The Danger of Dukes by Phynix de Leon Page A

neck.
                  “I noticed that if you walk to long or too far you tend to need a rest, why is that?”
                  “Restless legs,” I repeated the answer I always gave people. It wasn’t quite a lie.
                  “We will be married within the month and then the grand race is two weeks after. I was thinking since he is your horse it best you train him, but I do not and I repeat. Do not ride him. He is too wild for a young woman and I will not have you fall and breaking your neck.”
                  Angry I spun on him. “Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do?”
                  Lord Grayson pinning my hands above my head, pushing me against the wall and leaned in close. “I will be your husband, and in this country a wife has to do as her husband bids her. And everything she owes becomes his.”
    It dawned on me then what his meaning was. I ripped away from his grasp. “Never. I shall never marry you. All you wanted was the horse that came with me!”
    “My dear,” he said coolly with a smug smirk, “there was more to the deal than just the horse; this was the icing on the cake. However half your father’s property and railway rights in America made a nice dowry.”
    Glaring I advanced on him. “I will never marry you. Your sister was right. All you care about is your precious family name!” I raised my balled hand and hauled off a good punch at him. From my height it hit just below his right eye. “Well you can take your family name and go sink with your ship!”
    I spun on heel and ran down the nearest hallway, I ran until my tears blurred my vision and my weak leg gave out on me. I slid down the wall to the carpet floor, shoulders shaking with sobs.
    I had known I was not what he wanted down in my heart that I would be nothing more than a wife of convenience and I thought I could go through with it, but to be nothing more than a means to an end was unbearable. He didn’t want me nor need me; he needed the money he would have gotten from father after the marriage.
    I would not be used in such a way.
    “Alana?” called a sweet voice into the dark. “Is that you?”
    Sam dropped to her knees beside me. “It was my brother wasn’t it?”

The Former Duchess
     
     
     
     
    With nowhere else to turn too, Samantha took me to her grandmother’s residence on Queen’s Square in London. The former duchess welcomed her youngest grandchild with wide spread open arms and a few tears. However when she spotted me she stiffened.
                  “Why have you brought her here?” she asked her granddaughter.
                  “Brother was too cruel to her and she had nowhere else to go at the moment. Let her stay for a while, please? Just until she can arrange a trip home?” Sam pleaded for me.
                  I simply stood under the former duchess’s glare and waited her reply.
                  Suddenly she lifted a brow. “How was your brother being cruel to this young woman?”
                  “He told her plain as day last night that she was nothing to him but a means to an end. All he wanted and needed was her money and not her,” Sam sniffed tearfully.
                  The duchess pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed. “He is just like his father. How two men could be so alike it befuddles me.” She rested her sapphire blue eyes upon me. “You may stay but only under the promise you don’t go back to America. Our family has already gone through one too many scandals in recent years. We couldn’t handle one where my grandson loses his future wife do to being stupid.”
                  “What do you mean, Grandmother?” Samantha gasped.
                  “He shall come to his senses. His father never did and look where that got him, in his grave before he was fifty! My dear, we shall make it where he has no choice