Chapter 5: The Heir's Duty
The study had become his tomb.
Leonid sat in the leather armchair that had belonged to his grandfather, the one that creaked with age and memory, and watched the last light of dusk bleed through the window. A half-empty bottle of brandy rested on the side table beside him, and his glass was full for the third time since he'd fled the garden. He could still feel the ghost of her skin against his palm, the way her cheek had been warm from the sun, the way her eyes had held nothing but polite distance.
I want for nothing.
The words circled in his mind like carrion birds. He took another swallow of brandy, letting it burn its way down his throat.
What did he want? He wanted her to scream. He wanted her to claw at his back, to moan his name, to lose herself so completely in pleasure that the mask shattered into a thousand pieces. He wanted to see her undone, wild, alive. He wanted to feel her teeth in his shoulder, her nails raking down his spine, her legs locked around his waist as she begged for more.
Instead, he got silence. He got stillness. He got a wife who lay beneath him like a marble effigy, enduring his attentions with the patience of a saint.
The brandy was almost gone when he finally rose, his legs unsteady, his head pounding. The house had gone quiet around him, the servants retired to their quarters, the candles burned low in their holders. He made his way down the corridor toward the master bedchamber, his footsteps echoing in the empty hall.
He did not knock.
Jennie was awake, sitting up in bed with her dark hair loose around her shoulders, spilling like ink over the white pillows. A single candle flickered on the nightstand, casting long shadows across her face. She wore a modest nightgown of white cotton, buttoned to the throat, and she looked so utterly composed that something in Leonid's chest cracked open.
"You are drunk," she said, her voice soft, without judgment.
"Yes." He did not deny it. He crossed the room, his boots heavy on the floor, and stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at her. "I have been thinking."
"That is clear."
"About us." He paused, swaying slightly, the brandy making his thoughts sluggish and sharp at once. "About what we are. What we are not."
Jennie's hands folded in her lap, her fingers interlacing with practiced grace. "And what have you concluded?"
Leonid laughed, a bitter sound that scraped his throat. "I concluded that I am a fool. That I married a woman who does not want me, and I am too much of a coward to admit it."
"That is not—"
"Do not." The words came out sharp, cutting, and he saw her flinch—a tiny movement, barely perceptible, but he saw it. "Do not lie to me, Jennie. I have had enough of your pretty words and your perfect manners. I want the truth, for once in this godforsaken marriage."
She was silent for a long moment, her dark eyes fixed on him. In the candlelight, they seemed almost black, fathomless pools of shadow. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, carefully measured.
"What truth would you have me speak, Leonid? That I am your wife? That I fulfill my duties? That I—"
"I want you to want me." The words tore from him, raw and wounded. "I want you to crave my touch, to ache for my cock inside you, to scream my name until your throat is raw. But you lie there like a corpse, and I have to wonder if you feel anything at all."
Her breath caught. He saw it, the subtle hitch in her chest, the way her hands tightened in her lap. But her face remained impassive, a porcelain mask that revealed nothing.
"I do not know what you expect from me," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"I expect you to be human," he said, and the brandy made the words cruel. "I expect you to feel something. Anything. But you are colder than the marble statues in the garden, Jennie. Cold and untouchable and utterly, completely dead inside."
He saw the flash of something in her eyes—hurt, anger, fear—before she looked away. Her profile was sharp against the candlelight, a perfect silhouette of aristocratic grace.
"You are drunk," she repeated, her voice trembling now. "You do not mean these words."
"I mean every last one of them."
He moved then, crossing the distance between them in three strides. His hands gripped her shoulders, and she was so small beneath his touch, so fragile. He could feel the warmth of her skin through the cotton, the shape of her bones, the rapid flutter of her pulse.
"You are my wife," he said, his voice low and rough. "Mine. And I have been so patient, Jennie. I have been so goddamn patient, waiting for you to let me in. But patience has a limit, and I have reached mine."
Her eyes met his, and for a moment, he saw something flicker there—something raw and desperate, a cry for help. But then it was gone, swallowed by the mask.
"Please," she whispered. "Leonid, please."
"Please what?" He shook her gently, his thumbs pressing into the delicate bones of her shoulders. "Please stop? Please leave? Please pretend that everything is fine and we can go on living this lie?"
"Please... do not hate me."
The words broke something in him. He released her, stumbling back, his chest heaving. The brandy churned in his stomach, and he pressed a hand to his mouth, fighting the urge to be sick.
