Page 43 of A Virgin for the Duke of Thorns

“Oh, this looks interesting,” Hudson murmured, his dark eyes glittering with excitement.

Daniel chuckled. “Blackthorn, you might want to get ahold of yourself. You look just about ready to murder someone.”

“If I was to murder someone,” Colin muttered through gritted teeth, “you can rest assured that he definitely deserved it.”

“Oh? It looks to me that you are about to take your anger out on an innocent man…”

He rolled his eyes at his friends and stalked off to the group of young ladies. Immediately, their chatter seemed to lose some of its earlier spirit as they regarded him with wary smiles. Alice, he noted, did not even look at him, which only made him irrationally angrier.

“Good to see you, Sinclair,” he rumbled. “You never could come on time.”

His friend just smiled sheepishly at him. “My carriage threw a wheel,” he explained.

“Your carriage always throws a wheel at the most inopportune times,” Colin replied, pointedly ignoring the glare that his younger sister threw his way.

He casually positioned himself behind Alice, draping his arm over the sofa behind her as he belligerently stared at his friend.

Ethan, curse him, only stared back with laughter in his eyes. Colin took it as the challenge that he knew it was. He had been friends with the man for so long that he did not need to speak—he could tell Ethan was already up to some mischief.

It was rather obvious in the way his friend’s lips curled into a sly smile when Alice turned her body just the slightest bit away from him, avoiding his gaze altogether.

She was still cross with him, he knew. But that did not mean that she could treat his friend better than she regarded her own betrothed! She was his betrothed, after all—not Ethan’s. She shouldn’t look at Ethan—or anyone else—more favorably than she did at him.

“I have never attended Lady Wellington’s house parties before,” Lady Scarlett remarked with an enthusiastic smile as she turned towards Evie in a clear attempt to break the ice. “But my mama tells me they are particularly entertaining!”

Entertaining, indeed. The purpose of a house party, after all, was not merely to gather friends together in a more intimate setting, but it was also to bring together the marriage-minded ladies and gentlemen of the ton.

And was not Alice’s purpose in agreeing to their fake betrothal to allow her more time to find a suitable match?

Like hell she is! Not while she is my betrothed!

“Oh! Grandmama assures me that she has a lot of activities in store for us!” Evie happily clapped her hands together. “There will be games, of course, and picnics out in the gardens…”

“Games?”

Colin turned sharply when he heard the excitement in Alice’s tone. Her vivid green eyes lit up, and her sensual lips curled into a genuine smile.

“That sounds rather exciting!”

Ethan laughed. “Oh, yes! I have attended one of Lady Wellington’s house parties before, and let me tell you—she certainly can get quite creative when it comes to these things!”

Knowing how crafty his grandmother could be, Colin had a good grasp of what she had in store for all of the guests over the weekend. He also had the distinct feeling that the next few days would prove to be an extreme test of his patience and self-control.

As Ethan regaled the young ladies with all sorts of tame stories of house parties in the past, Colin frowned as he looked over at Alice, who sat there looking absolutely enraptured.

Why the hell was she looking like that at Ethan when he was right beside her?

* * *

Alice sidled away from the man who had so casually draped his arm behind her, eager to get away from the sheer magnetism of his presence. She could not help but be drawn to him, but at the same time, she was still much too annoyed with him to even consider having anything to do with him.

Colin Fitzroy was simply the most contradictory person she ever had the misfortune to meet, and worse, he demanded the same absurdity from her!

When he pressed even closer, she could no longer help but shoot him a warning glare, one that left no space for any misunderstandings between them. Unlike him, she was growing tired of these games. If he wanted to ignore her, then why could she not do the same to him?

Unfortunately, the Duke of Thorns had a particularly strange aversion to being ignored, even when he was the one doing the snubbing in the first place. She had not quite forgiven him for the humiliating rebuff she had suffered at Hyde Park. As to how she was going to achieve the same over the weekend in his country estate, she supposed, she had to be a little more devious.

I could just surround myself with people. Surely, he would not try any mischief with so many eyes on him…

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