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Andrew gently disengaged her hands from his person. “There won’t be… romantic love, Marcia,” he said gently, caring about her enough as a friend that he needed to be honest with her in this. He needed to disabuse her of any notions that would see her hurt in a marriage with him.

“I had romantic love, Andrew,” she said as matter-of-factly as any fellow who’d disavowed marriage, and he found himself believing her. “I’ve no interest in losing my heart again.”

Good. That was the very answer he craved in this moment.

“But you will, Marcia,” he said, infusing a firmness to those words. “And you’ll be stuck with a bounder like me. A fellow not in dun territory, but close.”But you won’t be once you marry her.

Another woman would have met that admission with horror and disgust. After all, she faced the prospect of spending forever with a man who’d squandered the little wealth he’d had on cards and women.

Marcia smiled. “I have a dowry.”

He recoiled. “Egads, I’m not marrying you for money, Marcia,” he croaked.Aren’t you, though? In a way?

Guilt swirled.

She patted his hand. “That is honorable of you and generous. Thank you. Though I should also add that marriage to me will be fortunate for you, because I have quite the head for numbers.”

Andrew opened his mouth, but then stopped. “Do you?” he asked curiously.

Marcia nodded. “Oh, yes.”

It was a detail he hadn’t known about her. He knew her in so many ways, and yet, this was a reminder that there were so many mysteries to Marcia Gray, too.

“We’re doing this, then,” Andrew marveled aloud. And perhaps it was the enumeration on her part, that perfect little list of what they had in common, that made him feel that this wouldn’t be such a very bad idea at all. But fear remained.

She gave her head another emphatic nod. “We are.”

They were doing this… if her father didn’t kill him.

As if her thoughts moved in harmony with his, they both looked to the doorway.

Andrew conceded that a good murdering for nearly making love to Marcia at Cyprian’s Den was a fate he absolutely deserved.

And not for the first time that day, real dread filled him.

Which was singularly odd, given that he was about to find himself leg-shackled.

But then, when Marcia had spoken, it hadn’t felt that way.

“Second thoughts?” she asked.

If he were smarter than he was, yes, he’d have them.

“About facing your father after being discovered in a bedroom with you?” he drawled in a whisper for her ears alone. “What reservations could I possibly have this day?”

He’d meant to be teasing.

Instead of amusement, sadness touched her every feature as she reached up and gently stroked a finger at the corner of his swollen right eye.

He winced.

“I’m so sorry he did this to you,” she returned in a like whisper.

“It’s no less than I deserved.”

“I was the one who asked you to take me there, Andrew.”

“And I should have declined your request, and I certainly shouldn’t have… conducted myself as I did.”