My Terrifying Husband Used Me As Bait For His Assassins — They Had No Idea Who I Was
Part 1
Whispers of madness and murder clung to Arthur Harrington like the heavy scent of copper.
He was the Duke of Blackwood, a veteran whose face bore a jagged testament to war, a wicked pale scar that slashed from his left temple down to his jawline.
Society feared him.
Men crossed the street to avoid his shadow, and women whispered that he had driven his first fiancé to leap from the cliffs.
Yet, his wealth was a bottomless chasm, vast enough to buy the crown of a small nation.
And so, the desperate aristocrats of the city brought their daughters to him like sacrifices to a gilded altar.
The social season had never witnessed a more humiliating spectacle than the one unfolding in the grand ballroom.
Ten young women, representing the most powerful and deeply indebted bloodlines, stood in a trembling row before the hearth.
They were dripping in imported silks and family heirlooms, their eyes downcast, terrified of the man pacing before them.
Arthur walked with a heavy, rhythmic thud, his cane, tipped with solid iron, striking the marble floor.
He did not ask them to dance.
He did not fetch them lemonade.
He interrogated them.
“You present me with the finest flowers of society,” Arthur sneered, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that echoed through the dead silent ballroom.
He stopped in front of a reigning beauty.
“You smile, but your father’s gaming ledgers dictate you must marry me before Tuesday, lest he be thrown in debtors’ prison.”
“I have no use for a wife who views me as a banknote.”
She sobbed, burying her face in her hands.
Arthur did not flinch.
He moved down the line, dismantling the pristine facades of the aristocracy with surgical, ruthless precision.
He exposed the rot beneath their silk ribbons.
One was carrying on a clandestine affair, hoping the Duke’s long absences would allow her to continue her treasonous romance.
Another was afflicted with a hereditary madness kept entirely hidden from prospective suitors.
A third was vapid, cruel to her servants, and possessing the intellectual depth of a shallow puddle.
A fourth was caught stealing jewels from her own aunt to fund her brother’s addiction.
By the time he reached the tenth woman, the ballroom was a chorus of gasping mothers and outraged, humiliated fathers.
None dared draw a pistol or demand satisfaction.
The Duke’s reputation as a lethal duelist preceded him.
“Ten ladies,” Arthur murmured, leaning heavily on his cane, his piercing gray eyes sweeping the room.
“Ten liars, thieves, and opportunists.”
“Is this the absolute best the nobility has to offer a monster like me?”
“Your grace, please,” stammered the nervous host of the evening.
“If none of these exquisite creatures please you, surely we can find another.”
“I did not come here for exquisite creatures,” Arthur interrupted, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
“I came for a wife who can survive my world.”
His gaze drifted past the weeping beauties, past the enraged lords, and landed on the darkest, dustiest corner of the ballroom.
There, half hidden behind a massive potted fern, sat a woman trying very hard to blend into the wallpaper.
She was not in the lineup.
She was a chaperone.
An afterthought.
“You,” Arthur commanded, pointing his iron-tipped cane straight at the shadows.
“The one nursing the lukewarm tea.”
“Step forward.”
The crowd parted like the Red Sea.
Out of the shadows limped Megan Carter.
She was twenty-six, an ancient spinster by societal standards, and an unacknowledged illegitimate daughter.
She wore a washed-out severe gray dress that was at least five years out of fashion.
A childhood illness had left her with a pronounced limp in her right leg.
She was entirely unremarkable, save for her eyes, which were a startling, defiant amber.
“Me, your grace?”
Megan asked, her voice remarkably steady.
“Yes, you.”
Arthur closed the distance between them.
He towered over her, his scarred face inches from hers.
“You have been sitting in that corner for three hours.”
“You have not gossiped.”
“You have not preened.”
“In fact, you have spent the entire evening watching the exits and taking notes in a small ledger.”
“Why?”
Megan did not avert her gaze.
“Because, your grace, I am calculating the structural integrity of the roof.”
“There is a fracture in the plaster above the chandelier.”
“If it falls, it will crush half the room, and I wanted to ensure I knew the quickest route to the kitchens.”
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the room.
To speak to the feared duke with such blunt, unadorned sarcasm was akin to signing one’s own death warrant.
A terrifying sound erupted from Arthur’s chest.
It took the room a moment to realize the Duke was laughing.
It was a dark, rusty sound.
“I have rejected your ten perfect swans,” Arthur announced, turning back to the horrified host.
He reached out and grabbed Megan’s gloved hand, pulling her to his side.
“Give me the one no one chose.”
“I will marry her by dawn.”
Rain lashed against the windows of the Duke’s private carriage as it thundered down the muddy roads toward his desolate estate.
Inside, the silence was thicker than the fog they had left behind.
Megan sat stiffly on the velvet cushions, the heavy gold band on her left ring finger feeling like an iron shackle.
The wedding had been a hastily arranged, almost violent affair at dawn.
No flowers, no music, just a terrified vicar and the Duke staring at her with predatory intensity.
“You are remarkably quiet, Duchess,” Arthur finally said, breaking the silence.
He was pouring himself a glass of amber liquid from a crystal decanter, the carriage violently swaying.
“I am waiting for you to tell me why I am here, Your Grace,” Megan replied, keeping her hands folded neatly in her lap.
“I’m waiting for you.”
“I told you I needed a wife.”
“You needed a shield,” she corrected him sharply.
Arthur paused, the glass halfway to his lips.
He looked at her, truly looked at her, his expression darkening.
“Explain.”
Megan took a deep breath.
She had survived twenty-six years of neglect and abuse by being observant.
“You did not reject those ten women merely because they were flawed.”
“You rejected them because they belonged to powerful families with political ties, spies, and agendas.”
“You chose me because I am illegitimate.”
“I have no dowry, no father who claims me, and no brothers to avenge me if I suddenly disappear.”
“I am disposable.”
“You need a wife to fulfill a legal or social obligation, but you need one who brings no enemies into your house.”
“So, I ask again, Your Grace, what is hunting you?”
Arthur slammed his glass down on the wooden side table.
The violence of the action made Megan jump, but she forced herself not to shrink away.
“You are too clever for your own good, Megan,” he murmured, leaning forward.
The shadows of the carriage caught the jagged edge of his scar, making him look truly demonic.
“You are right.”
“I am being hunted.”
“For the past six months, someone has been trying to kill me.”
“They tampered with my horse’s saddle, poisoned my brandy, and loosened the balustrade on my balcony.”
“Whoever it is resides within my own inner circle.”
“If I brought a society debutante into my home, she would either be a spy for the assassin, or she would be dead within a week from sheer incompetence.”
“And you believe I will not be dead within a week?”
“I believe,” Arthur said softly, “that a woman who notices a hairline fracture in a plaster ceiling might just notice a drop of poison in my soup.”
Before Megan could process the grim reality of her new job description as a human poison detector, a deafening crack shattered the night air.
The carriage violently lurched to the left, throwing Megan hard against Arthur’s chest.
The horses screamed.
The driver shouted in panic before his voice was cut off by another gunshot.
The carriage skidded wildly in the mud, slamming into a thicket of trees and coming to a jarring, bone-rattling halt.
“Get down!”
Arthur roared.
He didn’t wait for her to comply.
He shoved her onto the floorboards, his heavy body covering hers.
The carriage windows shattered, and as armed men surrounded us in the freezing mud, my terrifying new husband handed me a heavy revolver and whispered, “Let us see if I made the right choice.”
