Chapter 32

Shakespeare was right—the course of true love never did run smooth.

Alice had initially anticipated a few bumps along the way. She had thought that she knew well enough to stay out of the sort of trouble that would wreck her heart and hopes upon the rocks. Who would have thought that she would fall prey to it still?

It truly was a sobering thought.

"Alice?"

She looked up to find her sister already dressed in her traveling clothes, complete with a matching bonnet. Phoebe's lovely features creased into a soft smile.

"Mama said we should be heading downstairs any moment now," her younger sister told her quietly.

Alice turned away from the window that afforded her a view of the front door of Fitzroy Hall, where carriages had begun to line up to take the guests back home. The house party was over, and so was the farce between her and Colin.

The last game from yesterday was an archery contest, as Scarlett had guessed, but neither she nor the other Wolves participated in it. She had heard from Evie that the four men had been holed up in Colin's study and were in no state to be fit company for impressionable young ladies.

A rather circumspect way of saying that they were all probably inebriatedColin is probably celebrating adding another notch to his bedpost.

In the end, that was all she had amounted to—just another conquest of his. Just another statistic in the countless women he had wooed and bedded. She would have been thoroughly embarrassed if she was not so heartbroken.

She stood up and smoothed her skirts with a self-conscious smile. "I am ready."

Phoebe nodded and looped her arm through Alice's, and they walked down the hall in companionable silence. Alice did not even dare to look back to the room across from the one she had occupied the past handful of days. She could not bear to.

When both sisters stepped out of the front door to where their parents stood beside their waiting carriage, Alice paused and looked up to the skies and found the sun so dazzlingly bright that it hurt to look at it.

Colin had been the same thing. For a while, she had looked at him as one would look at something so magnificent that she could not look away no matter how much it hurt her. Like Icarus, she had flown too close to the sun, and for her hubris, she had been scorched so much so that there was nothing left to even fall into the ocean.

She felt, simply, as if she had turned into ashes and dust.

* * *

There was no headache worse than one suffered after a night of intoxication.

When Colin stumbled past his door late that morning, the guests had already begun to leave. His grandmother and Evie did not even bother to rouse him to help them see their guests off.

His gaze flicked to the door right across the rooms he had occupied for the weekend and found that it was slightly ajar. That could only mean one thing—it was now unoccupied.

Immediately, he felt a quickening in his chest, and he walked hurriedly down the grand staircase. Had Alice and her family already left? Did she not even bother to let him know, somehow, that she was going away?

When he reached the front door, he found his grandmother and Evie walking back in. Both ladies looked a little fatigued but none the worse for wear after playing hostesses for the whole weekend.

The Dowager Countess's gaze was particularly sharp as it landed on him. "Oh," she said simply. "I was beginning to wonder when you would deign to join the land of the living."

Colin flinched at the sarcasm dripping from her voice. "I apologize, Grandmother. I know that it was rude of me to not see the guests off."

"There were a great many who were sorely disappointed," Evie remarked. "Some, though, were fine with it."

A pointed statement, that one. It was meant to wound him, and he had to admit that his younger sister was beginning to get very good at wielding a particularly sharp tongue when she was inclined to.

"I should at least have seen the Marquess and Marchioness of Brandon off," he groused.

Lady Wellington was not particularly pleased with him, and she made that known by regarding him with a gaze laden with disappointment. "I daresay that they would not appreciate having to cater to a man who managed to get himself thoroughly foxed when he should have been accompanying his betrothed!"

Colin stiffened. It was so rare for his grandmother to use such a heavy tone. Once more, he felt as if he was an errant youth, only this time, he knew that he deserved a thorough scourging. Nothing less would do.

"Come, Evie," Lady Wellington snapped. "Perhaps when your brother has better control of himself, we can have a more productive conversation."

He watched as Evie accompanied their grandmother to the parlor, leaving him standing there at the foot of the stairs, feeling like the biggest idiot. His sister shot a look at him over her shoulder, and he did not know if he preferred his grandmother's displeasure or his sister's disappointment.

He was willing to bear the brunt of their anger, however, if it meant that Alice could be well and truly rid of him. With his behavior, if she was not thoroughly disgusted with him before, she would now be.

And if by some miracle she was not, her parents would be none too pleased with how matters at the house party ended. The Marquess of Brandon had expressly warned him that he would not have Alice wed to a man who would disrespect her.

Colin had done much worse, and they were not even married yet. Even if he was loath to end their betrothal, he had a strong feeling that Lord Brandon would throw their agreement out the window himself. The Marquess truly loved his daughters, and he would not countenance any man who would hurt them so.

Even if that man was a duke.

Colin groaned and ran a hand through his hair in frustration, sinking onto the marble steps. It was only supposed to be a fake betrothal. It was only meant to last thirty days.

They were not even halfway through yet.

It would seem that I am the worst choice for a husband. And it was not even a real betrothal, to begin with.

"In all the time we have indulged in spirits, I have never seen you in such a sorry state."

He looked up to find Daniel leisurely walking down the stairs, dressed for his journey back to London. His friend eyed him with an arched eyebrow.

"Shut up, Ashton," Colin snapped at him, although his tone held not much rancor.

Daniel just sighed as he sat beside him. "Regretful much?"

To say that Colin was regretful would have been the greatest understatement. Alice was the one woman he wanted more than anything else in this world. The only woman who could make him lose control—and therein lay the problem.

If he felt so much for her that he could hardly think straight, he was only going to put her in so much danger.

He thought of the state he found Blackthorn Estate in when he returned from his abruptly curtailed Grand Tour, of the charred remains of the wing where both his parents perished. Could he afford to risk her safety with such a monster like him?

Colin would rather cut his heart out than face a world without Alice in it. It did not matter if she was angry at him or if she found happiness with another man. All that mattered to him was that she was safe and well.

Live, little lamb, he wanted to tell her. Live to hate me. Live scorning me. It does not matter—as long as you live.

He felt Daniel gently clap a hand on his shoulder as his friend stood up. "I suppose you have made your decision. I just wish you had managed to hold off until you were certain of it. Sometimes—" He paused, then continued in a more wistful note. "Sometimes the things we release are nigh impossible to retract."

"I know," Colin muttered hoarsely. He smiled up at his friend. "But thank you, anyway—for being here."

A brief smile spread across Daniel's features, a hint of warmth in his normally cold facade. "I would have left earlier if there were not some things I needed to take care of."

Colin frowned at his cryptic words, but then again, Daniel had always been like that. The man always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone, keeping some groundbreaking knowledge to himself.

It was part of what made him a formidable opponent in Parliament—no one really knew just how much he knew.

Colin watched as Daniel walked out the door, pausing for a moment to gaze back in the direction of the parlor. Colin thought he saw something flash briefly in his friend's normally cold and aloof gaze, but then it was gone in the next moment. The door closed behind him, and Colin was once more alone in the vast emptiness of the front hall.

Even painting, which had afforded him some solace in the past, was no longer as interesting as it used to be. All it did was remind him of Alice and what he had lost.

He gripped the railings and rose unsteadily on his legs. Slowly staggering back up the stairs, he remembered there was still half a bottle of brandy left in his study. Colin had never been one to drown his sorrows in liquor, but right now, there was very little that offered him respite, save for the head-wracking stupor that intoxication afforded him.

Maybe in a few weeks or months… maybe in a few years even, he might learn to live with this heaviness in his heart.

For now, he would have to make alcohol his friend and hope it would tide him until Evie successfully found a match this Season.

After that, he could simply shut himself out of the world once more. Only this time, it was bound to be colder.

A life without Alice… it no longer held as much meaning as he once thought it did.