The Duke Took Her Family Home Over a Debt — Years Later She Owned Every Note He Signed
To straighten a boundary and clear an inconvenient account, Marcus, Duke of Wexcombe, buys up the mortgages on Amberley Grange over the head of a dying gentleman, and the moment Edmund Selby is in his grave he calls in the whole of the money, knowing perfectly well it cannot be paid. Honora Selby is turned out of the house her family has held for two hundred years, in front of the entire county, on a wet morning with the auctioneer's chalk still on her mother's clock — and the Duke does not even trouble to stop his carriage at the gate. He never reads her name. He never thinks of it again. She does. Taken in by her father's old man of business in a narrow court behind Cornhill, Honora learns the one trade that ruined her: paper. Bills, annuities, post-obit bonds, assignments, the patient machinery by which the debts of great men are shaved and passed from hand to hand at a discount. And while the Duke builds a marble staircase he cannot pay for and mortgages everything that is not entailed, she buys — quietly, at full price, never in her own name, for eleven years — until every claim in England against Wexcombe lies in one japanned tin box, and she holds his house exactly as he once held hers. A Regency story of foreclosure, patience, a proud man's public undoing, and a woman who sets the terms.
They Laughed at Her Half-Ruined Posting Inn — Then Every Passenger Chose Her Line
They Let Her Take the Bankrupt China Works as a Joke — She Owned the Duke's Clay by Spring
"A Woman Cannot Bid Alone" the Duke Told Her — She Took Eight Millions by Four O’Clock
23. She Opened the Door to England’s Most Feared Duke — Not Knowing She Was the Price
She Said Nothing When They Stole Her Scarlet — a Year Later the Cloth Itself Spoke for Her
In-Laws Laughed at the Worthless Manor They Left Her—They Never Looked Behind the Library Wall
Her Sisters Took the Estate and Left Her the $7 Cursed Castle—Unaware of What Its Crypt Held
No One Had Heard the Duke Laugh Since the War — The Kitchen Girl Did It With One Sentence
“Let Her Pretend to Be a Steward,” the Duke Said — She Paid Every Estate Debt Before Harvest
The Duke Set Three Rules for His New Bride — She Broke Them All by Sunday
He Toasted His Late Wife on Their Second Anniversary. That Night, She Quietly Stopped Loving Him
Her Stepmother Sent Her to the Duke as a Joke — He Offered Her a Chair Before He Said a Word
The Duke Gave Her The Bankrupt Tenants And A Failing Mill — Within A Season Her Mill Outearned His
Her Stepmother Gave Her the $9 Dead Lord's Manor—Unaware of What Was Bricked in Its Cellar Wall
SHE THOUGHT SHE'D MARRIED A 'POOR' FARMER TO SAVE HER FATHER - UNTIL THE DUKE TOOK HER TO HIS MANOR
A BEAUTIFOUL WIDOW BEGGED FOR WORK AT THE MANOR—THE DUKE SAID "THE ONLY POST HERE IS AS MY DUCHESS"
She Wore Her Worst Dress to Meet Her Father's Guest — She Didn't Know He Owned the Valley
Mafia Boss Marries City’s Ugliest Girl — But What He Sees On Wedding Night Shocks Everyone
22. AFTER A SEASON WITH HIS YOUNG MISTRESS, THE DUKE CAME HOME — ONLY TO FIND HIS WIFE CHANGED...
