My Father Sold Me To A Bankrupt Duke — The Rotting Estate Was Only The First Nightmare
Part 1
My Father Sold Me To A Bankrupt Duke — The Rotting Estate Was Only The First Nightmare
Cold seeped through the floorboards of the rented carriage.
It was a wet, biting cold that smelled of damp horse hair and stale river fog.
I had spent three days breathing coal dust and eating hardened biscuits.
Dan, the Duke of Alderley.
My father had sold me to him for the sum of forty thousand pounds.
Polite society called it a mutually beneficial union between old blood and new money.
I was a pragmatist who knew a transaction when I saw one.
Dan needed a mother for the wild children his late wife had left behind.
My father needed to keep the bailiffs from dragging him to debtors’ prison.
The carriage groaned as it took a sharp turn, revealing Alderley Hall.
It was a fortress of dark, weather-beaten stone crouching against the moors.
The carriage lurched to a violent halt in the sodden gravel.
My own hired driver yanked the carriage door open, muttering about the mud.
Heavy velvet soaked up the rain as I stepped out.
A woman appeared in the doorway, her graying hair pulled tightly into a permanent scowl.
She informed me they were not expecting me until tomorrow.
The humiliation was sudden and sharp.
I stepped over the threshold into an entrance hall that smelled of cold ash and neglect.
I told her I would like to see my future husband.
She informed me he had been delayed in the city and would not arrive until Friday.
The sheer absurdity of the statement took a moment to penetrate my exhaustion.
He had let me arrive at his ancestral home cold and exhausted.
But as quickly as the anger flared, a strange relief settled over me.
I didn’t have to pretend tonight.
The parlor was slightly warmer, though a meager fire struggled against the dampness.
I sat in a high-backed leather chair.
Standing ten feet away were two children who looked like creatures dragged from the woods.
Tyler was painfully thin, his chin jutting out defensively as he gripped a heavy iron poker.
Megan hid behind him, clutching a stiff, dead crow to her chest.
The silence stretched until it became heavy and uncomfortable.
Tyler informed me I was in his father’s chair.
His jaw tightened, clearly expecting me to jump up and apologize.
He sneered, telling me his father had left because he didn’t want me after all.
I slowly pushed myself out of the chair, towering over the boy.
I told him I was cold, hungry, and entirely out of patience.
I instructed him to put the poker back and warned Megan to leave the bird outside.
Instead of fighting, the iron clattered against the stone hearth, and they retreated.
Dinner was an exercise in endurance.
The mutton was gray and tough, sitting in a pool of congealed gravy.
Tyler bristled, telling me his father said women who married for titles were leeches.
A strange, choked laugh escaped my throat.
I told him his father was entirely correct, admitting my family was bankrupt.
I stood up, yanked the bell pull, and ordered the footman to take the atrocious food away.
I demanded fresh bread, hard cheese, and a dusty bottle of wine from the cellar.
I told them I was not going to pretend to love them, but I refused to be miserable.
When the food arrived, we ate in silence.
The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked, no longer sounding like a countdown.
The next morning, I woke shivering in my freezing bedroom.
I found Housekeeper Higgins in the morning room and demanded the household ledgers and the keys.
She claimed the keys were kept by her by the duke’s order.
I let my gaze bore into her with a cold, dead-eyed indifference.
Slowly, with radiating resentment, she dropped the heavy iron ring onto the table.
The library smelled of rotting paper and stale pipe tobacco.
It took me less than an hour to understand the magnitude of the disaster.
Dan wasn’t just strapped for cash; he was hemorrhaging it.
The estate was heavily mortgaged, tenant farms were failing, and bills were months in arrears.
He was bleeding out, buying new silk bandages instead of a tourniquet.
Friday slipped into Saturday.
I was in the library past one in the morning when the violent slam of the front doors dragged me awake.
He didn’t notice me immediately as he poured a glass of amber liquid.
I told him if he intended to drink himself to death, he might want to review the ledgers first.
He whipped around, squinting into the gloom with exhausted, bloodshot eyes.
His dark hair was plastered to his forehead with rain and sweat.
He warned me in a dangerous, low gravel that I was not his wife yet.
I tilted my chin up, telling him that meant I could still pack my trunks and leave him to drown.
He stepped closer, the smell of rain and alcohol suffocating, and I realized I had traded one sinking ship for a captain who was actively trying to drown.
