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“Why don’t you have a seat, Lord Waters?” The other man spoke in those silky, menacing tones. “Lady Waters.”

This time, Marcia looked to him, and there was so much trust—far more trust than he was or would ever be deserving of—in her eyes, it hit him like a kick to the gut. He drew out one of the upholstered gilded chairs for her.

DuMond snorted. “How lovely.”

“I told you he is polite,” Marcia said as she settled herself into the chair as comfortably as if they had joined members of Polite Society for tea and biscuits. “Did I not?”

DuMond’s guards erupted into laughter.

“Your wife continues to speak your praises, Waters,” DuMond remarked as he motioned with one hand to his henchmen.

The burly pair filed from the room, leaving the three of them alone.

“I explained you weren’t deserving of that devotion,” DuMond said casually as he fetched a drink and carried it over. He motioned to the open chair beside Marcia. “Would you not agree?”

He wholeheartedly agreed. He’d known it all along.

“Of course he does not agree,” Marcia said, her voice ripe with indignation. “He’s perfectly kind and good and—”

“Marcia,” Andrew said quietly. He looked to DuMond. “I hardly think abducting the wife of a peer is good business?”

DuMond narrowed his eyes. “Is that what you think?”

“Andrew, Mr. DuMond did not abduct me,” Marcia spoke chidingly, and Andrew took his gaze from the proprietor and put his focus on his wife. “He saved me and Faith and Anwen.”

Andrew shifted his gaze from DuMond to his wife and stared blankly at her. His stomach muscles seized for a second time. He’d not only put his wife in danger, he’d put her innocent friends in danger, too. “I was nearly abducted but it was not Mr. DuMond—”

Atbrooke and Marianne.

He’d known that failing to pay off Atbrooke and his sister would have only put he and Marcia in the siblings’ crosshairs, and had an obligation to be looking more closely after her, for when they ultimately struck. And they had. And Andrew hadn’t been the one to stop it. But, rather, DuMond.

Andrew closed his eyes.

“Be warned, Waters,” DuMond spoke coldly. “I’ve been tolerant with you this evening, because of your wife.” He narrowed his eyes on Andrew. “The only reason you were given entry this evening was because after years, you’ve finally settled your debts to me.” He paused, that stretch of silence deliberate and taunting. “Coincidental timing with your marrying Lady Waters, would you not say, gentlemen?” he asked of his henchmen.

The enormous guards chuckled. “Indeed,” the taller-by-an-inch fellow said. “Very coincidental.”

Andrew felt Marcia’s gaze on him, and his ears went hot.

“Yes, your marriage proved beneficial to the both of us,” DuMond drawled, earning laughs from his men. Andrew’s stomach muscles spasmed. “And from what I hear from other gaming hell proprietors round town, I wasn’t the only one.”

Andrew’s pulse pounded in his chest, and his mouth went dry.

“I’d speak with my husband, Mr. DuMond,” Marcia said softly to the proprietor.

The gaming-hell owner flashed a cold look at Andrew, and then with a single flick of a hand, urged his men gone.

The moment he and Marcia were alone, he looked to her. Andrew’s stomach dropped, along with his heart.

Her eyes remained locked on him.

Pale as he’d never seen her. Her features frozen.

“Where did the money come from?” Marcia tipped her head sideways a notch. “Did you use my dowry to pay off your debts?”

“No!” that denial exploded from him. “I’d never.” That would remain untouched; for her.

“Then… how did you suddenly find such a sum? Was it a mere coincidence that you’ve paid off your debts after we married?”