The Ashbourne Bride

Adele

A month had slipped by, filled with perfect smiles and careful postures. It was a time of afternoon teas and Sunday strolls with the Ashbourne matriarch. Adele had learned to embody the role of a wife: attentive, graceful, agreeable. She had conformed to what her parents had always envisioned for her.

But beneath the silks and niceties, she felt herself fading away.

In the dining room tonight, the atmosphere was hushed, interrupted only by the gentle clinking of glass and the sound of Henry's fingers gliding over the stem of his wine goblet. He was already on his third glass, his collar loosened. Candlelight danced across his face, highlighting its sharp angles.

Across the table, Jason's chair remained empty, as it had since the week before the wedding. Adele's gaze lingered on it before she could look away. The absence was palpable, a deep ache. He hadn't reached out, hadn't come back; he had vanished.

She missed him—more than she cared to admit, not in a naive, romantic way, but in a quiet, aching manner that made her want to cry for no apparent reason. Her gaze fell to her plate, untouched. Henry caught on. He always did.

Later that night, as Adele prepared for bed, she thought, "Maybe tomorrow will be better."

Henry shut the door behind him with a decisive click, fixing his eyes on her from across the room. "You're still thinking about him."

Adele blinked. "What?" 

"Don't lie." His voice was low and unsteady. "You look at that empty chair every single night."

"I miss your brother," she replied cautiously. "That's not a crime."

"No, but wanting him is." 

She bristled. "I never said—"

"You didn't need to." He crossed the distance between them, surprisingly steady despite the wine.

He regarded her like a wolf eyeing its prey: hungry, impatient. "You're mine now," he said, reaching out.

His fingers brushed her cheek in a possessive caress. "Not his." Adele remained silent. His lips found hers in a kiss that wasn't cruel, but it certainly wasn't tender. It was demanding. His hands moved to the back of her gown, deftly working the clasps open, layer by layer, like unwrapping something he had long anticipated.

"Oh God, you're so beautiful," he murmured, his eyes roaming over her body as her dress slipped to the floor. "Do you know what that does to a man?"

She stood there, exposed and still, her arms hanging at her sides. Henry undressed without ever glancing away, eyes gleaming with need. When he touched her again, it was with an urgency of possession, not love—never love. He led her to the bed.

She lay back without protest. His hands roamed, neither gentle nor harsh—just impatient, moving through a checklist of places to touch, to kiss, to claim. When he entered her, Adele gasped. The pain surprised her. But he didn't pause, didn't seem to notice—or maybe he didn't care.

He moved like a man determined to win something—not her heart, but merely the right to declare he had conquered her. His breath was hot on her neck. His grip bruised her delicate skin.

"You're mine," he repeated, his voice thick with desire. "Say it," he demanded, but Adele said nothing.

She stared at the ceiling, at the intricately carved canopy above the bed, watching the candlelight flicker across its edges like cracks in old glass. When he reached his peak, it was abrupt—a grunt, a shudder. He rolled away, exhaling deeply, pulling the covers towards himself.

Adele lay still, her body aching, throat dry, eyes wide and unblinking. She didn't cry—not yet. She felt empty.

And that's when it came, a whisper in the back of her mind. The last moment in the studio with Jason, when she had stood trembling before him, asking a question she never thought she'd be brave enough to voice. "If I asked you to stop the wedding… would you?" He had met her gaze with maddening silence. "I don't know," he replied. Just three words—nothing like "I love you." Nothing like "stay." Only uncertainty. So she had walked away, believing she was alone in her yearning.

Now, in the quiet of the bed she shared with his brother, with Henry's breath steady beside her, Adele felt something fracture deep within her. Not her heart; that had already shattered. It was something else—a mirror cracking behind her eyes. Turning onto her side, away from Henry, she drew the sheets over her body, as if they could shield her from the life she had chosen. And in the dark, with her soul in pieces, Adele finally cried not just for what had happened but for the love that had never been voiced and the one that had never come to be.