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kylorengarbagedump · 7 days ago

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Playing Soldier: Chapter 25 (NSFW)

Read on AO3. Part 24 here.

Summary: If malaria thinks it can kill you, it's got another thing coming.

Words: 7000

Warnings: dirty talk

Characters: William Tavington x Reader

A/N: Co-written with @bastillia.

HI welcome back!! Is this? Fluff? We've integrated? GASP??? HAVE A FEW PRAYERS BEEN ANSWERED???

Perhaps so. Thank you so much for all of your patience and well-wishes - I am doing well and was well-bolstered by the gratefulness I have toward the engagement and enthusiasm we get for our funny little fic, hehe.

Thank you so much to all of you and I hope you continue to enjoy <3

The second dose of Peruvian bark tea was nearly as vile as the first. But you'd managed to swallow that, a whole bowl of porridge, two rolls, and a small ocean’s worth of water by midday. And though your skin still ached and your muscles still twisted into knots, your mind was finally, finally starting to clear.

“Someone appears in fine fettle this afternoon,” said Lottie as she gathered the dishes from your bedside, holding up a bowl to display its emptiness. “And a veritable glutton besides.”

“Yes, well,” you rolled onto your side to face her, “it seems even marsh fever flees in fear of your porridge.”

Lottie grumbled, playfully flicking your nose. “Fine fettle indeed,” she muttered, stacking your dishes and whisking them away.

You grinned, stretching out like a cat in a sunbeam.

“You’re fortunate that the sight of color in your cheeks has my spirits so lightened,” Lottie said, flouncing back over to gather one of the blankets from your bed, “or it’d be porridge for every meal henceforth.”

“You wouldn’t be so cruel.”

“Oh, I would,” she said, folding up the blanket and peering down her nose at you with an attempt at iciness that her warm features could not physically sustain. “I’ve become ruthless in your absence, you know. Someone had to fill the void.”

You snorted a laugh, rolling your eyes and flopping onto your back.

“See,” Lottie said, pointing a finger at you, “that’s how I know you’re feeling yourself again.”

“I am,” you said with a sigh, letting your eyes fall closed and relishing the way the room remained anchored around you. “Perhaps I’ll even manage to leave this bed for something other than the chamber pot. Thank Providence.”

A singsong hum from Lottie made you crack an eye open in suspicion.

“I believe you might have someone more corporeal to thank,” she said, impishly avoiding your one-eyed squint. “Perhaps with a kiss, if you’re so inclined to be up and about.”

You groaned. “Quiet.”

Lottie cackled, delighted with herself.

You’d not even spoken to him since he’d arrived. You remembered prying your eyes apart, suspended in the air by clouds at your back, remembered taking a sip of the tea Lottie had cradled in her hands. Remembered gagging so hard at the taste that the world had regained a few of its edges. Remembered the outline of him beside you, his hand leaving your back, his eyes meeting yours a single time and ordering Lottie to ensure you drank it all before he fled the hospital altogether.

It’d been weeks, now, since your lips had been on his, since you’d felt the warmth of his body against yours—and this was almost a relief. The shadow of your dreams had not receded from your thoughts, and with Goddard assuming more responsibility, the potential for your fears to become reality hung like a collection of familiar bodies over your head.

You’d admitted that you no longer despised William, that you even cared for him. Were you tempting fate by indulging your desire? It was not a question you cared to answer.

Despite all of this, there was, perhaps, a small, insignificant, very very tiny and not at all important part of you that wanted to thank him. Charleston was a week’s journey under ordinary conditions, and he’d made it there—and back—in six days. That deserved some gratitude, even if that handsome chestnut of his likely lay dead at the bottom of the hill. But the thought of prostrating yourself before him and admitting you’d become indebted to his mercy made illness crawl back over you.

You sighed, dropped your face into your pillow, and immediately grimaced. The awakening of your mind came with the awakening of all of your senses; the awakening to the fact that you, your clothes, your mouth, your everything reeked of averted death.

A gaggle of pathetic thoughts: William had stood near you like this? Would he even want to lie with you after inhaling such a malodorous stench? Perhaps he’d realized his journey had been a waste after returning to a woman whose body was capable of creating such a collection of… aromas.

You weren’t sure what was more revolting—the smell, or the insecurity it inspired.

“Lottie,” you called, and she spun to attention, a tiny hm? punctuating the airy tune she’d been humming. “I have quite the favor to ask of you.”

She shook her head. “No more rolls ‘til supper, you’ll burst.”

“It’s far more arduous than fetching rolls, I’m afraid.”

“Can’t possibly be,” Lottie said with a scoff, “what with Alice in the kitchen lying in wait to either bite or gossip my ear off, and myself never the wiser as to which fate might befall me upon entering.”

“God, you’re right, that is arduous,” you said with a grimace, rolling up to sit and stretch your hamstrings. They tugged like old leather against your bones.

“And it isn’t even good gossip, which makes the risk all the less sensible.” She sighed, gliding to your bedside and pushing a stray lock from your face. “After all,” she dipped into a whisper, “I’m privy to the best gossip in this fort, and it’s all locked safely behind my lips.”

She smirked, tapping a forefinger to her mouth, and you hid a reluctant smile behind a shake of your head. “I appreciate that, Lottie.”

“Now,” she said, clapping her hands together. “What would you require of me? You need simply name it.”

You chewed your lip. It would be labor intensive. But you needed it. And though you had no intention of seeking William out, if this happened to make you more appealing to him should your paths coincidentally cross, that would be an additional benefit.

“Would you… perhaps consider drawing me a bath?”

Lottie laughed. “Surely you jest,” she replied. “It would be my pleasure to do so.”

You frowned. “Is it that bad?”

“No, that’s not why!” she said, hands going to her hips. “You’ve been in awful condition. The fact that you feel well enough to bathe brings me great joy, that’s all.”

You studied her face. “But it is bad.”

“Well… I wouldn’t say bad so much as…” Her lips twisted, and she offered you a placating smile. “That you could use a freshening up, perhaps.”

“Sure.” Grumbling, you gathered your blankets and pillows around you, curling tightly into yourself beneath them as if you could barricade the air from escaping your skin. “I’ll be ready whenever it’s prepared.”

She nodded. “I’ll get started on it shortly. Should be finished by the evening.”

“Thank you,” you said from beneath your cushion fortress.

“Don’t thank me,” she chirped.

You grunted.

Lottie finished her tasks in the hospital before leaving to boil the first pots of water for your bath, and in the absence of her bustling and humming, the ward’s silence suffocated you. You turned onto your side, flipped, turned again, but failed to quiet your mind. After weeks confined to your bed, you craved to use your muscles, to engage your hands with work. But you’d been scolded enough times to know that Lottie would never allow it.

Or at least, she wouldn’t if she wasn’t occupied.

You glanced around and shucked the sheets from you like a second skin. They felt heavy and slick with your illness—you pitied whoever would be tasked with laundering them. Wrapping yourself in a robe and slippers, you toddled your way over to your workspace, surveying your stock and making notes of what you’d need to gather when you returned. The mint was relatively well-maintained, so you took a few leaves for your bath later. As you reached onto a shelf to take inventory of your fever reducers, your vision flipped upside down.

You gripped the table, staring into your feet as the room whirled and the floor dropped from under you. Then stood, breathing, until it all re-settled into place.

Dammit.

With a long, deep sigh, you returned to your bed and burrowed under the slime that composed your sheets until your bath was ready.

You'd had your third dose of tea and the night had fallen before you were released to bathe. The moment you managed to claw free of your mattress Lottie had stripped the sheets and sent them to be laundered with a prim swiftness. That would be a relief, too, you figured—clean sheets, freshly bathed, newly functional? You'd be back to work by tomorrow, you were certain of it.

After laying your change of clothing out on your bed, Lottie wrapped you in a wool cloak and bundled you up to the main house, where a water closet had been arranged complete with a bathtub, now full and steaming, as well as a basin and mirror along the wall. She fussed over you for only a few minutes, urging you to please call for me if you need even a moment of assistance as I’ll just be in the drawing room, and then left you to your privacy.

The grime melted from your skin in the water, sloughed off with the top layer. You remained there, scrubbing soap into your flesh and hair until your arms ached, gnashing on a chew twig and sucking on mint leaves until your mouth was cold.

William drifted unbidden to your thoughts, as he did with increasing frequency as of late. There was no denying that a part of you wished to see him. Also no denying that if you did see him, you'd need to express the gratitude that you reluctantly, factually harbored. He had endured no small hardship to save your life. Your chest tightened with an uncomfortable, unfamiliar warmth.

Wasn't he supposed to want you dead?

Weren't you supposed to despise him?

When and why had everything become so strange?

