My Cruel Cousins Laughed When A Duke Courted Me — Then He Proved Them All Wrong
Part 2
I stood frozen in the grand entrance hall, the echo of the heavy oak door slamming shut still ringing in my ears as the reality of Greg’s departure crashed over me.
He was going to challenge Lord Craig and his four arrogant companions to a duel, risking his life against five skilled marksmen simply to defend my battered pride.
Panic seized my chest, squeezing the breath from my lungs as I realized that my own insecurities had driven the man I loved toward almost certain death.
I could not simply wait in the safety of his home while he threw his life away for a spinster who had never believed she was worthy of his attention.
Without waiting for a carriage, I ran out into the damp morning air, my plain wool cloak flapping behind me as I desperately made my way toward the fashionable Mayfair address of Lord Craig.
I pounded on the heavy door of his townhouse until a servant finally admitted me, leading me into a lavishly decorated parlor where the cruel nobleman was taking his morning tea.
When he saw me, a nasty, satisfied smirk spread across his aristocratic features, clearly delighted that his printed venom had struck its intended target.
I swallowed every ounce of my remaining dignity and begged him to withdraw his acceptance of the Duke’s challenge, pleading that I freely forgave the insults and wished no violence done on my account.
Lord Craig merely laughed, a cold and hollow sound that chilled me to the bone, and informed me that he would never grant the Duke the satisfaction of calling him a coward.
He leaned close, his breath sour as he sneered that perhaps once the Duke had proven his point with pistols, he would finally tire of his little seamstress and leave me completely ruined.
I fled his house blindly, tears streaming down my face as I rushed back to the familiar sanctuary of Mrs. Robinson’s dress shop, my heart breaking with the knowledge that I had only made things worse.
Mrs. Robinson pulled me into the back room, wrapping her warm arms around my shaking shoulders while I sobbed out the entire horrifying truth.
She looked me squarely in the eyes and firmly told me that if I truly loved Greg, I had to trust his judgment, respect his choice, and believe that his love for me was worth the terrifying price he was willing to pay.
I spent the entire night pacing the floor of my cramped attic room, praying into the darkness as the hours crawled agonizingly toward the scheduled dawn confrontation at Wimbledon Common.
When the carriage finally pulled up to the shop at eleven o’clock, I ran to the door with my heart in my throat, praying I wouldn’t be greeted by a surgeon bearing terrible news—but who stepped out of that carriage?
Part 3
The heavy, relentless spring rain lashed wildly against the narrow, grimy windowpane of the tiny attic workroom, casting long, wavering, and entirely melancholic shadows across the expanse of exquisite ivory silk spread before Brenda.
She sat hunched over her scarred wooden workbench, her calloused fingers gripping a fine silver needle, poised with the practiced, mechanical precision of a woman who had spent her entire adult life serving the vanity of others.
Brenda squinted fiercely through the thick lenses of her spectacles in the dim, fading light of the afternoon, willing her tired eyes to focus on the microscopic stitches required to attach the tiny, luminous seed pearls to the delicate bodice of the gown.
At thirty-two years of age, Brenda had long since resigned herself to a life of quiet, uncomplaining invisibility within the cramped, dusty confines of Mrs. Robinson’s highly esteemed Mayfair dress shop.
She was a spinster in every tragic sense of the word, the poor, overlooked relation of a family that barely tolerated her existence, keeping her around only because her remarkably steady, clever hands were exceedingly useful for mending their torn hems, embroidering their fine linens, and tirelessly embellishing their elaborate ballgowns.
Her aunt Patricia, a woman whose heart was as cold and hard as the diamonds she wore at her throat, and her two beautiful, golden-haired cousins, Heather and Megan, had always made it abundantly and painfully clear that Brenda’s proper place was strictly in the dusty background of their glittering, privileged lives.
Brenda had slowly, methodically learned to suppress her foolish, childish dreams of romance and adventure, diligently training her mind to focus exclusively on the precise tension required for a flawless running stitch, rather than dwelling on the agonizing, hollow emptiness of her own solitary existence.
She told herself, day after lonely day, that there was a certain quiet dignity to be found in honest labor, even if that labor only served to make other women beautiful while she faded further into obscurity with every passing year.
But her carefully constructed, heavily fortified world of delicate thread, rustling fabric, and perpetual shadows was irrevocably altered the afternoon the kind-hearted Mrs. Robinson brought a century-old, exquisitely yellowed christening gown into the attic sanctuary.
