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Andrew had failed Marcia this night.

He was deserving of that condemnation and rage from Marcia’s father.

Feeling his brother-in-law’s gaze on him, he looked up. “I trust you’ve another lecture for me,” Andrew said tiredly. The good Lord knew he deserved it.

“The opposite,” his brother-in-law said gruffly, returning to the front of the office, he claimed a seat across from Andrew. “I want to talk.”

Andrew quirked an eyebrow.

“I want to be here for you,” Rutland explained, and that offering, but rather, of an ear came so unexpectedly, so welcome, the words tumbled from Andrew.

“I bungled it all. All of it. Marcia learned about the offer you made me, and now she thinks my motives were driven by something they weren’t.”

“What were they driven by?” Rutland posed that question quietly.

“Love,” he said without hesitation. “I love her. I didn’t realize it when you asked me to offer for her. I knew only that I cared about her. I always did, but this…” He touched a hand to his heart. “I’ve never felt this way about any woman or any person.”

“Like you’d give your life to see her smile.”

“If I could,” Andrew said, his throat spasming. “And it hurts so damned bad,” he whispered, his voice breaking and his fingers shaking, and he dropped them to the table.

“Then tell her.”

“I tried,” he said tiredly. Slumping in his chair, he looked beyond Rutland’s right shoulder. “But I expect you can see how she would see I’m not the most reliable in terms of trustworthiness.”

“Wessex intends to take her back home with him this evening,” Rutland said with a gentleness Andrew couldn’t recall seeing in the other man.

Oh, God.

Andrew wouldn’t survive this. And that was just fine, because he didn’t want to survive it.

“I thought, given she is your wife, that you would wish to know that.”

Andrew’s eyes slid shut. “Thank you,” he said, because he was expected to say something, but every other damned response eluded him.

His brother-in-law sat forward. “Andrew, no one wronged your sister more than I did,” he said quietly, unexpectedly. The marquess didn’t share an iota of himself or his past or details of his life or marriage with anyone, and yet, in this instant, he did with Andrew. “I stole her virtue to trap her, and by all rights, she should have spent every one of her living days hating me, but she doesn’t. She didn’t. She forgave me. And I can’t explain that. Somehow…” Rutland turned his palms up. “Somehow she loves me, and if Phoebe managed to forgive me and trust me with her heart, then I have to believe Marcia can extend those same gifts to you.”

Andrew dragged a hand down the side of his face. “It’s not the same.”

A wry grin formed on Rutland’s lips. “It’s never the same when it’syoufeeling this. Trust me. But it is. Men are flawed, terrible, complicated creatures who manage to make a muck of everything.” He leaned forward and dropped his right elbow on the table. “But somehow we find our way. And do you know how?”

Andrew shook his head.

“Because of love. Because there are women who are complex and wonderful and capable of loving us all despite all our limitless flaws, and they—and that emotion—make us better people. Not perfect,” Rutland clarified. “But better. It is up to us, however, to decide if we will be better people, and I know you are capable of that, Andrew.”

Yes, Andrew had finally come to see that he was more than the tainted legacy of his bigamist father. He saw he could be a better man. Marcia had helped him see that in himself.

Only, what if that realization had come too late to save his marriage to the only woman he’d ever love?

Chapter 23

Marcia left with her father that night.

She needed to see her mother.

As such, she returned to her childhood home: so very certain there wasn’t another conversation she wished to have heard less than one about the origins of her birth.

She’d been wrong.