My Mother Called Me Useless — Then the Duke Walked Straight Toward Me

Part 1

The music at a London ballroom doesn’t exist for dancing.

It exists to cover the sound of commerce.

Flesh, titles, dowries, and bloodlines traded over the scrape of a cello and the suffocating scent of hot wax and desperation.

I knew the price of everything in the room, especially myself.

Nothing.

I was the forgotten sister, the permanent fixture by the ferns.

So when the Duke of Stanhope, a man known for freezing out prime ministers, bypassed a sea of silk and extended his white-gloved hand directly to me, the music didn’t just fade.

It died.

There is a specific corner in every ballroom in London.

It is always near the drafts, usually flanked by a dying potted palm, and entirely devoid of good lighting.

I knew this corner intimately.

I could tell you the exact species of the fern brushing my shoulder at the Jenkins estate, and I could tell you precisely how long it had been unwatered.

Three days, judging by the brittle yellow of the fronds.

“Stand up straight, Heather.”

My mother’s voice was a harsh hiss cutting through the low murmur of the arriving guests.

I watched her dig a rigid finger into the base of my younger sister’s spine.

Heather flinched, her porcelain face tightening as she forced her shoulders back.

The movement made the intricate lace of her bodice strain.

She looked beautiful.

She looked terrified.

“I’m trying, Mama,” Heather whispered.

Her hands, hidden in the folds of her pale pink skirt, were trembling.

I shifted my weight, ignoring the sharp pinch of my right shoe.

“Leave her be, Mother.”

“She’s breathing, which is more than can be said for Patricia Miller over there.”

“I think her corset just fractured a rib.”

My mother shot me a look that could curdle milk.

“Do not speak of your betters, Megan, and certainly do not do it with that tone.”

“If you cannot be useful, at least be invisible.”

I didn’t argue.

Being invisible was my only marketable skill.

At twenty-three, I was firmly on the shelf, a dusty volume no one had bothered to check out.

I wasn’t ugly, but I wasn’t a spectacle.

I had mud-brown hair that refused to hold a curl, eyes the color of weak tea, and a face that was entirely forgettable.

In the grand meat market of the London season, I was the gristle.

Heather, at eighteen, was the prime cut.

She had golden hair, sky-blue eyes, and a dowry that our father had bankrupted the family estate to scrape together.

I stepped back, letting the shadows of the alcove swallow my olive-green dress.

The color had been my mother’s choice, a cheap muddy fabric bought on discount to ensure every spare shilling went to Heather’s wardrobe.

I didn’t mind.

The green blended perfectly with the dying palm.

The ballroom was filling up.

It smelled of spilled champagne, heavy lavender perfume, and the faint sour tang of nervous sweat.

I leaned against the cold plaster wall and watched the machinery of the room turn.

I saw Lord Jenkins cornering a young debutante near the punchbowl, his eyes darting to her chest, while her mother watched approvingly from ten feet away.

I saw the dowagers sitting like vultures on the velvet settees, their fans snapping in time with their vicious judgments.

It was a brutal ecosystem.

Eat or be eaten.

Marry well or die in genteel poverty.

Heather caught my eye through the crowd.

The younger girl looked frantic, a small trapped animal surrounded by hungry wolves in tailcoats.

I offered a slight, grounding nod.

I mouthed the word, breathe.

Heather took a shaky breath and turned back to the young heir our mother was shoving her toward.

I closed my eyes.

The noise of the room, the forced laughter, the scraping of leather shoes on polished wood, the relentless, aggressively cheerful string quartet, was giving me a migraine.

I reached behind the palm, found a half-empty glass of lemonade left on a windowsill by a careless footman, and picked it up.

It was warm and tasted mostly of melted ice, but it coated my dry throat.

A sudden, sharp silence rolled over the room.

It didn’t happen all at once.

It started at the grand double doors and rippled outward, snuffing out conversations like a drafted candle.

The string quartet faltered, the cellist missing a beat before hastily picking up the tempo again.

I opened my eyes and looked toward the entrance.

Greg Harrison, the Duke of Stanhope, did not enter a room.

He happened to it.

He stood at the top of the grand staircase, looking down at the sea of London’s finest as if he had just scraped them off the bottom of his boot.

He was thirty years old, but the deep lines bracketing his mouth, and the cold, flat stare of his pale gray eyes, belonged to a man who had seen a century of disappointments.

I watched him from my shadowed corner.

He wasn’t classically handsome.

His jaw was too sharp.

His nose bore the faint crook of a long-healed break, and his dark hair was clipped severely short, devoid of the fashionable pomade favored by the dandies in the room.

He wore stark black evening wear, no gold fobs, no embroidered waistcoats, just black wool, white linen, and an aura of absolute, crushing authority.

