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 5

“Well,” Agatha stammered, recovering her sneer. “How terribly cold of you! Blood is blood, after all. One must support one’s family. To discard him so easily speaks to a certain ruthlessness.”

“Ruthlessness is a requirement when dealing with parasites,” Josephine replied smoothly, picking up her wine glass and swirling the dark red liquid. “Speaking of supporting one’s family, Lady Agatha — I reviewed the estate disbursements yesterday. I noticed the repair bill for the roof of your town home in Bath was forwarded to my husband’s accounts. £400.”

Agatha’s face drained of color, then flooded with a mottled, ugly red. Several guests suddenly found their plates intensely interesting.

“It was a minor oversight by my man of business,” Agatha hissed, her eyes darting nervously toward Thomas, who was watching Josephine with a faint, predatory smile.

“Of course,” Josephine said, taking a small sip of her wine. “I have instructed the bank to return the bill to your man of business — along with the invoices for Reginald’s tailor, which also somehow found their way to our desk. I am sure it was another minor oversight. We must be so careful with our ledgers, must we not? Vices can be so terribly expensive.”

No one spoke. The silence was absolute. Agatha sat rigid, her jaw clenched so tightly it looked painful. The local squires exchanged wide-eyed glances.

The purchased bride had not just survived the ambush. She had gutted the Duke’s sister in front of the entire county.

The rest of the dinner proceeded in an atmosphere of terrified, immaculate politeness. When the last carriage finally crunched down the gravel drive, Josephine stood in the grand foyer watching the tail lights fade into the winter darkness. Her shoulders ached. Her jaw was sore from holding her expression perfectly neutral.

Heavy, irregular footsteps sounded on the marble floor behind her. Thomas came to stand beside her, leaning heavily on his silver-tipped cane.

“Come to my study,” he said.

She followed him into the dark, leather-scented room. He did not sit behind his massive desk. He walked to a side table, unstoppered a crystal decanter, and poured two glasses of amber whiskey. He handed one to her. Josephine took it, surprised — he had never offered her a drink before.

He tapped his glass against hers. The crystal chimed softly in the quiet room.

“To the fortress,” Thomas said, his voice a low gravel rumble.

Josephine looked at the tired, dying man who had bought her to save himself. She felt a strange, heavy loyalty settle in her chest. It was not love — love was a fairy tale. It was mutual survival.

“To the fortress,” she replied, and drank the whiskey neat.

By late February, the damp cold of the Yorkshire moors had settled into Thomas Ashborne’s lungs. It started as a dry, persistent hack that rattled his broad shoulders. Within a week it became a wet, tearing cough that left him breathless and gray-faced.

The vast house grew deathly quiet. Josephine ordered the corridors heavily carpeted to muffle the servants’ footsteps. She moved a small cot into the sitting room adjoining the master bed chamber. She slept in her clothes, waking at the slightest sound of his distress. The estate business was conducted in hushed whispers at the doorway. She was running the duchy, but her mind was anchored entirely to the heavy four-poster bed where the Duke lay fighting for air.

Dr. Evans, a practical, unsmiling man from the village, came twice a day. On a miserable Tuesday afternoon, with freezing rain lashing the windows, he packed his leather bag and looked at Josephine with grim finality.

“His heart is straining against the fluid in his lungs, your grace. He is seventy-one years old.” The doctor’s voice was quiet in the hallway. “You must prepare yourself. The next forty-eight hours will decide the matter. He will either break the fever, or the fever will break him.”

Josephine nodded once, sharply. “Thank you, doctor. I will send a rider if there is a change.”

She closed the heavy oak door to the master suite and leaned her forehead against the cool wood. She closed her eyes.

The thought of Thomas dying did not bring the relief of freedom she might have expected months ago. It brought a heavy, suffocating dread. Without him, the estate was just a massive empty stone box.

The quiet did not last. The following morning, the sound of raised voices echoed up the grand staircase.

Mrs. Higgins appeared, her face flushed with uncharacteristic panic. “Your grace! I tried to stop them!”

She was pushed aside. Reginald strode into the room, followed closely by his mother, Lady Agatha. They wore heavy traveling cloaks dripping with rain. They looked like crows circling a carcass.

“Where is he?” Reginald demanded, his eyes darting around the sitting room, trying to peer into the darkened bed chamber beyond. “The village telegraph operator sent word to London. He is dying.”

Josephine stood up slowly. She dropped the damp cloth into a brass basin. She smoothed the front of her dark wool skirt. She did not raise her voice, but the sheer freezing authority in her tone stopped Reginald in his tracks.

“You will lower your voice in this house, Reginald,” she said softly.

“Do not speak to my son in that tone,” Agatha snapped, stepping forward. “We are his family. We have a right to see him, and a right to secure the estate. We know he is incapacitated. We require the keys to the estate office and the master ledgers immediately.”

“You require nothing,” Josephine said.

She moved to stand perfectly in the center of the doorway leading to the master bed chamber, blocking their view.

“The Duke is resting. He is receiving medical care. He is not receiving visitors — least of all visitors who have come to measure the drapes before the man is even dead.”

Reginald’s face twisted into an ugly sneer. “You arrogant little—you think because you share his name, you hold any real power? The moment his heart stops, you are nothing. The estate entails to the male line. To me. I will throw you out into the snow with nothing but the clothes on your back.”

He took a heavy step toward her, raising his hand as if to physically shove her aside.

Josephine did not retreat. She reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a heavy iron key.

But it was not the key to the office. It was the key to her bedroom door. She held it loosely in her palm — a physical reminder of the barricade she had built.

“If you touch me, Reginald,” she said, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper, “I will not call the footman. I will call the magistrate.”

“On what grounds?” Agatha laughed, though it sounded shrill and nervous.

“On the grounds of attempted theft and trespassing,” Josephine replied. She did not blink. “The estate entails to you, Reginald. Yes — the title, the land. But the unentailed capital, the cash reserves, the personal investments, the private coal contracts that keep this entire bloated monolith afloat — he gave me full proxy over those three months ago. For as long as he is alive, I act with his complete authority on every liquid asset the Duke possesses. And I will use it.”

She watched Reginald’s face pale. She drove the knife in deeper, twisting it with precision.

“If you force your way into that room; if you cause him even a moment of distress — I will bleed this estate dry. I will halt the coal shipments. I will freeze the bank accounts. By the time the solicitors untangle the mess, the mines will flood, the workers will riot, and whatever you eventually inherit will be a title attached to a mountain of catastrophic debt.”

She let the words land.

“I will ruin you, Reginald. I will ruin you just as thoroughly as my brother ruined himself.”