Your head thumped back against the copper edge of the bathtub, eyes fluttering shut as you worked soap down your torso, around your hips, between your legs. The idea of him galloping across a countryside crawling with rebel militia, evading death, capture, and the elements themselves, all to bring you medicine—it was like something out of a mad fantasy.

And yet, imaginations of his journey continued to flash through your mind. His breath rolling through him as he galloped, that stony set of his jaw, the hellish determination within the clear blue heaven of his eyes. Your fingers traced over tender flesh between your legs, and your breath quickened, imagining him storming into the Charleston hospital, demanding the medicine, returning without a moment’s hesitation for you.

For you.

All for you.

Long-dormant nerves crackled to life under the pads of your fingers, sending pleasure knifing up your spine, making you twitch, your vision blur. You stilled, panting. This wasn’t a good idea yet. This much you knew.

So you dragged your hand from between your legs and sunk to your chin with a sigh. Blood beat in your temples, your forehead, your fingertips, the water’s heat soaking your bones until the steam finally dissipated from the room.

When you stood, you wobbled, the world flipping again, but you grabbed the sides of the tub and breathed.

You would be fine. You were getting good at this.

A fresh shift and nightgown waited in your satchel. As you clambered out of the tub and began to sort through in search of it, your fingers skimmed over an unfamiliar piece of parchment.

“Huh.” You plucked it from the pocket, and groaned, rolling your eyes. “Dammit, Grace.”

She’d packed Pearce’s letter, no doubt as a tease for you to discover. The imp. Despite the irritation of being reminded this man existed, you smiled. You hadn't received a letter from her in a couple of weeks now and the reminder of her presence comforted you. Perhaps the post was as gummed up as the supply lines.

With a sigh, you stuffed it back in your satchel. You’d burn it later. You were too tired to monitor a candle now.

Once you had donned your shift, nightgown, and cloak, you drew a deep breath. You were already exhausted. But you'd be fine tomorrow. Surely.

Your things gathered, you made your way to the drawing room, stopping to lean against the doorframe and catch your breath. Inside, the glowing hearth threw Lottie’s curls into relief like a halo of wild flames, half-illuminating her face where she frowned at a checkerboard. Her freckles scrunched in thought before she clicked a piece across it. Then she rose, circled to the other side of the table, and frowned again, nibbling a fingernail as she strategized against her own move.

“I survived,” you announced from your place in the doorway, resting your head against the wood.

Lottie spun, brightened, and skipped toward you. “How do you feel?” she asked, pressing a hand to your forehead and examining you up and down. “You look a bit faint, was the water too hot?”

You shook your head. “It was perfect. I feel like a new person.”

“Smell like one, too,” she teased, grinning.

You poked out your tongue at her and she giggled, taking your hand.

“Shall we get you back to bed?”

You sighed, adjusting your hold on your bag. Tempting as it was to avoid the complication of seeing William, to postpone the task of thanking him until its enormity in your mind could diminish, you knew that you had to at least try.

“There’s something I need to do, first.” Somehow, the idea of going another night without seeing him chafed you just as much as the thought of confronting him. Whatever that was supposed to indicate. “I just…” You glanced around toward the staircase leading up to the officers’ quarters. “It won’t take long. I can make my way back to the hospital on my own.”

Lottie’s lips twisted into a skeptical smirk, her eyebrows rising.

“What?” you scoffed.

She shrugged, shaking her head. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re thinking something.”

Lottie pinched her lip between her teeth, poorly hiding a grin as she avoided your eyes, instead adjusting your cloak and plucking a stray eyelash from your cheek.

“I’ll bring up your clothes and tea in the morning,” she whispered.

“Lottie. I’m not spending the night.”

“Mm-hm,” she sang with a nod. “Of course you aren’t.”

“Charlotte.”

She spun past you toward the main entrance. “See you later,” she called airily. “Or earlier.”

A delighted giggle, and the door clicked shut behind her.

Sighing, you rested the back of your hand across your forehead, gathering your resolve. Might as well get it over and done with.

You picked your way slowly up the stairs, pausing for breath at the top before continuing on, guided through the halls by the slits of candlelight peeking through the officers’ bedrooms. One such room still lit belonged, you knew, to William Tavington.

You paused at the threshold. Raised your fist in the air.

If you were going to thank him, you needed to do it quickly so as to move on from this entire event and all of the feelings it inspired. You rapped on the door.

Beyond the threshold, not a sound. You strained to listen, catching not even a footstep or a swish of a quill. Perhaps he was in his office and you’d be able to say you tried without having to actually do anything. You took a step. Bit your lip.

Dammit.

You knocked again. “William?”

Before you could lower your hand, the door swung open. If you’d had any semblance of a sentence on your tongue before, it evaporated.

William stood in the door, his hair thrown about his shoulders, soft shadow on his cheeks. From what you could tell, he wore only a robe that was buttoned haphazardly at his waist, the top slung open and revealing a swathe of his chest, the curve of his pectorals, the dark dusting of hair leading between them to his stomach.

You unfortunately had decided to inventory all of this before saying a word, and then dragged your gaze to his, catching him in the process of doing the very same. His eyes lingered on the beads of water still fresh on your neck, strands of hair gilding them like jewels.

You swallowed every sprout of desire that had grown in your throat. “Good—”

William grabbed your wrist and tugged you into the room, his other hand coming around your waist and sealing you against him. Your belongings dropped to the ground. The door, at some point, shut behind you, though you were only made aware of this when your back pressed against it and his lips crashed against your own.

You sighed into him, gripping his hips for stability, the world snapping into focus with a clarity you hadn’t possessed for weeks. His tongue flicked into your mouth, his hand slid down to caress your ass, another hand tangling itself in your still-wet hair. His body was warm—hot—and you gasped, groping at his sides, wanting to meld into his increasingly firm hold.

When your hands crawled up his shoulder blades, he groaned into you, his fingers digging into your flesh. His mouth fell from yours to your neck, flush with heat, and began to suck and bite at every exposed inch of skin it could find, one hand freeing the tie of your cloak and wrenching it from your shoulders. You twitched, whimpered, the pain from his teeth peeling away whatever healing your body had begun, rending open your nerves like an axe to wood.

“Lord,” you panted.

The world flipped yet again, knocked from under your feet—until you realized this was William, bending you backwards so that your knees buckled, so that you needed to hook your arms around his neck to remain standing. He hummed into your throat, relishing all he tasted, returned to your lips again, kissing you once, twice, stuffing his tongue back in your mouth before pulling away and moving to the other side of your neck.

“William.” Your vision blurred, and you were unable to discern whether it was from illness or desire. “I…” Whatever had been on your mind before he took you in his arms was now lost to that same encompassing blur. You pressed your lips to his ear. “Take me.”

“If only those were the two sole words I ever heard from your mouth,” he grunted, and lifted you to your feet.

Just as he did, the world flipped a fourth time.

Then the floor rushed your face.

It stopped, inches from your nose, and you hung as if suspended by rope. An exhale escaped you, your eyes fluttered, and your vision finally refocused. Barring your teeth from meeting the hardwood was William’s arm curled around your waist, now guiding you to stand.

“Ah,” he said, propping you upright, “did you mean for me to take you to the hospital, then?”

You snorted, placing a hand on his bare chest, reveling in the heat, the excited kick of his heart against your palm. “No,” you said, pretending you hadn’t almost eaten the ground for supper, “I want you to take me to bed.”

He appraised you. “If you so wish.”

With that, he swept you behind your knees, collecting you in his arms, only to deposit you like a slaughtered deer onto the bed in a limp tangle of limbs. He studied you, examining the steam rising from your skin, the dizzy whirl to your sight. You wobbled up onto your elbows and glared at him.

“You don’t truly intend to convince me that you were prepared to be bedded, do you?”

“I was,” you insisted. “I am.” Especially if your cunt, now undoubtedly awake, had any input on the matter.

“Mm.” William’s eyes flicked over you. “No.” He crossed to the candle in the corner of the room, snuffing it. “Perhaps a more gentle man could appease you,” he said, as if he were discussing the weather, “but you could not bear the activities I’ve planned with the proper enthusiasm.”

Your heart thumped. Your thighs pressed together. “Please feel at leisure to share the explicit details of your plans, Colonel.”

William’s lip curled in a smirk. “Such plans are better anticipated and experienced than disclosed,” he drawled. “Wouldn’t you say?”

“How might I anticipate without any sort of indication?” you asked coyly.

“You shan’t.” With that, William pulled aside the sheets and slipped underneath them.

You pouted, pulling your legs into your body, wanting now to occupy as little space as possible in this bed if he was going to refuse to fuck you in it. Yes, you’d just been debating the wisdom of lying with him, and yes, this hadn’t been at all why you’d chosen to stop at his door. But now you’d glimpsed the relief of his touch and no longer wanted to deny yourself of it.

How cruel of him to deny you instead.