Mrs. Robinson laid the incredibly fragile garment onto the workbench with the utmost reverence, explaining in hushed, awed tones that the antique gown belonged to Greg, the notoriously reclusive and terrifying Duke of Blackwood.
Greg was a man whose dark, dangerous, and thoroughly scandalous reputation was eagerly whispered about in every elegant parlor, crowded ballroom, and gossip-filled servant’s hall across the entire breadth of London.
He was widely known for his almost unimaginable, vast wealth, his fiercely solitary nature, and a volatile, explosive temper that had resulted in more than one highly publicized, bloody duel over the years.
He had firmly demanded that only the absolute finest, most meticulous seamstress in the entire city be permitted to handle his family’s precious heirloom, and Brenda accepted the terrifying commission with a trembling mix of deep anxiety and quiet, undeniable pride.
She had been working on the incredibly delicate, crumbling lace for three agonizingly slow days, entirely absorbed in the intricate, painstaking repair, completely unaware of her surroundings, when she finally looked up to stretch her aching neck and found the Duke himself standing silently in the doorway of her attic room.
He was significantly taller than she had ever imagined, his broad, powerful shoulders entirely filling the small, rough-hewn wooden frame of the door, and his piercing dark eyes pinned her to her chair with an intensity that instantly made her pulse hammer wildly, erratically against her ribs.
He did not dismiss her with the casual, cruel arrogance she had unfortunately come to expect from men of his elevated, aristocratic station; instead, he stepped closer, moving with the silent, predatory grace of a large cat.
His intense gaze dropped to examine her delicate needlework, tracing the invisible repairs she had made to the antique lace, before slowly, deliberately rising to meet her wide, startled eyes.
He spoke then, his voice a deep, resonant baritone that seemed to vibrate through the very floorboards of the attic, praising the extraordinary skill of her hands and the quiet, completely focused devotion she brought to her craft.
Brenda could barely manage to stammer out a polite, thoroughly inadequate response, her cheeks burning with a fierce, unfamiliar heat as she realized, with a sudden, terrifying jolt of awareness, that the most powerful man in London was looking at her—truly looking at her—as though she were something rare, beautiful, and immensely valuable.
Over the course of the next few, entirely surreal weeks, Greg found countless, entirely unnecessary reasons to return to the bustling dress shop, actively seeking out Brenda’s quiet company despite the raised eyebrows of the shop girls downstairs.
He began by commissioning dozens of intricately embroidered handkerchiefs and elaborately patterned waistcoats he surely did not need, simply to have a valid excuse to climb the narrow, creaking stairs to her attic domain.
He would fold his tall, imposing frame into the rickety, uncomfortable wooden chair near her window, completely ignoring the dust and the poor lighting, to ask her considered opinion on complex parliamentary debates, the latest controversial literature, and the rapidly changing political world outside her small, insulated room.
He listened to her initially hesitant, carefully guarded answers with a profound, intensely focused respect that slowly, inexorably stripped away the thick, protective armor she had worn for more than a miserable decade.
Brenda found herself looking forward to his completely unexpected visits with a desperate, hungry anticipation that both thrilled and utterly terrified her, knowing full well that a man of his exalted rank could never truly belong with a woman like her.
When she reluctantly attended her aunt Patricia’s weekly, suffocating family dinner in Bloomsbury, the fragile, beautiful hope newly blooming in Brenda’s chest was swiftly and brutally crushed beneath the sharp, fashionable heels of her cousins’ cruel, relentless mockery.
Heather laughed sharply, a high, tinkling, utterly heartless sound, when Brenda hesitantly mentioned the Duke’s frequent visits, loudly declaring that a notorious, wealthy nobleman would never look twice at an aging, plain spinster seamstress unless he was playing some sort of elaborate, cruel joke for his own dark amusement.
Megan enthusiastically chimed in, her beautiful face twisted into an ugly, condescending sneer, adding that Brenda was merely a convenient diversion for a bored aristocrat who would surely toss her aside the very moment he grew tired of the novel experience of associating with the working class.
Aunt Patricia strictly forbade her from entertaining such ridiculous, utterly embarrassing notions, sharply warning Brenda that his inappropriate attentions would only lead to her ultimate, inevitable ruin and the family’s complete social disgrace, insisting that she remember her lowly place and stop dreaming impossible, foolish dreams.
Brenda returned to the familiar safety of the dress shop the very next morning with her heart sealed tight behind thick, impenetrable walls of bitter logic and self-preservation, absolutely determined to push Greg away forever before he could break her completely and irreparably.
