Mary Putney - Wedding of the Century

For several minutes, they stiffly discussed the proposed trip, none of them making any allusion to the dowager's rout. It was like ignoring the fact that an elephant was in the room.

Finally Sunny got to her feet. "I'm very tired tonight. If you two will excuse me, I'll go to bed now."

Her temples throbbed as she went to her room, but under her shakiness, she was triumphant. Without the dowager's poisonous presence, life at Swindon would improve remarkably.

She changed to her nightgown and climbed into bed, wondering if Justin would visit her. Ordinarily he did after returning from a journey, but perhaps he would stay away if he was displeased with the way she had treated his mother.

Though it shamed her to admit it, she had come to look forward to his conjugal visits. One particular night stood out in her mind. She had been drifting in the misty zone between sleep and waking when her husband came. Though aware of his presence, she had been too drowsy to move her languid limbs.

Instead of waking her, he had given a small sigh, then stretched out beside her, his warm body against hers, his quiet breath caressing her temple. After several minutes he began stroking her, his hand gliding gently over her torso. She had lain utterly still, embarrassed by the yearning sensations that tingled in her breasts and other unmentionable places. Pleasure thickened inside her until she had had to bite her lip to keep from moaning and moving against his hand.

Fortunately, before she disgraced herself, he dozed off, his hand cupping her breast. Slowly her tension had dissipated until she also slept. Her rest was remarkably deep, considering that she had never in her life shared a bed with another person.

But when she awoke the next morning, he was gone. She might have thought she had dreamed the episode if not for the imprint of her husband's head on the pillow and a faint, lingering masculine scent. It had occurred to her that people who could not afford to have separate bedrooms might be luckier than they knew.

She had been mortified by the knowledge that she had the nature of a wanton. The next time she saw Katie Westron, she must find the boldness to ask how a woman could control her carnality, for surely Katie would know. Until then, Sunny would simply have to exercise willpower. She could almost hear her mother saying, "You are a lady. Behave like one."

Yet still she longed for her husband's company. She had almost given up hope that he would join her when the connecting door quietly opened and he padded across the deep carpet. As he slipped into the bed, she touched his arm to show that she was awake and willing. He slid his hand beneath the covers and drew up the hem of her nightgown.

Perhaps the evening's drama was affecting her, for she found it particularly difficult to keep silent while he prepared her for intercourse. Those strange feelings that were part pleasure, part pain, fluttered through her as he smoothed lotion over her sensitive female parts.

When he entered her, heat pulsed through those same parts, then expanded to other parts of her body. She caught her breath, unable to entirely suppress her reaction.

Immediately he stopped moving. "Did I hurt you?"

"N-no." She knotted her hands and pressed her limbs rigidly into the mattress. "No, you didn't hurt me."

Gently he began rocking back and forth again. The slowness of his movements caused deeply disquieting sensations. Yet curiously, instead of wanting them to stop, she wanted more. It was hard, so hard, to be still…

His breathing quickened in the way that told her that the end was near. He gave a muffled groan and made a final deep thrust. Then the tension went out of him.

She felt a corresponding easing in herself, as if her feelings were intertwined with his. She was tempted to slide her arms around him, for she had a most unladylike desire to keep Ms warm, hard body pressed tightly against her. Perhaps he might fall asleep with her again.

But that was not what men and women of good breeding did. Her parents had not shared a room. After Sunny's birth, they had probably not even had conjugal relations, for she was the youngest in the family. Once her father had two sons to work in the business and her mother had a daughter for companionship, there had been no need for more babies.

Justin lifted his weight from her. After pulling her gown down again, he lightly touched her hair. She wanted to catch his hand and beg him to stay, but of course she didn't.

Then he left her.

When the connecting door between their chambers closed, Sunny released her breath in a shuddering sigh, then rolled over and hugged a pillow to her chest. She felt restless impatience and a kind of itchy discomfort in her female parts. Her hand slid down her torso. Perhaps if she rubbed herself there…

Horrified, she flopped onto her back and clenched her hands into fists. Her nurse and her mother had made it clear that a woman never touched herself "down there" unless she had to.

She closed her eyes against the sting of tears. She was trying her very best to be a good wife. But from what she could see, a good wife was a lonely woman.

In a flurry of trunks and contradictory orders, the Dowager Duchess of Thornborough moved herself and a substantial number of Swindon 's finest antiques to the elegant Dower House on the far side of the estate. Then she promptly decamped to the French Riviera, there to flaunt her rank and make slanderous hints about her son's inadequacies and her daughter-in-law's insolence. The one thing Justin was sure she would not say was the truth-that a slip of a girl had maneuvered the dowager out of Swindon Palace.

Life was much easier with his mother gone. He and Sunny and Alexandra dined en famille, with much less formality and far more enjoyment. His sister was blossoming under Sunny's kind guidance, and no longer dreaded her social debut.

What wasn't prospering was his marriage. Ever since his incredibly clumsy remark about sparing future dukes the necessity of marrying for money, there had been strain between him and Sunny. What he had meant was that he wanted financial considerations to be irrelevant.

Unfortunately, she had believed the unintended insult rather than his heartfelt declaration that he would have wanted to marry her anyhow. Because he had accidentally hurt her, she had struck back, hurting him in return when she had underlined the fact that their marriage had nothing to do with love.

Fearing that more explanations would only make matters worse, he hadn't raised the subject again. Eventually memory of the incident would fade, but in the meantime Sunny had pulled further away from him. She was courteous, compliant-and as distant as if an ocean still divided them. Sometimes she trembled during their wordless conjugal couplings, and he feared that she was recoiling from his touch. If she had verbally objected, perhaps he could have controlled his desires and stopped inflicting himself on her. But she said nothing, and he did not have the strength to stay away.

As they prepared to go to the ball at Cottenham Manor, he hoped that Sunny's return to society would cheer her. She deserved laughter and frivolity and admiration.

Yet though he wanted her to be happy, the knowledge that she would be surrounded by adoring, predatory men terrified him. If she was miserable in her marriage, how long would it be before she looked elsewhere?

If you would he troubled, take a wife.

Cottenham Manor

March

Tottenham Manor, seat of the Earl of Hopstead, was almost as grand and large as Swindon Palace. Lord and Lady Hopstead were famous for their entertainments, and Sunny had spent a long and happy weekend at Cottenham the previous summer. It was a pleasure to return, and as her maid fastened a sapphire and diamond necklace around her neck, she hummed softly to herself.