She Thought She Took My Place as the Duchess… But She Only Inherited My Nightmare

Chapter 6

Sleep abandoned her that night.

Every time Theodosia closed her eyes, she saw the tiny white blanket she had embroidered for the child she would never hold. The silence inside Blackwood Estate felt heavier than ever, and the emptiness in her heart refused to let her rest.

Just after midnight, she noticed movement outside her bedroom window.

A lantern flickered in the gardens.

Curious — and beyond caring what would happen to her if she were caught — she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and slipped out of her room without waking the servants. The gardens stretched peacefully beneath the moonlight. Marble statues cast long shadows across the walking paths, and the scent of blooming roses drifted through the cool night air.

She followed the faint sound of laughter.

It wasn’t difficult to recognize. Ambrose rarely laughed. And when he did, it was never inside their home.

She slowed her steps as she approached the ancient oak tree that stood near the fountain. Then she stopped.

Ambrose was standing beneath its branches.

Facing him was Lady Lettuce Fairmont — her childhood friend.

Ambrose gently held both of Lettuce’s hands. The same hands that had struck his wife countless times now touched another woman with tenderness. Theodosia remained hidden behind the trunk of another tree. Neither of them noticed her.

“I almost pity her,” Lettuce said quietly.

Ambrose smirked. “You pity my wife?”

“She isn’t the woman you deserve anymore.”

Ambrose looked toward the estate. “She stopped being that woman long ago.”

Lettuce’s eyes lowered. Then she asked the question she had clearly rehearsed many times.

“If you were free, would you choose me?”

Ambrose didn’t hesitate. “Soon, I’ll have no reason to keep her.”

Lettuce’s face lit with excitement. “Then I’ll finally become Duchess.”

Theodosia waited for the pain. She pressed her hand to her chest and waited for her heart to shatter, the way it should have, the way it had every time before.

The pain didn’t come.

Neither did the tears.

Instead, she felt something she had not experienced in years.

Relief.

She leaned back against the trunk of the tree and quietly closed her eyes. A faint smile crossed her face.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Not to them. Not to fate. She whispered it to the unexpected opportunity standing before her — the two people who had just, without knowing it, opened a door she had believed was locked forever. For years she had searched for a way to escape Blackwood Estate. She had believed death might be the only door left open.

Now someone else wanted her place.

Someone else was willing to stand exactly where she had stood, smile exactly where she had smiled, kneel exactly where she had knelt.

At that moment, Theodosia made a decision. She would never fight for Ambrose again. If Lettuce wanted the title, she could have it. The title, the estate, the husband, the crown of jewels, the cage of gilded bars — all of it. She could have every last piece of it.

Because Theodosia had finally understood that the thing she had been grieving was not a marriage.

It was a sentence.

And she had just found someone willing to serve it for her.

The following morning, Theodosia knelt beside her bed and carefully lifted a loose floorboard hidden beneath the carpet. Inside rested a small velvet pouch. It contained only a handful of gold sovereigns — not enough to begin a new life, but enough to begin preparing for one.

She tucked a single coin into the pouch.

Every week, she added another.

She began selling pieces of jewelry Ambrose had long forgotten giving her. Nothing large enough to attract attention. Only bracelets, brooches, trinkets that could disappear unnoticed. She asked the old seamstress to teach her the advanced embroidery techniques used by royal dressmakers. The old woman looked surprised.

“Your grace,” she said. “Why would a duchess need to earn a living with her hands?”

Theodosia smiled gently. “Because titles don’t always last forever.”

The seamstress asked no further questions. She simply began to teach.

In the afternoons, Theodosia spent time with the estate steward under the excuse of reviewing household accounts. Instead, she learned bookkeeping. How to calculate expenses. How to negotiate prices. How successful merchants managed their businesses. Whenever suppliers arrived at the estate, she paid close attention to their conversations. She studied fabrics, trade routes, luxury goods. She listened far more than she spoke.

Every lesson carried the same purpose.

If freedom finally came, she intended to survive it.