My Mother Called Me Useless — Then the Duke Walked Straight Toward Me
Part 2
I swallowed the dry lump in my throat, my back pressed hard against the heavy oak door of the cloakroom.
My mother was right.
It was exactly what Greg had told me on the dance floor.
Yet hearing it weaponized by the woman who had given birth to me felt like a slow twist of a dull knife.
“Yes,” I said flatly, refusing to let her see how much the words stung.
“That is exactly what he did.”
My mother straightened her posture, regaining her rigid, terrifying authority.
“Fine.”
“If the Duke wishes to play games, we will play them.”
“You have his attention, Megan.”
“Even as a shield, you will use that proximity.”
“You will ensure he sees Heather.”
“Do you understand me?”
I looked past my mother, catching Heather’s eye.
The young girl was biting her lip.
Her blue eyes were wide with nervous tears.
Heather didn’t want the Duke.
She was terrified of him.
“I understand,” I said.
Two days later, the social atmosphere of London had shifted entirely.
Before the ball, I had been a ghost.
Now, I was an anomaly.
I sat at the small mahogany table in our drafty townhouse, staring at a piece of dry toast.
A heavy knock echoed through the quiet house, making Heather gasp.
A moment later, our single, overworked maid shuffled into the dining room holding a small silver tray.
On it rested a thick, cream-colored envelope sealed with heavy wax.
“For Miss Megan, ma’am,” the maid said, looking terrified.
My mother snatched the envelope before I could even move.
She broke the seal and pulled out a stiff card, her eyes darting over the heavy black script.
“Lady Sarah Harrison,” my mother said slowly.
“Sister to the Duke of Stanhope requests the pleasure of Miss Megan Wright’s company for a promenade in St. James’s Park at two o’clock today.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
My mother tossed the card onto the table.
“It specifically names you.”
“Because it is improper for a duke to call upon a spinster without a chaperone, he is using his sister,” my mother concluded, her mind working frantically.
“It is a screen.”
She pointed a rigid finger at me.
“He is trying to keep his shield close, but he has made a tactical error.”
“He has invited you out into the open.”
“Heather, you will wear the yellow silk.”
“Heather wasn’t invited,” I pointed out, my voice surprisingly steady.
“Heather is your sister, you cannot possibly walk in the park without her,” my mother snapped.
“When he approaches, you will curtsy, you will answer him briefly, and then you will step back.”
“You will let him see Heather in the sunlight.”
“You will not monopolize the conversation.”
I looked at the peeling wallpaper.
I thought of Greg’s cold gray eyes.
He was offering me a way out, a shield of my own, but at what cost?
Part 3
Megan Wright swallowed the dry lump in her throat, her back pressed hard against the peeling wallpaper of the morning room.
She thought of Greg Harrison’s cold gray eyes.
He was offering her a way out, a shield of her own, but she knew the cost would be steeper than anyone realized.
Brenda Wright, her mother, was already treating the invitation as a declaration of war, pacing the small, cabbage-scented room like a caged tiger.
Megan’s sister, Heather, sat trembling on the worn settee, looking terrified of the impending social maneuvering.
The Duke of Stanhope was not a man to be trifled with, yet Brenda seemed determined to play him like a poor hand of cards.
Megan knew that the only way to survive the afternoon was to follow Greg’s lead, whatever that might entail.
St. James’s Park was bathed in a brittle, pale afternoon sunlight.
The air was crisp, biting through the thin, worn wool of Megan’s blue pelisse.
Every breath she took felt sharp, the cold London air stinging her lungs.
Beside her, Heather looked like a walking daffodil in bright yellow silk, her teeth chattering slightly in the cold wind.
Brenda trailed exactly five paces behind them, maintaining the illusion of a leisurely family stroll while scanning the gravel paths with the intensity of a sniper.
They were all acutely aware of the stares from the passing crowd.
Women paused in their strolls, adjusting their bonnets while openly whispering and pointing at Megan.
The wallflower of the season had suddenly become the center of a very dangerous, very public spectacle.
Ahead of them, the crowd naturally parted near the edge of the lake.
A tall, elegant woman with dark hair and a sharply intelligent face was standing by the water, tossing torn bread to a vicious-looking swan.
She wore deep burgundy velvet, the rich fabric catching the pale sunlight.
