Page 94 of A Virgin for the Duke of Thorns

Or maybe not. He could already be in bed, albeit with another woman in his arms.

“I think that will be all,” she said a little too suddenly. She instantly regretted it when her maid’s eyes flickered a little. “You may retire as well. I will be going to bed.”

“Good night, M’Lady.”

As soon as the maid left her bedchamber with a polite curtsy, Alice let out a soft sigh and pressed her fingers to her temples. What had Colin turned her into? She was not one to be so harsh with the servants, but her moods had been so volatile lately that she feared she was going mad herself.

She glanced out the window to a moonless night shrouded in clouds. The air was strangely still, as if the whole world stood on the precipice of a storm.

She took her candle and walked over to her bed when, on a whim, she decided to look out her windows. Her maid had already drawn the curtains in anticipation of the rain to come.

To her great surprise, she spotted a tall, broad-shouldered man standing just beneath her window.

“Has he gone mad!?” she exclaimed.

She peered again, and true enough, it was no specter but Colin Fitzroy himself, standing stoically as if he had been turned to stone.

As if he sensed her watching him, he looked up, and the smile that blossomed on his face was painfully sad and poignant. The way he looked at her, standing by the windows, was how she imagined Pygmalion might have looked on Galatea—with such painful longing for something that was hopelessly out of reach yet one that he desired with an ache that defied logic.

Is that really Colin?

Alice could hardly believe he would look at her like that. Or that he would resolutely wait for her out in the elements when he could be comfortable in his estate.

Was this, perhaps, some different ruse to see if she would relent in the end?

That thought caused her to frown and drop the curtains angrily. She had vowed she would never be a fool for this man again. What in the name of all that was holy was she doing, drawing parallels between him and Pygmalion, that hopeless romantic who had fallen for his own creation?

Besides, she was not wrought of his hands—she had been a person all her own long before he ever came into her life!

She turned back to the bed and set the candle down on the nightstand with more force than was necessary. If he wished to play the part of the gallant romantic, then so be it! But she would not play along this time.

She threw the covers over herself and turned away from the windows, as if by that simple motion, she could put the man standing outside her window effectively out of mind.

However, the Duke of Thorns proved to have effectively sunk his teeth and claws into her, for as an hour passed, Alice—growing more cross by the minute—still found herself very much awake, unable to get even a wink of sleep.

Why must I obsess over him so?

Alice drew the covers over her head as she muffled a scream with her pillow.

Why can I not simply go back to the way things were before I met Colin Fitzroy?

But the person she once was, stubborn and naive about the whole world, was long gone. In her place was a conflicted, tormented woman half going out of her mind.

As if to underscore her tumultuous thoughts, thunder rumbled outside, followed by a brief flash of lightning. Moments later, a torrential downpour commenced, drenching the world outside.

Colin… he could not have been so stupid as to have remained outside, could he?

Alice hastily threw the covers off herself and pulled the curtains back a little, looking out her window to where the man once stood. Lightning flashed once more, and she let out a sigh of relief when she saw that he was no longer there.

All right… so perhaps he was not so stupid as to continue standing in the rain.

She would not admit to being disappointed that he had actually abandoned his post. After all, she could not reasonably expect him to stand out there in the elements.

The man was a duke, for crying out loud! It would be the joke of the entire Season if he fell ill with a cold waiting outside the window of the woman he was once betrothed to.

Still, Alice could not help the suspicion that he had not truly left.

She took out her umbrella and dashed out of her room, pausing only briefly to grab her robe along the way. With the rain lashing against the brick facade of the manor, it was absolutely foolish to wander out in her flimsy nightclothes.

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