Wedlock by Wendy Moore

Although notoriously faithless and an adulteress, heiress Mary Bowes, widowed and fabulously wealthy, didn't deserve years of sadistic violence meted out by Andrew Stoney, the charming but disreputable Irish soldier she was duped into marrying. Mary's sufferings and Stoney's cruelty, his determination to have Mary's estates and his appetite for sex with countless other women make fascinating listening. This may be journalism rather than real history, but it's as enjoyable as the scandalous pamphlets written at the time.