A/N: Please, read this author's note!

Firstly, this one is sort of a continuation of "Cloak and Dagger" Chapter #29, but it will have a completely different tone. While #29 was a comedy, a spoof on those love novels with a hench bloke on the cover and a half dressed maiden with a bosom heaving out of atlas bodice trembling in his arms in a very uncomfortable position (seriously, have you seen them? :D), this one will be a bit more realistic, still very dramatic, and "slightly" angsty (if you've read my stories before, you can assume how slight this "slightly" is :D).

Secondly, this one is eventually to contain smut but of very specific sort, it has to do with loss of virginity. Please, be informed!

Thirdly, I just wanted to write another chapter for "We Are Scattered in Time and Space" and realized that it seemed to be escaping from under my control when it was already 14,500 words long and still going. So I decided to chop it into chapters and post them one by one.

Here is the first one of them! Please, let me know if it is more convenient for you to read it if I convert into a separate story, and I will post the rest as an independent fic. Like I said, there is so much written already!

Mr. John Thorington was standing his back to the room, his eyes on the drops of rain running down the glass, while the maid that let him into the sitting room left to call the host of the house. Mr. Thorington's fingers were locked behind his back, his shoulders tense, and his jaw tensed even more when the door behind him opened. He turned around and courteously bowed to the old man entering the parlour.

"Thorington," the old man's voice trembled, and a loud cough shook his body. He pressed a handkerchief to his lips, but not before Thorington noticed a scarlet drop on the man's lips.

"Lord Harlington."

Both men sat down, and John patiently waited for the older man to speak. The latter seemed lost in his thoughts, but then he shook his head and focused his sharp dark eyes on Thorington.

"I am a military man, John, I am not used to speaking ambiguously. I will be direct." Thorington nodded. He felt immense respect for Harlington, acutely aware of how the impending conversation was paining the old man. "In the current situation my family is at your mercy, John. After the public transgression of your brother and my granddaughter, all that can be done is..." The old man started coughing again, and John quickly got up to hand him a glass of water. Lord Harlington thanked him and drank it greedily. "Since these two mad children decided to make their love publicly known, and you have to know, John, I fully blame Wren..." The old man shook his head. "And myself. I have encouraged her insurgent views and all those suffragette meetings, she is a clever child, but she gets so passionate..." The old man trailed away, and Thorington kept silent for him to continue. The old man coughed into the handkerchief again and clenched his jaw. "I am certain it was her scheme from the start, to be seen with him in such compromising position, and I do not place any blame on your brother… I have been young once as well, John, and I remember the power women had over my will then. Women can make a fool of any of us..." Thorington smirked darkly. Sadly enough he shared Harligton's sentiment, although unknown to the old man he also placed the same judgment on himself. His brother was not the only man in his family having fallen under the spell of Wren Leary. "But with your brother's sudden death..." Harlington looked at John with sympathy, and Thorington lowered his eyes. The mourning period was almost over, but the emotional wound seemed to never possible to heal. All the family still felt shocked and devastated by Frederick's accident. He had always been an excellent rider, no one could imagine him to lose control over his colt. So many circumstances had to fall together for such tragedy to transpire, the sudden sound to frighten the otherwise calm horse, Frederic's boot to slip, and the belly band to snap! John felt there was some sort of a plot on the fate's part to slay his brother, and he felt anger rising in him every time he would think of it. Frederic did not deserve such destiny.

"With my brother's sudden death your granddaughter's honour is in my hands," John looked at Harlington with sympathy.

"No one knew which one of you two was with her in that carriage that night, John. He was seen and recognized, but I doubt even your mother can distinguish the two of you with certainty!" The old man's voice grew louder, but then he realized his own words. "I am sorry, John. That was unacceptable."

"Apology accepted, sir. And you are right, even Mother had trouble telling us apart. Your granddaughter though always could. I would immediately receive the coldest greeting as soon as I would enter a room." His tone was sarcastic, mostly because he was trying to silence the unwanted memories of that one time when Wren Leary mistook him for his brother. In the darkness of an alley, her slender body pressed to him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her soft passionate lips on his… Thorington frowned and reigned his emotions.

"I understand your meaning, John. The two of you indeed are not on the best of terms, and please believe me, I once again place all the blame on her. Her so called progressive views, her radical ideas… She is stubborn and temperamental, but I believe even she understands that to save her honour and my name she is to marry you now. And believe an old man, marriage is rarely built on mutual adoration and hardly depends on such emotions."

Thorington felt strange tug at his heart. While the scandal and rumours were raging through the society he obviously assumed that such solution might come to light but now, once it was put into words he felt strange apprehension. John Thorington was a person of determined will and inner strength, and always strove to be honest with himself. He had to confess at least to himself that his upcoming marriage to Miss Wren Leary made his so distressed not because it was unwanted, but quite the opposite. But if he were earnest with himself he had to admit he would have wanted her to enter it willingly, to choose him over his brother and submit to him, as opposed to be forced into it. He also knew that she would agree. To pacify and make her ill grandfather content she would agree on anything. Thorington clenched a fist on the armrest of the sofa, nodded curtly, and the decision was made.

