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“Why did you marry her?” the earl asked imploringly, as if he’d followed Andrew’s guilty thoughts. “Why?”

His friend thought so very little of him. He wasn’t the man he’d been. Marcia had helped him see that in himself. That what defined a person wasn’t their birthright but, rather, one’s own actions, and how one lived one’s own life. Andrew’s patience snapped. “And what in hell business is it of yours, Wakefield?” he asked quietly. “Why should you care so damned much that you—?” Andrew froze. The truth slammed into him with all the force of a fast-moving carriage, and he drew back, as at last it made sense. “You love her,” he whispered.

Wakefield hesitated and then looked away, his silence all the confirmation needed.

Oh, God.

“Why didn’t youtellme?” Andrew asked, his voice garbled.

Wakefield finally looked back and flashed a sad smile. “Would it have mattered?”

Actually, in the moments prior to everything else that had come so quickly with Marcia, it would have. Until only just recently, he’d been oblivious to the evolution in his feelings for her.

Why, by now she’d likely be wed to Wakefield, who was a better man in every way.

Andrew proved himself the selfish, grasping bastard he was and that Society took him for, because he could not regret that she was his wife instead.

“My timing with Marcia… it was always shite,” Wakefield said quietly, studying the hat in his hands. “There was Thornton. After Thornton, well, I attempted to seek her out.”

Andrew’s mind raced back to that night at Lord and Lady Wessex’s ball.

“Someone should check on her… to see if she’s all right, and I—”

“But I beat you to it,” Andrew whispered.

Wakefield hesitated and then nodded.

If the other man had gone in Andrew’s stead, if he’d sat on Wessex’s office floor beside her, and they’d shared that moment together, would everything be different?

He didn’t want to think of a world where it was.

“I’m sorry,” Wakefield whispered. “I’ll, of course, not come around anymore. It was never my intention to insult you. Or for you to learn about how I felt.”

Andrew held a hand up. “It is impossible not to love her,” he said quietly. He’d not begrudge Wakefield for feelings beyond his capability.

Wakefield’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and he nodded. “I don’t deserve your friendship.”

“Friendship isn’t contractual,” he said simply.

The door opened, and Andrew and Wakefield spun their attention to the doorway.

Marcia looked back and forth between them. “Andrew. Benedict,” she quietly greeted, finding her voice before he or the earl. “May I speak with my husband?”

A guilty flush splotched the earl’s cheeks as he dropped a belated bow. “Of c-course,” he stammered, avoiding her gaze. “Forgive me.” With that, Wakefield rushed past her, and closed the door so gently as to not even leave a click in the heavy quiet that hung in the air between Andrew and Marcia.

“Benedict told me you had a visitor at the park,” Andrew said quietly. “I am sorry”—he grimaced—“about that.” Sorry that his past converged with her future in this way. “I was young.”

“You needn’t explain your past to me, Andrew,” Marcia said simply. “Did you see her at Cyprian’s Den?”

His face went hot. “Yes,” he said, scraping a hand through his hair. He should have told her. “But I do not want her.” Not as he wanted his wife. Nor, did he want anything to do with Marianne Carew.

Marcia came over, joining him. “You aren’t responsible for her actions, Andrew.” She spoke with a gentleness that sent relief pouring through him. “She gave me this.”

Frowning, Andrew made himself take the page from her, unfolding it. He skimmed his gaze over the gossip page taken from the day Marcia had been left at the altar.

“They’re bribing us,” she said quietly.

His stomach muscles constricted. He should have trusted his exchange with her at Cyprian’s Den wouldn’t be the end of the lady.