Beside you, William pulled a book from his bedside table—Il Principe, of course—thumbed to the page marked with the dried sprig and began to read. You watched him with growing irritation, for now not only was he not preoccupying himself with your body, but he’d chosen to do so by reading a book in a language you could not parse.

And to look so regal, so irresistible as he did it, too, with his bared chest and strong nose and thoughtful, pale eyes skimming the words. Frowning, you peeked at the open face and saw the pages had already been tarnished by a dozen annotations in the margins. These you could also not read, for they too were in Italian. A sense of unease crept over you, not unlike nausea but certainly distinct from it. Your skin felt too tight on your bones; the bed, too small for two bodies.

You sighed, your hands twisting around one another. Then you stuck an arm into his line of sight, pointing plainly at one of the printed paragraphs unmarred by his hand.

“What does that say?” you asked.

With a crisp accent, he replied, “Un uomo che voglia fare in tutte le—”

You slapped your hand lightly across his mouth, silencing him in a muffled mph. “Oh, do kiss my arse,” you said, rolling over with a pout. “Bastard, you are.”

He huffed. “Have you no reading material of your own to satisfy you?”

“Not all of us have the capacity to travel with libraries of foreign tomes,” you grumbled. “Peasantry must make do with what we have at present.”

“That must account for the general fecundity,” he mused, flipping a page.

“You are such a jester,” you said flatly. “Perhaps I’ll laugh all the way back to my own bed.”

You craned up to sit and swing your legs from the bed, but his finger caught the collar of your nightgown. With a single deft yank, he brought you sprawling down into the crook of his arm, kicking like a cast horse.

“Ugh—unhand me, you fiend!”

“No.”

His voice rumbled just behind your ear, tinged with satisfaction. To your chagrin, this instantly sapped the power from your struggle, your traitorous body instead aching to slacken into his hold. Refusing to give him the gratification of your surrender, you kept your back to him and curled once more into a stiff, cross-armed ball, diligently ignoring the way his arm still cradled your neck.

William sighed. Without a word, you heard the book thump shut and return to his beside table, and his arm slid out from beneath you. The mattress shifted as he rose from it.

“I can scarcely believe you have nothing of your own,” he said, picking up your satchel and beginning to rifle through it.

Your head shot up. “Excuse me!” A realization, and you scrambled to the edge of the bed, wincing when this made you nearly spill over from wooziness. “Wait, don’t—William, those are my—”

William’s brow rose, then furrowed in recognition that he’d landed on something. His gaze met yours, finding there the admission: this something you desperately did not want him to have. Frowning, he fished his prize free from your satchel and displayed it like a trophy.

Pearce’s letter.

Your eyes widened. There was nothing incriminating in the letter, to your memory—not even a mention of his status as a captain—but the thought of William poring over this man’s insipid attempts at romance made you consider defenestration before taking another breath.

“What’s this?” He wiggled it in his fingers. “To Miss,” he emphasized, before reading your name as the addressee. “Very formal indeed.”

Groaning, you flopped onto the bed. “It could not be more of nothing if there was no ink on the page.” For some reason, you worried he would suspect you kept this letter out of sentiment. “My scheming little demon of a sister placed it in my bag, I suppose believing herself to be amusing.”

“Is that so?” William opened the letter, reading as he crossed to the bed. “I pray this correspondence meets not with that degree of cynicism which I am undoubtedly due…”

You whined, covering your face. “Have I not suffered enough these past weeks?”

A tiny, cruel grin on his lips. “Oh, you truly resent its existence, don’t you?” he asked, brandishing the letter.

“I told her to burn the damn thing,” you replied through your hands.

William returned to the bed, still reading aloud, and you moved to make room for him. “... Your father had described you as intelligent and strong-willed—did he now? Strong-willed would be the most generous adjective to use, I suppose—and I was unprepared to make your acquaintance and present myself with propriety as he failed to mention your arresting beauty.”

He eyed you briefly at that. Heat rushed your face, as you’d never once heard William comment positively upon your appearance apart from the time you had your mouth around his cock. Yet he continued to read, as if Pearce’s letter was a shared amusement he was allowing you to enjoy.

“... my name is Christopher Pearce, and if you would permit me, I would name what of you I admire so that you may see the truth in my intention.” William snorted, settling back against the pillows. “What, did you twist your claws into his balls upon first meeting?”

You rolled your eyes. “No more than any other man’s.”

“He has been well and truly gelded, then.”

“Shut up,” you said, nudging him. “You seemed to have maintained your manhood without injury.”

William glimpsed you. “Unlike your Christopher Pearce,” he replied, “upon first meeting, I recognized a creature in need of breaking.”

You returned his stare, curled onto your side in his bed. A chill rushed you, inviting the awful ache to return to your muscles. Shivering, you decided to join him beneath the blankets, the unnamable unease binding you from inching any closer, despite how comforting the glow of heat from his body seemed. Exhaling softly through his nose, he continued reading.

“Your hands, well-worn by work, I would seek to soften through my labor. Your laughter, though I have yet to earn it, I would seek to gift you daily. And your eyes, ferocious as those of a tiger—”

William paused there, tongue pressing against his cheek before he continued.

“Your eyes, ferocious as those of a tiger, I would seek to gaze upon me with affection.” His brow twitched, and he skimmed the rest of the letter, mumbling under his breath, “Not precisely how I would phrase it…”

You blinked, sitting up. “What was that?”

He looked at you. “Hm?”

“What did you mean by that?” You reached for the letter, and he jerked it away.

“What did I mean by—” when you went for it again, he held it to the side, “—what?”

“Lord—” You scrambled across him until you straddled his legs, trying to snatch it free, the hem of your nightgown climbing your bare thighs. “You—God, you’re impossible.”

William held it above his head. “I beg your pardon?”

“What did you mean,” you said, settling now in his lap, “by ‘that isn’t how you would phrase it’?” You nodded toward the letter.

His eyes widened—he hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. “Ah.” He lowered the letter, scanned it. His throat knocked. “Well.” He put the parchment to the side, searching the air. “I don’t believe I’d choose the words ferocious or tiger to describe your eyes.”

Your heart tripped over itself. “Truly?” you said, cocking your head. “And how, might I ask, would you choose to amend such a description, William?”

William sighed, directing a withering look to the wall. “The words ferocious and tiger are obscenely shallow,” he said, “and trite from the open.”

Then he gazed at you again. He went to speak, then paused, lips pinching together. Silent, he pushed a strand of hair from your face, allowed it to draw over the pad of his finger before he spoke.

“One could consider Dionaea muscipula,” he began. The blue in his irises shimmered like ice. His finger trailed over your cheekbone. “Its mouths are laden with teeth, purposefully unappealing to any who threaten to consume it.”

A crack in the ice, like the first thaw of a river. The same finger curved around your jaw, to your chin.

“But if provided the proper attentions. Appeased at its roots and fed with regularity…”

Embers licked away the fridigity in his gaze. Gripping your chin, he passed his thumb over it, watching your lips part in response.

“... it raises a single stalk, high above its mouths, and yields delicate, pristine flowers. Ripe for harvest.”

William’s thumb traced your lower lip, his eyes flooding with an open, unbound twilight.

“Perhaps that’s where I might begin.”

Your jaw was slack, your thighs perched on either side of his own, your core thumping between them. Unbidden, your hand landed on his stomach, smoothing over it. The warmth there tempted you to draw even closer, to discover if his desire mirrored yours. For now, you could not even bring yourself to look.

“Well,” you said, voice tight in your throat, “I suppose… that’s a marginal improvement.”

Swallowing, you took the hand at your jaw in yours, hoping he would not feel how rapid your pulse was beneath your flesh, and skimmed your thumb over his knuckles.

“Was… Did…” Your tongue felt fat in your mouth, like it had never spoken a word before this moment. “How, ah… I…” You cleared your throat. “I hope you, ah, haven’t over-exerted yourself with such phrasing.”

William’s lip twitched, his chest falling in an exhale. “Oh, utterly exhausted.” He met your eyes, a glint of mischief in them. “More taxing than a ride to Charleston and back, for certain.”

You bit back a smile. “Is that so?” Despite your efforts, your grin prevailed. “By paying me a single kind word you have robbed yourself of every last humor?”

“Am I to believe you’ve paid a single kind word to any blood outside your own?”

“Of course I have!”

“I doubt that very much.”

You smacked his shoulder. “Must you witness everything to believe it?”

William shrugged. “I draw conclusions from the evidence at hand.”

“Well, perhaps you should take into account that… uh.” You shifted, straightening your spine. “That… Um. I believe. That. You.” You inched closer to him, your heat flush against the crux of his thighs, the warmth between bearing sweat. “Are…” The words felt like paste. You glanced at your entwined hands. “Very. Handsome.”

You met his eyes again. They flashed with triumph.

