My fiancée didn't break my heart. He appraised it, weighed it, and sold it to pay off his gambling debts. I was traded to a man they called the rotting duke. A recluse whispered to be monstrous, decaying behind the closed doors of his crumbling estate. Henry thought he was throwing me away into the dirt.
He expected me to wither in the dark. He never expected that the dirt would become my kingdom. Or that I'd rise as its duchess. Henry poured the brandy with the trembling precision of a man who knew he was about to ruin a life. I sat on the edge of the velvet sofa in his study, perfectly still.
The room smelled of old cigar smoke and lemon oil, a heavy, suffocating combination. Outside, the London rain lashed against the window panes. Inside, the only sound was the clinking of the crystal decanter against his glass. It's a matter of simple economics, Cecilia, he said, finally turning to face me. He didn't look at my eyes.
He looked at my chin, then the space just above my left shoulder. The debts were substantial, more than the estate could bear. My father's doing mostly and some of my own. And my dowry? I asked.
My voice was steady. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of a tremor. Gone. Henry swallowed hard. I leveraged it.
The investments failed. I folded my hands in my lap. The silk of my dress felt suddenly thin, as if the cold draft from the window had bypassed the fabric entirely to settle deep in my bones. I had been engaged to Henry Pendleton for 2 years. I had endured the tedious dinners with his mother, the patronizing pats on the hand from his uncle, the endless, agonizing discussions about the color of the drapes for our future drawing room.
I had done everything required of a respectable, pragmatic woman of 22. So we are ruined, I stated. Not a question, a fact. I am not. You are not.
Henry stepped forward, clutching his glass. He smelled of sweat and expensive cologne. I found a solution. A trade of sorts. Lord Harwood has agreed to assume the entirety of my debt.
In exchange, he requires a wife. The name dropped between us like a lead weight. Harwood. The Duke of Harwood. Nathaniel.
Society didn't speak of him in polite company. When they did, they lowered their voices behind feathered fans. They called him the rotting Duke. 5 years ago, a fire had claimed his ancestral home, his parents, and supposedly his humanity. Rumors painted him as a grotesque recluse, a man slowly succumbing to a flesh-eating disease hiding in the desolate moors of Yorkshire.