“Good God,” my mother whispered, her voice trembling with sudden, violent ambition.

She grabbed Heather by the elbow and hauled her forward.

“Stand up, girl.”

“Pinch your cheeks.”

“He’s here.”

I didn’t move.

I watched Greg descend the stairs.

Every step was deliberate, unhurried.

The crowd parted for him instinctively, creating a wide, desperate aisle.

He didn’t acknowledge them.

He didn’t nod to the bowing lords or the curtsying ladies.

He looked bored, deeply, fundamentally bored.

He reached the floor, and Lord Jenkins practically threw himself at the Duke’s feet.

“Your grace, an honor.”

“Truly an honor,” Jenkins sputtered, sweating profusely into his cravat.

Greg stopped.

He looked at Jenkins.

He didn’t smile.

“Jenkins, the roads were appalling.”

“Tell your councilman to pave the stretch past Mayfair, or I’ll stop funding the borough.”

His voice carried.

It was low, rich, and entirely devoid of warmth.

It didn’t hold the affected drawl of the aristocracy.

It sounded like business.

Jenkins swallowed hard.

“Yes, your grace.”

“Of course, your grace.”

“May I introduce you to some of the season’s finest?”

He gestured vaguely toward a cluster of women that included a hyperventilating Heather and a perfectly posed Patricia Miller.

Greg’s eyes swept over the group.

I watched his gaze.

It was clinical.

He wasn’t looking at women.

He was looking at livestock.

He noted Patricia’s calculating smile.

He noted Heather’s terror.

He looked past them both, his eyes tracking the perimeter of the room.

He was looking for the exits, I thought, a sudden surprising bark of a laugh catching in my chest.

I stifled it into my lemonade glass, but the movement, a slight jolt in the shadows, caught his attention.

For a fraction of a second, the Duke of Stanhope looked directly at the potted palm.

I froze.

I held the warm glass against my chest, the muddy green of my dress blending into the leaves, his pale gray eyes locked onto my face.

There was no spark of attraction, no sudden realization of my hidden beauty.

He simply saw me.

He saw a tired woman in an ugly dress, hiding behind a dying plant, drinking abandoned lemonade.

I didn’t look away.

I was too tired to be intimidated.

I stared back, my expression flat, offering him the exact same clinical assessment he had given the room.

You are miserable, my eyes said.

And so am I.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

It wasn’t a smile.

It was barely a tremor.

But the severe frozen mask of his face cracked, just for a millimeter.

Then he turned away.

“I am not here to inspect the merchandise, Jenkins,” Greg said loudly, his voice slicing through the heavy, expectant silence of the room.

A collective gasp rippled through the mothers.

“I am here because I promised my sister I would make an appearance.”

“Consider the appearance made.”

“But your grace,” Jenkins stammered, desperate to salvage the coup of having the Duke at his ball.

“The first dance is about to begin.”

“It is tradition for the highest-ranking peer to lead the floor.”

“Surely, surely you will honor us with a waltz.”

Greg stopped.

He slowly turned his head back to Jenkins.

The room held its breath.

If he danced, it meant he was looking.

If he danced, the bloodbath would officially begin.

“A waltz,” Greg repeated.

The word sounded like a curse in his mouth.

He looked at the sea of eager faces.

He looked at my mother, who was practically shoving Heather into the center aisle.

He looked at the frantic, grasping desperation of a hundred people who wanted a piece of his vast fortune.

And then his pale eyes drifted past them all.

They traveled back to the drafty corner, back to the yellowing ferns.

“Very well,” the Duke said softly.

“A waltz.”

The orchestra scrambled to their seats.

The conductor raised his baton with trembling hands.

The floor cleared instantly.

No one dared step onto the polished wood until the Duke had made his choice.

The silence in the room was no longer expectant.

It was predatory.

My mother dug her nails into Heather’s arm.

“Smile,” she hissed.

“Look at him.”

Greg adjusted his left cuff.

He did not look at Heather.

He did not look at Patricia Miller, who had perfectly angled her chin to catch the chandelier light.

He began to walk.

His boots struck the floor in a slow, rhythmic cadence.

He passed the punchbowl.

He passed the dowagers.

He walked directly toward the right side of the ballroom, toward the shadows.

I watched him come.

My brain, usually so sharp, so practical, simply stopped functioning.

I watched the tall, dark figure part the crowd like a ship cutting through dark water.

He was walking toward the alcove.

He must be going to the smoking room, I thought wildly.

There must be a door behind me.

I’m blocking the door.

I pressed my back harder against the cold plaster wall, trying to fuse with it.

I dropped my gaze to the floor, waiting for him to pass.

I waited for the scent of sandalwood and cold air to brush by me.

The heavy black boots stopped exactly three inches from my scuffed, painful right shoe.

