I Mistook The Ruthless Duke For A Poor Servant — Now I Am Locked In A Golden Cage

Part 2

The absolute finality of his chilling proposal hung in the dead air of the study as my mind struggled to comprehend the betrayal.

I was entirely paralyzed by shock and rage.

My father practically crawled to the desk, seizing the quill to sign away my freedom before I could even formulate a scream.

Two massive footmen stepped out of the shadows, blocking my path as the ink dried on the marriage contract.

I stared in absolute horror at the man I had loved just forty-eight hours ago.

The gentle laborer was a ghost, and in his place stood a ruthless titan who had bought my body, my future, and my freedom with gambling markers.

I spat that I would hate him for the rest of my days, my voice trembling with absolute fury.

Brian merely picked up the silver shilling, turning it over in his elegant fingers.

He said softly that I could hate him all I wished, as long as I gave him his heir, a dark possessive gleam returning to his ice-blue eyes.

Golden manacles felt no less heavy than iron ones.

Married life at the manor became an opulent purgatory.

My days were consumed by suffocating silk gowns, relentless fittings, and the icy stares of aristocratic servants who whispered about my father’s squandered fortune.

Brian was a phantom, spending his days expanding his coal empire in the study and emerging only for silent, tense dinners.

Our nights, however, were a different kind of battlefield entirely.

He claimed me with the same fierce, unspoken hunger he had shown in the gamekeeper’s cottage.

Yet by dawn, the warmth always vanished, leaving behind the cold, impenetrable stranger.

Bitterness festered deep in my chest.

I despised his absolute control, his suffocating wealth, and the fact that my body still betrayed me with treacherous desire every time he touched me.

I began plotting ways to escape, hoarding small coins and studying the carriage schedules.

But my quiet rebellion came to a devastating halt two months into our marriage.

Nausea struck me during a morning ride, and the estate physician confirmed my worst suspicions with a grave nod.

I was with child.

Panic seized me completely, knowing this was the final trap clicking shut.

I was bound to Brian forever by the innocent life growing in my womb.

When he barged into my chambers after hearing the news, he did not smile.

He demanded to know if it was true, his jaw clenched, his eyes locked onto my flat stomach.

I spat back that his purchase was complete, turning my face toward the rain-lashed window to hide my tears.

He grabbed my chin, his touch rough, yet his thumb traced my cheekbone with a strange, contradictory gentleness.

He commanded me never to speak of our child as a transaction.

I cried out, asking what else it could be, accusing him of lying to me in the mud and stealing my choices to force me into this prison.

He growled that he had saved me.

He told me my father was arranging to sell me to a man three times my age, known for beating his wives to death, and that he had stepped in to ensure I was his.

I froze entirely, the revelation twisting everything I thought I knew.

Was this ruthless man truly a monster who bought me for an heir, or was he hiding something far more dangerous behind his cold demands?