The Worthless Joker

In the Rose family's lands a countess may buy a husband outright, and the man she buys has no standing to refuse the terms. Caelen was living on the streets when he sold himself. Lady Portia, a countess of the Rose bloodline, was the buyer, and her one condition was that he be deaf and mute. So he acted deaf and mute, all day, every day, and it worked well enough that he became her lawful husband. He kept the act up through the wedding and after it. Then one night he walked in on Portia in bed with her lover, a woman. His wife had never wanted men at all. The marriage he had bought his way into was a cover, and he was standing inside somebody else's arrangement with secrets and interests he had not been told about.