The Duke Was Forced to Marry the “Ugliest” Somerset Sister, a Woman Hidden Behind Black Crepe for Ten Years — But When He Removed Her Veil Before the Entire Court, Everyone Finally Learned Why She Had Been Hidden

 PART 5

“Take the stable hands,” Henrietta said, already standing. “I’ll have Mrs. Reed boil water and prepare the kitchens for casualties. Do they have children?”

“Three. Miller’s wife is bringing them up the hill now.”

Arthur paused in the doorway, and for a moment the cynical boredom he wore like armor fell away entirely. In the dim light, he looked like the soldier he’d once been — focused, dangerous, alive.

“Have dry blankets ready.”

Then he was gone.

Henrietta did not sit back down. Her leg flared its warning, a barometer for the storm’s falling pressure, but she ignored it, moving through the house with a rapid, uneven gait, issuing commands that sent the skeleton staff sprinting for the kitchens and the linen closets. By the time Mrs. Miller arrived, sobbing, carrying her youngest, the great hall was warm and waiting. Henrietta knelt on the stone floor, her veil brushing wet wool as she wrapped the children in blankets, poured hot broth, her steady hands a stark contrast to the mother’s trembling ones.

Arthur did not return for three hours.

When the doors finally swung open, two stable hands were half-carrying him. He was soaked to the bone, boots smearing black mud across the marble, a deep gash across his forehead washing dirt away in a stark crimson line.

“The horses?” Henrietta asked, stepping forward, something sharp pulling tight in her chest.

“Saved.” He waved off the hands trying to support him, stumbled, caught himself against the wall. “Barn beam came down. Clipped my head. It’s nothing.”

“It is bleeding profusely.” She turned. “Mrs. Reed — the medical box, and hot water. The library.”

Ten minutes later he sat in his leather chair by the fire, coat discarded, the air thick with wet wool and iron and the sharp bite of alcohol from the basin at her side. She soaked a clean cloth.

“Lean your head back.”

He complied, jaw tight, eyes closing as she pressed the cloth to his forehead, cleaning away blood and grit with a touch so light it was clearly practiced — years of tending her own agonizing recoveries had taught her hands that particular gentleness.

“You managed the household,” Arthur said quietly.

“They’re asleep in the guest chambers.” She kept her focus on the wound. Deep, but it wouldn’t need stitching. “Mrs. Miller has stopped crying.”

He opened his eyes, studying the faint outline of her jaw beneath the mesh.

“You don’t panic.”

“Panic is a luxury for those who believe someone else will save them.” She reached for a dry bandage. “I learned early that no one is coming.”

Arthur reached up, wrapping a hand — freezing, calloused — around her wrist, stopping her.

“I am here,” he said.

It wasn’t a romantic vow. It was a statement of fact, solid as the stone walls around them.

Henrietta froze. His grip was loose enough to pull free of. She didn’t.

Slowly, he shifted his hold from her wrist, fingers brushing the edge of the charcoal silk framing her face.

“Henrietta.”

“No.”

The word came out raw, terrified. She stepped back instantly, snatching her hand away, the fragile illusion of safety shattering in an instant.

“The cut is clean. Apply pressure. I’ll leave you to rest.”

She fled, her uneven footsteps echoing down the empty corridor, leaving Arthur alone with the damp cloth still in his fist and a silence that suddenly felt far too loud.

The letter arrived two weeks before Christmas, bearing the heavy wax seal of the Duke of Cumberland — the king’s own brother — and landing on Henrietta’s desk like an unexploded shell.

Arthur walked in shaking snow from his coat, took one look at her rigid posture, crossed to the desk, and broke the seal himself. The lines around his mouth deepened as he read.

“Cumberland.” He tossed the letter down. “He’s holding a winter court at his estate in York. Requires our presence next Friday to sign the final decrees before the regional peers.”

The blood drained from Henrietta’s face.

“A court in York. A glorified spectacle,” Arthur said, flat. “Cumberland despises me — we clashed over supply lines in Portugal. He wants a show. Force me to bend the knee for a piece of paper, surrounded by every gossiping lord north of London.”

“You must go, then. You cannot risk the deed.”

“The summons says the Duke and Duchess of Westford. We must both go.”

“No.” Henrietta stood, her chair scraping harshly. “I cannot. I will not. You don’t understand what they’re like, Arthur. They will stare. They will make a mockery of you for bringing a monster into their assembly.”

Arthur closed the distance in two strides.

“You are not a monster. You are my wife.”

“I am a transaction,” she cried, ten years of suppressed bitterness finally breaking loose. “Twenty thousand pounds and a signature. You have your money, your roof, your saved horses. Do not ask me to walk into a room of three hundred people so they can laugh at the bear of Yorkshire and his veiled gargoyle.”

He didn’t yell. He didn’t flinch. He let it wash over him, standing perfectly still.

“Are you finished?”

She swallowed hard, looking away, staring at the fire.

“Tell them I’m ill. Tell them I’m mad — society will readily believe it. But go without me.”

“If I go without you, Cumberland will stall the signing. Claim the marriage a sham, or unconsummated, or whatever legal fiction he can invent to humiliate me.” His voice stayed flat, reasonable. “But that isn’t why you’re coming.”

She looked back at him, bewildered.

“Then why?”

“Because you rebuilt this house.” He gestured at the ledgers stacked along the desk. “Because you dragged this estate back from ruin while I dug in the mud. This land is yours as much as mine. I will not let you hide in the shadows while I take the deed. We walk in together. We sign the paper. And we leave.”

“They will tear us apart,” she whispered.

A dangerous, feral smile touched the corner of his mouth.

“Let them try. I have killed men for less than a whisper. A few sneering aristocrats will not break my line.”