My Family Forced Me To Marry A ‘Monster’ In Disguise — Then I Saved His Empire
Part 1
I was shoved into a carriage wearing my runaway sister’s wedding dress, ordered to deceive the most terrifying man in England.
The silk tore with a sickening rip as my mother roughly yanked the bodice tighter around my ribs.
My father’s debts were due on Monday, and my beautiful older sister Heather had vanished into the continent with a penniless poet.
If David Ashworth, the Duke of Blackwood, discovered we had lost his promised bride, we would be sleeping in the debtors’ prison.
I stared at my own reflection, hardly recognizing the woman staring back.
Where Heather possessed the golden-haired perfection that everyone wept over, I was dark, sharp, and entirely too plain for the current fashion.
For twenty-two years, I had been the invisible shadow cast by Heather’s blinding sun.
Now, I was expected to be the sacrifice.
I pleaded with my mother, my voice trembling but laced with an iron I rarely let show.
David Ashworth was not a fool.
He built a shipping empire before he inherited the dukedom, and men feared him from London to Edinburgh.
You could not simply place a veil over my face and hope he did not notice he was marrying the wrong daughter.
My father slammed his fist onto the vanity, rattling Heather’s abandoned perfume bottles.
He ordered me to keep my head down and secure our family’s survival.
The sheer audacity of the plan tasted like ash in my mouth.
Within the hour, I was thrust into the carriage.
The rain fell in sheets as we journeyed north, replacing the vibrant English countryside with a terrifying slate gray reality.
With every mile, my resolve hardened.
I would not stand before a priest, before God, and before a terrifyingly powerful duke to play a pantomime.
When the carriage finally breached the towering iron gates of Blackwood Abbey, my heart hammered a frantic rhythm.
The estate was breathtakingly severe, a sprawling masterpiece of dark stone.
My father gripped my arm like a vice, whispering at me to keep the veil down.
We were ushered into a grand library that smelled of old parchment and sandalwood.
Standing by the mantelpiece with a glass of amber liquid in his hand was David Ashworth.
He was nothing like the grotesque monster the society gossips had painted.
He was tall, imposing, and undeniably arresting, with eyes like piercing steel.
He radiated an authority so absolute it made the air in the room feel heavy.
He demanded to look his bride in the eye, refusing to sign away a hundred thousand pounds for a veiled stranger.
My father stammered, stepping in front of me, but David commanded him to step aside.
He stood directly in front of me and threw the veil back.
Silence descended upon the library, heavy and suffocating.
He stared at me, his eyes scanning the sharp angles of my cheekbones and the defiant glare I shot back at him.
I did not look away.
He quietly observed that I was not Heather.
I answered truthfully, telling him I was Megan, the younger sister.
My father shrieked, lunging forward with excuses.
I cut him off, explaining that Heather had eloped and my father was trying to trick him into signing the registry.
I told David he deserved the truth and that he could throw us out.
He stared at me for a long, agonizing minute.
He took in my courage, the absolute lack of fear in my posture.
Then, a slow, incredibly dangerous smile curved the corner of his lips.
He picked up the heavy parchment marriage contract.
He crossed out Heather’s name with a single brutal slash of ink.
He wrote my name above it in sweeping, aggressive script.
He looked at me and said he wanted a partner who valued truth over a fortune.
He offered me salvation, freedom from my family’s cruelty, and a life of my own.
I took the quill and married him.
The wedding was swift, and my father was dispatched back to London, strictly forbidden from ever returning.
For two glorious months, I lived in a state of suspended reality.
I expected a ruthless businessman, but I found a deeply observant partner who respected my mind.
We debated shipping routes by the fire, and for the first time in my life, I felt truly seen.
But peace was merely an illusion.
Heather’s poet abandoned her exactly four days after they eloped, stealing her jewelry and leaving her ruined.
She crawled back, discovered I was the Duchess of Blackwood, and became consumed by dark, corrosive envy.
She arrived at the Abbey, playing the repentant sister perfectly.
I took her in, pitying her.
But Heather had assumed the Duke was a hideous beast, and when she saw David, a vicious plan took root in her mind.
She cornered him on the darkened stone terrace during a gala, placing a bold hand on his chest.
She whispered that he was meant to marry her, offering herself to him.
David did not move.
He let her finish her poisonous speech before ordering her to take her hand off him.
His voice was a lethal whisper as he told her she was a cheap, vapid imitation.
He banished her from the north forever, threatening to destroy whatever was left of her reputation if she slandered my name.
Heather was sent packing on the morning train, humiliated and broken.
But she did not go quietly.
She went straight to London and sold her venom to Victor Crawford, David’s most vicious business rival.
Crawford used her gossip to file an injunction, claiming our marriage was fraudulent.
He orchestrated a massive run on David’s maritime bonds.
Worse, Crawford bribed David’s junior accountant, Mr. Jenkins, to hand over doctored ledgers to the banking syndicate.
David was forced to rush to London, completely blind to the traitor in his own ranks.
I was left behind at the Abbey, pacing the shadowed corridors.
While searching his study, a loose piece of parchment slipped from a ledger.
It was a clandestine letter bearing Crawford’s seal, addressed to Jenkins.
The letter detailed the entire plot to hide the real Boston fleet ledgers and present the forgeries.
I stopped breathing.
I had exactly three hours to find the real ledgers before my husband walked into a boardroom execution.