“Impressive.” He squeezed your hand before releasing it to cradle your face. “Although,” he murmured, leaning closer, “I dread to imagine how taxing you found those four words.”

Pinching your jaw in his hand, he grazed his lips over yours.

Your eyes fluttered shut, and you sighed, muttering a scant shut up before liquefying against his mouth.

William’s fingers spanned your nape, holding you in place as he adjusted his angle, his touch tentative, deliberate. Open-mouthed, he kissed you again, slipped his tongue across your lower lip, and you shivered, easing closer to him, wanting more, more of everything he possessed.

In response, he deepened the kiss, absent of the urgent hunger he’d embodied moments ago—he kissed you as if testing a theory, as if to explore you to the brittle edge. Your hand fell to his thigh, stroking him there, feeling the thick sinew of muscle tense under your palm, and you moaned into his mouth.

Drawing a breath through his nose, he glided a free hand down your arm, over your hip, slipped beneath your nightgown to rub circles into the curve, his fingers reaching to squeeze your ass. You whined again, dropping your hips—his cock was hard, poking through his robe, and you ground slickly against it, the whine tumbling into a groan. William released you, breaking away to meet your eyes, the both of you panting and needy.

“I will make you come on my fingers,” he breathed. “But you may not touch me.”

You blinked, frowning. “How can—”

His thumb crooked into your mouth, depressed your tongue. “Hush,” he said. “Hands on my shoulders.”

At this point, you were too aroused to argue. You obeyed.

“If you attempt,” he said, “by any measure, to incite me to take you.” He wagged your chin back and forth. “I will stop.” His stare sunk into yours. “Nod if you understand.”

You nodded.

“Good.” His lip quirked, and he released your tongue to pat your cheek. “Now behave.”

With your hands planted on his broad shoulders, William slid a warm, smooth palm up your inner thigh, earning little trembles of muscle as you fought the urge to drive into it. You kept your eyes on his face, watching as he followed his own motion: fingers teasing up to where your leg creased your torso, combing through the patch of curls that veiled your heat, dipping to pet your outer folds.

You nearly buckled, but bit your lip instead, taking a slow breath through your nose while William sketched the perimeter of your cunt, glancing over your entrance to stroke the inside of your other thigh.

“You are eager,” he murmured, gently massaging your flesh. “Were you made so by my words? Hm?” His hand slid back up to your center, grazing your folds again, and your pelvis jerked toward him. “Have you long waited to hear praise from my tongue?”

“No,” you replied, your eyes closing, hips seeking. “Why would I await the devil’s praise?”

“Is that not something all little beasts do?” William’s finger slipped between your folds, coating itself in your slick, skimming your throbbing clit. “Await patiently the day they receive validation from their master?”

You shivered, your head falling to his shoulder as he guided the pad of his finger around your clit in lazy circles. “Hardly,” you managed. “I dare say you—ah—chided me for my nature more than flattered me.”

“You found my efforts unsatisfying?” His voice fell into his chest, his finger daring to dip past your entrance with every other round it drew. “A shame.”

“It is,” you agreed, trying to roll your hips to swallow his finger. He dodged you, and you whined. “But I hear it’s not uncommon for men to—ngh—fail to satisfy.”

William huffed—a dark sound you felt in ripples over your skin. Two fingers pressed to your entrance, and a second hand locked your hips in place, preventing you from riding them. You grumbled, grip biting his shoulders, but far too weak to meaningfully protest.

“What if,” William drawled, his fingers swirling in your wetness before softly stroking your clit, “I told you something to which no other man would be capable of attesting?” You clenched in need, trying to draw him in, and he hummed appreciatively. “Do relax, woman. You’ll get what you so badly crave.”

“William,” you whimpered. “I—please—”

He laughed. “What if,” he said again, “I told you…” He pressed his hot mouth to your ear. “... that it is this ferocity which provokes me to fill and stretch you with my cock?”

You collapsed against him with a moan, arms wrapping around his neck, and as you did, he drove his fingers inside of you, the heel of his palm pressing your clit. Another moan, and your walls squeezed him, aching to trap him there as your pelvis jerked in vain.

Words like his were wholly unfamiliar to your ears. And they instantly demanded you come off around him.

“I had assumed you’d appreciate that,” he whispered.

You were too numb with pleasure, too depleted from illness to do anything but agree.

William curled his fingers inside of you, his wrist rolling with steady rhythm as he panted in your ear. You melded to him, your mouth nibbling his throat between gasps, your legs still straddling him by sheer strength of his grip. And as he moved inside you, pleasure built, his fingers stretching you open, the kiss of his palm rubbing your stiff, swollen clit. You tensed, tightened around him, feeling how easily he slipped in and out of your core.

“What if I told you,” he said, more strained with effort, pushing a third finger inside of you, “that your little virgin cunt is the tightest, most exquisite thing I’ve ever fucked?”

You sobbed, your walls beginning to flutter with your building orgasm. “William,” you said, “you’re—you’re going to—”

He grunted, and his hand released your thigh, clamping around your throat and squeezing. You gagged, eyes rolling back, hips bucking on his hand, your senses blurring with a haze of distorted delight. All you felt was your stuttering breath, the girth of his fingers pumping into you, the pressure of his hand on your clit—deep, firm, wet, and following your every movement.

“What if I told you,” he growled, “that feeling you gasping and struggling against my palm gives me greater pleasure than spending all over your pretty face?”

A twisted moan fled you, your teeth scraping against the slope between William’s neck and shoulder, and his thumb played at your pulse, shooting stars behind your eyes. Euphoria burgeoned between your quaking thighs, primed to pour through you with a single command. William sucked in a breath between his teeth.

“Take what you need,” he muttered. “Come, dandelion.”

It was all you required. You wheezed against his hand, jaw dropping in silence as your orgasm ripped through you, your body riding each peak until you feared losing saddle in your own mind. William’s thumb circled your clit, his fingers fucking into you as you convulsed around them. Tattered, honeyed coos of praise breezed your ear—that’s right, that’s it, good, good—and his hand fell from your throat, returning to prop up your hip as you crumbled against his strength.

Your head spun. Your heart slammed in your ears, your chest heaving. Bliss still sparkled on your skin. Drool had pooled onto his robe, his throat. And you were puddling into his lap. Sighing, you nuzzled into his pleasant warmth as the remnants of your climax echoed through you.

William removed himself from your cunt with a squelch, and you grumbled from the hollow discomfort. Without a word, you heard him wrap his lips around his fingers, a deep groan rumbling in his chest as he sucked them clean, as if he were savoring a confection.

An exhale, and he popped them from his mouth. “Mm,” he mused, “even better than I recall.”

“Good sweet Lord,” you groaned, pressing your eyes into his shoulder. “You are an utter deviant.”

He squeezed your hip. “And you are thrilled by deviance.”

You snorted. “Perhaps,” you said. “Perhaps I am.”

William released you, and you fully fell into his lap, his still-ardent erection pinned between you. You flinched, not sure if you could sustain any more attention—but he did not move, instead allowing you to rest there, your arms still bound around his neck, your face nestled in his shoulder.

His own hands hovered somewhere by your sides, his body stiff, but you had neither the strength nor will remaining to roll off of him. Exhaustion was now filling the cracks your desire had rent, its weight seeping and settling through your body. And he was so… solid. So warm. So present.

“Thank you,” you murmured into his collarbone.

“My my,” he said, his throat vibrating against your cheek, “need I return you to the hospital after all?”

You exhaled, shaking your head, nuzzling further into the crook of his neck with the movement. “It’s what I came here to say,” you explained, “before you distracted me.”

You breathed him in, soaked your lungs in the familiar clean musk of his skin, the faint notes of sandalwood, leather, and apple that clung to him. As you exhaled, you melted deeper against his body and, by degrees, felt his own muscles relax beneath you.

“Is that so,” he finally muttered.

“Mhm.”

William took a breath, and then the weight of his forearm draped across the small of your back. His other hand glided up your spine, between your shoulder blades, his fingers dragging delicately, almost tentatively, through the hairs at the nape of your neck.

A little sigh of pleasure left you, eased forth by the fog of sleep now gathering in the valleys of your mind. It numbed your limbs, swirled one sensation into the next. His hand on your flank splayed wide, his thumb tracing a pattern there that raised gooseflesh, followed shortly by an unbidden shiver.

He reached aside to snuff the candle. Then his arms tightened, and everything tipped—he rolled your combined forms onto the side, making no effort to untangle your limbs from around him. You felt a pillow cradle your head, his arm a perfect cushion beneath your neck, the other reaching to gather the covers over you both before sealing around you again.

“I mean it,” you murmured somewhere into the heat of his chest. “I am grateful. Truly.”

William’s ribs expanded and fell, his exhale cascading across your ear. His knee slipped between your thighs, your legs vining together beneath the sheets. With your last mote of consciousness, you felt his whispered reply.

