I Agreed To Be A Duke’s Fake Shield — Then I Insulted His Mother To Her Face

Part 2

The audacity of his proposition stole the very breath from my lungs in the cramped, dark cabin of his carriage.

He was a man drowning in a sea of aristocratic ledgers, offering a lifeline to someone already resting at the bottom of the ocean.

If I agreed to act as his impossibly unsuitable distraction, drawing his mother’s relentless fury away from the heiress, he would quietly erase the crippling debt my father had left behind.

I stared at the shifting shadows of his face as the carriage rattled over the deep ruts of the London streets.

It was a staggering sum of money, enough to secure a clean boarding house and buy my sister Heather a dress that wasn’t patched at the elbows.

All I had to do was stand in the crosshairs of the Dowager Duchess and pretend to tolerate a man who moved with the blunt force of a siege engine.

I hated the cold, transactional arithmetic of it, but survival has a way of making a mockery of pride.

I accepted his terms.

The very next morning, the gray light of dawn had barely touched the grime of my Bloomsbury window when a heavy, demanding knock rattled our peeling front door.

Craig stood on my rotted threshold, looking entirely out of place in heavy, mud-caked riding boots and a worn green coat.

He hadn’t come with flowers; he had arrived with an imposing basket of hot house peaches and three heavily cured hams.

He tossed a thick, cream-colored envelope onto my scarred parlor table, the physical deed to my father’s ruin, now fully paid and surrendered to me.

He bluntly informed me that I was his employee now, and employees required a proper uniform to survive the battlefield of high society.

An account had been opened at the modiste’s, and he threatened to personally select the most offensive yellow silks imaginable if I refused to use it.

I did not buy yellow silk.

I selected a severe, stormy slate-gray velvet that bordered on black, tailored so sharply the bodice felt like a second rib cage.

When I emerged onto the pavement that afternoon, the heavy velvet anchoring me against the autumn wind, Craig’s gaze swept over me with terrifying intensity.

He lifted me into the side-saddle of a black mare, his burning hands spanning my waist with effortless strength.

We rode into the churning dust of Rotten Row, the epicenter of gossip, putting ourselves on deliberate display.

The murmurs hit us like poisoned darts, the society matrons staring in open shock at the destitute Somerset girl riding beside the Duke.

When we inevitably found his mother’s carriage blocking the path, I refused to flinch.

I tilted my chin and equated myself to a prized mare, throwing his massive wealth directly in the Dowager’s face while remaining perfectly polite.

The shock on her face was worth every ounce of the crushing anxiety gripping my spine.

But when the ride ended and he lifted me down at my door, the cold transactional nature of our deal evaporated into the damp air.

Trapped between his massive hands and the unyielding wall of his chest, a violent jolt of primal heat pooled low in my stomach.

He dropped his hands abruptly, his eyes flaring before he mounted his horse and disappeared into the fog without looking back.

Have you ever struck a beast on the nose and lived, only to realize the real danger was the man standing beside you?