When he arrived promptly at ten o’clock, looking impossibly handsome in a dark blue riding coat, and immediately noticed her stiff, defensive posture and the red, swollen rims of her eyes, he demanded to know exactly who had hurt her, his deep voice vibrating with a dark, barely contained, terrifying fury.
She haltingly, tearfully confessed her family’s cruel, devastating words, desperately explaining that she finally knew her proper place in the world and could not, under any circumstances, presume to mistake a gentleman’s simple courtesy for genuine, lasting affection.
Greg closed the short distance between them in a single stride, placing his large, warm, heavily calloused hands firmly on her wooden workbench as he leaned in closely, completely invading her personal space.
He told her, with an absolute, unyielding certainty that shook her to her very core, that she was beautiful in profound, meaningful ways her shallow, status-obsessed family could never possibly comprehend or appreciate.
He fiercely declared that he clearly saw her sharp intelligence, her unwavering kindness, and her quiet, enduring strength, dismissing their cruel judgments as the bitter ravings of small, insignificant minds.
He then asked Brenda, his voice dropping to an incredibly intimate, gravelly whisper that sent a shiver racing straight down her spine, to do him the immense honor of walking with him publicly in Hyde Park the following afternoon.
Brenda was utterly terrified of the intense public scrutiny and the inevitable, vicious gossip that would surely follow such a brazen display, but his unwavering, fierce belief in her worth miraculously gave her the fragile courage she needed to accept his completely shocking invitation.
Mrs. Robinson, her eyes shining with unshed tears of pure joy for Brenda, gladly offered to shut the shop early and act as their respectable chaperone, hurriedly altering a beautiful, pale green muslin day dress so that Brenda would look somewhat presentable for her public debut.
The walk in the park the next day was a stunning, terrifying, completely overwhelming revelation; despite the cruel, hissing whispers and the openly shocked, glaring stares of the gathered society elites, Greg kept Brenda’s trembling hand firmly tucked in the crook of his strong arm.
He guided her along the fashionable Rotten Row with his head held high, proudly introducing her to passing acquaintances with a cold, daring glint in his eye that silently dared any of them to utter a single disrespectful word in his presence.
He made her feel entirely protected, cherished, and truly visible for the very first time in her entire, miserable life, patiently drawing her out in conversation until she completely forgot about the hundreds of judgmental eyes burning holes into their backs.
His shocking devotion culminated just a few days later in a formal, beautifully penned invitation to the most prestigious, exclusive ball of the entire London social season, hosted by a wildly influential earl.
The invitation was accompanied by a large, mysterious dress box containing a breathtaking, incredibly expensive gown of pale rose silk, embroidered with thousands of tiny, shimmering pearls, that he had secretly commissioned from Mrs. Robinson weeks in advance.
When they entered the brilliantly lit, immensely crowded ballroom, the glittering, massive crystal chandeliers overhead actually seemed to dim in direct comparison to the radiant, completely unfamiliar joy expanding like a warm sun in Brenda’s previously tight, constricted chest.
She felt like a princess straight out of a fairy tale, moving gracefully across the polished marble floor on the arm of the most handsome, powerful man in the entire room, entirely unable to wipe the brilliant, genuine smile from her lips.
But the magical, flawless evening violently shattered into a thousand jagged, painful pieces when Brenda happened to glance toward the supper room and noticed five prominent gentlemen standing closely together by the towering, velvet-draped windows.
Their aristocratic faces were twisted in ugly, unmistakable sneers of deep derision as they stared directly at the couple, their eyes filled with a toxic mixture of jealousy, contempt, and cruel amusement.
Lord Craig, an arrogant, notoriously cruel man who had once unsuccessfully courted Brenda’s cousin Heather, stood at the absolute center of the hostile group, holding court with his four equally sycophantic, vile friends.
Brenda distinctly heard Lord Craig’s booming, aristocratic voice carry clearly over the lilting music of the string quartet, viciously questioning what peculiar, twisted form of charity had possessed the Duke to parade a plain, working-class spinster before proper, refined society.
One of his companions immediately chimed in with a cruel, braying laugh that echoed across the room, loudly suggesting that the Duke must truly enjoy slumming in the filthy gutters when he eventually tired of the polite, respectable company of his actual peers.
The venomous, hateful words struck Brenda exactly like physical blows, instantly draining every ounce of color from her face and turning the beautiful, expensive rose silk gown she wore into a humiliating, ridiculous costume of foolish, tragic presumption.
Her entire body began to violently tremble as the old, familiar feelings of complete worthlessness and deep shame rushed back in to fill the hollow spaces in her heart, completely obliterating the fragile confidence Greg had worked so incredibly hard to build.
