Page 11 of To Catch a Viscount

“You’re a viscount with a respectable title and an even more respectable family. That will do. And she values your friendship.” There was a sharp quality to that statement that was gone in the other man’s next breath so that Andrew suspected he’d imagined it.

“You always were the better person and friend.” To Marcia. To him. To everyone. Wakefield was a bloody paragon. “But I—”

“No ‘buts.’ Wherever Marcia is, we need to be. Is that understood?”

At that directive and a warning look from Benedict, Andrew inclined his head. “Now, may I see to my morning dress?” he asked dryly.

“Of course.”

As Wakefield let himself out, Andrew gave his head a wry shake. How naïve and innocent his friend was. He thought a showing from respectable members of thetonmight somehow ease Marcia’s hurt at Thornton’s betrayal and her broken heart.

Andrew, however, was the last person who could help any lady, let alone Marcia, with that futile endeavor.

Chapter 3

When Marcia had made her debut amongst theton, she’d been heralded adiamond.

The papers had praised her as beingthelady with whom all bachelors in the market for a wife that Season should strive to make a match.

And she’d hated it.

She’d not wanted them to see her as a potential arm prize for some man, elevated for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with who she was as a woman.

Only, in the matter of a moment that morn, Marcia had gone from a diamond amongst Polite Society about to wed, to an object of scandal and gossip—and derision.

Shut away in her father’s offices nearly two hours after she’d been left standing at the altar, the irony was not lost on her.

She wanted to turn back the clock.

She wanted to go back to the time when thetonhad spoken only favorable words about her, before…this.

Seated tensely on the edge of the sofa, Marcia tangled her fingers together and squeezed her hands in a solitary, single fist. As the blood drained from her knuckles, she forced her gaze up, forced herself to look at her father.

He stood at the hearth, his hands clasped behind him. The last time she’d looked over at him, she’d found those hands shaking. Since then, he’d hidden them behind his back.

Which appeared to be what her parents excelled at—hiding things from her.

She made herself slide her gaze over to her mother.

She was paler than even her husband. Her lips appeared to have gone bloodless.

What most accounted for her mother’s misery this day? The fact that Marcia’s heart had been broken and her wedding called off by the bridegroom? Or rather, was it that Marcia had learned the truth about her past, and the secrets of her birthright had all come out in the papers at the very moment Marcia had been waiting for her bridegroom? Waiting in vain.

Now, she knew why. Now the whole world knew why.

Marcia stared vacantly at the folded paper on the corner of the table. Folded as the sheets were, only partial words proved visible, a kaleidoscope of black ink and partially completed sentences.

Scandal

Marcia Gray, the daughter of Lord and Lady W.

To think Society declared her…

But it did not matter. Marcia had already committed to memory each word splashed upon those scandal sheets.

Scandal

Marcia Gray, the daughter of Lord and Lady W. Or that was what they would have had you believe.

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