My Bankrupt Duke Told Me to ‘Know My Place’ — So I Bought His Entire County

Part 2

The corporate siege was working exactly as I had planned.

Brian had no choice but to ride across the valley and approach my magnificent, modernized gates.

I kept him waiting in the marble entrance hall for forty-five minutes.

I finally allowed a footman to lead him into my study.

I was seated behind a massive mahogany desk, bathed in bright electric light, reviewing financial broadsheets.

I wore a tailored day dress, looking every inch the ruthless titan my father raised me to be.

I did not stand when he entered.

I set my gold fountain pen down and met his furious eyes.

He stood before me, his pride warring with his absolute ruin.

He accused me of choking his estate to death and starving his tenants.

I arched a perfect brow and noted that half his tenants were now in my employ, earning a living wage.

I reminded him that it was his insolvency starving the rest, not my vendetta.

He slammed a gloved hand onto my desk, leaning over me to demand I open the river locks.

I leaned back in my leather chair, entirely unfazed by his physical intimidation.

I dropped his title entirely, a linguistic slap to his aristocratic face, and told him this was simply real estate.

I explained that I had surveyed his assets, noted the vulnerabilities, and maximized my leverage.

I stood up slowly, stepping around the desk until I was mere inches from him.

I told him that I owned the water his estate drank and the roads his timber traveled.

I gestured toward the heavy oak door.

I told him that unless he had brought a check, he was trespassing on my land.

I ordered him to know his place and kindly see himself out.

December descended with a bitter ferocity, burying the deep valleys in heavy snow.

Brian was trapped in his freezing library with a final notice of foreclosure from his bank.

But he did not surrender.

He braved the treacherous railway journey to London to seek a private unsecured loan from a powerful syndicate.

That was when he learned the terrifying truth about my own finances.

My father had overplayed his hand in America.

A hostile syndicate had launched an aggressive takeover of our railway networks.

Our assets were frozen in the courts.

My massive credit lines in London had just been abruptly called in.

I had the electrical generators and the imported marble, but I could not pay my labor force by Friday.

If I defaulted on my immense domestic loans, the creditors would seize Elmwood Manor.

Brian did not return to the despair of his own estate.

He directed his carriage straight to my home and strode uninvited into my private study.

I was standing by the window, visibly exhausted and terrified of the crushing weight of my failure.

He stepped close to me, the scent of the freezing rain clinging to his heavy coat.

He did not come to gloat.

He did not tell me to know my place.

Instead, he looked at me with a strange, undeniable intensity and proposed a merger.

He offered his political leverage and ancestral legitimacy to secure an emergency bridge loan and unfreeze my father’s credit lines.

In exchange, I would clear his debts, dismantle the tollgate, and marry him.

He was offering me the very thing I had set out to destroy, but if I signed that marriage contract, was I surrendering my victory or securing an empire?