“I know.”

#william tavington #colonel william tavington #colonel tavington #the patriot #jason isaacs #playing soldier #fanfiction problems #YEEEEEHEHEHEHEHEH

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kylorengarbagedump · 7 days ago

Text

Star Wars movies (1977 - ) // The Fallen Angel (detail) - Alexandre Cabanel, 1847

#everything i ever wanted in a man and more #kylo ren #bebe #truly my husband eternal i am indebted to him for life

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kylorengarbagedump · 21 days ago

Text

Have a Nice Vacation (NSFW)

Read on AO3.

Summary: The White Lotus was boring. The ocean, food, nor pool could make up for the gaping deficiency in what you’d really come here to seek: the men.

But this new man was easily in his late fifties: a flash of white edged his sideburns, his hair greying but still thick and full, lines swept into his forehead. A familiar shadow hung over him, a manifestation of unsatisfied anxiety, crinkling at the corners of his eyes—and his eyes. Large, pale blue, stark against the rich-man-tan so many of his ilk maintained. Busy with selfish concern.

He was perfect.

Words: 6500

Warnings: daddy kink, older man/younger woman, infidelity

Characters: Timothy Ratliff x Reader

A/N: Hi, this is me taking a break from the porn I'm writing to write new, other, different porn.

I saw Jason Isaacs' (prosthetic) cock and I simply could not get this idea out of my head. I've always dreamed of being a famous OnlyFans creator but I've neither the tits nor the patience to market myself. But I can live vicariously in reader's stead.

Hope you all enjoyed!! I sure had fun writing it, LOL. <3

All things considered, the White Lotus was boring.

Yes, when you rose in the morning to gaze out of your villa, you met a vision of the sky consuming the sea. Yes, the food had managed to fill your stomach without bringing on bloat. And yes, the pool temperature stole the endless waves of sweat from your skin. But neither the ocean, food, nor pool could make up for the gaping deficiency in what you’d really come here to seek: the men.

And every single one of them made you want to fucking gag.

Your current vomit inspiration was the man who’d stretched himself out on the lounge chair next to you like a proud lion. The moment he’d groaned, pulled his arms over his head to display his chest, you'd decided to check your recent subscribers.

For some reason, that wasn't deterring him.

“Finally, someone with some sense,” he said.

You snorted like mucus had caught in your throat. The trends on your most recent posts were pointing down and there was no sign of increasing interest.

If you didn't turn it around soon, you’d need to start actually trying.

Horrific.

The man laughed. “Yeah, I didn't wanna ditch the phone, but my dad made us.” He sighed, curling into his side to face you, sun-bleached brown hair sweeping his green eyes. “You here by yourself?”

You glimpsed him from behind your sunglasses. He wasn't bad looking. But getting past the obnoxious swagger would be a challenge. And he wasn't the type of man you made content with, anyway.

“Saxon,” he said, holding out his hand.

Puckering your lips, you looked pointedly at his hand before returning your attention to your phone. He withdrew it, laughing again.

“All right, all right.”

Even without looking at him, you felt the slime of his eyes trickle over your body, eat up every hill of your flesh, and consume the complex collection of straps making up what you called your bathing suit. He clucked his tongue, sitting up.

“Hey,” Saxon said, cocking his head. “Aren't you EasyDoesThem?”

You released the slightest exhale. Fuck.

“You are!” he said. “I thought I recognized you. Holy shit, do you want to film something together?” His voice dropped, and he sat up straighter. “I'm totally down. I can get my brother to film it, hold on—Lochy! Come here!”

“Wow. Actually, I have to get going,” you said, giving him a tight smile as you got to your feet. “Thanks so much for the offer, though.”

Saxon groaned playfully. “Aw, come on. Really?” His neck spun on a swivel. “Seriously, at least meet my brother, he’s a total virgin and it would be—”

“Later, Saxon.” With a swish of your hips, you abandoned him to whatever inclinations he’d dreamed of dragging his brother into, making your way to the bar.

There was no drink that appealed to you with men like him around, but your skin was prickling from the sun and you needed something to lower your core temperature. You jerked a chair free and plopped into it, requesting the lightest and fruitiest mocktail available before surveying your fellow patrons.

More men. At least these ones were over fifty—far more viable for potential content—but they were engrossed in conversation with each other, exchanging words like liquidity and amortization and other terms that you’d rather burn alive in this sun than become familiar with. Chewing on your lip, you pulled out your phone, deciding if you couldn’t be generating new subscribers, you could at least interact with the ones you had.

You took a selfie, tapped open the app and scrolled to the Polls section, typing out a quick and stupid question with some quick and stupid answers.

Thailand is HOT. 🥵🥵🥵 I can barely keep this on! What should I wear when I fuck my next Daddy? 💦🍆🔥😈 ⭕ Bikini ⭕ Lingerie ⭕ His clothes ⭕ Nothing

You attached the photo and hit submit, shaking your head. This was pathetic. At least that would keep them busy for a few hours while you tried to figure out what to do.

The bartender placed your drink in front of you with a pretty clink. As you went to take a sip, a new man took a seat next to you with a weighty, exhausted sigh. You frowned, peeked up from the rim of your glass. Stared.

This man was easily in his late fifties: a flash of white edged his sideburns, his hair greying but still thick and full, lines swept into his forehead. A familiar shadow hung over him, a manifestation of unsatisfied anxiety, crinkling at the corners of his eyes—and his eyes. Large, pale blue, stark against the rich-man-tan so many of his ilk maintained. Busy with selfish concern.

He was perfect.

You sat up, leaning towards the bar and into his line of sight, arms pushing your tits together. “Hi there,” you chirped. “Another day in paradise, hm?”

The man didn’t even spare your tits a passing glance. Considering how much effort it had been to pull this suit on, you were a little offended. What he did glance at, though, was your phone. His gaze narrowed.

“Is that your phone?” he asked, in an accent that was as southern as it was affluent. “We’re not supposed to have those out here.”

You pursed your lips, shrugged your shoulder. “Probably.” Holding it up, you presented it to the bar. “I’d like to see them take it from me, though.”

“Right…” Those gorgeous eyes of his settled on yours, then your phone, and he raised his eyebrows, as if to deny himself a line of thought. “You have a nice vacation.”

“Hey, hey.” You placed a hand on his shoulder, throat thickening at how sturdy and solid he felt underneath his linen shirt. “Don’t be shy.”

The man twisted in his seat, leering at your hand like it had pinched him. “What?”

“Come on,” you said, rubbing a small circle into his shoulder. “I can tell you wanted to ask me something.”

“No, I…” He stared at your hand. With a frown, his jaw shifted, and he bit back a snarl, rubbing his brow in exasperation. “Would you mind?” he said, like it pained him to ask. “If I used your phone?”

You smiled. He was hooked. “What for?” you purred, shifting your arms so your breasts became more pronounced.

Despite this, he still did not acknowledge you even had breasts. “I need to call someone,” he said. “It’ll be quick.”

“International?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“That’s no problem.” Humming, you took a sip of your drink. “But we’ll need to head back to my villa for it. I don’t use the cell service for international calls. Just wifi.”

The man considered you, his eyes glued to yours. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s the only place I can actually use the internet,” you lied.

Then, miraculously, his gaze flicked to your tits. To your face. To your tits again. He sighed, voice whittling to a whisper as he displayed his left hand. “I’m married.”

You studied him. I’m married was a desperate protest by men of his ilk. It was the acknowledgement that he would be tempted, the demand that your morality win out over his own—a foisting of responsibility in your hands, as these men had been aching to rebuke that burden at first opportunity.

But you didn’t particularly care about the marriages of men who were willing to utter this sentence. Nor did you care to bear any of the terrible weight he considered fidelity. What you cared about, to be very honest, was getting his cock inside of you, and getting it on film.

The promise of the first typically spurred men into agreeing to the second.

Eyes wide like a fawn’s, you replied, “What are you saying? I’m talking about using my phone.” Shrugging to yourself, you started to place your phone into your handbag. “I guess you’re just as weird about this digital detox stuff as everyone else…”

“No, no, wait,” he grumbled, and you paused, eyeing him. He surveyed the group, drawing a slow breath. You lingered on how it swelled his broad chest, his stomach, your thighs pressing together. With an exhale and flourish of his hand, he shooed away the last of his restraint. “Fuck it. Let’s go.”

You laughed. “Awesome.” Standing, you held out your hand, giving him both your name and your most charming smile.

He stared, sneered at what you could only assume to be his own weakness, and gripped your hand with his own. “Tim.”

“Nice to meet you, Tim,” you replied, giggling. “Very firm handshake.”

“Yeah,” Tim said, brows raising as he averted his gaze. “Thanks.”

Giving him a final grin, you strode past him, calling, “Follow me!”

