Page 113 of To Catch a Viscount

The earl searched his gaze over her face, as if attempting to ferret out the depth of veracity to her promise. “It is my greatest hope that Waters never do anything to hurt you.” Sketching a formal bow, Wakefield spun on his heel and disappeared into the crowd.

“What was that about?” Faith’s familiar murmur came just beyond Marcia’s shoulder, and she looked at her and Anwen.

“Benedict was merely congratulating me on my nuptials.”

“He sounded awfully grim,” Anwen remarked. “And looks it, too.”

As one, they looked towards the serious fellow who’d joined his sister the Duchess of Bainbridge.

“He always looks grim,” Faith muttered.

“Be nice,” Marcia chided.

“What?” her friend said defensively. “I’m merely speaking the truth.”

“I don’t disagree.” Anwen lent her support to Faith, who gave a nod.

“See?”

“I daresay I’d rather marry a Waters than a Wakefield,” Faith declared.

The three friends looked at Andrew, Marcia’s new husband.

Her heart did a funny flip at the thought. Or mayhap it was a combination of both the thought and the sight of him.

At some point, he’d finished signing the official documents and had been joined by his mother, stepfather, and youngest siblings.

Only just four, the girl had Andrew’s blond curls. She was perched on his hip, her arms about his neck while Andrew spoke to their parents, and there was something so endearingly sweet about his open display of affection for his youngest sibling.

Edine periodically tugged at one of his curls, and each time, he paused in the discussion he was having with his mother and stepfather to smile at her.

It was reminiscent of the care and regard her own father had always shown her, and a warmth filled every corner of her chest.

Suddenly, Andrew dipped Edine backwards, drawing snorting giggles from the girl.

Marcia and her friends sighed.

“Yes, well, I’ll allow Benedict does not strike me as one who would go about playing with children,” Anwen grudgingly acknowledged.

“He’s always been kind enough to us,” Marcia felt inclined to point out.

“Mayhap toyou,” Faith said.

She started. “Has he been rude to you?” It hardly fit with the man she’d known over the years.

Color splotched Faith’s cheeks. “No,” she said quickly, and then her friend’s gaze alighted on Andrew and his family once more. “Your husband is looking at you.”

There it was again.Your husband.

Marcia looked across the room, and sure enough, she found him watching her.

And smiling.

It was his roguish half grin, a captivating, uneven tilt of his lips.

Her heart did that increasingly familiar, funny leap.

Her heart had always responded so to that smile. Hadn’t it? This was no new phenomenon.

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