XXX

Even though John expected his wedding night to become a nightmare, he hardly anticipated the scale of the calamity he was to endure. He opened the door to his marital bedroom, and since his bride refused to have anything to do with establishing their new household all the decisions were made by his sister, who out of her own understanding and, as John suspects, vengeful strictness had ordered only one bedroom to be organized in his house, and once his eyes fell on his young wife he froze on the threshold. Firstly, candles were burning bright in the bedroom. It was John's understanding that he was to find the room dark and to approach the bed blindly groping in the dark. His wife was to be lying motionless under the covers, dressed in her nightgown, and the further proceedings were to transpire quickly and unpleasantly for both sides. John was familiar with the latest medical opinion on what had always been perceived as the man's right on their wife's body. A man was expected to demand his marital right at least two times a week, for the sake of sustaining his good health, having acquired full ownership over his wife legally and physically. He also understood that most women were completely uneducated on these matters, and he was prepared to be patient with his blushing wife.

Miss Wren Leary and now Mrs. John Thorington was sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed in a nightdress and a robe, her flaming copper curls scattered on her shoulders, her face haughty and apprehensive. He made a few uncertain steps inside, and she scornfully exhaled.

"Are you intending to spend your wedding night standing up, Mr. Thorington?" Her tone was venomous, and he felt his temper rising. He acutely realized that since the day he saw her for the first time they have hardly exchanged any friendly words. They argued during public gatherings on women's rights, they insulted each other in private conversations, he would insinuate she was of loose morals, she degraded him comparing him to his brother. Since the decision was made for them to marry she quite obviously decided to give him silent treatment, he was so engaged that it seemed rather favourable to him. They hastily married to silence rumours, and now he was standing in front of her in his night shirt and breeches and felt completely lost.

"Are you aware of what is to transpire between us now, Mr. Thorington?" Her tone was almost bored, and he suddenly found himself laughing loudly in the dim bedroom of his new married household. He was the one to ask such question. She looked at him in confusion, and her delicate nose twitched in disdain.

He sat on the bed near her and gave her an attentive look over. "Something tells me, Mrs. Thorington, that unlike most of your sisters," he purposefully used the suffragette term and saw her nostrils flare, "You are rather knowledgeable in this area."

"Unlike most people in contemporary society I do not consider carnal matters a prerogative of men. And education is a virtue, Mr. Thorington." Her tone was meant to hurt, and it did. But not for the reason she thought. His fists clenched, and white rage filled him. All he could think was that he was evidently not to be the first man to possess her body, and he suddenly imagined slapping her across her pale face. And then he immediately felt nauseated from this thought. It was his own fault, he desired her so much that he decided to marry her despite her loose behaviour, her views and her obvious inappropriateness. He had a price to pay. He took a deep breath in and closed his eyes. The small triumphant voice in his head he had heard all through this day, praising him for finally making her his, for obtaining her into his possession, submitting her into his ownership, had faded away, and he realized that she would never be his. He was unfortunate to fall in love with her, with her temper and her rebellious nature, her stubbornly lifted chin and sharp words that made the men and women of the class wince. Had he been in love with her looks, he would have ignored the heart and mind behind them like most men did these days, but he was out of his luck. He opened his eyes and looked at her, seemingly for the first time. Feverish blush burning on her cheekbones, her small hands fisted on her knees, slanted green eyes widened, pupils dilated, she was as beautiful to him as a woman could be for a man whose heart she possessed, and suddenly he realized he had been defeated.

"Wren," his voice broke, and he saw her eyebrows jump up, he had never addressed her by her name before, "I am aware of what happens between a husband and wife at their wedding night, and any given night afterwards for that matter, but..." He felt strange tension in his chest and took another deep breath, "But I abnegate my right for the marital duties on your part." He watched her lips open slightly, and she looked at him in shock. The strange tension he felt seemed to have spilled into the air in the room. Suddenly a grimace of fury ran across her face.

"Are you expecting me to be grateful for this?" She hissed, and he saw her hand twitch as if she was fighting an urge to slap him herself. "You do not have any right over any of my duties!" She spit the last word, and he saw her shoulders shake. "I am not a commodity, Mr. Thorington, I am not your horse, I am not furniture or a carpet. I am a living human being, and..." She choked on her words, and suddenly he realized she was scared. Her small frail body was shaking, her lips were white, and he saw with all possible clarity she was fighting tears.

At that moment perhaps for the first time in his life John tried to see the circumstances he was in from another person's point of view. How terrifying, humiliating and degrading such situation must have been to her! She buried a man she loved without a right to mourn him openly, she was forced in a marriage with another bearing the face of her dead beloved, she was expected to perform duties that were endlessly disgusting to her both personally and intellectually, and he was making clever comments!

He jumped on his feet and stepped back from her. She wasn't looking at him, her eyes fixed on some spot on the wall in front of her, and if he had any doubts that he was being a monster of her worst nightmares they quickly disappeared when a single tear ran down her cheek. He rushed out of the bedroom into his study and slammed the door behind him. His whole body was shaking, and he filled a glass with sherry. He toppled the tangy drink into his throat and started coughing. Some strange headache was clenching on his temples, and he pressed his back to the door. He had just become the executor to the woman he loved.