Page 157 of To Catch a Viscount

She couldn’t.

She had to know.

She had to stay.

“I love you, Marcia,” he whispered, resting his brow atop hers, so their eyes met, willing her to see. “I love you, and want you in my life.” Her eyes went soft. “If you go, I’ll be destroyed, and I’ll deserve it,” he said, his voice harsh and guttural. “But I’m selfish enough to beg you to stay with me.”

“You cannot lie to me again, Andrew,” she said softly.

His heart beat hard against the walls of his chest. “What are you saying?” he whispered.

“I’m saying that I love you, Andrew,” she said simply. “I always have, and I want ours to be a real marriage.”

A sob tore from his chest as he caught her to him, dragging her into his arms, and holding her close. “I love you.”

“But there can’t be any more lies,” she said a second time.

He opened his mouth to deliver that pledge: in truth, and one that would ensure she remained with him… forever.

But stopped.

For… a lie of admission was still a lie. He’d known that before, and had kept from her the details.

“Andrew?” her voice, his name, emerged haltingly from her lips.

“There… was a discussion that took place between your father and I,” he said, carefully choosing his words. “However, it is not my place to share those details.”

Worry darkened her eyes. “Andrew…”

Andrew kissed her, and reaching down, he teased her center with his fingers.

She bit her lip hard. “A-are you trying to d-distract me?” He caressed that sensitive nub, ringing a gasp from her.

“Is it working?”

Moaning, Marcia gave a juddering nod.

“We are going to take this slow, love,” he promised. “I’m going to make love to you all night.”

And he did.

Epilogue

The following morning, with the servants bustling about her bedchambers, removing dresses from her armoire and laying them on the opposite side of Marcia’s bed, her trunks sat out, nearly filled.

Her lady’s maid and several other young servants hurried back and forth from the armoire to the bed, neatly laying out the gowns to be packed.

Her brothers brandished hatpins like sabers, even as their sisters stood at the mirror, trying on Marcia’s bonnets.

The two girls looking adorably childlike in the too-large-for-them headwear they’d donned.

Marcia smiled on wistfully, recalling the days when she’d tried on her mother’s things in quite the same way.

How fast time went.

One went from being a young girl playing at life, to a grown one actually living it and wishing for the simpler, less painful, and less complex times of long ago.

“Ohh, I like this one,” Maisie said in her singsong voice. She wagged the wide-brimmed poke bonnet.

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