The return to your villa was longer than you would’ve liked. You’d made comments along the way, receiving nothing but short, detached engagement from Tim throughout the journey. This was typical, you thought, of men considering whether or not they’d betray their marriage vows—or, at least, men who were pretending to consider it.

Regardless of their presentation, a sense of entitlement ran in canyons through the blood of men like Tim; a desire to obtain anything forbidden to the plebian, whether that be luxury, or freedom, or the soft, naked body of a woman half his age. Even if he’d gone his entire life never believing he’d seek comfort from anyone other than his wife, there came the question most men asked when presented the opportunity…

Well, why the fuck not?

You sauntered into your villa, holding the door open for him as he stalked inside, his neck twisting as if to make sure you were alone.

“It's just me staying here,” you said, shutting the door behind you. “Don't worry.”

“Yeah.” He held out his hand expectantly. “Is it connected to wifi, yet?” he asked. “Your phone?”

You stopped yourself from frowning. For a man nervous about following a woman in a bikini alone to her villa, he certainly seemed preoccupied with anything except said woman.

“Let me look.” You pulled it out and pretended to check before presenting it to him, unlocked. “Yep! You're good to go.”

“Thanks.” Tim grabbed it from you and started tapping away. “So you're staying here by yourself?” he asked as if the answer mattered less than anything he'd ever inquired about in his life.

“Mhm.” You decided to turn around and bend over, pulling the straps from your sandals. “Just me.”

“Uh huh.” He cursed under his breath and then cleared his throat. “Awfully young to afford a place like this all by yourself.”

With a wiggle of your hips, you stood, casting a glance over your shoulder. “Are you asking me what I do for work, Tim?”

Tim did not reply. He scrolled through something on your phone, his face scrunching in irritation. “God Almighty,” he growled. “Dammit.”

“I thought you said you had to call someone.”

“No, I didn't,” he replied, still scrolling. He rubbed at his brow like a farmer who'd just finished ploughing a field. “Lord…”

You actually allowed yourself to frown. Maybe he was one of those social media addicts getting bent out of shape over a Twitter war he was losing. Maybe he'd needed to check the stock market for his amortization or his liquidity or whatever. Either way, you were a little bit over it.

“Hey,” you said, walking over to him and running a finger down his arm. “Why don't we put the phone down and I can show you the view around here?”

He glimpsed you, scanned your figure. Resumed reading. “Sure. In a second.”

“Aw, come on,” you said, shifting your weight in a way that made your tits bounce. A teasing smile pulled at your cheeks. “The reviews of the latest Marvel movie can’t be that bad.”

Tim’s eyes widened. His jaw slackened. “Shit,” he hissed. “God-fucking-dammit!”

You retreated a step. There was a rash growing on his neck; his knuckles were starting to punch through his skin. This was way more than infidelity anxiety. Way, way more than you'd been prepared to soothe with your pussy.

“Uh. Everything all right, Tim?”

He cursed again. “No, everything is not fucking all right.” Head falling back, he rubbed his brow again, staring into the ceiling. “I'm fucked. I'm fucked!”

You swallowed. All right. This was a mistake. You'd misread him entirely.

“Why don't I just…” You tiptoed toward him, reaching for the phone. “Take that back—”

“Fuck the damn phone!” He met your gaze, his eyes pale with terror. “You don't get it, I—”

“You're right, I don't, and—”

Your phone hit the floor. “I'm fucked!” Tim grasped your shoulders, shaking you like a stringless marionette. “Everything is fucking fucked!”

You reeled back and slapped him across the face. He stilled.

Panting, his focus fell to the walls, the floor, your feet, traveling up your bare legs, your thighs, your stomach, stopping at your chest.

One of your tits had popped free from its binding. Your nipple poked out, pert and ripe. Breath rolling through you, you stared at his face, watched as the panic, the fury in his gaze hooked onto a different avenue of release, ice blue melting to something molten. Mercurial. Urgent.

“S-sorry,” he muttered, his hands falling from your shoulders, skimming the tops of your arms.

You swallowed. There was calculated risk, here. But the strength of his grip, the smooth plane of his palms on your skin, the primal spark in those eyes—your belly tightened with a low pull of its own, willing to ignite.

(And dear God, would this be good content.)

Breath held, you stepped closer, ghosting your fingertips down his side.

“It's… all right,” you said. “Are you… uh… Everything good?”

Tim stared at you like a tiger with taut haunches. His attention switched again to the phone on the ground, jaw clenching as he considered it. Then his eyes trailed a long, languid journey up your body once more, lingering on the curve of your hips, the supple flesh swelling between the gaps in your swimsuit. Your exposed breast.

His mouth parted. His throat bobbed. Glimpsing the phone a final time, he met your gaze.

“Fuck it,” he said, and clutched both cheeks of your ass as he captured your mouth with his.

You groaned, clasping both sides of his face, flattening yourself along his frame, seeking connection with him at every new opportunity his body offered. Growling, Tim stuffed his tongue in your mouth, deepening the kiss to something filthy and desperate seconds after it had begun. His fingers dug into your backside, he tugged your pelvis to his, and he rocked against you, holding you there, like he was grounding himself to you, grounding himself to this reality.

Fingers running through his hair, you met him in kind, licking into his mouth, rolling your hips so he could feel the heat of your cunt against his growing need. The scents of honeydew and aftershave flooded your nose, the pulse between your thighs came alive. You curled a leg around him, trapping him to you while you teased thumbs over the shell of his ears, earning a jerk of his body, a broken kiss, a deep, trembling groan.

Tim hunched over you, found himself nestled in your throat and took your bare skin as an invitation. His lips latched to your pulse, kissing, suckling, his hands caressing your sides, squeezing every new offering of flesh it found.

“Fuck,” you whispered, looping your arms under his so you clung to his back. “Oh, fuck, yes—”

“Where’s the bedroom?” he murmured against your neck.

You laughed. Why did men like him always prefer the bedroom? “That way,” you said, indicating with a tilt of your head.

Voice thick with need, he replied, “Let’s go.”

Tim grabbed your hips, stood you upright and spun you around, urging you forward. Before you moved, you turned to snag your phone from the floor, and when you stood, you met his frowning face.

“What do you need that for?” he said, pushing on your hip again as if to remind you of what you were doing. It was impossible to ignore the tent that had sprouted in his trousers. “Let’s go.”

You figured now was the best time—with him already hard and hounding at your heels—to present your plan.

“Hold on.” You squeezed his wrist, eyeing him coyly. “I want to ask you something.”

Tim exhaled, glancing between your tits and the door. “Yeah?”

“Don’t be like that.” Pouting, you pulled him close and grazed your nails through his hair, down his neck to keep him pliant. “You said that I seem young to afford this place by myself, right?”

He stared.

“I make little videos,” you said, holding up your phone, “of me and the guys I spend time with.” Grinning at him, you traced a finger from the divot in his throat down the buttons of his shirt. “And I think that you…” Your palm grazed over his erection. “Would be an awesome addition.”

Tim’s tongue sketched his lips. His eyes, swallowed by lust, flicked over your figure. “That isn’t going to work,” he said, shaking his head. “I—I’m married, I can’t be—”

“No, no, it’s not like that!” You patted his chest, pushed against him. “I don’t film anyone’s face but mine.” With a smirk, you added, “And you can hold the camera too, if you want.” To make your point, you gripped his length through his clothing. Your jaw dropped. “Holy fuck, you’re big.”

For the first time since meeting him, he cracked a smile. He gazed at you, head to toe yet again, finally recognizing what he’d be getting out of this arrangement. “And you won’t film my face?”

Your lashes fluttered, and you stroked him through his trousers, your core clenching when he throbbed in response. You let out a moan—you couldn’t help yourself. He felt thicker than any man you’d ever had inside of you. And that number was not insignificant.

“No,” you said, desire creeping into your throat as you met his eyes. “I won’t.”

Tim’s jaw was loose. He rocked his hips, perhaps only half-knowingly, into your grip. “Fine,” he said, and caught you in another kiss before pulling away and spinning you toward the bedroom again. “Now let’s go.” A hand cracked you across your ass.

You squealed, hopped forward with a giggle and skipped toward your room. Peering at him over your shoulder to ensure he was following, you caught him adjusting his cock, saw how thick it looked in his own, powerful hands. A thrill shot up your spine, and you bit your lip, bouncing on the balls of your feet into your bedroom to then flop backwards onto your bed. As Tim entered the room, you quickly checked the results of your poll.

Bikini - 32% |||||||||||||||||| Lingerie - 28% |||||||||||||||| His clothes - 14% ||||||| Nothing - 26% ||||||||||||||||

Well—at least they were getting what they’d asked for.

Lowering your phone, you were greeted with the sight of Tim unbuttoning his shirt, his attention trained entirely on you. Your mind staticked.

