My fiancé’s commander brought news of his death — then offered to marry me to pay my debts.
Part 1
Dust from the carriage wheels had not even settled before a heavy knock echoed through our ruined porch.
A wealthy duke stood there holding my fiancé Tyler’s cracked, blood-stained pocket watch.
The man did not offer empty platitudes or gentle condolences.
Instead, he bluntly announced Tyler was dead, and he would marry me to cover my family’s debts.
I had spent the morning trying to convince the local butcher to extend our credit.
My father was upstairs, sleeping off the cheap liquor he used to numb our mounting financial ruin.
Our family name used to open doors in the county, but now it barely kept them on their hinges.
Greg, the Duke of Carlisle, took up entirely too much space beneath our rotting wooden awning.
From his deep coat pocket, the Duke withdrew a heavy object wrapped in oiled canvas.
The fabric peeled back to reveal the shattered brass pocket watch I had bought for Tyler with the last of my inheritance.
Greg informed me Tyler had taken a piece of shrapnel to the chest three days ago during an ambush.
My pride demanded I show nothing in front of a complete stranger, so I locked my knees to keep the room from tilting.
I asked if he suffered, and Greg stared straight ahead, claiming the end was fast.
The dark stains on the watch spoke of a messy, desperate death.
The golden-haired boy who had promised me salvation from my father’s squalor was gone forever.
Greg’s voice grew harsh as he explained Tyler had stepped in front of him to block an incoming shell.
Before losing consciousness, Tyler supposedly made Greg swear an oath to protect me from the creditors.
The Duke knew the bank would foreclose by Christmas and I would be thrown out onto the freezing street.
I crossed my arms and told him I did not want his charity.
His expression hardened into stone, clarifying it was a debt of honor.
A stipend would draw vicious gossip and ruin whatever was left of my name before spring.
The Duke offered his ancient title instead, stating he needed a wife who understood duty while I required a husband who could pay my debts.
My mind became a chaotic storm of grief and ruthless calculation.
My father owed thousands, a sum so astronomical I could not even visualize it in coins.
I looked at the shattered pocket watch and offered a silent apology to Tyler’s ghost.
Meeting Greg’s unyielding stare, I finally told him to pay the butcher first.
The wedding took place on a freezing Tuesday morning in a cavernous, empty church in London.
I possessed a title, a massive fortune, and a husband, yet I had never felt more entirely alone.
The journey north to his ancestral estate took three agonizing days of complete silence.
Alderley Hall was a massive fortress built from dark, iron-gray stone atop a rugged hill.
The first month was an exhausting exercise in polite avoidance.
We ate at opposite ends of a massive mahogany table while the footmen moved silently in the shadows.
My new husband was flawless, but he was an impenetrable stone wall.
The fracture in our polite routine happened during a violent winter squall in November.
Unable to sleep, I wandered down into the dark bowels of the massive house and found the library doors ajar.
A roaring fire illuminated military maps spread across a drafting table.
Greg stood in his shirt sleeves, burying his face in his hands as he violently crossed out a section of the map.
I stepped into the room and gently reminded him the war was over.
He whipped around, his eyes bloodshot and completely haunted, staring at the topographical layout of the valley where Tyler had died.
I demanded to know why he spent his nights agonizing over a battle he could not change.
The Duke glared at me, his chest heaving with ragged breaths as he blamed himself for the delayed artillery.
He confessed bitterly that he wished he was the one in the ground instead of Tyler.
I placed my hand flat against his chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat through the thin fabric.
Tyler had made his choice to save him, I insisted, and Greg could not waste that life by turning this house into a tomb.
Greg swallowed hard and rested his warm, calloused palm over my hand.
December brought a brutal frost that encased the sprawling estate in white ice.
Our library confrontation had birthed a cautious, quiet truce between us.
We began taking our evening tea together, becoming partners with a shared, quiet efficiency.
He was a hard, unyielding man, but he was an iron anchor in a world that had always treated me like driftwood.
The fragile peace shattered violently three weeks before Christmas.
A soldier named Dan arrived at our doorstep, half-frozen and smelling strongly of wet wool.
He had served in Greg’s battalion on the brutal front lines.
My husband was out riding the perimeter of the estate with the hounds, so I ordered hot stew for the man.
Dan spoke of the command breaking down in the valley and how Greg had bravely held the line.
I softly mentioned my fiancé had died in that exact same valley.
Dan froze completely in his wooden chair, the spoon in his hand clattering loudly against the rim of his bowl.
He looked around the room in pure terror, as if expecting Greg to materialize directly from the shadows.
I leaned forward, an icy dread wrapping tightly around my throat, and demanded to know what he was hiding from me.
Dan looked at me, a grim exhaustion in his eyes, and whispered the truth about how Tyler really died.
