Mary Balogh: Gentle conquest

A STUFFY NOSE awoke Georgiana the following morning. Her mouth was dry, her face stiff. Goodness, she had slept after all. She had given up trying to fall asleep when dawn was already making a lightened square behind the curtains. What time was it now? she wondered. She did not feel as if she had slept for long. Her head was aching. And she doubtless looked a positive fright. She had not even got up during the night to bathe away the effects of her tears. She probably had puffy red eyes, at the very least. But there was no knowing. She never cried.

She had not cried at first. When Ralph had stumbled from the room, she was bursting with anger and contempt. How dare he leave her like that, the deed undone, the embarrassment to live through all over again the next night! She had been hurt and humiliated. What a wedding night! How her friends would laugh if they knew.

She had been perfectly right about him the first time she set eyes on him. He was a boy merely, a weakling. He had never even kissed before! And he had not the slightest inkling of how it was to be done. She had been forced to wrestle him away from her in order to protect her ribs from being crushed and the inside of her mouth from being cut to ribbons by the pressure of her teeth. And she had almost fainted; her nose had somehow become trapped against his cheek.

And that performance in the bed-or, rather, Georgiana thought with indignation, the lack of performance! She had no objection to the haste with which he had tried to come to her. She had been decidedly jittery herself and merely wanted the awful deed at an end. She had not been looking for a grand sensual experience. She had wanted only to know what exactly the dreaded act was and what her part in its accomplishment was to be.

But he had hurt and hurt her, and he had not even broken her virginity. That, at least, would have been pain in a good cause. And then, when she had pointed out his clumsiness to him in the most reasonable manner, he had stopped altogether, lain still on her until she was about to scream at him to get the business over with, and then got up and left her. No, he had got up muttering abject apologies and rushed from the room like a frightened schoolboy.

And that was just what he was. She had married a scared little boy who displayed not one spark of manliness. Oh, this was going to be a martyr's game of a marriage, she decided. She would be fortunate if she did not end up going to her grave at the age of eighty-two or thereabouts as virgin as the day she was born. He would be eighty-five, if he lived that long-and he probably would-just to spite her.

Georgiana threw herself back against her pillows, folded her arms belligerently across her chest, and scowled at the darkened canopy over her head. She hated him! He had made a fool of her. Ignorant little boy. Clumsy, awkward, blushing, timid, weak, unmanly little boy!

And, oh dear, she thought, sitting upright suddenly and clasping her knees, what a shrew of a wife he had! It was no crime, surely for a man to come to his bride untouched himself. It was not obligatory for a man to have associated with high fliers, opera dancers, light-skirts, whores, or whatever types of women most men apparently did associate with. And she had criticized him. What could she have possibly done that would be more humiliating for him?

Not like that, Ralph!

Her own voice came back to her with uncomfortable clarity. And she had then proceeded to explain to him exactly how he should kiss. And she had even demonstrated! Georgiana put one hand tightly across her mouth. Oh, how could she have? What a brazen hussy! Papa would die of rage if he knew.

And she had prattled on when they had got into bed. She could not remember a word she had said, but it seemed to her that she had talked for a long time, instead of lying like a demure bride and waiting for her husband to do whatever it was he was supposed to do. Oh mercy! The hand tightened over her mouth and she shut her eyes very tightly. Had she not said something about all the house knowing the exact moment of the deflowering? Had she really used that exact word? Was there any chance that she imagined it? What on earth had led her to that dreadfully vulgar expression? In her bridal bed!

She did not know exactly how it was done, did she, for all her boasted experience with kisses? How could she expect Ralph to do so? If she had just lain patient for a few more seconds, all would doubtless have been well. She would be a wife by now. Whether he would have stayed in her bed or retired to his own, she could be lying here now, satisfied and relieved that the marriage had been consummated. She could have been planning her own future, content that she was now well versed in what would, for a while at least, be her main duty as a married lady.

As it was, she had totally embarrassed herself and frightened her husband away. And did she dare blame him? She had been terrified herself. She, who had never been afraid of anything. Or almost never. She certainly had not expected to be quite so fearful of a perfectly normal experience such as being bedded by her husband. Especially such a kindly, unthreatening sort of husband as Chartleigh. She thoroughly despised herself.

Indeed, she concluded, opening her eyes again and removing her hand from her mouth, this disaster of a night was far more her fault than his. Most of the time she did not even wish to be like other young ladies. She considered their lives insipid in the extreme. But just sometimes, just on the rare occasion, she wished she could behave in a more acceptable manner. She had ruined her wedding night and probably made a hopeless embarrassment out of tomorrow night too.

Georgiana threw back the bedclothes and stepped resolutely out onto the carpet. The very best thing to do with fear and embarrassment, she had found from experience, was to grab them by the throat and throttle them to death. She would go to Ralph immediately, be suitably meek and contrite, and offer to climb into his bed beside him. And she would lie there quiet and yielding all night if need be, allowing him to do what he would with her in his own time and his own way.

She moved resolutely through her dressing room and into his, groping her way because there were no windows in these rooms to give even some dim light. She knocked on his bedroom door-three times. Finally she opened the door and stepped hesitantly inside.

"Ralph?" she whispered.

Silence.

"Ralph? My lord? Are you asleep?"

She picked her way over to the bed, which was indisputably empty and unslept-in. She scurried back to her own room.

And that was when she had started crying. At first it was an itch and a gurgle in the back of her throat and behind her nose. Then her facial muscles started behaving with a will of their own. The tears came next, first a few trickles down her cheeks and then a raging waterfall. The sobs came last, and they were the most painful. She did not try to stop or to stifle the sound. But she did not know why she cried.

It was doubtless self-pity at first. Here she was, a bride on her wedding night, alone in a strange bed in a strange house, her marriage unconsummated, her husband goodness knew where, and her mother far away and probably fast asleep and not even dreaming of her.

But soon enough it was for Ralph she wept, and it was at this stage of the crying session that her sobs tore most painfully at her chest. What had she done to him? It was true that he was a young, unassertive, inexperienced boy. But did those facts make him automatically despicable? Did they give her the right to scold and humiliate him? And she had done both. He had been nervous, but then, so had she. And he had been so gentle with her earlier that day and for the last month, believing her to be a shy young girl.