Her Brother Traded Her to an Aging Duke to Pay His Gambling Debts — But on Their Wedding Night, He Handed His Terrified Bride a Key, £40,000, and the One Thing Her Brother Had Taken From Her: A Choice.

 PART 4

Reginald halted, his smile faltering for a fraction of a second.

“Of course. Forgive me. We are practically family now.” He recovered quickly, turning to Thomas with exaggerated solicitude. “Uncle, I do hope you haven’t taken on a burden too heavy for your failing health. A young wife requires energy.”

The implication was vulgar. It was meant to embarrass her, to remind her that she was a purchased commodity, a warm body for an old man.

Josephine did not blush. She did not look away. She stepped forward, closing the distance between them.

“Your concern for your uncle’s health is touching, Reginald,” she said, her tone conversational but laced with steel. “Though I suspect your anxiety is misdirected. You should perhaps be more concerned with your own finances.”

Reginald’s brow furrowed. “I beg your pardon.”

“I have been reviewing the estate ledgers,” Josephine said, clasping her hands loosely in front of her. “It appears your quarterly allowance from the Clydesdale mines has been generous. £2,000 a year, for a man who contributes absolutely nothing to the operation or maintenance of those mines.”

Reginald’s face flushed a dull, ugly red. He looked at Thomas in outrage. “Uncle, what is she talking about? You let her read the private ledgers?”

“I am his wife,” Josephine answered before Thomas could speak. “I manage the household. And I have decided that £2,000 is an exorbitant waste of estate capital. Effective immediately, your allowance is reduced to £500.”

“You cannot do that!” Reginald snapped, dropping the charming facade entirely. He took a threatening step toward her. “You are a penniless little tart he bought to warm his bed. You have no authority over me.”

“I have every authority,” Josephine said, not moving an inch. “I hold his proxy on all estate matters — signed, witnessed, and filed with his solicitors in London yesterday morning. If you raise your voice to me again in this house, the allowance will be reduced to zero.”

She held his gaze, her voice dropping to a blade.

“Do you understand me, Reginald?”

He stared at her, his mouth slightly open, fury warring with genuine shock. He looked past her to the armchair. “Uncle, are you going to allow this?”

Thomas slowly lowered his teacup. His pale eyes were bright with a dark, vicious amusement.

“She is the Duchess, Reginald. Her word is absolute. I suggest you learn to live on £500 — or learn a trade.”

Reginald stood frozen, his fists clenched at his sides. He looked at Josephine, seeing her not as a victim but as a heavily fortified wall standing between him and his inheritance. Without another word, he spun on his heel and stormed out, the heavy doors slamming shut behind him.

The silence settled back over the drawing room, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the rain against the glass.

Josephine let out a long, slow breath. Her hands were shaking slightly. She hid them in the folds of her skirt.

“Well,” Thomas said softly into the quiet. “That was ruthlessly efficient.”

Josephine turned to look at him. “He will hate me forever.”

“Yes,” Thomas agreed, leaning his head back. “He will. They all will. The vultures will circle you now instead of me.” He looked at her, the hard lines of his face softening just a fraction. “Are you frightened, Josie?”

She thought of her brother. She thought of the men who might, by his own account, come to break his legs. She thought of the cold iron key in her pocket and the £40,000 in her name.

“No,” she said. “I am not frightened. I am just getting started.”

Winter did not merely arrive in Yorkshire. It laid siege to the land. The moors turned iron-gray, and the wind howled around the massive stone corners of the Clydesdale estate like a pack of starving dogs. Inside, the house was a fortress, and Josephine was its undisputed commander.

She spent her mornings in the estate office, a cold, drafty room filled with floor-to-ceiling oak filing cabinets. She learned the exact price of coal by the tonnage. She learned the cost of maintaining the pit ponies, the wages of the miners, the exorbitant fees charged by the London solicitors. She stripped the fat from the household budget with a butcher’s precision. Firewood was rationed in the unused guest wings. Expensive imported wines were cancelled in favor of local spirits.

The staff, initially terrified of her, began to operate with a sharp, relieved efficiency. She did not yell. She simply expected competence — and she rewarded it with fair wages paid exactly on time. A novelty under the previous estate manager.

But a fortress is only tested when the enemy approaches the gates.

The first formal dinner of the season was obligatory. Thomas had avoided society for a decade, but an absolute silence would breed rumors of his death, and rumors would invite creditors and distant cousins. Josephine arranged the dinner for the second week of December. Twenty guests — the local gentry, the neighboring landowners, and the most dangerous of the lot: Thomas’s younger sister, Lady Agatha.

Agatha arrived wearing too much powder, too much purple silk, and an expression of pinched, eager cruelty. She was Reginald’s mother, and she carried her son’s humiliation like a drawn sword.

The dining room was a battlefield of crystal and silver. Josephine sat at the foot of the table directly opposite Thomas. She wore a gown of deep crimson velvet, high at the throat, with no jewelry save the heavy gold band on her left hand. She looked like blood against the dark wood of the room.

The conversation was a delicate, vicious dance. The local squires discussed the grain harvest. Their wives cast sideways, calculating glances at Josephine. They knew who she was. They knew her brother was a degenerate gambler. They were waiting for her to use the wrong fork, to mispronounce a French entrée, to prove she was the gutter trash they believed her to be.

Josephine gave them nothing. She ate methodically. She directed the footmen with slight movements of her chin.

During the second course — a heavily spiced venison roast — Lady Agatha leaned forward and tapped her silver knife against her crystal wine glass to command the table’s attention.

“Tell us, your grace,” Agatha said, the title dripping with sarcasm. “How is your dear brother, Charles? Isn’t it? We hear such colorful stories about him in London. Is he still frequenting those dreadful gin lanes?”

The table went dead silent. Thomas’s hand tightened around the stem of his glass, his pale eyes narrowing at his sister.

Josephine did not flinch. She set her fork down carefully on the edge of her plate. She looked down the length of the table, meeting Agatha’s vicious stare with absolute freezing calm.

“My brother is a fool, Lady Agatha,” Josephine said evenly. Her voice did not shake. It rang through the quiet room like a bell. “He is a man governed by his vices. He made catastrophic financial decisions that ruined our family name. I do not speak to him. I do not know where he is, nor do I care.”

Agatha blinked, momentarily thrown by the sheer unapologetic honesty. People in their circle lied about their disgraced relatives. They did not put them on a platter.