My Wealthy Suitor Proposed Just To Get Free Labor — So I Handed Him A Brutal Reality Check
Part 1
I stood near the terrace doors of the crowded ballroom, trying to catch my breath in the sweltering April heat.
My aunt Brenda hovered at my elbow, scanning the crowd with a predator’s practiced eye.
I was twenty-eight, well past the age where anyone in this room considered me a romantic prospect.
That fact had never bothered me until a deep voice cut through the noise of the card tables.
“Five and twenty, come and gone.”
The man leaned toward his companion.
“Accomplished enough, manages her father’s old house admirably, but far too old to be anyone’s bride now.”
He spoke as if evaluating a horse he had already decided not to purchase.
I didn’t turn around immediately, letting the sting of his careless words wash over me.
My sister Heather’s bright laughter drifted from the dance floor, a sharp contrast to the cold calculation happening behind my back.
I knew the man speaking was Dan, the Duke of Westford.
His friend, Brian, shifted uncomfortably, clearly aware of my proximity.
“Eight and twenty, in fact.”
I stared blankly at the polished floor.
I reached for my fan, but my fingers trembled just enough to loosen the ribbon of my reticule.
My father’s old ledger, a worn leather book I carried everywhere to track our dwindling household funds, slipped from my grasp.
It hit the floor with a heavy thud and skidded straight toward the Duke’s polished boots.
Dan bent to retrieve it before I could even step forward.
He straightened up, standing uncomfortably close, and opened the cover out of sheer aristocratic arrogance.
He expected pressed flowers or romantic poetry.
Instead, his eyes swept over two columns of tight, unornamented figures detailing unpaid wages and deferred cottage repairs.
He looked up, his expression freezing as he registered the stiffness in my shoulders.
He realized instantly whose book it was, and that I had been standing close enough to hear every syllable of his insult.
I held out my hand, my chin lifted just a fraction of an inch.
“That ledger belongs to me.”
I kept my voice perfectly level.
He handed it back, his jaw tight.
“Forgive me, I didn’t mean—”
He stopped himself, recognizing there was no polite way to finish that sentence.
“You didn’t mean for me to hear you.”
I stepped back.
“I understand perfectly.”
I inclined my head with exactly the degree of correctness required, turned my back on the Duke of Westford, and walked out to the terrace.
The next morning, his calling card arrived at our rented townhouse.
Aunt Brenda let him in purely for the satisfaction of watching him explain himself.
He stood when I entered the parlor, looking distinctly uncomfortable in the morning light.
“I spoke carelessly.”
He gripped the brim of his hat.
“I apologize completely.”
I remained standing, which kept the visit intentionally short.
“Your apology is noted, Dan.”
I smoothed my skirt.
He shifted his weight, a man clearly unaccustomed to having his peace offerings met with polite indifference.
“I had hoped we might begin again as acquaintances.”
He took a step forward.
“You formed an opinion of me from across a room based on nothing.”
I lifted my chin.
“I don’t require an apology for that so much as I require nothing further from you at all.”
He left shortly after, his face an unreadable mask.
A week later, he arrived unannounced at Aunt Brenda’s house just as I was handling an angry tradesman in the hall.
The man demanded payment for a neighbor’s overdue account.
Instead of giving him money I didn’t have, I gave him a practical strategy to corner the neighbor in public.
The tradesman left satisfied, and I turned to find Dan watching me from the doorway.
“You handled that like a man of business.”
He looked genuinely startled.
“Give a man a strategy instead of a sermon, and he generally goes away satisfied.”
I returned to my accounts.
He laughed, a real, unguarded sound that entirely transformed his face.
The breaking point came a fortnight later at a grand ball hosted at his own estate.
I had wandered away from the suffocating crowd, seeking a moment of quiet in a dim library.
On the desk sat a massive estate ledger, abandoned mid-entry.
I couldn’t resist the urge to look, and within thirty seconds, I spotted a glaring error in the rent columns.
I sat down in the shadows, retrieved a pencil from my reticule, and began correcting the math.
Footsteps echoed in the corridor, and I recognized Dan’s low, flat voice approaching.
He stopped just outside the open door with Brian.
“I’ve made my decision, Brian.”
Dan adjusted his cuffs.
“I mean to propose to Miss Stafford.”
I froze in the chair, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“Because you esteem her?”
Brian crossed his arms.
“Because she understands an estate ledger better than half the men I employ.”
Dan turned to face his friend.
“Because she would never embarrass me, never overspend, and never require management herself.”
He listed my practical virtues like a man appraising a prime piece of real estate.
“It doesn’t solve my debts, but it solves the house.”
He stared out the window.
“Are you describing a steward, Dan, or a wife?”
Brian stepped closer.
I stepped out of the shadows, staring at the man I had foolishly started to trust, and prepared to give him an answer to the cold, calculating proposal he hadn’t even officially made yet.
