My Father Sold Me To A Ruthless Duke — But He Didn’t Expect Me To Take Over His Empire
Part 1
Incense masked the sour scent of unwashed aristocrats packing the cathedral.
A sickly sweet haze clung to the roof of my mouth as I stood at the altar.
Heavy velvet stifled me.
Corset bones dug brutal half-moons into my bruised ribs.
Beside me stood a man I was supposed to despise.
His jaw locked, his eyes fixed firmly on the bishop.
Leaning close, his breath brushed my neck hot and sharp with clove.
“You will beg for mercy,” he whispered.
I didn’t flinch.
I forced a smile, tasting my own bitten lip.
“I’ve never begged for anything,” I whispered back.
My father’s pride had vanished long before this day.
It dissolved at the bottom of gin bottles and scattered across felt-topped card tables in London.
Dwayne—no, Craig—walked into our empty dining room weeks ago to collect.
He didn’t look like a duke, but rather a man cast in sharp, uncompromising planes.
He bought my father’s debts in their entirety.
In exchange, he demanded our land, its rich soil, and its pure water for his new industrial mill.
Marriage was instantaneous and bound the properties irrevocably.
I was simply a commodity, sold by the pound to settle an impossible ledger.
My former suitor, Brian, had offered me romantic poverty and an escape to France on stolen table scraps.
I rejected his hollow poetry because I knew starvation, and it did not make the soul pure.
I chose the cold, brutal reality of Craig’s contract over the cowardice of a boy.
Now, as the bishop droned on in Latin, I swayed on my feet from pure exhaustion.
Craig’s rough hand clamped down over mine, a vice designed to anchor a failing object.
He wouldn’t tolerate the public embarrassment of a swooning bride.
“You are shaking, Lady Megan,” he murmured over the echoes of the vows.
“I am cold,” I lied, my teeth clenched so tightly my jaw ached.
“You are terrified,” he corrected, his voice carrying a dark, jagged edge of satisfaction.
When the bishop pronounced us man and wife, Craig didn’t offer a gentle, chaste kiss.
He took my face in both of his calloused hands and brought his mouth down hard on mine.
It was dry, bruising, and tasted of bitter wine.
It was a warning and a challenge that I met with my eyes wide open.
We rode to his estate in absolute, electric silence.
Carlisle Hall did not welcome visitors; it tolerated them as a monument to industry and stone.
He abandoned me in the massive foyer, shouting orders to his severe footman, Tyler.
I was escorted to a sprawling, oppressive master suite in the east wing.
The heavy ivory dress weighed entirely too much.
I asked Mrs. Miller, the housekeeper, for a simple kitchen knife and locked the door behind her.
I hooked the blade under the thick silk lacing of the corset and pulled until the cords snapped.
The rigid whalebone shells gave way, leaving my ribs covered in deep, angry welts.
I pulled on a coarse, mended linen nightgown that offered no warmth.
I sat in a high-backed leather chair by the dying fire, waiting for the inevitable execution of my marital duties.
The grandfather clock in the hall struck midnight.
Heavy, measured footsteps stopped right outside my door.
The brass handle turned slowly as Craig stepped into the dim, fire-lit chamber.
He smelled of peat smoke and the sharp bite of whiskey.
He expected to find me shivering beneath the quilts in terrified, compliant silence.
Instead, I sat upright, staring back at him with eyes as hard as flint.
“You are not in bed,” he observed, his voice a low rumble devoid of inflection.
“I am not a parcel waiting to be unwrapped,” I replied.
He stepped closer, his broad shoulders blocking out the meager light.
His rough fingertips brushed the high collar of my linen gown, exposing the ugly, mottled purple bruises on my ribs.
He stared at the damage, a spark of genuine, unsettled confusion crossing his harsh face.
He reached down and turned my palm upward, his calloused thumb running over the hardened, blistered skin I had earned digging potatoes in the freezing mud.
“Hastings never mentioned you work the dirt,” he said, dropping my hand as if he had been burned.
“Did you think you were buying a porcelain doll, your grace?”
I asked, my voice dripping with venom.
He took a sharp step back, the muscle in his jaw jumping violently.
“You are malnourished,” he stated flatly.
“If I bed you tonight and you conceive, you will likely die in childbirth before the winter is out.”
The brutal pragmatism of his words hit the air like stones.
“Eat the food my kitchen provides, sleep, and put some flesh on your bones.”
He turned the knob, his expression utterly unreadable, and told me he didn’t sleep with ghosts.