Brenda frantically begged Greg to take her home immediately, claiming a sudden, violent headache, far too deeply ashamed to ever explain the true, humiliating source of her sudden distress to the man who had tried to save her.
He escorted her back to the dress shop with deep concern etched into every line of his handsome face, but she could not bring herself to speak a single word during the agonizingly silent carriage ride, and she subsequently spent the entire, miserable night weeping inconsolably into her tear-soaked pillow.
The true, absolute devastation of the situation arrived early the following morning when Mrs. Robinson slowly entered the attic room, her face incredibly pale and drawn tight with poorly concealed rage.
Her hands shook visibly as she silently handed Brenda a freshly printed, widely circulated copy of the morning society pages, her eyes filled with a deep, sorrowful pity that immediately made Brenda’s stomach violently churn with dread.
There, laid out in cold, unforgiving, stark black type for all of London to eagerly read over their morning tea, was a detailed, completely vicious account of the ball, quoting the five men by name as they gleefully mocked Brenda’s advanced age, her lowly profession, and her completely impossible, laughable dream of ever becoming a duchess.
The cruel article painted her as a highly calculating, desperate, conniving spinster actively trying to illegally entrap a wealthy, unsuspecting nobleman, completely twisting their beautiful courtship into a sordid, embarrassing public joke.
Brenda knew instantly, with a crushing, absolute certainty that broke her heart into a million irreparable pieces, that her continued presence in Greg’s life would only serve to drag him down into a deep, inescapable mire of endless social scandal.
She hurriedly dressed in her absolute plainest, darkest, most unremarkable wool cloak, frantically rushing out into the damp morning air to hail a hackney cab to take her to his grand townhouse in Grosvenor Square.
She was absolutely determined to salvage his pristine reputation by ending their deeply flawed courtship immediately, selflessly removing herself from his life forever before he could suffer any further humiliation on her behalf.
When he quickly met her in the sprawling, marble-floored entrance hall, completely surprised by her highly irregular, unchaperoned early morning visit, Brenda forcefully shoved the crumpled newspaper directly into his large hands.
Her voice cracked and broke as she tearfully begged him to please let her go, to allow her to quietly fade back into the obscure, safe shadows of the dress shop where she truly belonged, insisting that he completely forget the terrible mistake he had made in choosing her.
Greg silently read the cruel, printed words, and a terrifying, glacial, completely unnatural stillness suddenly settled over his sharply angled features, freezing the air in the grand hallway.
He did not look down at her with the pity, regret, or deep embarrassment she had fully, painfully expected to see shining in his eyes; instead, his dark gaze suddenly blazed with a protective, wildly violent fury that quite literally took her breath away.
He harshly demanded that Brenda confirm the exact names of the men who had spoken the vile insults, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous, incredibly menacing growl that echoed ominously off the marble walls.
When she haltingly, tearfully confirmed their identities, completely terrified by the sudden, explosive violence radiating from his large frame, he pulled her roughly, desperately into his strong arms.
He kissed her with a desperate, claiming, incredibly intense heat that briefly made her entirely forget the cruel world outside, pouring all of his fierce love and protective rage into that single, breathtaking embrace.
He pulled back, his eyes locked onto hers, and fiercely vowed that he would never, under any circumstances, let cowardly, small-minded men dictate his personal choices or insult the woman he intended to marry.
He loudly declared his immediate, unshakeable intention to formally challenge all five of them to a duel that very morning, refusing to allow their printed insults to stand unanswered for even a single hour.
He sharply ordered Brenda to immediately return to the absolute safety of the dress shop and wait there for him, turning his broad back and striding purposefully out the heavy oak door before she could even find the breath or the voice to stop him.
Complete, absolute panic seized her racing heart, completely overriding her deeply ingrained sense of social propriety, and Brenda frantically took a carriage straight to Lord Craig’s highly elegant, heavily guarded Mayfair residence.
She brazenly barged directly into his lavishly decorated parlor, completely shocking his hovering servants, and tearfully begged the highly arrogant nobleman to please withdraw his acceptance of the Duke’s challenge.
She desperately offered any form of public abasement or complete humiliation he required, promising to completely ruin her own reputation if only he would agree to spare Greg’s precious life and call off the deadly confrontation.
Lord Craig simply laughed right in her desperately pleading face, a cold, mocking, utterly soulless sound, proudly insisting that he would never miss the glorious, highly anticipated opportunity to publicly prove his vastly superior marksmanship against the notorious, highly feared Duke.
