My Aunt Forced Me To Wear Rags To His Ball — Then The Duke Demanded A Dance With Me

Part 1

I knew it was five o’clock because the cold in the attic had a specific, biting texture.

It was sharp enough to crack the thin layer of ice in my washbasin.

I didn’t sigh.

Sighing wasted heat.

I kicked off the thin wool blanket and found the warped floorboards by memory.

My gown was a faded, drab gray with a hem frayed from dragging across unvarnished stone floors.

It had belonged to a scullery maid who quit two years prior.

I had patched the elbows with scraps of an old curtain.

Downstairs, the house was a tomb of faded grandeur.

The walls of Highfield Manor still bore the pale rectangular ghosts where expensive oil paintings used to hang.

I carried the iron ash bucket to the drawing room hearth.

Kneeling on the freezing stone, I began to scrape out yesterday’s remnants.

“You missed a spot on the mantel yesterday.”

The harsh voice rasped from the doorway.

I didn’t look up.

Aunt Brenda stood wrapped in a threadbare velvet dressing gown.

She held a candle that cast upward shadows on her gaunt face.

She wasn’t inherently evil, just desperately terrified.

My father had gambled away his portion before dying and leaving me on Brenda’s doorstep at sixteen.

Now, five years later, I was less a niece and more an unpaid beast of burden.

“I will see to it, Aunt.”

I kept my voice flat, devoid of the theatrical misery that usually colored the household’s conversations.

“Tonight is Dan Hastings’ ball.”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence.

If my cousin Heather didn’t secure Dan’s attention tonight, the bank would foreclose on Highfield.

Brenda would move in with a resentful relative, and I would be turned out to a factory.

By noon, the house was a storm of panicked preparation.

Heather sat at the vanity clutching her stomach while I aggressively brushed her hair.

“It’s no use,” Heather whispered, staring at her reflection.

“I’m going to vomit.”

“Breathe through your nose,” I instructed, yanking the brush through a stubborn knot.

“You are going to smile, dance, and ask Dan about his naval service.”

“He’s thirty-two,” Heather moaned.

“He’s practically ancient, and they say he has a scar on his neck.”

“He has fifty thousand pounds a year,” I countered, pinning a heavy curl to the crown of her head.

“He could have two heads and a tail, and you would still smile at him.”

Heather looked at me in the mirror.

“Aren’t you ever angry, Megan, that you have to stay here and scrub the grates while I go?”

I met her gaze in the glass.

I looked at my own reflection, the dull hair pulled back tightly, the sallow skin, the coarse gray dress.

Hope was a parasite that fed on your energy and left you starving.

“No,” I said simply, securing the final pin.

The disaster occurred precisely as their carriage hit a rut two miles from Locksley Hall.

I was crammed onto the tiny wooden bench at the rear when Heather gasped and shifted her weight violently.

There was a sharp, distinct sound of tearing fabric.

Brenda shrieked, her hands flying to her hair.

“We are ruined!”

“Stop screaming,” I said sharply, the sheer authority in my usually quiet voice shocking both women into silence.

I struck a match and held it close to Heather’s dress.

The green silk had given way at the side seam, right at the waistline.

“I will pin it now so you can walk inside,” I instructed, pulling a small cloth bundle of needles and thread from my deep pocket.

“When we get to the hall, you will find an alcove, and I will sew you into it.”

Brenda looked at my scuffed leather boots and ash-stained hem in horror.

“You cannot come inside looking like a beggar.”

“Unless you know how to execute a blind whipstitch in less than four minutes, Aunt, I am coming inside,” I said flatly.

Twenty minutes later, I slipped through the heavy oak doors of the servants’ entrance.

I navigated the back corridors until I found the concealed staircase leading to the main floor.

I peeked from behind a heavy velvet tapestry into a world of blinding light and deafening music.

Spotting Brenda and Heather looking panicked near a marble pillar, I darted behind potted ferns.

I grabbed Heather’s arm and dragged her behind the heavy velvet curtain of a deep window alcove.

Dropping to my knees on the cold parquet floor, I didn’t have time to be gentle.

I threaded the needle by the sliver of light bleeding through the curtain and began to sew.

“Done,” I bit the thread, snapping it clean.

Heather and Brenda swept out from behind the curtain, instantly transforming their panicked faces into masks of aristocratic boredom.

I stayed behind, shrinking back into the corner of the alcove.

I sank down onto a small wooden stool, my hands shaking slightly as the adrenaline faded.

My feet ached, and my back throbbed from scrubbing grates.

I pulled my knees up, wrapping my arms around them to preserve heat.

“You are in my chair.”

The voice was low, rough, and entirely unexpected.

My eyes snapped open.

I scrambled to my feet, my hand instinctively grabbing the small sewing scissors from my pocket.

A man was standing on the other side of the alcove, half hidden by the opposing curtain.

He was tall, dressed in impeccably tailored dark blue evening clothes that looked distinctly uncomfortable on his broad frame.

A pale scar ran down his neck, disappearing into his cravat.

It was Dan Hastings, the Duke of Locksley.

He was staring directly at my frayed, ash-stained gray dress.

I stood entirely still, the tiny iron scissors gripped so tightly in my right hand that the metal bit into my palm.

A slow, dry breath escaped his nose.

“If you intend to assassinate me,” Dan said, his voice dropping to a gravelly murmur.

“You will need a longer blade.”