Tim’s body was broad and heavy, soft flesh underlaid with a layer of muscle still evident in his arms and shoulders and chest. Grey hair bloomed at the inner crest of his pectorals, filtered to a sparse line of darkening hair over his thick, strong stomach. Between this and the promise of stretching around his cock, you felt ready to forgo the camera altogether, wrap your legs around his waist, and force him inside of you. But he had other ideas.

Shoes were flung across the floor, and Tim climbed on top of you, following you as you moved to the head of the bed, straddling your legs, his eyes frantic, hands clawing at the bottom straps of your suit. You giggled, squirmed with excitement, and he growled and yanked back. The fabric in his fist snapped.

“Jesus!” you gasped, looking up at him. “Someone’s excited.”

“Yeah,” he said, kneading the exposed flesh of your hip and belly. “You might say that.” Grunting, he tugged longingly at the part that concealed what was left to conceal your tits. “Take it off.”

Instead, you jerked the suit aside, your breasts jiggling as they were exposed, and you gazed up at him. Biting your tongue playfully, you squeezed his erection through his pants again. “Does that work,” you murmured, “Daddy?”

Tim’s brow furrowed. His face twisted in disgust. But his cock jumped in your palm, and his hips bucked as if to hold off a sudden climax.

“Don’t call me that.” He moved to unbuckle his belt anyway.

You gazed up at him, leaning back onto the pillows as he unbuttoned his pants, exposing his boxer-briefs. Batting your eyes again, you wedged your hand against his bulge, stroking it through the cotton, mouth watering at its steel need.

“Call you what?” you asked. “Daddy?”

His cock twitched again, the head poking over the Calvin Klein waistband. He swallowed, then exhaled. “Do whatever you want.”

Yeah. That’s what you thought.

He went to ease himself over the waistband, but you grabbed his hand. “Wait,” you said. “I want to record this part.” Nodding toward the other side of the bed, you said, “Lie back.”

Tim’s brows raised. But he relented, shifting to relax against the headboard beside you.

Phone in hand, you opened the camera and aimed the back lens at your face (a skill requiring an irritating amount of practice), pouting before turning your attention to Tim. You crawled over his legs and settled between them, your free hand sliding over his body. The heat of his skin sent goosebumps over yours, and he stared down at you, transfixed. Gaze focused on his cock, your jaw dropped as he released it from its confines.

You’d known it would have girth. You hadn’t expected, though, to wonder if you could fit it in your mouth, if you could even encircle it with your hand. A pulsing vein creeked from the base toward the tip, echoing his heartbeat, and the head was flushed with blood, leaking precum, the shaft fat with the ache to fuck you.

“Oh, fuck, yes,” you said, and took him in your fist.

Tim groaned, cursing under his breath, and you cursed, too. He weighed huge and hot in your palm, like a stone furnace you stoked with every roll of your wrist. Each stroke earned a new twitch of his hips, a new throb of his cock, and he gazed down at you through half-lidded eyes, part hunger, part disbelief.

This was, you thought, your favorite part of fucking men like him. Every single time, despite the initial hesitance, or compensated swagger, or feigned dismissal—every single time, they’d shed that armor, reveal themselves as men who craved your cunt; men who had never believed they’d be able to get hands on flesh like yours again; men who, given a single gift of permission, would bury themselves to the balls in your young, tight pussy and flood it with their cum.

You eased yourself forward, licked at the tip of his cock, and his head fell back in a deep moan.

“Can I suck your cock, Daddy?” you asked, gazing up at him with the sweetest, most innocent gaze you could muster.

Tim glimpsed you, wove his thick fingers through your hair, and pushed your lips onto his length.

Keeping the camera focused on your face was the biggest challenge, and usually one you approached with concentration. But as your mouth slipped over his shaft, as he pressed on your tongue and stretched your jaw and hit the back of your throat, you found the importance of the camera falling to the back of your mind, only remembering at the last second to adjust it to the ideal angle. Your clit was swollen, clamoring for pressure, for friction. Tim’s breath was stalled, waiting for you to withdraw.

You sealed your lips around him, vision blurring as you dragged back, a groan rumbling in your chest. Tim’s grip on your head tightened; he locked you from pulling away, instead holding you still as he thrust slowly once, twice, pace torturous and casual, like he was priming himself to ruin you. Whimpering, you stared into his shuttering eyes, your free hand ringing the base of his cock, spit threading from your lips and spilling onto your chin.

“That’s it, honey…” he drawled, voice wrought with pleasure. “Just like that.”

This only encouraged you—your eyes flicked to the camera, as if to say, look, he loves it, and you sucked, twisted your wrist, caressed his shaft with your tongue. Another moan, his cock pulsing between your lips, and you hummed, gazing up at him, drooling over every inch, jaw already sore from how wide he forced it open. You were aching, your cunt soaked. You weren’t sure how long you could continue sucking him off without needing to cum yourself.

Tim met your eyes, something burgeoning underneath the thin ice of his irises. A twitch of cruelty at his upper lip. His grip tightened, and he fucked into your mouth, jabbing the back of your throat, his size making you retch despite your experience. Jerking his hips faster, the taste of his precum coated your tongue, the scent of him—clean musk—infiltrating your nose. The phone trembled in your grasp, and you glanced at the camera again, eyes flooding, moaning gratefully onto his shaft.

“Fuck.” He held either side of your head and drove his cock deep until your nose met the coarse hair at the base. You writhed, choking, and he studied you, words trapped behind his teeth, admiring your pleading face and your jiggling tits and the saliva running from your lips in rivers. “Fuck, yes.”

A final restrained sneer, and he released your head, allowing you to wrench yourself free. You spluttered and coughed, slinging spit across his stomach, your cheeks damp with tears. Lips swollen, you grinned up at him.

“Thank you, Daddy,” you said, earning another eager twitch from his cock.

Tim laid there, his pants still halfway down his thighs. A hundred ideas for the camera flit through your mind—him bending you over the bed, or your hands on his chest while you bounced in his lap, or your back pinned to the wall while he wrapped one leg around his waist—but spying the repression in his face made all of it seem completely unimportant.

Fuck the numbers. You’d find someone else at this godforsaken resort. You wanted him—all of him—without a single performance.

But you would at least get one more shot.

“You wanna hold the camera?” you asked, offering it to him.

He raised a brow. “If you want,” he replied, and took it in his hands, looking between you and the phone. “What do I do with it?”

Wetting your lips, you crawled up to straddle him, rocking your hips to tease your cunt over his cock and coasting a hand from his chest, down his stomach. “Film yourself,” you said, reaching between your legs to give his length a single stroke, “sliding that thick cock of yours inside of me.”

He allowed himself half a smirk. “Oh, yeah?” he said. “Is that right?”

“Hmm…” You grinned. “I think you’re trying to get me to say it, now.”

Tim snorted. “Sure.”

He placed the phone down and flipped you onto your back, shucking the rest of his clothing before returning to loom over you. Your mouth watered again, devouring his exposed thighs, the swing of his cock between them, the shadow of hair surrounding it.

Giggling, you spread your legs to welcome him. Tim picked up the phone again, face screwing as he fumbled with the screen.

“How do I—”

“The camera—”

“—turn this—”

“—app, you just open it and—”

“—thing—I got it, I got it—”

You nodded, stilling, holding your breath as he aimed the camera at the crux of your legs.

Tim’s free hand smoothed over your thigh, caressing every naked inch, thumb brushing your concealed folds. You bucked your hips, whining, begging with your body, but he was unmoved, teasing over your heat again, again, adding pressure each time, until he finally stroked your needy clit, and you cried out in bliss.

“Please,” you said, pushing out your lower lip for effect. “Please, fuck me, Daddy.”

Tim’s jaw tensed, as if he wanted to speak but his tongue was pinned. Camera still on you, he guided his cock to your cunt, the fat tip easing the fabric of your swimsuit to the side. Your breath caught in your throat, air whispering in your wetness, and you stared into the camera, wiggling your hips, trying to entice him.

Swirling the head of his cock in your slick, Tim’s breath quickened until he pressed himself to your entrance, his mouth parting and eyes rolling as he sank into your cunt.

“Oh, fuck, yes.”

“Oh, fuck, yes—”

If he had felt big in your hand, or huge in your mouth, he felt massive inside of your pussy. Tim was now, verifiably, the thickest man you’d had inside of you, and he filled you like a beast glutting itself on blood, stretching you until you were certain he’d pressed your pelvis. You were paralyzed, mind muddled, only able to focus on the air in your lungs, your fingers entwined in the sheets. Seething with bliss, Tim’s grip bruised you, and he slid out to sink in again, this time exhaling as pleasure washed over him.

