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“He… had his reasons.” Marcia sank onto the mattress, sitting beside her mother. “Charles confessed Lord Atbrooke… hurt someone he loved very much.”

Her mother paled. “Oh,” she said, her voice weak.

There was another pause.

It wasn’t a question. “I don’t blame him,” she said tiredly. Not wanting to talk about Charles. Because this wasn’t about her former betrothed.

“If he’d loved you, he would have given you his name. He would have stood beside you. Andrew never cared about any of the gossip.”

A wistful smile stole across her lips. “He never did.” Nor had he cared about who fathered her.

“I always marveled that he should have been so very good with you when you were a girl. He cares you about you, Marcia. I do not doubt that.”

No, she didn’t, either.

He’d not wanted to help her in her scheme, but in the end, had done so, in order to protect her. And in that, in forcing his hand, she was the one who got him caught. And he’d never blamed her. He’d taken full ownership.

“He insists it wasn’t just about the money,” Marcia said into the quiet. She laid her cheek against her mother’s shoulder, and her mama stroked the top of her head the same way she’d done when Marcia had been a small child.

“Do you recall when you were a girl, and we’d first come to London, Marcia?”

She nodded, the thrill of leaving the country and seeing the Town still fresh.

“Do you recall when we almost left…?”

A memory tripped in. “Papa came.”

“Lord Atbrooke had threatened me, too. I was so scared, I took you and left,” her mother said. “Marcus stopped our carriage… and he stopped me from going. He insisted I stop running, and face the future with him. And… I’m not saying Andrew wasn’t wrong in this. He absolutely is. But I do know, running away, will solve nothing. If you love him, and he cares for you, that you can find a future together.”

She did love him.

And more, she did want a future with him.

Thoughts of them together traipsed through her mind, like a slowly changing kaleidoscope of memories—their first meeting in her father’s library when she’d been a girl, and he’d been trying to sneak spirits; their meeting in that same library after Charles had jilted her; the moment he’d taken her in his arms and just held her and reminded her of her worth; their wedding day—

Tears filled her throat, and she swallowed painfully around a new swell of emotion.

“You can always trust that your father and I will welcome you back if it means you will be safe and happy.”

Safe and happy.

Both of which she always felt with Andrew.

Marcia closed her eyes.

The memories from just a short while ago all played and replayed in her mind.

Andrew, stricken as she’d never seen him. His eyes haunted as he’d pleaded with her.

There’d not been guilt there, but grief. She’d seen her own emotions reflected in his eyes, this man whom she knew so well.

I needn’t have married you. I was offered those funds even if you declined my offer.

He would have had those funds free and clear even if he did not marry you,a voice niggled. A reminder born of her own desperation. Or was it? Was it desperation to see what she wished to see and not in fact some hint of proof that he’d married her because he’d wanted her?

Had she fallen so completely head over toes in love with him that she sought to convince herself that he carried some affection for her?

“I wanted you to be happy and knew… I knew… I thought I made you happy, too. I cared about you. Iwantedto marry you.”