My Fake Husband Dragged Me Into Treason — So I Forged The Perfect Checkmate
Part 1
They call him the Iron Duke, a man composed entirely of frost and ledger books devoid of blood or passion.
When my father sold me to him to cover our massive debts, I expected a life of heavily gilded misery.
I sat on the edge of the sprawling four-poster bed in Ashbourne Manor, staring at the erratic pulse of a dying fire.
The room smelled of old wood smoke, beeswax, and a faint stale trace of lavender.
My gown was an atrocity of stiff ivory silk and heavy seed pearls dragging at my shoulders like a suit of armor.
I remembered the day the creditors took our mahogany dining table, my father sweating from his collar and reeking of gin.
He sold me to the Duke two days later.
The dowry was nothing, as my husband simply bought our debts, absorbing my family’s ruin into his vast fortune.
I rubbed my thumb over the unfamiliar weight of the gold band on my left hand.
It was freezing to the touch.
I was twenty-three and well past the age of blushing naivety.
I knew what a wedding night entailed.
It was a transaction, a physical stamping of a ruthless contract.
A floorboard groaned in the hallway outside the bridal chamber.
My stomach tightened into a hard knot of pure instinct.
The heavy brass latch clicked and turned downward with a loud metallic snap.
My husband stepped into the room.
He didn’t carry the air of a conqueror claiming his spoils.
He looked entirely, devastatingly exhausted.
He pushed the door shut behind him and locked it.
He reached up his large hands and worked the tight knot of his snowy cravat.
I noticed his knuckles were bruised a faint yellowish purple.
Why would the immaculate Duke of Ashbourne have bruised knuckles?
He pulled the cravat free and tossed it over the back of a velvet armchair.
He stood in the dim light of the dying fire dressed only in his trousers and a wrinkled linen shirt.
He finally turned to look at me.
His eyes were shadowed, the skin beneath them bruised with exhaustion.
He walked past me, his boots heavy on the floorboards.
He smelled of wet wool, saddle leather, and something metallic like old blood.
He went straight to the small liquor cabinet and pulled a dark glass bottle of cheap whiskey from the back.
He uncorked it with his teeth and took a long pull directly from the neck.
I watched him entirely unmoored.
The man society gossiped about drank precisely one glass of port after dinner and retired early.
This man was drinking cheap, harsh whiskey as if it were oxygen.
He lowered the bottle and caught me staring.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
I told him I was prepared to fulfill my side of the ledger and produce an heir.
I insisted we not pretend this arrangement was anything but a transaction.
He stared at me for a long time.
The only sound was the frantic ticking of the mantel clock and the driving rain outside.
He laughed a harsh, bitter sound that scraped against the stone walls.
He sank into the armchair and dropped his head into his hands.
He muttered that he didn’t drag me into this mess just to warm his bed.
I asked him why he spent a fortune to keep my father out of debtors’ prison.
He lifted his head and his eyes were raw and volatile.
He told me he chose me because he had seen me in my father’s solicitor’s office months ago.
He had watched me forge my father’s signature on a writ of extension.
He had seen me doctor two different ledgers to hide debts from the bank.
He said I was ruthless and a survivor.
He didn’t need a wife or an heir.
He needed an accomplice.
I took a step back as the stiff silk of my gown rustled loudly.
I asked him what he needed an accomplice for.
He stood up slowly and deliberately.
He checked the iron lock on the door ensuring the bolt was fully thrown.
He walked to the windows and pulled the heavy velvet curtains shut.
He came back to the center of the room and caught my wrist.
His grip was iron and his skin was warm.
He warned me that if he told me this truth, there was no going back.
I was bound to him by law and by consequence.
If he hanged, I would hang alongside him.
A cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck.
I whispered for him to tell me.
He stepped back and gripped the massive gold signet ring resting on his right index finger.
He twisted it over his knuckle with difficulty as if it didn’t quite fit.
He tossed it onto the silver vanity tray with a heavy discordant clatter.
He began his story in a flat voice stripped of all emotion.
Five years ago, the Duke of Ashbourne was traveling through France in the pouring rain.
The carriage hit a washed-out bridge and tumbled into a ravine.
I told him I knew the story of his miraculous survival.
He stared at me without blinking.
He told me the real Duke did not survive the crash.
The real Duke broke his neck and died pinned beneath the axle in the mud.
I stopped breathing as the fire hissed in the grate.
I pointed out that he was standing right in front of me.
He agreed that he was standing there, but his name was not Craig.
His real name was Craig.
He was the Duke’s bastard half-brother, sired on a tenant farmer’s daughter.
He had been employed as his brother’s valet.
They shared the same build, the same jaw, and the same coloring.
When the magistrate found them, he claimed the dead man was the valet.
He spent six months in a French abbey learning the Duke’s handwriting and mastering his aristocratic drawl.
He stole his brother’s life to keep the estate out of the hands of their cruel cousin Tyler.
Tyler was a monster who would have turned three hundred tenant families out into the winter to starve.
I was now legally married to a bastard commoner committing high treason against the Crown.
If his cruel cousin discovered the truth, we would both be marching to the gallows.
