I Feared Marrying The Cruel Duke, But On Our Wedding Night He Made A Shocking Confession

Part 1

The rain lashed against the windows of my family’s drawing room, mimicking the storm inside my chest.

My father, Greg, cleared his throat from across the room, the harsh sound cutting through the tension.

The marriage papers had been signed that very morning.

I was to marry Craig, the Duke of Somerset, by the end of the month.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to ruin my carefully powdered face.

Even hearing his name sent a shiver of terror down my spine.

Craig was known throughout society as a recluse, a man of dark rumors and terrifying isolation.

People whispered that servants disappeared from his estate and that he never left the grounds except under the cover of night.

My mother, Brenda, adjusted her perfect posture on the sofa, smoothing her expensive gown.

She told me the connection would elevate our family immeasurably and secure our future.

I dared to ask her at what cost, my voice trembling with suppressed panic.

My father’s expression hardened, his ambition completely blinding him to my fear.

He told me the Duke had requested my hand specifically and that I should be flattered by the attention.

I couldn’t feel flattered when everything about the man pointed to cruelty and danger.

The only comfort I had in that suffocating room was a sympathetic glance from my maid, Heather.

A sharp knock at the door interrupted my growing despair.

Dan, our elderly butler, entered the room bearing a small package wrapped in dark blue velvet.

The entire room fell silent as he presented it to me on a silver tray.

My hands shook violently as I unfolded the velvet to reveal an exquisite sapphire ring surrounded by diamonds.

A folded note accompanied it, sealed with dark red wax bearing the Somerset crest.

My mother urged me to read it, her curiosity temporarily overcoming her strict decorum.

The handwriting was bold and unmistakably masculine.

Craig stated that tradition dictated he present the ring in person, but circumstances made it impossible.

He offered no words of affection, only cold, pragmatic facts about our impending union.

My mother called it practical, disappointed by the lack of romance.

My father called it good business, nodding approvingly at the lack of flowery words.

I simply felt the walls of a beautiful prison closing in around me.

The weeks that followed were an absolute blur of seamstresses, fittings, and rigid etiquette lessons.

Heather packed my trunks in somber silence while I stared at the heavy sapphire on my finger every single night.

I asked her once if I could just run away to the continent or hide with cousins.

She gently reminded me that a man with Craig’s immense resources would find me before I even reached the coast.

My father caught me crying in the library the night before I left.

He insisted he would never send me to a man he believed would harm me, claiming the Duke’s tenants respected him.

It was the closest thing to an apology I would ever receive from him.

I accepted my fate because I had absolutely no other choice.

The journey to the Somerset estate took two agonizing days.

The familiar, manicured countryside gradually gave way to wild, windswept moors beneath a steel-gray sky.

The massive Gothic structure of the estate loomed at the end of a long, tree-lined drive, looking more like a fortress than a home.

Patricia, the austere housekeeper, greeted me with a perfectly neutral expression and a stiff curtsy.

She informed me the ceremony would take place in the chapel the following noon.

I was to meet my husband at the altar, having never even spoken a single word to him in my life.

That night, I barely slept in my unfamiliar, vast bedchamber.

The morning of the wedding dawned misty and gray, matching my dreadful mood.

I stood motionless as Patricia dressed me in an ivory silk gown that had appeared mysteriously in my room overnight.

It fit perfectly, a terrifying detail that Patricia attributed to the Duke’s careful oversight of all matters.

I looked like a ghost bride in the mirror, pale and ethereal, prepared for a sacrifice rather than a celebration.

The walk to the chapel felt like a march to my own execution.

When I finally reached the altar, he was standing there waiting for me.

Craig turned to face me, his broad shoulders squared like a soldier facing battle.

His piercing blue eyes cut right through my delicate veil, assessing me with an intensity that made my breath catch.

His features were sharp, uncompromising, and marked by a faint scar over his left eyebrow.

The ceremony passed in a blur of archaic vows and heavy, suffocating silence.

When the vicar instructed him to lift my veil, my heart hammered violently against my ribs.

His hands moved with deliberate slowness, treating the delicate fabric as if it were spun glass.

When his lips briefly brushed mine, an unexpected warmth spread through my frozen limbs.

The wedding breakfast was an agonizingly tense affair in the grand dining room.

My parents filled the silence with nervous chatter before finally departing for London.

They left me alone on the steps of the massive estate with a husband who felt more like a captor.

He formally informed me that Patricia would show me to my chambers.

Then he gave me a cryptic warning to stay away from the South Wing, his tone brokering no argument.

I spent the agonizing hours until nightfall wandering my beautiful, deeply impersonal rooms.

Heather helped me into a silk nightdress and brushed my copper hair in heavy silence.

Midnight came and went without a single sign of my new husband.

Just as I resigned myself to spending my wedding night completely alone, a heavy knock echoed through the room.

Craig stood in the doorway, still fully dressed in his wedding attire, his cravat loosened only slightly.

He didn’t step inside the room.

He simply asked if I was comfortable.

The tension between us was thick enough to choke on.

I waited for him to cross the room and claim what was legally his.

Instead, his gaze swept over my defensive posture, the way I used the massive bed as a physical shield.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asked quietly.

The question was so unexpected, so laden with raw vulnerability, that I couldn’t bring myself to lie.

I whispered a simple yes.

His face hardened into an impenetrable mask, and he nodded once.

“Then I will bid you good night, Megan,” he said, turning toward the dark hallway.

“You need not fear that particular obligation of marriage.”

“I will not come to you unless invited.”

I stared at the closed door, realizing my monstrous husband had just given me the one thing I never expected—a choice.