, his eyes locked on the crimson stain upon the white material marking her innocence.

Marcia’s innocence.

And he’d taken it.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Andrew concentrated on breathing.

He was destined to fail, and yet, this time, he could not.

He had to make more of himself.

For her.

With that, Andrew climbed from his billiards table and collected a slumbering Marcia in his arms. As he set her down in her bed, and lay beside her, sleep eluded him. For he could not shake the feeling of dread at what he’d done.

Chapter 19

Strolling alongside the Serpentine, Marcia and her friends had their parasols propped upon opposite shoulders so they might freely speak with one another.

A dreamy smile played at her lips.

Since their wedding night, she and Andrew had spent every night in the same bed, making love all night… and just before he fell asleep with her in his arms, he called Marcia hislove.

When he’d spoken that word as he had, breathless and harsh, she could believe he did love her, that she was his love and that these moments between them were more. She wasn’t just any woman to him, the next Linette or Lucinda but, rather, someone special, the only woman he needed or wanted.

“Well, I’ll be goddammed,” Anwen marveled aloud, pulling Marcia back from her musings. “It worked.”

Blinking several times, she looked to her friend.

“The necklace,” the other woman said, motioning to that small pendant that now hung around Faith’s neck.

Faith bristled. “And did you think it shouldn’t?”

“No,” Anwen allowed. “Only that it wouldn’t.”

Faith dropped her parasol, snapped it closed, and gave the other woman a gentle thump on the arm, pulling a laugh from Anwen and Marcia.

Though, in truth, as Marcia settled onto the shore of the Serpentine with her friends, it was hard not to be giddy.