My Cynical Duke Offered Me A Fake Marriage — And Then The Trap Snapped Shut
Part 1
I was the one hundredth desperate woman to walk into the Duke’s study, and the only one to leave a handprint on his face.
Ninety-nine women had walked into Greg Croft’s estate with a dowry and left with a rejection.
He wasn’t just a duke.
He was a brick wall dressed in silk.
He turned high society into a graveyard of broken engagements.
I didn’t come with a dowry.
I came with a bruised knuckle, a headache, and zero patience.
Gravel crunched beneath the carriage wheels.
It was a rhythmic grinding sound that vibrated straight into my aching shins.
The air inside the cab smelled of damp wool and old horse sweat.
It clung to the heavy winter cloak I had borrowed from my aunt.
The garment was too large.
Its stiff collar scraped relentlessly against my jawline.
I adjusted it for the fifth time.
My bare fingers were stiff with cold.
I had forgotten my gloves.
It was a stupid, trivial mistake that made me feel absurdly vulnerable.
Greg Croft lived in a fortress of limestone and ivy.
It looked less like a home and more like a mausoleum.
As the carriage jerked to a halt, I pressed my thumb against my index finger.
I bit at a tiny strip of peeling skin until a sharp sting grounded me.
I wasn’t here out of romance.
Romance was a luxury afforded to women who didn’t have a ledger of debts sitting on their dining table.
I was here because society dictated that a formal audience with the Duke granted a family a grace period from their creditors.
It was an unspoken rule of the peerage.
If Oak Haven was considering you, the hounds backed off.
The heavy oak doors groaned open before I even reached the top step.
A footman ushered me inside.
The grand hall was drafty, smelling faintly of beeswax and old coins.
Brian Gable stood at the top of the stairs.
He looked like a man who hadn’t slept since the turn of the century.
The skin under his eyes was the color of bruised plums.
He led me down a long corridor.
A door opened ahead of us.
A young lady burst out, shoving a handkerchief against her nose.
Her shoulders hitched in silent, ugly sobs.
The scent of heavy cloying rose water trailed behind her.
Ninety-nine.
That made ninety-nine rejections.
I was number one hundred.
Brian didn’t blink.
He simply stepped aside, gesturing towards the open door.
I stepped into the study.
The room was suffocatingly warm.
It was dominated by a crackling hearth and the overpowering smell of burning pine.
Books lined the walls from floor to ceiling.
Behind a sprawling desk of dark mahogany sat Greg Croft.
He didn’t look up immediately.
He was scraping the nib of a fountain pen against a blotter.
It was a maddeningly loud sound in the quiet room.
His jaw was covered in a shadow of stubble.
His dark hair was messy.
Ink stained his right index finger.
He looked exhausted, bored, and utterly detached.
He gestured toward a stiff leather wingback chair.
I sat down.
Greg finally looked up.
His eyes were a muted flat gray.
He didn’t scan my face or look at my dress.
He looked at me the way one looks at a ledger entry.
He picked up a sheet of thick parchment.
He tapped the edge against the desk.
He recited the terms of my proposal in a flat baritone.
I held my breath.
I didn’t want to marry him.
I just needed him to drag out the process.
He tossed the parchment onto a pile of similar rejections.
He dismissed me with a mechanical finality.
He reached for his pen, already moving on.
A hot, prickly sensation crawled up the back of my neck.
I looked at the top of his head as he began writing something else.
The sheer arrogance of it hit me like a physical blow.
I had spent three weeks agonizing over this meeting.
I had endured my father’s desperate, alcohol-laced rants.
I had practiced my exact cadence so I wouldn’t sound desperate.
I didn’t cry.
I stood up.
I stepped across the desk.
I slapped him so hard his signet ring rattled against the mahogany wood.
My ungloved knuckles ached.
I demanded to know if he enjoyed watching people beg.
I demanded to know why he collected rejections like morbid trophies.
He let out a slow rattling sigh.
He told me he wasn’t obligated to explain his calendar to me.
He looked back down at his paperwork.
Something inside me snapped.
It wasn’t a heroic, righteous anger.
It was an ugly, exhaustion-fueled rage.
The scratch of his pen grated against my eardrums.
The heat of the fire felt suddenly oppressive.
I stood up.
My chair scraped violently against the wooden floorboards.
Greg didn’t flinch.
His eyes flicked upward just in time to see me cross the short distance.
I didn’t think.
If I had thought, I would have remembered the social ruin.
I would have remembered the sheer scandal of assaulting a peer of the realm.
But all I saw was the bored, dismissive slant of his mouth.
My hand swung in a tight, fast arc.
The crack of my palm against his jaw echoed like a gunshot.
It wasn’t a delicate, theatrical slap.
It was hard, sloppy, and entirely unrefined.
The base of my palm caught his cheekbone.
My fingers slapped across his ear.
Greg’s head snapped to the side.
The heavy gold signet ring on his left hand knocked against the mahogany.
A profound, heavy silence crashed down on the room.
The only sound was the frantic ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
Pain flared instantly in my hand.
A hot, throbbing sting radiated from my palm down to my wrist.
I stood there, my arm frozen in the air.
My chest heaved.
Immediate sickening regret flooded my stomach.
I lowered my hand slowly.
I curled my stinging fingers inward.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Greg didn’t yell.
He didn’t jump up and call for the guards.
He stayed perfectly still.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he brought his hand up.
He pressed two ink-stained fingers against his cheek.
When he turned his face back to me, a distinct red mark was already blooming across his pale skin.
The outline of my fingers was stark against his jaw.
His gray eyes were wide.
The flat, dead look was gone.
It was replaced by a jarring, sharp clarity.
He looked at me with profound, genuine shock.
He asked if I had just hit him.
His voice was very quiet.
I crossed my arms tightly over my chest to hide the shaking.
I dug my fingernails into the wool of my oversized coat.
I told him he wasn’t listening to any of us.
I accused him of playing some twisted game.
Brian opened the door, stopping dead when he saw the red handprint.
Greg ordered him to close the door.
He stood up.
He was taller than I had realized.
He walked around the desk.
The smell of his cologne became stronger as he approached.
I forced myself to hold my ground.
He noted my aggressive method of negotiation.
I told him I was a human being.
I told him my family was starving and he couldn’t grant me thirty seconds of genuine consideration.
Greg studied me.
He looked at the oversized cheap wool coat.
He looked at my bare hands.
He noticed the rough cuticles and the slight tremor in my fingers.
He dropped his hand from his bruised face.
He told me I was right.
He walked over to a side table and poured two glasses of brandy.
He handed me one.
He told me to drink so I wouldn’t faint on his rug.
I took a sip.
The brandy burned going down, leaving a trail of fire in my throat.
He leaned against the edge of his desk.
He confessed he didn’t enjoy the rejections.
He hated every Tuesday.
He hated the tears.
I demanded to know why he held court at all.
He told me about a piece of paper locked in the royal archives.
His father’s will encumbered the estate heavily.
He couldn’t access the principal capital until he was married.
The marriage could not be purely transactional.
His uncle had to verify the union was genuine.
If he presented a bride who flattered him, his uncle would see right through the farce.
He needed someone who challenged him.
He needed someone who possessed no reverence for his title.
He looked at me with eyes sharp as chipped flint.
He laid his hands flat on the mahogany desk and leaned in.
I need someone who isn’t afraid of me, and you just left a handprint on my face.
Let me court you officially.
