Worderella Writes

Book: The Slightest Provocation

In the tradition of Romeo and Juliet, Mary Penley and Kit Stansell of the Regency feuding Penley and Stansell families elope, after nourishing a secret friendship from their early teens. Their first year of marriage is one long honeymoon night, if you get my drift, but when Kit is teased by his club friends for only lusting after his wife (how provincial!!), he dallies with an actress and catches a disease such that he can’t go to bed with Mary for a year. This doesn’t stop him from going to other actresses, however, and to get back at him, Mary allows Kit’s best friend to seduce her. Of course, Kit walks in on them, and that’s just the backstory.

When the book actually starts, Kit and Mary have been separated for nine years, during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon is finally defeated, and Kit and Mary are returning to England, worried by rumors that there is an insurgency threatening their homeland.

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