He viciously sneered that perhaps a well-placed bullet in the Duke’s chest would finally permanently cure Greg of his totally absurd, highly embarrassing infatuation with a common, aging seamstress, leaving Brenda completely ruined, universally shunned, and totally alone.
Brenda fled his sprawling house in absolute, complete despair, rushing blindly through the crowded London streets back to the only safe haven she knew, collapsing completely into Mrs. Robinson’s waiting arms.
Mrs. Robinson held her tightly while Brenda sobbed uncontrollably, gently but firmly reminding her that if she truly, deeply loved Greg, she absolutely had to implicitly trust his superior judgment and his widely renowned, immense skill with a pistol.
The morning of the scheduled duels finally dawned pale, grey, and incredibly damp, the heavy, clinging fog perfectly matching the suffocating, highly agonizing dread coiled tightly, like a venomous snake, in Brenda’s churning stomach.
She sat completely frozen, unable to eat or drink, in the dusty back room of the quiet dress shop, counting the incredibly agonizing, slowly ticking minutes as the mantle clock loudly chimed the passing hours.
Her highly overactive imagination vividly pictured Greg standing alone on the cold, damp grass of Wimbledon Common, bravely facing five fully loaded, highly deadly pistols aimed directly at his heart.
At exactly eleven o’clock, the heavy, highly distinct clatter of galloping hooves and iron-rimmed wheels loudly echoed in the quiet street outside, and Brenda frantically ran to the door with her pounding heart lodged firmly in her dry throat.
The highly polished carriage door swung forcefully open, and Greg’s absolute closest friend stepped out, his usually cheerful face extremely pale and deeply lined with heavy exhaustion, but a fiercely triumphant, brilliant smile playing clearly on his lips.
He quickly, excitedly explained that Greg had faced all five men in rapid, back-to-back succession, bravely standing as still, calm, and totally unbothered as a marble statue while their poorly aimed bullets flew wildly past his completely motionless form.
With terrifying, absolute, surgical precision, Greg had outright refused to kill his deeply flawed opponents, actively choosing instead to carefully shoot each arrogant man merely to wound, deliberately delivering a highly humiliating and incredibly painful lesson in common manners and respect.
Lord Craig had taken a heavy lead bullet directly to the shoulder, completely ruining his aim for months; another man was shot cleanly through the side, and the other three had suffered equally precise, highly non-lethal injuries that would painfully remind them of their extreme cruelty every time it rained for the rest of their miserable lives.
The friend excitedly told Brenda that directly after the final, booming shot was fired, Greg had loudly addressed the deeply stunned, completely silent crowd of aristocratic witnesses who had gathered to watch the highly anticipated spectacle.
He had loudly, proudly declared that Brenda was to be his beloved Duchess, and that absolutely any man who ever dared insult her again would immediately answer directly to the smoking barrel of his pistol.
Before Brenda’s completely overwhelmed, exhausted brain could even begin to process the sheer magnitude of exactly what Greg had done to completely defend her honor, a second, incredibly grand carriage arrived, and the Duke himself finally stepped out.
He was completely unharmed, looking devastatingly handsome and radiating an undeniable, incredibly powerful, utterly magnetic grace that immediately drew every eye on the bustling street.
He pulled Brenda directly into a fierce, intensely passionate embrace right there on the incredibly busy cobblestone street, completely ignoring the highly shocked gasps and frantic whispers of the numerous passersby, and gently pressed his warm forehead against hers.
He quietly, intensely whispered that he had happily fought for the undeniable right to love her openly, freely, and without shame, and that he would absolutely brook no further, foolish arguments about her perceived worthiness.
They were quietly, beautifully married exactly three days later by a highly expedited special license in a small, completely private ceremony, with only the weeping Mrs. Robinson and Greg’s grinning friend proudly standing beside them as their only witnesses.
As Greg gently slipped the heavy, incredibly intricate gold band onto Brenda’s trembling finger, his dark, beautiful eyes shining with absolute, completely unwavering devotion, the very last, deeply lingering shadows of her past insecurities finally dissolved forever into the bright, incredibly warm light of their newly shared future.
She was absolutely no longer the highly invisible, universally overlooked, completely unappreciated spinster seamstress hiding away in a dusty, dimly lit attic.
She was Brenda, the incredibly proud, fiercely loved, truly seen Duchess of Blackwood, and she was wonderfully, undeniably, completely alive.
THE END
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Disclaimer
This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance is coincidental. The author and publisher disclaim accuracy, liability, and responsibility for interpretations or reliance. If you would like to share your story, please send it to [email protected].