"Hate you?" He laughed, the sound hollow and broken. "I could never hate you, Jennie. That is the tragedy of it. I love you so completely, so desperately, that it is destroying me. And you... you feel nothing."
She said nothing. She only sat there, her hands folded in her lap, her face a mask of perfect composure. And Leonid felt something snap inside him.
He moved again, faster this time, and before she could react, he seized her by the hips and turned her over. She gasped, her hands flying out to catch herself as her face met the pillows. He gathered the cotton of her nightgown in his fists and yanked it upward, exposing the pale globes of her ass, the dark cleft between them.
"Leonid, what are you—"
"My mother asked me today when we would provide an heir." His voice was flat, cold, devoid of emotion. "She reminded me that it is my duty, as the eldest son, to continue the Manoban line. And I thought, yes. Yes, I will fulfill my duty."
He freed himself from his breeches, his cock already hard, swollen with blood and anger. He positioned himself behind her, the blunt head pressing against her entrance, and she went still.
"Do not," she whispered, and there was something in her voice he had never heard before. A tremor. A crack in the porcelain. "Leonid, please, not like this."
But he did not stop. He thrust forward, entering her in one brutal motion, and she cried out—a sharp, muffled sound against the pillows. She was tight, so tight, and he was not gentle. He set a punishing rhythm, his hips slapping against her ass, his fingers digging into her flesh hard enough to leave bruises.
"You feel nothing, Jennie?" he snarled, his voice ragged. "Do you feel this? Do you feel my cock inside you, splitting you open? Does it mean nothing to you at all?"
She did not answer. She only lay there, her face buried in the pillows, her body trembling beneath him. He could feel her inner walls clenching around him, her body responding despite her silence, and the knowledge only fueled his rage.
"Look at me," he demanded, his hand tangling in her hair, yanking her head back. "I said look at me, damn you."
Her eyes were streaming tears, dark lashes clumped and wet. The sight of them shocked him, nearly made him stop. But the brandy was in his blood, and the anger was in his bones, and he could not stop.
"You are supposed to be my wife," he said, his voice breaking. "You are supposed to love me. But you lie there like a doll, and I have to wonder if you are even human."
He thrust harder, deeper, the sound of their bodies slapping together filling the room. She made a choked sound, half sob, half moan, and he felt her clench around him, her body betraying her even as her face remained hidden.
"Tell me you feel something," he begged, the anger draining out of him only to be replaced by something worse. Desperation. "Tell me you feel something, Jennie. Tell me you want this. Tell me you want me."
She said nothing. She only shook beneath him, her tears soaking the pillowcase, her body taking every brutal stroke.
He came with a groan, his release spilling inside her, hot and sudden. He pulled out immediately, his cock slick with their combined fluids, and rolled away from her. The silence that followed was deafening.
He lay on his back, staring at the canopy above, his chest heaving, his heart pounding. He could hear her breathing—shallow, ragged, broken. He could smell the sex in the air, the salt of her tears.
"I am sorry," he said, the words hollow and useless.
She did not answer. She only lay there, face-down, her body trembling with sobs she could not contain. The perfect mask had finally shattered, but it had taken this—this brutality, this violation—to break it.
Leonid rose from the bed, his legs unsteady, his stomach churning. He crossed to the window and stared out at the darkness, the moonlight casting silver shadows across his face.
"I will not touch you again," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I swear it on my mother's grave."
He heard her move behind him—a rustle of fabric, a sniffle, a soft, broken sound. And then her voice, hoarse and trembling, barely audible in the darkness.
"You already have."
The words hit him like a physical blow. He turned, but she was gone—already slipping from the bed, her nightgown falling into place, her bare feet padding toward the adjoining chamber. The door closed behind her with a soft click, and Leonid was left alone in the wreckage of his own making.
He sank to his knees before the window, his head bowed, his hands shaking. The brandy churned in his stomach, and he felt tears prickling at his eyes—crocodile tears, for a crocodile heart.
He had broken her. He had taken the one thing she had left—her composure, her dignity—and he had shattered it in a fit of drunken cruelty. And now he had nothing. No wife, no love, no hope.
Only the silence, and the memory of her tears, and the knowledge that he was a monster.
The candle guttered and died, plunging the room into darkness. Leonid remained on his knees, staring at nothing, the weight of his sins pressing down on him like a tombstone.
And somewhere beyond the door, in the darkness of her own chamber, Jennie pressed her hand to her mouth and wept.