The Lady Pursues (Alternate Mature Chapters)

Chapter Thirty-One (Mature edit)

Long author's note here...

1. This chapter is full length as I didn't want to do half-chaps when dealing with this complicated night. You might have to commit a bit more time to finish it than with previous installments.

2. This is the M-rated chapter. If anyone clicked on this without meaning to, you can find your way back to the cleaner version here:

https://www.wattpad.com/663134003-the-lady-pursues-chapter-thirty-one

3. Besides all that — Trigger warning for awkwardness? LOL. Our duo is about to perform a very clumsy wedding night.

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Ian supposed it had been too much to hope that they were finished talking for the night. He'd certainly relaxed into the idea, as nerve wracking as it still was, of the wedding night. She was his now, as presumptuous as she found the idea, and things between them had seemed easier now that this inevitable night was here rather than looming over them.

He might even call what they'd been doing up till now flirting, but now it seemed more serious and he felt anxious all over again. He really wasn't one for pretty words and he feared he might muck it all up again.

"You'd have written, at least," she'd asked. "Why didn't you?"

He stared at Charity, her words echoing in his head with a tone of bewilderment, hurt, and even accusation... possibly all at once. "How could I have? It's not done. Unmarried young men and women—"

"Yes, yes. I know that." Charity stared up at him, still in his arms but sort of far away now. "I also know that a lot of the things between us were not done."

"You had an offer of marriage."

"True, but I hadn't accepted him."

"I was positive you were going to. I had seen to it myself or at least... Well, I thought Pru would do as I asked."

"Pru?" She shook her head. "What did you ask Pru?"

"I asked..." He stopped himself. God, it seemed insane now, knowing he wouldn't want her to belong to anyone else, but at the time... "I asked her to encourage you to accept him."

"You wanted me to marry someone else?" She tore away from him.

"I didn't want you to," he began, directing it at her back now, "and I didn't want to ask that."

She whirled on him. "And yet you did!"

"That didn't make it easier. When Emilia wrote that he'd proposed, I... I couldn't stand the thought of it, the idea that I'd have to hear of you with him, even see you with him, year after year... Dear God, even this hellhole of a house seemed like something better than watching that. So yes, I left. And I didn't say goodbye. Do you imagine I could have just... just gone off and wished you well?"

She rushed to him and gripped the lapels of his robe. "I hadn't accepted him! And if you thought Pru would encourage me to do so, then you were sorely mistaken. If I'd listened to Pru, I'd have never gone to Cumbria with him," she let him go then, stepping back, "and then I'd definitely never have come here."

At the moment, he wasn't sure if he should thank God for Pru or wish her to the devil. "Why did you come here?"

"Because I'm a madwoman," she snipped. "You said so yourself."

"Charity," he sighed, "tell the truth." Dear Lord, he sounded like his mother. Still, it seemed to work.

She stared at him, taking a deep breath.