Beside her, sitting atop a massive, terrifyingly muscular black gelding, was Greg Harrison, the Duke of Stanhope.
He wore a dark gray coat that stretched tight across his broad shoulders, holding the reins with one gloved hand.
He looked entirely relaxed and entirely lethal.
His pale gray eyes tracked their approach with clinical precision.
Brenda pushed past Megan, dragging Heather forward by the elbow.
Megan watched as her mother began to fawn over the Duke and his sister, her voice dripping with forced sweetness.
Greg’s eyes slid from Megan to Heather, the faint amusement in his expression vanishing instantly.
He looked at the girl in the yellow silk as if she were a moderately interesting piece of patio furniture.
He shifted his gaze to Brenda, his jaw tightening into a severe line.
He informed Brenda, in a voice devoid of negotiation, that Megan and his sister would walk the perimeter of the lake alone.
Brenda’s smile froze, the calculation in her eyes short-circuiting as her plan unraveled.
She stammered an objection about propriety, suggesting it was highly improper for Megan to walk without her mother’s supervision.
Greg interrupted smoothly, asserting that his sister, a widow of high rank, was chaperone enough for any woman in England.
He pulled slightly on the reins, his massive horse stepping forward, forcing Brenda to hastily retreat to avoid being trampled.
The threat was palpable, hanging in the cold air wrapped in polite aristocratic phrasing.
Brenda shot Megan a look of pure venom, silently demanding she fix the situation and give the Duke back to Heather.
Megan looked at her mother, then at Heather, who was staring at the ground, miserable and shivering in the damp chill.
Then she looked up at Greg.
He was watching her, waiting to see what she would do.
Megan took a slow, steadying breath.
She stepped away from her mother and moved toward Lady Sarah Harrison.
As Megan walked away, leaving her mother stranded and fuming by the water’s edge, Greg turned his horse to follow slowly behind them.
For the first time in twenty-three years, Megan Wright felt the dangerous, intoxicating heat of stepping directly into the light.
The gravel of the serpentine path crunched in a steady, rhythmic grind beneath Megan’s worn boots.
Beside her, Sarah walked with the effortless glide of a woman who had never known the pinch of secondhand leather.
Behind them, the massive hooves of the Duke’s gelding struck the earth like slow, deliberate drum beats.
For five minutes, no one spoke.
The silence wasn’t awkward.
It was tactical.
Megan could feel the eyes of the promenading ton burning into her spine.
She kept her gaze fixed straight ahead, watching the gray water of the lake lap against the muddy banks.
Sarah finally spoke, her voice low enough that the wind snatched the words before they could carry to the nearest eavesdropper.
She noted that her brother was a remarkably stubborn creature, much like a mule but with a significantly better tailor.
Megan replied cautiously, stating that she gathered Greg did not do things by accident.
Sarah stepped smoothly over a puddle, explaining that Greg had asked Megan to dance because he needed a wall.
She added that he had brought her to the park today because he realized the wall had a foundation.
Megan stopped, her legs simply ceasing to function.
Behind them, the horse stopped, leather creaking as heavy boots hit the gravel.
Greg’s voice came from directly behind Megan’s left shoulder.
He told his sister he had not asked her along to psychoanalyze him to a woman who already wished he were dead.
Megan stated firmly that she did not wish him dead, she simply wished he were less complicated.
Greg stepped beside her, the brutal lines of his face even more pronounced without the shadows of the ballroom.
He ordered her to walk, noting that if they stopped, the vultures would descend.
Sarah drifted a dozen paces ahead, suddenly finding the ducks near the water’s edge utterly fascinating.
Greg observed that Megan’s mother would punish her for leaving her stranded by the lake.
Megan pulled her thin pelisse tighter around her chest, retorting that her mother punished her for breathing too loudly.
She demanded to know why he was prolonging the charade.
Greg looked directly into her weak tea-colored eyes.
He explained that the ball was a temporary fix, and he required a permanent one for the duration of the season.
Megan let out a harsh, bitter laugh.
She asked if he wanted a fake courtship.
Greg countered smoothly that he wanted a barricade, and he thought she was intelligent enough to see the mutual benefit.
He pointed out that she was unmarried, her father had bankrupted their estate, and her mother used her as a footstool while trying to auction off her sister.
