The Heir Apparent - a historical why choose, rh, poly, MMF, spicy romance ✅

Chapter One

Anevay

On the eve of my wedding, I was melodramatic enough to wonder if perhaps a jump off the cliff behind my home—and a fall into the rocky nothingness below—would be preferable to actually marrying a man like my betrothed.

Would the townsfolk wring their hands at the loss of me? Or would they roll their eyes and scoff at me?

Poor little Lady Anevay did not want to marry a rich man just because she didn't love him.

If only it was that simple.

Algerone Darrington was a rich man, yes. And, true, I did not love him.

What they would never understand was that I had good reason.

I had been betrothed to Algerone Darrington since my birth nineteen years before. When he was already thirty-five years old, twice widowed, with five daughters, two sons, and more money than he knew what to do with.

Unfortunately in Algerone's case, age absolutely did not recommend the man. He'd grown rotund, bald, and sweaty with a permanent curve in his back that made him perpetually inspect his own shoes, and need to make horrific grumbling noises to straighten enough to look me in the eye.

Perhaps I could overlook his appearance were he a good, kind, and generous man.

Alas, Algerone Darrington was afflicted with an inflated ego, fragile pride, and a suspicious spirit. He thought everyone was out to steal from him, and refused to spend any money that was not absolutely necessary.

From what I heard, despite his vast riches, his castle was in disrepair because he believed all the builders were trying to cheat him when they told him the fees for their work.

I was meant to live in a crumbling castle in an unknown area without a single friend or loved one. And then, as if that was not bad enough, I was meant to give him my body. I would need to lie with a man who made me feel physically ill just to sit near.

But what choice did I have?

I was the only daughter of a man who never had any use for me.

Of course I would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Then he went ahead and died before he could hand me off. But that didn't change the deal long ago made.

No one cared what I wanted.

No one ever asked.

Had they, they would have known I craved more than my rural country existence, that I would do just about anything to go to the city, to hear the sounds and see the sights, to enjoy the bustle of life and art and music, to see the court I was so distantly a part of.

But no.

I would marry.

I would live in an even more remote region.

I would spread my legs for a man I reviled.

I would spread them again to bear him children.

I would be used and used and used in the way women often were until the day I died.

The only light I could see was with a husband thirty-five years my senior who led an indulgent and sedentary lifestyle would likely die before me, if childbirth did not claim me young.

I would have some freedom then.

I would lose most of my riches, of course. Algerone's sons would inherit that with his passing. But I would be allotted an allowance and one of the smaller estates. Where hopefully everyone would forget about me, and I would be free to pursue things that did not make me want to hurl myself over a cliff.

"Lady, you should be joyful," Berty, my maid since I was a small girl, urged as she moved into my room to remove the dinner tray I hadn't touched. "You are to be a wife."

"I do not want to be his wife," I told her, wincing at my petulant tone.

"Well, many wives hardly see their husbands," she said, trying to comfort me. "And then you will have children."

"And if I do not want children?" I asked, turning away from the window to face her.

"Oh, hush," Berty said, shaking her head. "It will be your greatest joy."

"It will be the only joy I see in my future, if it is a joy at all."

"Oh, Lady, you are just having nerves. They are normal. I was sick the whole week leading up to my wedding."

"Did you love your betrothed, Berty?" I asked.

"Well, of course!"

"Think how nervous you would have been if you had not."

That was enough to make her stop with her fussing of my trunks she had already stacked and re-stacked twice earlier.

Glancing up at me, I saw pity in her eyes. Perhaps I should have resented it, but right that moment, I found it welcome. That at least one soul in the world could see how difficult this was for me. Even if I was still more privileged than many others.

"Just think of other things," she suggested. I was not sure if she meant now, to distract myself, or when I would lie with my husband, so I did not have to feel his clammy hands on my body while I lie there with no choice, no say in the matter at all.

"There are no other things, though, are there?" I asked, bitterness on my tongue. "This is all there is for my future."

Or so I thought at the time.

What a difference a few hours could make.

I woke up to a new world the next morning.

I just did not know it yet.