The American Duchess by Joan Wolf Page B

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    Mr. Bodmin, acutely aware of the lack of a close female relative, had attempted twice to speak to his daughter about the marriage act. However, though he was a very brave man who had steered his ship through typhoons and hurricanes, he could not bring himself to talk to Tracy about sex. Her mother would have done that, he comforted himself, forgetting that his wife had died when Tracy was thirteen. And surely they had discussed such matters at that advanced school of hers, he thought bracingly. Tracy didn’t need his advice.
    Such matters had been discussed at Tracy’s school, but not in the classroom. The girls had pooled their ignorance and consequently Tracy half knew some things and misunderstood others. The result was she stood waiting for her bridegroom in a state of near terror. She did not go near the bed but stood dose to the window, as if looking for a way to escape.
    The family apartment at Thorn Manor consisted of two bedrooms, with attendant dressing rooms, connected by a sitting room. Each bedroom had two doors; one led to the hall and the other to the connecting sitting room. It was through the latter door of Tracy’s room that the Duke finally came, dressed in a wide-lapelled, simple but very expensive-looking dressing gown. Tracy didn’t move when he came in but stood rigid, like a deer at bay.
    It did not take the Duke long to assess the situation. “Ma mie , ” he said, his voice full of warm sympathy and just a hint of amusement, “there is no need to look like that. I am not going to eat you, I promise.”
    Tracy was not afraid that he would eat her; it was other unspecified things that she feared. He crossed the room to her, slowly and steadily, as one would approach a wild creature one was hoping to tame. She was trembling a little, he could see as he got closer, and her eyes were like emeralds. He made no attempt to touch her but held out a hand. “Come here to me and let us talk a little about these fears of yours.”
    Talking was about the only thing Tracy felt prepared to do with him at this point, and, tentatively, she took two steps forward. He put his arm lightly around her and guided her to the small settee that stood before the chimneypiece. They sat down side by side and he kept his arm around her so that she was leaning against his side. “Has no one spoken to you about what takes place between a man and a woman when they are married?”
    Tracy shook her head, and he reflected for a moment on the flaws of a culture that allowed young girls to come to their marriage beds in such ignorance. The Duke himself was not used to dealing with frightened virgins; his previous partners had all been women of the world, femmes du monde who knew very well what they were about. But he had seen fear before, on the battlefield, and he had recognized the seriousness of Tracy’s state almost instantly. It was not a state he was inclined to take lightly.
    Tracy sat stiffly against him, nervous under his touch, apprehensive because of his nearness. Slowly, reflectively, he began to talk. He said nothing to her of her “duty.” He spoke instead of love, of how a man and a woman were but two halves of one whole, of how in marriage the halves came together and were completed.
     Tracy listened, conscious of his body pressed against hers, conscious of the warm hand that was slowly caressing her bare shoulder, conscious of the quiet, reassuring voice so close to her ear. As she rested there, the power his closeness had always exerted on her began to reassert itself. He was being very patient with her, she thought. The terrible strangeness, the fear of the unknown, began to recede, overcome by the magic of her husband’s nearness, the tender reassurance she heard in his voice.
     She began to feel that she had been behaving badly. She still did not quite understand what would happen in the next half hour or so, but clearly it was wrong of her to be afraid. He stopped talking and just sat quietly,