“North & South: John Thornton, Love Lessons”, Ch. 21 (R-S): Sunday Spooning, Monday Museum and Tea Rituals, January 20, 2014 Gratiana Lovelace
(An original fan fiction copyrighted by Gratiana Lovelace; All rights reserved; Based on the Elizabeth Gaskell novel, North & South and its 2004 BBC adaptation; No copyright infringement intended)
[I will illustrate my story using my dream cast from the 2004 BBC production of “North & South”: Richard Armitage for John Thornton, Daniela Denby-Ashe for Margaret Hale, Lesley Manville for Mrs. Maria Hale,Tim Pigott-Smith for Mr. Richard Hale, Sinead Cusack for Mrs. Hannah Thornton, Jo Joyner for Fanny Thornton, Brendan Coyle for Nicholas Higgins, and Graham McTavish as Dr. Cameron Ogilvy, Holliday Grainger for Angharad Ogilvy MacIntosh, Simon Woods for Baird Ogilvy, and Emma Ashton as Mrs. Dillard, etc] [(1) story logo]
Author’s Mature Content Note: “N&S: John Thornton, Love Lessons” is a story with mature themes of love and relationships set within a period drama of the 1850’s and beyond. As such there will be heartfelt moments of love and sensuality (S)--as well as other dramatic emotions, including some violence (V)--and I will rate those chapters accordingly. If you are unable or unwilling to attend a movie with the ratings that I provide, then please do not read that chapter. This is my disclaimer.
Author’s Recap of the Previous Chapter: Fanny Thornton and Baird Ogilvy have gotten to know each other better in London with meeting at the Shaw-Lennox family luncheon with the MacIntosh’s and Baird and by sharing confidences. Baird is more enamored of Fanny than ever. And John and Margaret and Hannah and Cameron are enjoying their time in Milton--without Fanny.
“North & South: John Thornton, Love Lessons”, Ch. 21 (R-S): Sunday Spooning, Monday Museum and Tea Rituals
As John awakens he realizes that for the first time in their brief two and a half months of marriage, he and Margaret have no expectations for their early morning presence at breakfast on this lazy Sunday morning January 12th as the sun begins to rise over a cocooning Wintery haze that has settled over Milton. John’s sister Fanny is still in London and his mother Hannah Thornton arrived home so late from a concert and late supper Saturday evening with her betrothed Dr. Cameron Ogilvy at his residence last night--unchaperoned but for the servants, scandalous!--that John joked to Margaret that he was almost going to send a search party out for her. As it was, John’s mother was a little flushed when Dr. Ogilvy escorted her home in his carriage slightly after midnight (scandalous again!)--flushed being a condition that John finds his mother in more often these days. Therefore, John surmises that Hannah’s late evening will likely keep her abed longer than usual this morn.
So John slips out of bed to brush his teeth and such in his and Margaret’s bed chamber’s adjoining bathing chamber before returning to sleeping on his left side, spooning behind his wife Margaret. However, she stirs when he returns to bed and she also alights from it herself. John’s arm reaches out and strokes the warm bed sheet upon which his beloved had recently slumbered. Lying upon his back again, John keeps one eye half open gazing at Margaret donning her lace dressing gown [(2) right] as he covets the privilege that it has in enclosing her naked form. Without her wearing a nightgown underneath, the lacy robe transforms into a provocative glimpse of her tantalizing curves and womanly silhouette.
John closes his eyes contentedly [(3) right] as Margaret slips from his gaze--wishing her back again. With alacrity, Margaret also visits their bathing chamber, certain that this is to be the start of several days of rest between she and John--with tender but chaste cuddles with her husband. However her not finding the cause for her monthly days of reluctant denial, she thinks that she must have the date wrong. So she smiles seductively and returns to her husband waiting patiently for her in their bed, deliciously anticipating their loving morning that awaits them.
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"N&S: John Thornton, Love Lessons", by Gratiana Lovelace (2013-2014) (Done)
FanfictionJohn Thornton has an eager mind, starved for intellectual stimulation. But what John could not have foreseen was that just as his mind needs nourishment, so does his heart. Mr. Hale's proud, beautiful, kind, stubborn, and compassionate daughter Mi...