I blinked at the polished leather.

I didn’t move.

“Are you going to look up, or shall we conduct this entire conversation staring at our footwear?”

The voice was directly above me.

It was quiet, meant only for me, and devoid of any polite warmth.

I slowly raised my head.

The Duke of Stanhope was standing so close I could see the faint silvery scar cutting through his left eyebrow.

His face was a hard, immovable wall.

“Your grace,” I whispered.

It was the only thing I could think to say.

“You are hiding,” he stated.

It wasn’t a question.

“I am standing.”

“You are wearing a color found only in swamps, standing behind a deceased plant, drinking someone else’s discarded beverage.”

He looked at the glass in my hand.

“You are hiding.”

I felt a sudden, sharp spike of irritation pierce through my shock.

I didn’t care who he was.

I was exhausted, my feet bled, and I was not going to be mocked by a man who had fifty servants to chew his food for him.

“It is a very good plant, your grace,” I said, my voice flattening into a dry monotone.

“And the beverage is mine.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, you are blocking the draft.”

“It was the only thing keeping me awake.”

I expected him to scoff.

I expected him to turn on his heel and leave me to my obscurity.

Instead, Greg held out his hand, white kid leather, long, strong fingers, palm facing up.

I stared at his hand as if it were a loaded pistol.

The silence in the ballroom was total.

The music had not started.

A hundred and fifty pairs of eyes were locked onto the dark corner.

I could feel the heat of their stares, a physical pressure pressing against my skin.

I heard a sharp, strangled noise from across the room.

It sounded like my mother choking.

“What are you doing?” I whispered, panic finally slicing into my chest.

“Fulfilling an obligation,” Greg replied.

His eyes didn’t leave mine.

They were incredibly cold, yet burning with an intense, calculated defiance.

“If I dance with the golden-haired child shaking like a leaf to your left, I will have a marriage contract thrust into my hands by midnight.”

“If I dance with the brunette calculating her angles by the pillar, I will spend the next ten minutes listening to her compliment my estates.”

He stepped half an inch closer.

“But you,” he said softly, “you looked at me as though you wished I would spontaneously combust so you could go home.”

I swallowed hard.

“I don’t dance.”

“You have feet.”

“You know the steps.”

“You are making a spectacle of me.”

“I am saving myself from a firing squad.”

“Consider this a humanitarian effort.”

His hand remained outstretched, unwavering.

“Take my hand, madam.”

“Before Jenkins spontaneously apoplexes and ruins my boots.”

I looked at his hand.

I looked at his face.

He wasn’t doing this to be kind.

He wasn’t a fairy tale prince rescuing Cinderella.

He was a cynical, exhausted man using me as a human shield against a room full of predators.

I understood that.

I respected that.

With a shaking hand, I set my warm lemonade down on the windowsill.

I wiped my clammy palm on the skirt of my swamp-green dress, and I placed my hand in his.

His fingers closed around mine.

His grip was firm, warm, and entirely grounding.

“What is your name?” he asked as he pulled me effortlessly from the shadows.

“Megan.”

“Megan Wright.”

“Well, Megan Wright,” Greg said, turning toward the center of the completely silent, paralyzed ballroom.

“Let us go ruin some evenings.”

He didn’t lead me to the floor.

He marched me there.

My cheap shoes scraped against the wood.

I could feel the collective shock of the room breaking over me like a physical wave.

Patricia Miller looked as though she had been struck by lightning.

My mother was gripping a chair back so hard her knuckles were white, her mouth opening and closing like a landed trout.

We reached the center of the floor.

Greg turned to me.

He placed his right hand firmly on the small of my waist, right over the cheap, stiff fabric of my gown.

The heat of his palm sank instantly into my skin.

He looked at the conductor and gave a single, sharp nod.

The conductor jumped, nearly dropping his baton, and frantically signaled the quartet.

The sweeping, mournful notes of a Viennese waltz ripped through the silence.

Greg stepped forward, pulling me with him.

I stumbled on the first step, my left foot caught on the hem of my too-long dress.

I braced myself for the humiliation, for the sneers of the crowd, but Greg’s arm tightened around my waist.

He didn’t let me fall.

He simply absorbed my misstep, adjusted his own stride, and physically carried me through the next turn.

“Breathe, Megan,” he muttered, his jaw tight as we spun past a group of gaping lords.

“You are stiff as a board.”

“I told you I don’t dance,” I snapped back, staring fixedly at the black wool of his lapel to avoid looking at the crowd.

“You don’t have to.”

“Just don’t fight me.”

“Follow my momentum.”

He stepped back, drawing me into a sweeping arc.

I had no choice but to follow.

He was stronger than he looked, and he danced with the same ruthless efficiency with which he spoke.

