“If You Win This Match, I’ll Marry You,” the Duke Mocked—But When the Ruined Spinster Shattered the Apple at Seventy Yards and Demanded Fifteen Thousand Pounds Instead, He Refused to Let Her Walk Away

 PART 4

St. Jude’s chapel smelled of damp stone and old wax. Morning light filtered through the stained glass, casting bruised purple and harsh yellow shadows across the uneven flagstones. It was a miserable place for a wedding, which made it perfectly suited for this one.

Boggy stood before the altar in the same gray muslin dress from the shooting match. Aldrich had sent his modiste from London with trunks of silk and lace on Monday morning. Boggy had sent the woman away with a polite, frigid refusal. She would sell her future — but she refused to let Aldrich dress her like a prized mare, ready for auction.

Beside her, Charles shifted his weight, breathing shallow and rapid. He smelled of mint and desperation, having scrubbed himself raw trying to look presentable. He was terrified. He was handing his sister over to the most powerful, ruthless man in their social hemisphere, all to wipe away a ledger of debts he had helped create.

Aldrich waited at the altar steps. He did not look like a groom. He looked like an executioner, tailored in midnight blue broadcloth, his cravat tied with mathematical precision, his face entirely unreadable.

“Dearly beloved,” the vicar began, his voice trembling slightly under the Duke’s flat, heavy gaze.

The ceremony was brutal in its efficiency. There was no music. There were no flowers. Boggy stared at the vicar’s collar, refusing to look to her left. She repeated the vows in a hollow mechanical cadence. She promised to obey. She promised to honor.

The words tasted like ash.

Aldrich’s responses were clipped, firm. He spoke the ancient vows with the exact tone he used to dictate terms to his solicitors. When the time came for the ring, he reached out and took Boggy’s left hand. His fingers were warm. Hers were like ice.

He slid a heavy gold band onto her finger — an antique, unadorned, weighty. It felt like a shackle.

“I pronounce you man and wife,” the vicar whispered, shutting his prayer book a little too quickly.

Aldrich did not kiss her. He did not even lean in. He simply dropped her hand, turned on his heel, and walked toward the heavy oak doors.

Boggy stood frozen for a fraction of a second. She looked at Charles. Her brother’s eyes were wet, filled with a sickening, useless gratitude. She gave him a single sharp nod, gathered her gray skirts, and followed her husband out of the chapel.

The carriage waiting outside was massive — a lacquered black beast bearing the Westford crest, pulled by four restless grays. Aldrich stood by the open door and offered his hand. Boggy ignored it, grabbing the leather strap and hauling herself up into the velvet interior.

Aldrich climbed in after her and rapped his cane against the roof. The carriage lurched forward.

Silence filled the cabin, thick and suffocating. The leather seats squeaked in rhythm with the suspension. Outside, the lush green countryside blurred into a continuous streak. Boggy sat ramrod straight, staring out the window. She calculated the distance from her family home. Every mile they covered was a mile deeper into his territory.

She was a possession now. The fifteen thousand pounds had been transferred to her father’s creditors yesterday afternoon; Charles had a small allowance to maintain Somerset Manor. The transaction was complete.

Aldrich watched her from the opposite seat, resting his chin on the silver head of his cane.

“You did not have to wear rags to the altar, Boggy,” he said quietly, his voice cutting through the rhythmic clatter of the wheels. “It achieved nothing but making your brother feel worse than he already does.”

She didn’t turn her head. “I wore what I own, your grace. I will not start our marriage by pretending to be something I am not. I am a pauper. You bought a pauper.”

“I bought a wife.”

“You acquired a trophy,” she corrected, finally turning her severe dark eyes upon him. “A parlor trick to amuse yourself because high society bores you. I hope the entertainment was worth the price. I imagine the novelty will wear off by September.”

Aldrich leaned back, the velvet swallowing his broad shoulders. “You have a remarkably low opinion of me.”

“I have an accurate opinion of you. You are a man who uses people.”

“And what do you do?” Aldrich countered, his tone hardening. “You stood on a firing line and used my vanity to extract a fortune. You are just as calculating as I am, Boggy. Do not sit there in your frayed cuffs and play the martyr. You pulled the trigger.”

Boggy flinched. It was a tiny movement, just a tightening of the muscles around her jaw. But Aldrich saw it. He had hit a nerve.

She hated that he was right. She had used his arrogance as a weapon.

“I did what I had to do to survive,” she said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “You do what you do because you are empty.”

Aldrich’s grip tightened on his cane until his knuckles went white. He wanted to snap back, to put her in her place with a cutting, educated insult. But he looked at the dark circles under her eyes, the thinness of her wrists jutting from the ugly sleeves of her dress. She looked exhausted, held together by nothing but spite and adrenaline.

He looked away, staring out his own window.

“We will arrive at High Cross by nightfall,” Aldrich said, his voice flat. “You will have your own chambers. I have no intention of forcing my company upon you. You have your survival, madam. I have my quiet. Let us see who breaks first.”