Chapter 30
Alice woke up to something warm and wet trailing lightly along her inner thighs. Her eyelashes fluttered open, and she sat up quickly, only for a large, warm hand to grasp her hips gently.
“Shh…” a deep, hypnotic voice soothed her. “Stay still for now. You are going to be quite sore later.”
She frowned and watched as Colin crouched between her legs, cleaning the blood and the fluids from their earlier lovemaking with a soft cloth. His handsome features were smoothed into a most neutral expression, almost as if he was doing some mundane task and not peering between her legs.
Her heart, which had pounded loudly in her chest just an hour or so ago, felt as if it was sinking to the very pit of her belly as she watched him, his movements so methodical that she wondered if this was not the first time he had done this.
He is a Wolf,that insidious voice sang in her head. Heaven only knows how many women he’s bedded—and how many more he has been so solicitous towards after the deed was done.
She pushed up on her elbows, ignoring the stinging pain between her legs as Colin shot her a reproachful look.
“I told you to be still, Alice.”
Alice. Her heart felt cold inside her ribs. Alice, not little lamb.
She bit her lower lip, focusing on the physical pain rather than the colder one that was beginning to seep into her bones.
“Colin?”
“Hmm?” He did not even look up at her.
She took a deep breath. “What sort of woman would you truly like to marry?”
She watched as the hand holding the cloth paused, hovering over her thighs for the span of a few breaths. And then, she heard a sigh that sounded as if it was being wrung from his very chest, dripping with irritation.
“I thought we already talked about this, Alice,” he said, pressing his lips into a grim line. His eyes hardened, as if to tell her that this was not a conversation he wished to have.
Well, how unfortunate!We are going to have this conversation, whether he cares for it or not!
She had already given herself to this man, had surrendered herself to the soul-crushing passion of his kisses. She had offered her innocence up to him on a golden platter, and he had devoured it before her very eyes.
The very least he could do was be brave enough to confront her and all the wild, seething emotion that roiled in her.
“No, really, Colin,” she persisted, her voice taking on a steely edge. “What kind of woman do you envision yourself marrying?”
His eyes were pleading with her when he finally raised his gaze. “Alice, please do not do this. You know I am not good enough for you?—”
The harsh laugh burst out of her mouth before she could stop it, dredging up all the pain and longing and anger that she had been tamping down for the past week or so. All of it brought up in the bitter twist of her lips as she smiled at him.
“I suppose that is your way of saying that you do not want me,” she spat out.
She pushed his hands away from her as tears started scalding her eyes. She held her mutilated nightdress closed to her chest with one hand as she stumbled out of his ridiculously large bed.
Her bed had not been as large as his, and they were both in the guest rooms in the same corridor, separated only by a stretch of hallway. Had he been expecting her to come knocking at his door tonight? Was there any other woman he was looking forward to bedding over the weekend?
Suddenly, that very short distance between their doors seemed endless. It was like they were two people on different sides of the world, when only a short moment earlier, it felt as if their souls had all but melded together.
“Alice, please?—”
She glared at him through the haze of tears. She hated how the mere note of sorrow in his voice pierced her heart. Hated how he had hurt her so much—and that she had allowed him to.
Hated how she still yearned for him in spite of it all.
“Never mind, Your Grace,” she told him with a sardonic smile. “Forget I ever asked such an idiotic question.”
She stood before him, a sneer twisting her normally bright features. She lifted her chin defiantly at him. Even with her tattered nightclothes and the shreds of her innocence barely clinging to her, she would not be cowed and broken.
She bobbed a mocking curtsy. “Good night, Your Grace.”
She turned on her heel and left. She hardly felt her bare feet carrying her across his room to the door, and then to her own designated bedchamber. She did not look back. Did not dare to watch once more as he let her go.
She could not bear to see him as he broke her heart.
As soon as she closed the door behind her, she sagged against it. Only then did she unleash the tears she had been holding back.
She had gambled, and she had lost. Ethan had told her that Colin had needed someone like her, and she had believed him.
Now, she knew the bitter truth—that Colin had neither needed nor wanted her.
She was just another foolish lamb who had wandered too close to the Wolf’s den, and for her foolishness, he broke her heart.
* * *
Go after her quickly, before the hurt becomes too much to bear!
Even as his heart roared at the sight of Alice looking frail and broken, desperately trying to hold on to her dignity as she bid him good night, Colin held himself still. His hands had long been clenched into fists, the nails digging painfully into his skin until they drew little pinpricks of blood.
He should have known that Alice was nothing like all the other women he had bedded before. Even the Viscountess Pembroke had been clear on the stipulations of their arrangement—that there would be no feelings involved. That it was merely the mutual gratification of their bodies they sought and nothing more.
His greatest mistake was throwing his heart into the mix and dragging hers along with it.
He should have known that Alice would never share her body with a man she had not set her own heart on. She had given him the precious gift of her innocence, and he had squandered it like the absolute monster that he was.
If she hated him for this, he would deserve all the vitriol she would cast his way. For her sake, it would be better. Anger was much better than gut-wrenching pain, easier to tolerate.
He fell back against the bed and threw his arm over his eyes, groaning in frustration. All around him, he could still catch the fragrance she had left behind. The sheets were still warm from where she had lain on them.
The blood of her innocence still stood out against the pristine fabric, taunting him, calling him out for the atrocity he had wrought upon the young lady who sincerely cared for him.
This is for the best. I have never deserved someone as wonderful as Alice. After she gets over the pain, she will learn to move on. She will find someone who will be a better match for her in everything.
As he pondered the agony of Alice finding another man, he just hoped that he would treat her with all the sincere devotion she deserved. If he ever hurt her…
He laughed hoarsely at the direction of his thoughts. What right did he have to be furious if another man hurt her? Had he not done the very same himself?
He might have wanted her more than he did his next breath, but he knew that he did not deserve her. Not when his father’s blood ran through his veins, tainting him with the same brand of violent insanity that had destroyed both of his parents.
Groaning, he got out of his bed and pulled on his breeches as he strode over to an easel that held a blank canvas. His Grandmother was an exceptional hostess—she had even set up an easel and some paints for him. Did she know that he was going to need to release some of the madness that now plagued him?
Whether or not she did, he cared very little for it as he thoughtlessly threw some paint into the palette. Over the next few minutes, the room fell quiet, save for his panting breaths as his brush moved over the palette and the canvas, streaking furiously, trailing vivid, brilliant colors in its wake.
His jaw clenched as he painted as if his very own existence depended on it, as if he would die if he so much as paused. He swirled his brush into the paint, dragging it over the canvas until not a speck of white remained.
On and on, he painted until his arm ached and he could no longer hold his brush aloft, until it felt as if he had poured all of his pain and misery, his anger and passion and the longing—the endless longing he had for Alice and her light—onto the canvas. When he finally stood back, he sucked in a deep breath.
Where there had been a vast expanse of white, there was now a furious whorl of black and red in varying shades. It possessed no discernible shape or form—it was merely a tumultuous mass, very much like the turmoil that now plagued him.
He had actually painted himself. His true self.