North and South fic bit

stultiloquentia asked for a snippet of my North and South fic. As I find this extremely flattering and am pretty much a whore, here it is! Though I do seem to be in a rather bad habit these days of posting things only one person is going to read. Oh well.

Some context: This is a work in progress, but one of those I plan to try to post and finish some time this year. It's about 80,000 words at present, and it is also crack of the worst kind.

The premise is that Margaret married Thornton after the incident at the mill. He proposed and she said no, but then gossip negatively affected her family, Thornton quietly reproposed, and she accepted. For one thing I just don't think the gossip could have gotten that bad, and for another, I think Margaret is just too proud to cave. So heaven knows why I even started writing it, but I did, and it gets worse.

Thornton is aware Margaret married him just to preserve her family's reputation, and the thought of sleeping with her when she dislikes him so disturbs him! So of course they do not have sex, and Thornton suggests she come to him when she does want of the sex. Of course Margaret does not know what he means by "wanting sex" other than "wanting to do her duty" which she already wants to do, but that he seems to find disgusting. It's very confusing to her! They sleep in separate rooms, oh lord.

In this scene, they've been married for a little bit but not having sex. They're all going to London to the Great Exhibition together: Thornton, Margaret, Fanny and the Latimers. This is on the train to London.

( Excerpt )