Page 92 of A Virgin for the Duke of Thorns

How dare he think he can just waltz into my home and I would be perfectly fine with it!

* * *

Colin could feel the fury radiating from the parlor in waves from the sound of the pianoforte alone. It was hardly music but a veritable thrashing of a blameless instrument at the hands of a livid musician.

If his dearest Alice could even remotely be called a musician.

When Lady Brandon emerged from the parlor wringing her hands, a tight smile on her face, he already knew that wooing the woman he loved and hurt greatly would be much harder than anything he had ever set out to accomplish.

However, it would also be the one thing worth applying all of himself to.

“I apologize, Your Grace, but Alice is currently indisposed.” The Marchioness winced as a particularly loud barrage resounded from the parlor.

Colin simply smiled politely at her.

Clearly, my little lamb is not so indisposed as to resist attacking the pianoforte. Perhaps I should even be grateful that she has chosen to direct her blows on an inanimate object rather than on my person…

If she did, however, wish to inflict some physical harm on him as retribution for the hurt he had inflicted on her, he had no complaints against it. He only feared that she might hurt herself in the process.

“Might I inquire as to when she might be, ah… disposed to see me, My Lady?” he inquired of the Marchioness.

The helpless look on the older woman’s face told him that he might be waiting a long, long time for that.

He nodded slightly. “I see,” he murmured.

Lady Brandon sighed. “In that case, I shall see you out the door, Your Grace.”

“There is no need, Lady Brandon.” He smiled pleasantly. “I have already troubled you and your family enough.”

It was a testament to the strictness of her upbringing that the Marchioness did not throw him out on his ear from the moment she was made aware of his presence. After all, what mother could tolerate a man who had hurt her daughter as much as he had hurt Alice?

Even the Marquess himself made no secret of his disappointment in Colin when the latter begged for an audience with him. Those two hours he had spent in his study earlier this morning had to be some of the longest in his entire life—and he deserved every minute of the verbal castigation the older man heaped on his head.

Colin could only wish that when it was his turn to have a daughter, he could possess as much extraordinary control as the Marquess of Brandon. He did not think he would be so lenient if it had been his daughter who had been so offended.

He walked out of the front door of Brandon Estate with the brown package tucked securely underneath his arm. He looked up at the afternoon sky and saw thick, gray clouds beginning to gather overhead.

It looks like it is about to rain soon.

He laughed slightly to himself.

As if a little rain could stop him when he was fighting for the most important thing in his life!

* * *

Alice saw her mama return to the parlor with a pensive look on her face. Lady Brandon wore an expression that was an odd mix of vexation and pity, sprinkled in with a bit of gloating satisfaction.

“Is he gone?” Alice asked her mother.

The Marchioness nodded. “He insisted that I did not need to see him out the front door.”

Alice frowned as she stared at the poor keys she had just brutalized. It was quite unlike him to give up so easily. She had thought he would spend more effort into trying to wheedle his way into the parlor.

But then again, the words of the Viscountess Pembroke echoed in her head. He had never really thought her deserving of so much effort, had he? He had never wooed her with poems or those silly nothings that rakes so loved to whisper in ladies’ ears.

She had had several men call on her now, and their temperaments ranged from the utterly shy to the shockingly bold. All of them had managed to at least utter a few token compliments.

Colin had never done that. Well, maybe except for his hoarse groans in his bed, but those certainly did not count in her book!

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