Megan stopped again, turning fully to face him.
She warned him not to speak of her family.
Greg stepped closer, not flinching from her anger.
He stated he would speak of whatever he chose because he was the only person in London willing to speak the truth to her.
He explained that a public courtship with him would make her untouchable.
Her mother would not dare speak a harsh word to her while a coronet was within reach.
Her sister would be spared the immediate meat market because the lesser lords would flock to Heather simply to be near him.
Megan demanded to know what the great Duke of Stanhope gained from parading a swamp monster around Hyde Park.
Greg whispered a single word: peace.
He explained that if he courted her, the rest of society would leave him be.
He would buy her time, elevate her, and protect her sister.
At the end of the season, they would agree they were incompatible and part ways.
She would have the prestige of having rejected a duke, securing a quiet match of her own choosing.
He would retreat to his estates in peace.
It was a cold, calculated transaction.
Megan looked at his gloved hand, then at his sharp jaw.
She thought of the smell of boiled cabbage, the pinching shoes, and the terrified look in Heather’s eyes.
She agreed to the deal, adding a condition that he never mock her clothes again.
Greg smirked, promising a new coat instead.
The illusion held flawlessly for exactly three weeks.
In that time, the social geography of London contorted itself to fit the bizarre reality of the Duke of Stanhope’s courtship of Megan Wright.
Invitations flooded the drafty townhouse.
Megan, previously invisible, found herself seated at the right hand of hostesses who a month ago wouldn’t have trusted her to hold their coats.
Greg was ruthless in his execution.
He called on her twice a week.
He sent flowers, quiet, rare clippings from his own country estate greenhouses, rather than ostentatious displays.
He rode beside their carriage during the afternoon promenades.
He was a silent, immovable presence that radiated pure threat to anyone who dared look at Megan with disdain.
Brenda was beside herself.
She veered wildly between fawning terror of Megan and vicious, whispering resentment.
Heather, shielded by the blinding glare of Greg’s attention on Megan, found she could finally breathe.
Young men still called, but carefully, politely terrified of offending the Duke’s potential sister-in-law.
It was working.
It was a flawless, bloodless victory.
Megan received a new gown of deep midnight-blue silk, paid for by Greg under the guise of his sister’s generosity.
She wore it to the Royal Opera House, sitting in the front row of the Stanhope box.
The air was sweltering, a cage of velvet, gaslight, and heavily perfumed sweat.
Greg sat in the shadows at the back of the box, watching the crowd more than the stage.
During the intermission, the crushing reality of their ruse finally fractured.
Megan had stepped out into the carpeted corridor to escape the suffocating heat of the box.
She stood by a marble pillar, sipping a glass of water, trying to ease the pounding in her temples.
Patricia Miller approached, flanked by two other debutantes.
Patricia wore pale pink, her diamonds flashing viciously in the gaslight.
Her smile was a razor blade wrapped in silk.
She commented on the stunning performance, clarifying that she meant Megan’s, not the soprano’s.
Megan kept her face blank, gripping her water glass.
Patricia dropped her voice to a harsh, conspiratorial whisper.
She sneered that everyone knew Greg wasn’t going to marry Megan.
She claimed he was using her to punish the rest of them for being obvious.
Patricia noted that the joke was wearing thin, and Greg looked at Megan like a chore he must endure.
Megan felt a cold prickle of sweat break out on the back of her neck.
Patricia wasn’t entirely wrong.
Greg was using her in a business arrangement.
But hearing it spat at her with such casual cruelty felt like a physical blow.
Before Megan could form a response, Brenda marched down the corridor.
Her face was set in lines of righteous fury.
She didn’t lower her voice, clearly wanting the surrounding lords and ladies to hear.
Brenda declared that Patricia was right, and it was time to stop the embarrassment.
Megan hissed, panic seizing her throat, asking what her mother was doing.
Brenda loudly proclaimed she was saving their family’s reputation.
The corridor went dead silent, dozens of eyes snapping toward them.
Brenda accused Megan of forcing herself on the Duke’s charity and manipulating his sister’s kindness.
She stated Greg only pitied Megan, and Megan was ruining Heather’s chances by making them look like grasping opportunists.
The air rushed out of Megan’s lungs.
