But she was 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 Katiewouldknow.
Until then, Sunny would simply have to exercise willpower. She could almost hear her mother saying, “You are a lady. Behavelikeone.”
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 hernightgown.
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 femaleparts.
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 herreaction.
Immediately he stopped moving. “Did Ihurtyou?”
“N-no.” She knotted her hands and pressed her limbs rigidly into the mattress. “No, you didn’thurtme.”
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 bestill....
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 his tensionebbedaway.
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 his warm, hard body pressed tightly against her. Perhaps he might fall asleep with heragain.
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 morebabies.
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 shedidn’t.
Then helefther.
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 herselfthere...
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 shehadto.
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 lonelywoman.
* * *
In a flurryof 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 theestate.
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 an American girl had maneuvered the dowager out of SwindonPalace.
Life was much easier with his mother gone. He and Sunny and Alexandra dineden famille, with much less formality and far more enjoyment. His sister was blossoming under Sunny’s kind guidance, and no longer dreaded her socialdebut.
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 beirrelevant.
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 dowithlove.
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 stilldividedthem.
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 tostayaway.
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 andadmiration.
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 lookedelsewhere?
If you would be troubled, takeawife.
Chapter8
CottenhamManor
March1886
