Author's Note – Content WarningThis chapter contains scenes of non-consensual marital intimacy and emotional coercion. While not graphic, the themes may be upsetting to some readers. Please take care while reading, and feel free to skip this chapter if needed—your well-being always comes first.
Adele
A month had passed.
A month of perfect smiles and careful posture. Of afternoon teas and weekly dinners with the Ashbourne matriarch. Of cold sheets and quiet evenings and the hollow space between duty and desire.
Adele had mastered her role. The new Lady Ashbourne. She had learned which wines Henry preferred, how he liked his morning paper folded, and how to nod politely through his long silences. She was everything her mother had raised her to be: gracious, poised, elegant.
But she wasn't happy.
And no one had asked if she was.
Tonight was different. Henry was already drunk before dinner ended, his collar loosened, fingers drumming irritably against the side of his glass. The staff avoided his gaze. Adele remained still and calm, pouring his drink when needed, offering no challenge.
She had seen the way his eyes flicked toward Jason's empty chair. His youngest brother hadn't
been seen since days before the wedding.
She missed him.
God help her, she missed him.
Jason had always been silent, but in his silence she had felt seen. He didn't flatter. He didn't posture. He simply noticed her. Protected her.
Now he was... gone. Slipping further away with every day of this marriage.
And Henry noticed her noticing.
Later That Night
They were in the bedroom when it happened.
Henry tossed his jacket onto the chair and closed the door with a click that made her flinch, even though it wasn't loud.
He turned toward her slowly. "You still think about him."
Adele froze. "Who?"
He didn't bother pretending. "Jason."
"No." Her voice was firm, but soft. "He's your brother. I've never—"
"He's always watching you," Henry said, slurring slightly. "He plays the part of the tortured artist, but I know better. I know the way men look at things they want."
"He doesn't want me."
"Are you sure?" His eyes darkened. "Because I am."
He stepped toward her, and she backed away without thinking. Not out of fear, not exactly. Out of something colder—dread.
"You're my wife, Adele," he said, grabbing her wrist—not hard, but hard enough to make her skin sting. "So let's not pretend this is something delicate. You belong here. With me. Not with my little ghost of a brother."
"I've never belonged to anyone but myself," she whispered.
His grip tightened for a breath, then released. He exhaled, stepped back, and looked at her as if she were some puzzle he could no longer piece together.
"You're my wife, Adele," he said, fingers brushing her jaw—not with tenderness, but as if testing the edge of a mask. "So stop pretending you're anything else."
She didn't answer. Her silence only seemed to provoke him.
When he kissed her, it was sudden. Demanding. Not rough, but entirely without affection. His hands were already at the back of her dress, unfastening her slowly, methodically. She stood still, arms at her sides, her throat dry.
She had allowed this. She had agreed to this marriage. This was what was expected of her.
When the dress slipped from her shoulders, Adele didn't tremble. She didn't cry. She just turned her face slightly so he wouldn't see her eyes.
The bed was too soft. The sheets too cold. He pulled her down beside him, already unbuttoned, already impatient.
Henry didn't speak again. His hands roamed, but they didn't linger—not to savor, only to possess.
When he entered her, she gasped—not from pain exactly, but from the absence of anything else. No comfort. No connection. No shared breath. Just the measured rhythm of someone performing a task.
She stared past him, eyes on the carved wooden canopy above. The flickering candlelight made shadows dance across the ceiling, and she let herself focus there—on anything but the weight pressing into her, the heat of a man who didn't care to know her.
He finished quickly.
Rolled off.
Said nothing.
Adele lay in silence, her body aching in ways she hadn't expected. Not from the act itself, but from the knowledge that it had meant nothing to him.
She was not a woman to be loved, only a wife to be used.
She turned onto her side, pulling the sheet around her, and only then did she feel the tears sting—quiet, unwilling tears, born of something she couldn't name yet.
Shame. Disappointment. Emptiness.
She had been given the life her parents wanted for her. A title. A husband. A future secured.
But it already felt like a cage.
And without knowing why, she thought of Jason—of his silence, of the way he used to glance at her like she was something fragile and irreplaceable.
And she wept, more for the absence of that than for the reality of what had just passed.