Hi,
I am currently re-reading WML for the umpteenth time and have just spotted something l hadn't noted before...
On their wedding night when Clayton is sat in his study with a book and a glass of brandy it says~
"He was genuinely annoyed with himself, and a little surprised, at being so unnerved by what was, after all, only one more night of celibacy. After eight weeks of celibacy, why did this one extra night matter so much?"
My question is...WHO was he sleeping with prior to the eight weeks leading up to his marriage, when he was courting and then betrothed to Vanessa?????
Can we assume that it WAS Vanessa? However as she is an unmarried girl still living at home with her parents would this have been possible?
I apologise if this has been answered previously, but l am new to the board.
Thanks x

Oh. My. Stars. I have NEVER NOTICED THAT BEFORE!!!!!!!

I have always tried to tell myself that he did NOT sleep with Vanessa for the reasons you stated. But she's always seemed so....intimate with him. ("Where are you leading me next my lord?" "Astray." Gah! I can't stand it.)

But his outrageously flirtatious behavior with Miss Standfield aside, he probably was by no means faithful to her or "singular in his affections", as JM phrases it (lolol), so perhaps he still took sultry women to the opera and then to bed in an effort to divert his attention from straying back to Whitney in the late solitary hours of the night. But....thinking of him doing so makes my chest feel like it is being squashed.

Now I want to read it again. Like, right now. I need to process and come to grips with this new information lol