“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 6

Morning broke over High Cross in a wash of pale, watery light. Boggy dressed herself before the maids came to light the fire, her body rigid with old habit, and found the house silent save for a scullery maid scrubbing pots in the distant kitchens. She did not go to the breakfast room. She went looking for the administrative heart of the estate, and found it: the steward’s office, smelling of pipe tobacco, damp wool, and old ink.

Mr. Harrison, the estate steward, was a portly man who looked entirely too comfortable in his leather chair. He barely looked up from his tea until he realized who she was, then scrambled to his feet, knocking a stack of invoices onto the floor.

“Your grace,” Harrison gasped, flushing violently. “I was not expecting you. The duchesses of Westford do not typically concern themselves with the estate offices.”

“I am not typical, Mr. Harrison.” Boggy walked directly to his desk and turned a heavy leather-bound ledger toward herself. “And I have found that people who prefer not to be observed are usually hiding something. Open the books.”

“Madam, I report directly to the Duke. These matters are highly complex — agricultural yields, tenant arrears, coal tariffs—”

“I managed a failing estate through three years of famine while dodging London creditors and bailiffs,” Boggy interrupted, her gray eyes locking onto his. Her voice was flat, devoid of anger, which made it far more terrifying. “If I find a single missing farthing in your columns, I will not fire you. I will have you prosecuted for theft. The books. Now.”

Harrison swallowed, and flipped the ledger open with a trembling hand.

Numbers were a language she spoke fluently. Within ten minutes she found the rot — not blatant theft, but lazy, comfortable skimming. Inflated prices for grain seed from a supplier who likely paid Harrison a kickback. Tenant repairs billed to the estate that were never performed. The Duke’s wealth was so vast this man had been siphoning off the top for years, confident no one would notice missing drops in an ocean.

“I was told my wife was terrorizing the staff before breakfast.”

Aldrich leaned in the doorway in riding clothes, boots scuffed, hair windblown. He looked at Harrison, sweating against the far wall.

“Is she right, Harrison?”

“Your grace, it’s a simple misunderstanding of the agricultural indexing—”

“Leave.”

Harrison fled. Aldrich walked over and looked over Boggy’s shoulder at the smudged ink on her finger.

“You found this in twenty minutes?”

“You are losing at least four hundred pounds a quarter on fictitious maintenance alone,” Boggy said, turning the page. “You do not manage this estate, do you? You just sign the drafts.”

“I have agents for that.”

“You have leeches,” she corrected, finally looking at him. “You bought my family’s debt, Aldrich. I do not like owing anyone, especially you. I will earn my keep.”

Aldrich pulled up a second chair and sat down beside her. “Show me the fictitious lumber.”

They sat there for three hours, the silence shifting from hostile to collaborative, speaking only in numbers and yields. Boggy was ruthless — she cut weak contracts and predatory suppliers with a surgeon’s precision. Aldrich, to his credit, didn’t argue. He listened. A sharp, analytical mind that had been asleep for years out of boredom woke up watching her work.

“Harrison has to go,” she said at last, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “You need a man who fears poverty more than he fears you.”

“And where do I find a man like that?”

“You don’t. You find a woman who survived it. Give me the household accounts, Aldrich. Let me run High Cross.”

Aldrich didn’t hesitate. “They are yours.”

The fragile peace lasted four days. Boggy spent them buried in ledgers, renegotiating accounts with merchants who had overcharged the estate for a decade. She ate her meals with Aldrich. They spoke of crop rotation, coal futures, tenant repairs — a strange, pragmatic intimacy that never once touched the wedding, nor what either of them wanted from it.

Then the carriage arrived. Bright Thursday afternoon, wheels crunching up the gravel drive. Boggy was in the drawing room, checking a linen inventory, when the doors burst open.

“Aldrich, darling.”

Lady Hathage swept in, trailing rose perfume and malicious intent. Behind her trailed Lord Hollingsworth and two society matrons — a pack of brightly colored wolves sniffing for a fresh carcass.

“We had to come see the new duchess for ourselves,” Lady Hathage trilled, her sharp eyes raking over the plain gray dress, the unstyled hair, the ink on Boggy’s fingers. “The stories in town are wild. They say you married a poacher in a fit of madness.”

Boggy set down her pen. This was the humiliation she had expected since the moment she took the shot.

“Firing a gun is hardly a qualification for running a duchy, is it?” Lady Hathage purred, stepping closer. “Tell me, my dear, how are you managing? If you need a lady’s maid recommended — that dress is tragically brave.”

Boggy stood.

“I appreciate your concern, Lady Hathage,” she said, calm and low, carrying none of the shrillness the older woman was trying to provoke. “However, I find fashion trivial when there is actual work to be done. For instance — I was just reading Lord Hollingsworth’s recent request for a loan extension from my husband’s bank. Two thousand pounds, was it not, to cover your son’s gambling debts in Brighton?”

Hollingsworth choked, the color draining from his face.

“That is a private matter of business—”

“And I noticed, Eleanor,” Boggy went on, turning to Lady Hathage, “your husband’s shipping firm is heavily mortgaged to the Perez estate — precarious, given the recent loss of your cargo in the Atlantic. It must be overwhelming, for someone of your limited capital, to maintain such an expensive wardrobe.”

Silence. Lady Hathage’s mouth opened and closed, her face flushing ugly red.

“I do not need a lady’s maid,” Boggy finished, her voice dropping to a whisper of pure steel. “But I recommend you speak to your husband about liquidating your country estate before the quarter ends. Good day.”

Nobody moved. The brutality of the dismissal left the London elite paralyzed.

From the corner of the room, a laugh broke the tension — deep, rich, entirely genuine. Aldrich pushed off the windowsill, the cold mask gone, replaced by a look of profound, terrifying pride. He stopped beside Boggy and looked only at his wife.

“You heard the duchess. Hollingsworth — I expect that payment by the first of the month. Show yourselves out.”

The society vultures tripped over themselves retreating. The heavy doors slammed shut.

Boggy stood rigid, adrenaline ebbing, her hands shaking slightly. Aldrich reached out and touched her voluntarily for the first time since the church, his hand wrapping around her trembling fingers.

“I have spent ten years trying to get rid of that woman,” he murmured, “and you dismantled her in three minutes with a budget deficit.”

“They came to humiliate you.”

“They came to humiliate us,” Aldrich corrected, his thumb brushing the ink on her knuckle. “They failed.”

For the first time since the gunshot on the lawn, Boggy did not pull her hand away.