My Father Gambled Away Our Home To A Ruthless Duke — So I Screamed In His Face

Part 2

The dim light from the single candle cast harsh shadows across the sharp angles of his face.

He looked like an expensive, tailored predator trapped in a room meant for peeling potatoes.

He held my cheap linen napkin between his fingers as if it were contaminated.

I pressed my spine against the sink and told him the kitchen was not for guests.

He stepped onto the flagstones, his boots making a slow, deliberate sound.

He told me he was a hostage to a broken axle, and that I was poorly trained in tactical retreats.

I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to hide my violently trembling hands.

I fired back that I wasn’t retreating, I was just finished eating.

He stopped a few feet from me.

Up close, the sheer size of him was suffocating.

He smelled of rain, expensive wool, and crushed juniper berries.

He accused me of fleeing the consequences of my own temper.

I told him I had thought about every word for five years while we watched his estate rot under neglect.

His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking beneath his pale skin.

He stepped closer, the air between us crackling with a furious, ugly friction.

He told me I knew nothing of the estate, only seeing a flooded field and constructing a tragedy.

He spoke of the crushing debts left by his father and the failing crop yields across three counties.

I laughed bitterly, the sound echoing off the stone walls.

I asked if cutting down the windbreaks to line his pockets was also an act of charity.

He explained he sold the timber to keep the village from going bankrupt during a famine.

I was stunned into silence, the breath backing up in my throat.

He leaned down, pinning me to the sink with his cold gray eyes.

He told me the world was mathematics, brutal and exhausting.

I shouted back, my voice tearing out of my throat.

I asked why he didn’t just buy a new shovel if he was so rich and powerful.

I accused him of hiding behind ledgers because it was easier than watching a man starve.

For a fraction of a second, his aristocratic mask slipped.

I saw something raw and violent flash in his eyes, a deep exhaustion that bordered on agony.

Then he straightened up abruptly, his expression snapping back into a cold shield.

He announced his carriage was ready.

He turned his back and walked toward the door without looking back.

He told me to tell my father the dinner was unforgettable.

Two weeks passed in agonizing silence.

I walked to the flooded fields one morning to help Craig clear the mud from his trenches.

Then the estate agent arrived with an oxcart full of clay tiles and new iron shovels.

Dan had ordered the ridge rebuilt at his own expense.

But the agent delivered a harsh message, telling me Dan expected me to mind my own ledgers from now on.

I thought that was the end of it, until the creditors arrived at my house at dawn.

My father had gambled away everything we owned on canal shares, and the bailiffs were taking our home.

With nothing left to lose, I grabbed my coat and started the long walk to Dan’s estate.

What would he do when the woman who called him a coward showed up on his doorstep completely destitute?