Promises Unkept

Man and Wife.

He didn't hold her hand. He held her by her wrist in a grip that was adamant enough to stay the reigns of a beast.

He didn't walk her out of the church. He dragged her along, down the altar, through the asile to the exit.

His fury, he didn't even try to conceal it. It hung along, in his clenched jaw, his tight fist, his stamping steps, forest eyes and of all, in the way he completely ignored the wife of his as she nearly fell down skidding over her gown.

He stopped short on the platform of the church stairs and called or rather shouted for his coach which at once came parked down the end of the stairs.

"Come." He ordered, without looking her way and pulled her along down the stairs as fast as he could without making her fall. He particularly ensured that she would not fall for he had no wish to pay for her broken body if she did.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, he ripped open the coach door and stepped aside in command.

"Get in."

And casted a wuthering glance at her face.

Solemn. Silent.

She had no emotions to show and if he had expected to see what his manipulations had managed to pull out in her, he saw no disappointment at all. Nothing at all.

He felt as if he had been slapped.

All his hard work and this? All his aggressions and this? What kind of woman was she? Had she no self respect in her?

He clutched her hand once again, and furiously, like no other husband would to his wife on the very day of marriage, he yanked her into the coach and placed her onto the seat opposite to his.

She didn't question him a why. She didn't ask him what was the meaning of his deviously wild act.

As soon as he had managed to make her sit, she had collected the flaring silk of her white dress and had quietly shifted down to the window side of the coach. No tears. No sobs.

No bouts of shrieked out questions and cries.

Nothing that could have satisfied or atleast consoled him against her.

That turned him even more cold. He used his walking stick to signal the coachman a move and soon, his lordship's superior beasts were walking storms. His villa was not far from the church and it was a relief to understand that he didn't had to stay in this coach for long with such a suffocating company.

He heaved a hot sigh and rubbed his eyes from the tip of his fingers.

It was only two of them now, in this closed square of the vehicle. A man. A wife. And rest was taken over by silence.

He sat straight, trying not too break angry as he was and yet he knew, that if he loosened his posture a little bit, he would not be able to hold back the vile that had infested his heart towards her.

And there suddenly, for God knew why, he chose to steal a glance towards her.

To examine her face. To criticise it. Her eyes. Her nose. Her cheeks. Her skin_ that the had felt so satin like when he had touched her.

Her lips too_ that he had kissed and still remembered the taste.

He was not very skilled at reading the cuts and shapes of faces but even with his insufficient knowledge over it, he still saw that she was not beautiful.

Her nose straight and small. Her face, roughly round. Her brows, arched like a swan. Her chin, softly pointed. But overall, she was nothing remarkable. Not the kind of trophy, he had wanted for a wife.