My Husband’s Mistress Mocked My Scars at a Royal Gala—Then He Stepped Up and Took Everything From Her
Part 1
I never thought my husband would choose a crowded royal ballroom to finally acknowledge my existence.
The thick chalky paste burned my skin as Brenda dabbed it over the ruined flesh of my neck.
I managed to pull my younger sister from the splintered wood of the carriage accident, but the burning cobblestones took the left side of my jaw.
Scars do not fade in our polite society.
They simply become another form of cold currency.
My ruined skin bought me a duke who desperately needed my father’s coal fortunes to settle his massive debts.
It also bought his beautiful mistress the audacity to laugh at me in public.
Greg smelled of expensive saddle leather and stale rain when he walked into my dressing room.
He was a man renowned for his absolute cold indifference.
We had been married for two years, a business transaction negotiated in the shadows of desperation.
He received my father’s endless coal mines, and I received a coronet to distract people from my face.
His pale eyes flicked to the left side of my neck, where the white paste poorly hid the puckered tissue.
He told me the carriage was waiting, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in the floorboards.
I snapped my heavy diamond choker into place, letting the cold stones obscure the worst of the scarring.
He warned me that Megan, his mistress, would be attending the gala tonight.
I told him I was perfectly capable of ignoring the woman he had bought a title for.
He stopped tapping his walking stick and stared at me in the dim light.
He told me to stay in the main gallery and avoid the dark gardens.
A bitter taste flooded my mouth at the thought of him retreating there with his unblemished companion.
The royal ballroom was a gilded oven filled with thousands of burning beeswax candles.
I stood near a towering marble pillar with a half-empty glass of lukewarm champagne in my hand.
My feet ached terribly, and a bead of sweat slowly traced its way down my spine beneath my rigid corset.
I hated the relentless overlapping hum of string instruments and hollow, high-pitched laughter.
I hated the way people looked at me with quick, sidelong glances of pity and disgust.
Greg had vanished twenty minutes after we arrived, swept up in a tide of politicians.
I did not mind his absence, because it meant I did not have to pretend to be an adored wife.
The heavy, cloying scent of bergamot hit me a second before Megan stepped into my peripheral vision.
She was newly minted as a baroness, and she was undeniably exquisite in a crimson velvet gown.
I turned slowly, the heavy silk of my dress dragging on the parquet floor.
Megan smiled a vicious little smile that was all teeth.
She tapped a fan of white peacock feathers gently against her flawless chin.
A small entourage of sycophants hovered behind her, their eyes bright with the anticipation of cruelty.
She purred about the unforgiving summer heat and how it must affect my delicate constitution.
I kept my voice level and assured her my constitution was quite robust.
I wanted to walk away, but running would only give them a story to laugh about tomorrow.
Her gaze flicked deliberately to my neck, where the white paste was beginning to crack slightly in the heat.
She loudly remarked that whoever mixed my cosmetics was doing me a terrible disservice.
She compared my face to the crumbling plaster on a ruined wall.
The followers standing behind her snickered loudly, a sound that pierced the elegant atmosphere.
A cold, heavy stone of deep humiliation settled in my gut.
I dropped my voice to a harsh whisper and explained my scars were from saving my sister.
I asked her what her excuse was for being so incredibly ugly on the inside.
Her smile vanished instantly, replaced by a sneer that twisted her perfect features.
She hissed that I thought I could buy him with my coal money and my martyr’s face.
She cruelly reminded me that we both knew where Greg slept when the candles were put out.
She called me a ruined, puckered freak in front of the entire gathering.
The words hit me like a physical blow, driving the air completely from my lungs.
My fingers tightened around the stem of my champagne glass until my knuckles turned stark white.
I turned to leave, desperate for a dark, quiet room where I could scrub the cracking paint from my face.
She mocked my retreat, her voice carrying louder now to draw the attention of nearby courtiers.
She warned me to mind the candles so I would not catch fire a second time.
She laughed that Greg could not afford to buy me a new face.
The laughter that followed was louder and crueler, turning heads across the massive room.
I stood frozen in the middle of the polished floor, feeling the heat of a hundred stares burning into my back.
Then I heard the heavy, rhythmic strike of a walking stick against the parquet floor.
The laughter died instantly, snuffed out like a candle pinched between wet fingers.
The crowd began parting and shuffling backward with frantic, uncoordinated haste.
Greg was walking steadily toward us, his expression smooth and terrifyingly bored.
The silence in the ballroom became absolute as even the orchestra let the music die away.
He walked straight past me without a single glance and stopped exactly two feet in front of Megan.
Megan swallowed hard, the smug triumph on her face melting into nervous uncertainty.
Greg reached out slowly and took the white peacock fan from her trembling hand.
