My Father Sold Me To A Cruel Duke — But His True Intentions Left Me Speechless
Part 2
The words hung in the suffocating air, nonsensical and entirely absurd.
I stopped moving backward, my back hitting the heavy oak bookshelves.
I demanded to know what on earth he was talking about.
He set his crystal glass down and walked calmly back to his desk.
He opened a small, locked iron box and extracted a piece of aged, yellowed parchment.
He walked back to me and held it out.
His voice suddenly dropped its cruel edge, replaced by a haunting quiet.
He asked if I remembered the brutal winter of 1885.
We had finally managed to slip away, taking my father’s carriage and riding north for the border.
My breath seized in my throat.
It had been the most desperate, terrifying, and beautiful three days of my entire life.
We had made it just past the Scottish border to a village called Gretna Green before a massive blizzard trapped us.
I whispered that we never made it to the anvil to be married.
My father’s men caught up to us the next morning and dragged me back.
Charles stepped closer, his imposing frame blocking out the light from the fire.
He agreed, but reminded me that we had spent the night in that small inn.
He asked if I remembered what the gruff Scottish innkeeper had required before letting an unchaperoned couple share his only remaining room.
My mind spun rapidly backwards.
I remembered the cold, the desperation, and the innkeeper pushing a heavy ledger toward us by the light of a single candle.
The man had demanded we sign the book as husband and wife, refusing to have sin under his roof.
I gasped, my eyes wide with sudden, horrifying realization.
I told Charles it was just an inn registry, a simple lie to get out of the freezing cold.
He stared at me, his gray eyes piercing straight through my defenses.
He informed me that under Scottish law, a declaration of marriage made in front of witnesses was legally binding.
I stepped back, shaking my head violently in complete denial.
My father had told me he took care of it, that he had paid the innkeeper to burn the page.
Charles sneered, the name of my father tasting like ash in his mouth.
He explained that my father was a remarkably talented extortionist.
He hadn’t burned the page at all; he had cut it out of the ledger and brought it back to London.
Charles thrust the aged paper into my trembling hands.
I looked down at the faded ink and saw our signatures.
Underneath were the signatures of the innkeeper and his wife, serving as our witnesses.
At the very bottom sat a recent, undeniable stamp from the Crown’s magistrate authenticating the document.
Charles’s voice grew tight with suppressed rage as he explained the rest of my father’s scheme.
When my father’s debts finally suffocated him six months ago, he went straight to Charles.
He knew Charles had recently come into his title and immense wealth.
My father offered a vile trade.
He would legally validate our Scottish marriage with the Church of England if Charles quietly bought up all his ruinous debts.
The room spun violently around me.
I was nothing but a piece of property traded between two men who deeply hated each other.
My father had sold me to cover his gambling debts.
He had used a desperate, romantic mistake from my youth as currency.
I looked up at Charles, tears finally spilling over my lashes.
I whispered that he had bought me.
I was truly his wife.
Charles reached out, his thumb brushing the tear from my cheek with impossible gentleness.
He told me that for three years, I had already been the Duchess.
He welcomed me home to my gilded cage.
But what happened when I discovered Charles hadn’t bought my debts for revenge, but to save me from an even worse fate?
