The Wicked Confessions of Lady Cecelia Stanton

The Wicked Confessions of Lady Cecelia Stanton, is the second in Viveka Portman's Erotic Regency Diaries series.

When faced with a rakish, lusty husband, what is a proper English wife to do but educate herself in the art of bedplay?

“Marriages are strange things, none stranger perhaps than this betwixt me and my lord husband.”

Lady Cecelia is married to the dashing and philandering Lord William Stanton, a situation that would distress even the most composed and refined gently-born lady. However, Cecelia has a secret balm to her dissatisfaction: her maid, Bess Miller.

Cecelia’s inexperience and William’s insatiable appetites fuel her desire to learn, and Bess is a willing teacher. Then, when Cecelia blossoms into pregnancy and can no longer accommodate William’s needs, he distances himself, and Bess becomes her only solace and comfort — and the channel for her most intimate desires. As Cecelia struggles to understand her own feelings, gossip begins to spread. William starts asking questions, and wicked confessions must be made...

Excerpt

My father announced my engagement to Lord William Stanton over dinner one evening in 1806. I had only just started my first season in London. Truly, I still feel it unfair that my one and only season was cut so miserably short.  I felt something harden within me. William Stanton? I recall thinking. Is he not the young Lord who was caught sodomising a maid during the Yule Tide Ball, a year last? Indeed he was. Bess, as it turned out, had family in service with the Stantons and knew many of the wicked details.

You may well envision my misery. I beseeched my father to reconsider, but he was, as ever, adamant. We were a good match, or so it was said, and my dower was a happy supplement to the Stanton coffers. I could do nothing but adhere to my father’s wishes, but I asked one boon of him. I had only one wish, and that was to keep Bess as my lady’s maid.

My father accepted and preparations for the nuptials began. I left everything in the capable hands of my stepmother, a young woman whose marriage to my father had occurred three years prior, upon the death of my mother. I shall admit that, despite my grievances regarding my pending marriage, I had at least escaped the misfortune of marrying a man twenty years my senior.

As I said, my marriage ceremony was a quiet one, the party even quieter. My new husband seemed to enjoy himself. I believe this enjoyment was mostly due to the wine he had consumed.

I feel I must state that my Lord husband is a devilishly handsome man. Fine of form, with thick dark hair and lively blue eyes. I took care to watch him that eve. His shoulders were broad and stretched the cloth of his fine coat as he moved. I noticed other women offering him admiring glances. Though I could see his physical fineness, his shamelessness in attitude was quite repugnant. He has a swagger, you see, a cockiness and sureness of manner that distresses and amuses me in equal measure. William’s gaze upon me was crudely hungry. I could verily see the wicked thoughts cross his mind behind his sparkling eyes. Shameless, that is what he was.

 

'THE WICKED CONFESSIONS OF LADY CECELIA STANTON'

Coming...1st December 2013