There was no joy in his movements, only precision.

But it was a flawless precision.

As we turned, the room became a blur of shocked faces and glittering chandeliers.

The initial terror in my chest began to subside, replaced by a strange, numb disbelief.

I, Megan Wright, the wallflower.

The gristle.

I was dancing with the Duke of Stanhope.

“They are staring,” I whispered, my grip tightening nervously on his shoulder.

“Let them,” Greg said dismissively.

“My mother is going to have a seizure.”

I glanced over his shoulder, spotting my mother’s apoplectic face in the crowd.

“She appears robust enough to survive it, though I recommend staying out of her reach for at least an hour after this ends.”

I looked up at him in surprise.

A short, involuntary breath of laughter escaped my lips.

Greg looked down at me, his cold, gray eyes locked onto my face again.

The harsh lines around his mouth softened just a fraction.

“Better,” he murmured.

The music swelled, the cellos digging deep into the melody.

The other couples, finally recovering from their shock, began to tentatively join the floor, desperate to share the space with the Duke.

But they kept a wide berth.

Greg and I moved in a bubble of untouchable isolation.

“Why me?” I asked, the question slipping out before I could stop it.

“Truly, you could have picked anyone.”

“You could have stood in the corner yourself.”

“I told you, you were the only person in this room who didn’t look at me like a meal.”

He expertly steered me around a clumsy pair of dancers.

“Besides, I dislike bullies.”

I frowned.

“Who is bullying you?”

“Not me.”

“You.”

Greg’s eyes flicked to my face.

“I heard your mother speaking to you before I came down the stairs, about being invisible.”

I stiffened, my spine going rigid under his hand.

A hot flush of deep, ugly shame crept up my neck.

He had heard.

The most powerful man in the room had heard my own mother call me useless.

“That is none of your concern,” I said, my voice dropping to a harsh whisper.

I tried to pull back, but his hand clamped firmly on my waist, refusing to let me retreat.

“It isn’t,” Greg agreed smoothly.

“But I have found that the best way to punish people who demand visibility is to give it to someone they deem unworthy of it.”

He pulled me closer, his head dipping so his mouth was near my ear.

The scent of him, clean wool, cold air, and something sharp and metallic, filled my senses.

“For the next three minutes, Megan Wright,” the Duke of Stanhope whispered, his voice vibrating against my skin.

“You are the most visible woman in England.”

“Use it.”

The music did not fade.

The final chord severed the air like a butcher’s cleaver.

Greg stopped moving.

He dropped my waist and released my hand in one fluid motion, instantly restoring the physical boundary between us.

He did not linger.

He did not offer a warm, parting smile.

He simply took a single step back and delivered a crisp, mechanical bow.

“Miss Wright,” he said, his voice carrying just enough to reach the ring of eavesdroppers closing in on us.

“A passable effort.”

He turned on his heel and walked away.

The crowd parted for him again, but this time they were buzzing, frantic, their eyes darting between his retreating back and the woman he had left standing in the center of the floor.

I stood perfectly still.

My legs felt hollow.

My right foot throbbed where the cheap leather of my shoe pinched against the bone.

I looked down at my hands.

They were trembling, the skin flushed and warm where his fingers had gripped mine.

You are the most visible woman in England.

Use it.

The words echoed in my skull.

I didn’t know how to use it.

I didn’t have a weapon.

I only had a target painted squarely on my chest.

Before I could retreat to my shadows, a hand clamped onto my bicep.

The grip was a vise, the fingernails biting sharply through the thin fabric of my sleeve.

“Walk,” my mother hissed in my ear.

I didn’t argue.

I let my mother drag me through the whispering crowd.

I saw Patricia Miller glaring at me with a hatred so pure it was almost religious.

I saw Heather trailing behind us, looking confused and slightly nauseous.

We reached the cloakroom.

My mother didn’t wait for the attendant.

She yanked my faded woolen shawl from a hook and practically threw it at my face.

“What did you say to him?”

My mother’s voice was a low, vibrating tremor.

Her face was entirely devoid of color.

“Nothing,” I said, pulling the shawl tightly around my shoulders to hide my shaking hands.

“He asked my name.”

“Do not lie to me, Megan.”

My mother backed me into the heavy oak door of the coatroom.

“Men like the Duke of Stanhope do not pluck spinsters from the ferns unless provoked.”

“Did you spill something on him?”

“Did you insult him?”

“He asked me to dance, Mother, that is all.”

My mother studied me.

Her eyes raked over my dull brown hair, my unremarkable face, the muddy green dress that hung terribly at the waist.

Her expression twisted into a mixture of disgust and profound realization.

She looked at me with cold calculation and whispered, ‘He is using you as a shield, Megan, and now we are going to use him.’