My Mother Tried To Sell My Sister To A Ruthless Duke — He Demanded Me Instead
Part 1
My mother tried to sell my beautiful sister to a ruthless duke, but he demanded me instead.
The ballroom of the Devonshire estate tasted of melting beeswax and desperation.
I stood firmly in the shadows behind a potted fern.
I wore a faded plum gown that had been let out at the waist and re-hemmed twice to hide the frayed edges.
At twenty-five, I had long ago accepted my role as the invisible shield for my family.
My sister Megan was a vision in spun-sugar pink silk.
She possessed flawless blonde ringlets and a temperament entirely devoid of substance.
My mother Brenda hovered behind her, calculating the net worth of every man in the room with the cold precision of a horse trader.
Our father’s gambling debts had left our estate crumbling into dust.
Megan’s beauty was our sole remaining ticket to salvation.
I was simply the unfortunate baggage forced to chaperone.
A cruel giggle echoed over the swelling orchestra.
Craig leaned toward his friends, his voice carrying perfectly over the music.
He told the crowd that courting Megan was like buying prime land, but being forced to take the muddy swamp next door along with it.
Nobody wanted the older sister.
My spine turned to steel.
I adjusted the lace at Megan’s collar, refusing to let my hands tremble.
I stepped out from behind the fern, sweeping my gaze over the whispering ladies until their fans snapped shut.
Then the heavy oak doors at the top of the grand staircase groaned open.
The major domo slammed his staff against the marble floor.
A suffocating silence fell over the room as Greg, the Duke of Ashford, laid siege to the space.
Dressed in stark black evening wear devoid of flashy ribbons, his pale gray eyes swept the glittering crowd with profound boredom.
A notoriously merciless thirty-two-year-old, he possessed wealth that could buy small countries and a reputation built on ruined rivals in his northern coal mines.
My mother materialized out of the crowd, her fingernails digging into Megan’s shoulder.
She ordered Megan to pinch her cheeks and stand straight.
The duke descended the stairs, the crowd parting for him like water breaking around a massive stone.
Moving with slow, predatory grace, the ultimate prize of the marriage mart ignored the obsequious bows from desperate mothers shoving their daughters into his path.
Stepping around a staggeringly wealthy heiress without a flicker of acknowledgment, the imposing duke walked straight toward our corner of the room.
My mother dropped into a curtsy so deep her knees audibly cracked.
Megan followed suit, offering her practiced, trembling smile.
Greg did not look at her.
His heavy gaze locked entirely on me.
The silence in our immediate circle deepened.
I frowned, meeting the duke’s terrifying stare.
He took in my faded dress and the defiant jut of my chin.
He noted aloud that I was not smiling.
I informed him I found very little to smile about.
My mother let out a choked sob of horror.
Greg held up a single gloved hand, silencing her instantly.
The smell of him, clean soap and crushed pine, overpowered the sickly perfumes of the room.
He stepped into my personal space, his voice dropping to a rough register.
He commanded me to dance with him.
The surrounding whispers rose into a frantic hiss of disbelief.
I told him he had made an error.
He extended his white-gloved hand, demanding compliance.
He warned me he would pick me up and carry me to the floor if I refused.
I saw the hard set of his shoulders and knew it wasn’t a bluff.
I placed my hand in his.
His grip was warm, hard, and entirely uncompromising.
He towed me past my stunned mother and right through the center of the crowd.
He pulled me shockingly close for a polite waltz.
The heat of his palm burned through the thin silk of my bodice.
I hissed that he was making a spectacle of me.
He corrected me, stating he was making me the most envied woman in the country.
His steps were smooth and aggressively precise.
His pale eyes dropped to my face.
He told me he needed a wife who understood the nature of a transaction.
He possessed four estates and a fortune the king frequently attempted to borrow.
He did not want a fragile, weeping girl who expected him to compose sonnets.
He wanted iron.
He wanted someone to run his households with brutal efficiency and stand in a room full of vipers without shedding a tear.
He watched me absorb Craig’s insult earlier and refuse to flinch.
He offered to clear my father’s debts entirely.
He promised fifty thousand pounds for Megan’s dowry.
My mind spun violently at the staggering, mythical sum.
It was salvation for my entire family.
In return, I would travel to his northern estate, wear his ring, and manage his massive staff.
He made it explicitly clear that I should not expect him to love me.
He asked for my answer.
I stared up at the man who had just bought my life.
I told him we had a bargain.
Three days later, I stood in a drafty stone church wearing the same charcoal wool dress.
The vicar pronounced us man and wife.
Greg did not kiss me.
He simply offered his arm and walked me down the empty aisle.
We climbed into his massive traveling carriage.
The journey north to Northumberland took four agonizing days of absolute silence.
He spent the hours reading thick leather-bound reports from his coal managers.
He made sharp, aggressive notes in the margins with a pencil.
He treated my presence with the exact same practical detachment one might afford an expensive piece of furniture.
On the evening of the fourth day, the carriage began a steep ascent through lashing rain.
I stared up at the towering, black-stone fortress in the freezing rain, realizing too late that my ruthless new husband hadn’t just bought a wife—he had purchased a prisoner.
