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“Her next dance is taken.” Colin spoke before she could.

Belinda felt her annoyance kick up a notch. Before she could say something, however, Colin and Tod faced off.

Tod raised his eyebrows. “The dance after that, then.”

“It is taken, as well.”

“Belinda can speak for herself.”

“There’s no need when I’ve already answered you.”

Belinda looked from Colin’s set expression—he looked practically menacing—to Tod’s clenched jaw. They seemed as if they were moments away from coming to blows. What’s more, they were attracting curious looks from nearby guests.

“First you lock her into marriage,” Tod muttered, “and now you’re shuttering her away from the world?”

“In fact, Dillingham, you will notice if you look around you that Belinda is attending a social event.” Colin’s tone was icy.

“So it’s me that you object to?”

“And as for marriage,” Colin went on flatly, ignoring the question, “Belinda and I eloped because we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.” Belinda gasped.

Colin’s words were a thinly disguised insult. The implication, of course, was that she and Tod had been able to keep their hands off each other.

It didn’t help that there was truth behind Colin’s words.

Belinda could see a muscle flex in Tod’s jaw, and Colin’s hand had clenched at his side.

She quickly stepped between the two men.

“This is outrageous,” she announced. “Stop this minute, both of you.”

Because she’d had enough, she turned on her heel and stalked off.

As Belinda made her way through the crowd, trying not to draw attention to her hot face, she fumed about the imbecility of men.

To think that she’d befriended some of the extended Granville clan this evening. She’d even started believing that Colin might be more than an overbearing, conniving Granville.

Of course, Belinda thought, the only thing that people would remember now was Tod and Colin’s tense standoff. The exchange had stopped short of being a full-blown scene, but she’d seen the looks on the faces of some nearby guests.

She’d agreed to remain married to Colin, but he didn’t have a license to embarrass her—them—on his path to vanquish the Wentworths.

Belinda managed to avoid Colin—and Tod—for the rest of the party by making conversation with one fellow guest after another. As was customary at these formal functions, she and Colin, as husband and wife, were not seated next to each other at dinner. And neither, thank the fates, was she seated near Tod.

When it was time to depart, she and Colin had reunited for only the most desultory conversation. They rode home in silence in their chauffeured car.

And when they arrived back at Halstead Hall, she sprinted lightly up the stairs to her suite while Colin stopped to speak with the butler.

Finally closeted in her rooms, Belinda felt her nerves ease for the first time in hours. She sat down at her vanity and removed her jewelry.

She stared at her face in the mirror. The woman who looked back at her was composed, belying the roil of emotions inside her. Her makeup was still in place, her hazel eyes luminous but wide—as if she was still trying to process tonight’s drama.

At any moment, she expected to hear Colin’s tread in the hallway as he made his way to his own suite, but she heard nothing.

Belinda pressed her lips together. The longer that Colin remained downstairs, the more her anger grew.

How dare he?

After debating for several minutes what to do, she rose and turned and made her way out of her suite and downstai

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