Her mother was sacrificing her.
Brenda had realized Greg wasn’t going to propose, so she was publicly destroying Megan to prove she wasn’t complicit.
She hoped to salvage Heather’s reputation for the lesser lords.
Megan stood frozen, the whispers starting around her.
Patricia was smiling triumphantly.
Megan looked at the faces around her, seeing they were starving for blood.
They wanted the wallflower pushed back into the mud.
Megan lowered her head, the fight draining out of her.
She had tried to play the game, and she had lost.
She turned to walk away, needing to find the stairs and get out into the cold street.
A hand caught her wrist.
It wasn’t a painful grip.
It was warm, bare, and utterly firm.
Megan gasped, looking down.
Greg stood beside her, having removed his right glove.
His bare fingers were wrapped firmly around the delicate pulse point of her wrist.
The heat of his skin against hers sent a violent shockwave up her arm.
He didn’t look at Megan.
He looked at Brenda.
The silence in the corridor turned into a vacuum.
Greg spoke without raising his voice, yet it possessed the terrifying, quiet rumble of an impending avalanche.
He informed Brenda that she was causing a scene, and he abhorred scenes.
Brenda faltered, her face draining of blood.
She stammered an excuse about correcting her daughter’s delusions.
Greg cut her off, his gray eyes black with rage.
He accused Brenda of projecting her own rotting ambitions onto a woman who possessed more dignity in her little finger than Brenda had accumulated in her entire miserable life.
Brenda took a physical step back, trembling violently.
Greg turned his gaze to Patricia.
The debutante shrank against the pillar, the triumphant smile dying on her lips.
He promised Patricia that if he ever heard her speak to Megan in that tone again, he would personally buy the debts of her father’s estate and evict her onto the street.
Patricia nodded frantically, tears of pure terror spilling over her powdered cheeks.
Greg shifted his grip from Megan’s wrist, sliding his bare hand down to interlace his fingers perfectly with hers.
He pulled her flush against his side, his arm wrapping securely around her waist.
He told Megan the air out there was toxic, his voice softening.
He turned and walked her away.
The crowd parted so widely they pressed themselves against the walls to avoid the blast radius of the Duke’s fury.
Greg didn’t lead her back to the box.
He led her down a narrow, dimly lit service corridor reserved for the theater staff.
He didn’t stop until they were completely alone, surrounded by stacked velvet curtains and smelling of dust and lamp oil.
He dropped her hand and stepped back.
He ran a hand over his face, breathing heavily, the pristine illusion of his calm completely shattered.
Megan leaned against a brick wall, her legs shaking so violently she thought she might collapse.
She told him he shouldn’t have done that.
Greg snapped his head up.
He sarcastically asked if he should have let them tear her apart.
Megan cried out, her voice cracking, reminding him of their arrangement.
She was the shield, and they were supposed to attack her, not him.
She accused him of breaking the rules and making it real.
She pointed out that society would never leave him alone now because they knew he actually cared.
The words echoed in the dusty corridor.
Greg went completely still.
He looked at her, his chest rising and falling in the dim light.
He quietly agreed that they did know that now.
Megan swallowed hard, tears finally pricking the corners of her eyes.
She asked him why he ruined his own barricade.
Greg closed the distance between them in two long strides.
He didn’t grab her, but he stood so close she could feel the heat radiating off his body.
He looked down at her unremarkable face, her muddy brown hair, her weak tea eyes.
He whispered roughly that he realized something profoundly irritating during the second act.
Megan breathed a question, asking what he realized.
Greg reached up, his bare hand tracing the line of her jaw.
His thumb brushed away a single tear that had escaped down her cheek.
The touch was agonizingly gentle.
He stated that he no longer wanted peace.
He wanted her.
The smell of boiled cabbage was particularly potent the next morning.
Megan sat at the small mahogany table, staring at the peeling wallpaper.
She hadn’t slept.
Every time she closed her eyes, she felt the ghost of Greg’s bare thumb against her jawline.
After his confession in the corridor, he had simply escorted her home in silence, leaving her at the door with a look that stripped her bare.
The house was dead quiet.
Brenda had locked herself in her bedroom, mortified and terrified of the social ruin she had brought upon herself.
Heather was upstairs packing a small trunk, weeping softly.
