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The current match forgotten, Andrew glared at the comfortably conversing pair. At some point, Marcia had ceased attending the match and devoted all her attention to Rothesby. And Rothesby turned that same intent focus on her. They were as at ease as they would be if they were strolling around Hyde Park or taking a turn down Rotten Row and not seated thigh to thigh at the foot of a boxing ring.

“It grows upon you the more you take part,” Rothesby was saying, his body curved towards Marcia’s and hers curved towards his, like they were two damned pieces of ivy growing in the direction of each other, moments away from entwining.

“You mean observe?” Marcia called up to the duke.

“Oh, no… though that does add its own pleasure,” Rothesby said. “I mean, actually fighting.”

Her eyes widened, and she shifted even closer on the bench, if that were possible. Andrew gritted his teeth.

“You spar?” Marcia asked the duke.

“Oh, yes.”

“No more than any other gentleman,” Andrew muttered under his breath. The pair, however, would have to be attending something other than each other to have heard him.

“But in this case, I referred to wagering.” The duke reached inside his jacket and withdrew a stack of notes.

Rothesby pressed them into Marcia’s palm, and then folded her fingers around the offering.

The sight of their interconnected hands, of Rothesby’s larger hand on her smaller, delicate one, sent a black curtain of rage descending briefly over Andrew’s vision, and he balled his hands into almost painful fists. How dare the bloody rogue put his hands on her? Yes, this was Rothesby, but this… this was alsoMarcia.

“I could not,” Marcia murmured.

Rothesby stroked the pad of his thumb in a familiar way over the tops of her knuckles, keeping them closed upon the pound notes he’d given her.

“I insist,” the duke murmured in silky tones that sent another wave of fury licking through Andrew, who flared his nostrils.

The only reason for this enraged response was because he’d known her since she was a babe.

“I should not.” Marcia offered her rejection a different way, this time afalteringrejection, and neither did it escape the other man’s notice.

“Let us consider it a gift.” Rothesby flashed a grin. “Between friends.”

Oh, this was really quite enough.

“She said she could not,” Andrew said tightly, and taking Marcia’s hand with none of the gentleness his blasted rogue of a friend had shown, he grabbed the notes from her fingers and tossed them at Rothesby’s chest. The paper money rained down at the other man’s feet.

With that, Andrew turned all his attention back to the match.

A match, by the look of the bloodied fighter Braggert, Andrew was winning.

Good.

He needed a big win.

And the coins he’d spent would bring him a hefty profit.

A big win never failed to cheer him.

That was, until this night.

Feeling stares on him, he looked over.

Marcia and Rothesby both wore matching frowns.

“What?” he snapped.

“You’re being rude,” Marcia said with her usual bluntness.