Page 41 of A Virgin for the Ton's Wolf

Acarriage?

Her mind reeled as if she had just been bludgeoned.

What did she expect, really? That he would fall down to his knees and beg her to marry him?

He wastheWolf. The most notorious rake in all of London.

Did she truly think that he would reform for the first woman who threw herself at him?

Was she even the first? It pained her to even think about it. She knew, however, that she would not be the last.

She stepped away from him. “I see.”

Scarlett felt so cold inside. As if a blistering wind had suddenly swept in and turned everything to ice.

“Scarlett, I?—”

She smiled up at him even as her hands clenched into fists at her sides. She would not cry. Not in front of him. Not in front ofanyone.

“Thank you for your time,Your Grace,” she told him in a clipped tone. “That was… rather educational.”

And then, before she could make an even bigger fool of herself, she turned around and rushed out of the orangery, storming through the gardens with no care about where she was going.

So much for her first kiss. She really should have known better than to kiss the Wolf himself.

Now, she was completely and utterly ruined for other men, and it was all her fault.

“Scarlett?”

She looked up to find Phoebe staring at her with concern. Her gaze flickered briefly to the hand that Ethan had possessively on her friend’s waist, and she felt bitterness rise in her throat.

She was never going to have that. She was never going to marry the love of her life—if she even managed to find him.

Despair rose to dig its claws into her heart.

Perhaps some people were just born without their soulmates. Perhaps she should learn to accept that she was one of that most unfortunate population.

“I should go back to Snowdrop,” she told her friend with a reassuring smile. “He is still a puppy, and he gets rather lonely when I am away for long.”

The sun was still high in the sky. She had not been gone for very long.

Only long enough for her life to be changed forever.

“I see.” Phoebe nodded somberly.

Only, her friend didnotsee. Or maybe she did, but Scarlett did not want to remain there long enough to see the pity in her friend’s eyes.

With a curt nod and a smile, she walked away from the gardens and back to the manor. With any luck, the Wolf would hold off sending her away until her mama could find a new suitor for her over the weekend.

And hopefully, the ball would prove to be a good enough distraction for her.

“And I shall dance and flirt, and it will all be an amazing farce,” she muttered to herself angrily.

That brief interlude had already left her sleepless. This kiss would prove to be even more devastating.

She was sure of it.

Educational?

---