A heavy, authoritative knock rattled the front door.
Megan didn’t wait for the maid.
She stood up, her joints aching, and walked to the door herself.
She pulled it open to find Greg standing on the crumbling stoop.
He wasn’t wearing his impeccably tailored riding coat or his severe evening wear.
He wore a plain black wool jacket, looking slightly rumpled, as if he hadn’t slept either.
In his left hand, he held a thick, leather-bound ledger.
He walked past her without waiting for an invitation, stepping into the narrow, dark hallway.
He stopped, sniffing the air, and flatly noted the smell of cabbage.
Megan closed the door, explaining they always had cabbage on Thursday.
Greg turned to face her.
He looked completely out of place in the dingy hallway, a wolf trapped in a mouse hole.
He held up the ledger and asked if she knew what it was.
Megan guessed it was his accounts, feeling exhausted.
Greg explained it was a detailed inventory of the unentailed properties he controlled directly.
He tossed the heavy book onto a rickety side table.
It landed with a thud that shook a small dusty mirror on the wall.
He described a townhouse in Bath that was quiet, had a very large garden, no drafts, and absolutely no cabbage.
Megan stared at the ledger, her heart beginning a slow, heavy pounding against her ribs.
She asked why he was telling her this.
Greg took a step toward her, his face entirely serious.
He stated he was buying it for Heather and Brenda.
Megan’s head snapped up in shock.
Greg clarified that he was setting up a trust to guarantee them a comfortable, isolated living in Bath, far away from London and far away from Megan.
He promised Heather a decent dowry and Brenda enough money to host terrible tea parties for the rest of her life, provided she never set foot in Mayfair again.
Megan opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
He was systematically dismantling every chain that bound her to her miserable life.
He was buying her freedom.
She finally managed to whisper, asking where she would go.
Greg stopped directly in front of her.
He looked down, the severe lines of his face softening into something incredibly vulnerable.
The cynic was gone.
The Duke was gone.
He was just a man standing in a drafty hallway offering everything he had.
He softly told her she wasn’t going anywhere.
He told her she would stay with him.
Megan backed up until her shoulders hit the wall.
She assumed he meant as his mistress, telling him not to insult her.
Greg snapped, a flash of his old irritation returning.
He reached out, resting his hands flat against the wall on either side of her head, caging her in.
He clarified he was not looking for a mistress.
He was looking for a wife.
The word hit her like a physical blow.
A wife.
The Duke of Stanhope.
The wallflower.
Megan breathed his name, panic welling up as she warned him society would destroy him.
She said the ton would claim she trapped or compromised him.
She insisted he would be a laughingstock for marrying a penniless, unremarkable spinster.
Greg fiercely stated he did not care about the ton, his face inches from hers.
He cared about the woman who looked at him in a crowded ballroom and saw a miserable man.
He cared about the woman who refused to cower when he mocked her.
He cared about the woman who was fiercely loyal to a sister who outshone her.
He cared about the woman who wore a hideous coat with more dignity than the queen wore her crown.
He leaned closer, his forehead resting gently against hers.
The scent of sandalwood and cold air wrapped around her, erasing the smell of dust and cabbage.
He whispered that their arrangement was a barricade to keep the world out.
But she had dismantled it.
She had dismantled him.
He admitted he did not want to be untouched anymore.
He wanted to be ruined by her.
Megan closed her eyes.
The exhaustion, the years of hiding, the bitter certainty that she was unlovable, it all shattered.
He wasn’t a prince rescuing her.
He was a tired, cynical man asking for a partner in the trenches.
She opened her eyes.
She looked into his pale gray ones.
She softly told him she didn’t dance, her voice trembling with the ghost of a smile.
Greg’s mouth curved into a real, full smile.
It was a beautiful, devastating sight.
He murmured that he knew.
He promised he would simply have to carry her.
He kissed her.
It wasn’t polite.
It wasn’t tentative.
It was a claiming, deep, grounded, and desperate.
Megan kissed him back, entirely visible, entirely seen, stepping out of the shadows and permanently into the light.
THE END
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Disclaimer
This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance is coincidental. The author and publisher disclaim accuracy, liability, and responsibility for interpretations or reliance. If you would like to share your story, please send it to [email protected].
