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Until now.

“Which begs the question, why change now? Why make exceptions in your usual pursuits this time?” Rutland murmured. “And do you know what I believe—”

“What webothbelieve,” Huntly interjected quietly. “There is some fondness on your part for the young lady.”

Andrew stiffened. “You are making more of it than there is,” he said curtly, determined to disabuse either men of any grand illusions that he was somehow good or honorable in any way. He wasn’t.

“Do you care about the lady?” Rutland asked, thinning his eyes into tiny slits as though he searched within Andrew’s soul for the answers he sought.

Did he care about Marcia? More than any other person, but because she was unlike anyone he’d ever known and because he admired her and respected her. “I’ve known the lady a lifetime,” Andrew explained. “I care about her in a platonic way, of course.” Even as he said it, he recognized the ridiculousness of that false assurance.

“Ah, yes, of course,” Huntly drawled. “Because all platonic relationships end with a fellow lifting the skirts of one’s friend.”

Andrew’s ears fired hot a second time, and he fought the urge to wrestle with his cravat. “I didn’t have her skirts up,” he gritted out. He would have gotten there eventually, had her father not arrived. No doubt that was precisely where Andrew and Marcia had been heading with that kiss. Still, that did not change who he was. “I cannot marry her,” Andrew said quietly, as much as for his audience as for himself.

Both men leveled hard looks on him.

Over the years, Andrew had alternately admired and feared the two peers before him. Prior to their marriages to his sisters, they’d been wicked in their own right, and he’d been fascinated by their reputations. Once Rutland and Huntly had married Andrew’s sisters, he’d become fascinated by the older gentlemen for different reasons—they’d proven themselves good in ways Andrew never would or could.

“Oh?” Rutland asked, and that single coolly spoken syllable contained a wealth of warning.

But Andrew would not be dissuaded or influenced by either of them. “The lady deserves more than a bounder like me.”

“Though I do not disagree with you, Andrew,” Rutland said, “the time for what the lady deserves has come and gone. Wessex arrived and dragged her out, and even concealed as she’d been by a cloak—”

“And turban,” Andrew felt inclined to point out.

“It will not take much guessing on Polite Society’s part the reason his carriage was there and the likely identity of the woman he escorted out,” Rutland snapped.

“Are you fine, then, with her being ruined?” Huntly asked, and there was more curiosity to that query than judgment.

Nay. He wasn’t. Because Marcia was the one pure thing in Polite Society. The one lady, who didn’t share his blood, whom he respected and whose company he enjoyed.

He’d fished with her.

Played spillikins with her through the years.

And then danced with her during her Come Out.

To see her dragged by Society if—when—this new scandal was unearthed would cut him like a knife. Because she didn’t deserve that. She deserved so much more.Especially more than a future with you, but then, what is the alternative?a voice niggled.

“I think your silence is answer enough,” Huntly said gently.

Andrew glanced down at his open palms. “You don’t understand. I don’t even have anything to offer her.” He was in debt: with the money he had squandered years earlier in the hands of the men before him. “I’ll make her miserable.”

“Undoubtedly,” Rutland muttered.

Andrew pounced on that, whipping his gaze over to the other man. “Precisely!” he exclaimed, jabbing a finger in his direction. “You know that. So why would you put her through that?”

“Because the decision was made when you decided to escort her to Cyprian’s Den,” Rutland said flatly.

Huntly cleared his throat, calling Rutland’s attention over. Some silent exchange occurred between the two men, and then Rutland nodded slightly.

“I do not believe you are incapable of good, Andrew,” the marquess said quietly. “I’ve seen enough signs of it within you.” Reaching inside his jacket, he withdrew an official-looking document, stamped with the Rutland seal.

“What is this?” Andrew asked.

The other man just nodded, silently urging him to take the packet and look at it.