The Blackthorne estate was no home. It was a mausoleum, and Lord Adrian Blackthorne its gaoler. The tapestries hung heavy with dust, the portraits glowered down with glassy eyes, and the faint perfume of rosewater — Eleanor’s perfume — lingered stubbornly, though she had been dead for two years. Adrian told himself it was imagination, yet the scent clawed at his lungs every time he crossed the threshold. He hated it yet he needed it.

His new wife trailed behind him like a pale ghost of flesh and breath, skirts rustling softly across the marble floor. Her steps were hesitant, faltering. He had noticed from the beginning how she always seemed a beat behind, as though the rhythm of this house, of his life, was not hers to claim. She did not belong, and the servants knew it.

He heard them whisper.

“The new lady tries,” murmured a maid at her linens. “But she is not Lady Eleanor. She never will be.”

“No one could compare,” another replied.

Adrian’s lips curled into something between a sneer and a smile. Their words were cruel, yes — but true. He allowed the whispers to fester, permitted the daggers of comparison to linger in the air. When his new wife stiffened beside him, when her face paled at the sound, he turned his head only enough to glance down at her.

“Do not let it trouble you,” he said coolly. “Servants are loyal creatures. They remember their true mistress. In time, they may warm to you... if you give them reason.”

He did not lower his voice for her sake. The servants bowed their heads quickly, scurrying back to work, though Adrian caught the flicker of satisfaction in their eyes. His words had been for them as much as for her.

At dinner, his mother presided like a queen, silver hair coiled in rigid braids, her gaze sharp as cut glass. She appraised his new wife the way one might a flawed porcelain figurine.

“Your wife manages herself tolerably,” his mother remarked, her knife slicing into venison with precision. “Though Eleanor had elegance bred into her bones. Do you recall, Adrian, how she charmed the Duke of Ashcombe the very first night he met her?”

“I do,” Adrian replied, without hesitation. He let the memory wash over him openly, unapologetically, ignoring the way his new wife’s lips pressed thin.

His sister’s voice joined, sweet and poisonous. “And Eleanor’s sapphire gown, do you remember? The whole ballroom hushed when she entered. She was radiant. People spoke of it for weeks.”

Adrian chuckled low in his throat, a sound meant to wound. “Yes. She did have a talent for silencing a room. My dear,” he added, turning to his wife at last, “perhaps you will find a gown that suits you so well one day. Until then, best not to invite comparison.”

Her hand trembled around her fork. Adrian saw. He reveled in it. Weakness disgusted him, yet her fragility fascinated him — like a butterfly pinned under glass, fluttering though it could not escape.

The season’s grand ball was worse, and Adrian made certain of it.

He escorted her beneath chandeliers that rained golden light, through a sea of stares sharpened by envy and disdain. Whispers swirled like perfume:

“Lord Blackthorne’s new wife.”“Pretty, but common beside Eleanor.”“She lacks presence. She looks terrified.”

Adrian drank it in. He tightened his grip on her arm until she winced, steering her like a doll into the blaze of society’s gaze. He leaned close enough that only she could hear:

“Smile. Do not shame me further. Eleanor never once lost her composure.”

She obeyed, of course. She always obeyed. Her lips curved, brittle, trembling at the corners. Adrian led her into the waltz, his hand firm at her back. She stumbled at first — just slightly, but enough — and his fingers pressed harder, punishing.

“Clumsy,” he murmured against her ear. “Did no one teach you the steps? Eleanor danced as though born to it. You will practice until you can at least manage not to humiliate us both.”

Her eyes glistened. Adrian smiled for the crowd, his posture flawless, his movements commanding. To them, they looked the perfect pair. Only she knew the steel in his touch, the disdain in his whispered corrections.

By the end of the night, she was trembling so visibly he almost pitied her. Almost.

Back at the estate, silence followed them into the study. Adrian poured whiskey with a steady hand, though his veins roared with agitation. He turned to her slowly, savoring her unease as she lingered at the threshold like a trespasser.

“They will never stop speaking of her,” he said at last, swirling the glass. “The servants. My family. Society. Even you. Especially you. I see it in your eyes — you cannot walk a step in this house without hearing her name in your skull.”

She flinched, but Adrian pressed on, cruel in his candor.

“I married you to end the grief. To silence her ghost. Yet you fail me. You invite their whispers. You shrink when compared, instead of surpassing. You let her win, even in death. Do you not see how pathetic that makes us both?”

Her lips parted, a protest trembling there, but he cut it down with a laugh.

“Do not mistake me. I do not despise you. Quite the opposite. You are mine, and I will shape you. Perhaps one day, you will learn to carry yourself with half the grace she did. Perhaps one day, they will speak of you without smirking. Until then...” He stepped forward, towering over her, his voice dropping low. “Endure. That is your duty. Endure their cruelty. Endure my disappointment. Endure her ghost.”

He caught her chin between his fingers, tilting her face up until her eyes met his. Tears glistened there, and he smiled faintly, vile and tender all at once.

“Do not cry,” he whispered. “Eleanor never cried.”

And with that, he kissed her. Hard, punishing, a mockery of affection. Holding her too close, too tight, as though the ghost of his dead bride stood between them and he could only cling harder to make her vanish.

But Eleanor never vanished. She lingered in the walls, in the servants’ eyes, in his own twisted heart. And Adrian knew — with cruel, certain clarity — that his new wife would always be second, because he would never allow her to be first.