“Goddamn, sweetheart,” he cooed. “I… I—” He shook off whatever he’d wanted to say, and resumed his rhythm, thrusting deep, his hips smacking your thighs, your tits bouncing, his head dipped in awe. “God…”

The camera wobbled, unsteady in his hand. It was time to relinquish him of responsibility. With a smirk, you snatched it from him, switched off the recording and laid it on your bedside table.

“That’s enough of that,” you said.

Tim was frozen, apparently uncertain if this meant he needed to stop fucking you, which he seemed very certain he did not want to do.

“You’re holding back,” you said, gliding your hands up his sides and curving around to his back to coax him over you. “I want to hear everything you want to say.” As he settled on top of you, his cock pulsing at your entrance, you nuzzled your head against his, and said, “I want you to fuck me.”

Tim tensed above you. You heard his throat work. Then he withdrew his hips, and drove into you, grunting at your ear, resuming a patient and painful rhythm. Each thrust split you wider, his hips snapping like springs, and you jolted with every connection of skin, your eyes shutting, your mouth hanging open with staccatoed sobs of delight.

“Yeah,” he growled, “fuck. You don’t care who fucks your pretty pussy, do you?” His voice scraped the depth of his chest. “You just want it—fuck—filled up.”

You nodded with a whine, voice lost to the intensity of how he stretched you. One of your legs wound around him, your nails skated down his back, and he slammed into you, his spine arching as if to pinch a desperate need. Shifting, Tim pushed you forward, your hips lifting from the bed, and then plunged into your cunt, spearing through you over, and over. You wailed, clinging to him, sweat slicking between you, enduring the onslaught of bliss and agony that shrieked in your skin.

With every new thrust, ripples of contact ricocheted to your clit, now more swollen and sensitive than a naked nerve. It throbbed, ached, pleaded with you to cum. Obliging, you reached between your legs, giving it only the suggestion of touch, and you shook with utter ecstasy.

“Yes,” you said, “I need—please, more, fuck—”

Tim’s ragged breath quickened. “That’s it,” he said, “play with that little cunt.” He groaned, bit it off with a growl. “Goddamn, you’re so fucking tight.” Faster, voice fraying at the edges. “So wet, so—” He stammered on his own pleasure, and laughed. “So much…”

Humming in recognition, you purred, “So much—ah—so much better than your wife?”

He laughed again. “Yeah.” Pumping deeper, muscles locking, he bowed his head, kissing, sucking at your neck like he could draw blood through your skin. “Fuck yeah.”

Smiling, you swirled your clit faster, passing your fingers over its throbbing edge, rocking your hips with his thrusts, meeting him again, again, wanting to break him, wanting to feel him fuck you full of cum.

“Yes,” you whispered, “I—Tim—”

Tim snarled, pushed himself off of you, and pulled out. You howled in protest, squirming with emptiness until he snatched your legs and flipped you onto your stomach. There was only time to blink before he yanked your hips backward, situated his cock at your pulsing core, and rammed in. This time, you screamed.

The man behind you was transformed from the anxious husk you’d met at the bar. This man was the echo of the one who’d shook you, who’d cursed the world before you, this man was the realization of the danger you’d seen flash in Tim’s eyes. He hammered your cunt, pounded your cervix, and your back bent, your hips canted, starving to take every single fucking inch.

Words escaped you, garbled nonsense that filled the room, and behind you, Tim was bestial, every breath fleeing his chest wrought with a frenzied, agonized euphoria. He subsumed you, saturated you, his thick cock stretching your cunt deeper, deeper. Lost to sensation, you reached toward your clit, grazing it with your fingertips, and twisted with ecstasy, sobbing in relief.

“That’s right, honey,” he said, barely intelligible himself. “You take it. You take—take Daddy’s cock.”

This shot straight to your clit, and you choked. “Yes, Daddy, yes, fuck me,” you sputtered, “I love your cock—”

“Yeah, you do,” he replied, “this is the best fucking cock you’ve ever had.”

“It is,” you said, panting, wailing into the mattress, “I want to cum on it, Daddy, please!”

“Oh, fuck.”

Tim’s grip tightened, you felt him hunch, felt him begin to piston his hips. You glimpsed behind you, and saw a man utterly awash in bliss—eyes shut, mouth open, chest flush with sweat—and the pressure and friction on your clit collided into a single cataclysmic peak.

“Fuck yes,” Tim hissed, “cum on it. Cum on Daddy’s cock.”

Inhaling a breath, you exhaled a sob, your climax short-circuiting every thought and every instinct in your mind. You became a bucking, twitching doll, orchestrated entirely by euphoria, your words lost to the ether besides fuck, and Daddy, and please. Tim fucked you through it, milked by your spasming walls until his hips stuttered, his breath collapsed into sound, and you felt the twitching of his shaft at your core, pulsing you full of his cum.

“Fuck.” Through his gnarled breath, Tim pulled at your ass, watching himself unload inside you. Humming in delight, you clenched around him, hoping to draw out an aftershock. “Oh, my fucking God.”

You giggled, wiggled your ass as he descended to reality, his softening cock slowly slipping free of your pussy. His cum drooled from your core, dribbled down your folds and onto your thighs.

Lowering to your belly, you craned your neck to look at him. Tim was staring into your cunt, watching his cum leak out of you, his cock shining with the combination of your fluids. To be honest, you were a little impressed.

“You actually came inside of me,” you said, easing onto your back. When he just looked at you and said nothing, you continued, “I mean, I’m on birth control, don’t get me wrong. But you didn’t know that. And you still did.” You laughed. “Most guys won’t risk it.”

Tim snorted. “Well,” he said, turning around to start grabbing his clothes. “Wouldn’t have mattered either way.”

You frowned. “Huh?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Tim dressed in silence, collecting only short glimpses of your body. When he finished, he looked toward your phone. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Uh, sure,” you said, sitting up and pulling your bathing suit back into place. “Did you, like, want to stay a little longer? Or come by tom—”

“No.” He looked in the mirror, making sure his hair was in place before turning back to you. “I don’t think you’ll be hearing from me again.” Realizing how cold that sounded, he cleared his throat. “Uh, sorry.” He met your eyes. “It’s nothing personal.”

You raised a brow. Shrugged. Not like it mattered to you. Though you would be sad to say goodbye to that perfect, beautiful cock of his. “All right, Tim,” you said. “Well, if I see you around, we won’t say a word.”

He nodded, glanced at his wedding ring. “Agreed.”

With that, he slipped into his shoes and departed the villa, haunted by the same shadow you’d seen at the bar. You sighed, snuggling into your sheets and grabbing your phone. You’d need to shower in a second, but you could at least post what you’d managed to get before doing so.

After uploading the videos (‼️NEW‼️ VIDEO 🫢🔥 I FUCK A HOT RICH DADDY 🤤🤤🤤🔥), you got into the shower, cleaning yourself of sweat, of cum, of man. Tim had been a nice enough guy, but like almost every other man you’d met at this resort, he’d carried too many skeletons in his suitcase for you to feel particularly bad for whatever his current situation was.

Once clean, you wrapped yourself in a towel and bounded back to your bed, hoping that the new content had managed to excite some of your subscribers and potentially entice a few more to join. To your surprise, the comments on the video of Tim fucking you were already exploding in ratio. You opened them, skimming through.

is that the guy from the NYT article? holy shit, that’s the sho-kel dude whoa did you fuck timothy ratliff????

Your eyes widened. Tim? Timothy Ratliff? But…

You tapped on the video.

“How do I—”

“The camera—”

“—turn this—”

“—app, you just open it and—”

Your jaw dropped. He’d started recording with the front-facing camera. You’d just posted his face to all of your subscribers.

this is so hot i had no idea sho kel guy had such a huge cock his prison buddies are gonna like that!!!!! im getting my friends to subscribe they have to see this lol

Blinking, you examined your numbers. There’d been a huge jump in just the past half an hour and still climbing.

Thank God. You were going to get something out of coming here.

It was unfortunate, sure, that he’d accidentally recorded his face. But from what you could tell, Tim had bigger problems than worrying about his face on your amateur porn. Grinning to yourself, you placed your phone on your bedside table, and turned over for a nap.

#the white lotus #jason isaacs #timothy ratliff #timothy ratliff x reader #have a nice vacation #fanfiction problems #godddd i want his WEINER I WANT HIS BIG BIG WEINER!!!!! PLEASE! Thanks <3

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kylorengarbagedump · 27 days ago

Text

Playing Soldier: Chapter 24

Read on AO3. Part 23 here.

Summary: Weak is for the sleep. Er, weep is for the sleak. Err, wait, where are you and what's happening? Why are all these men yelling around you and will someone please get you a glass of water?

Words: 4200

Warnings: illness, unreality

Characters: William Tavington x Reader

A/N: Co-written with @bastillia.

Hellooo, my loves! We were trying out something a little different with this chapter - wanted to flex a different writing muscle or two so hopefully you enjoyed it! <3

Heads up - next week I (kassanovella) will be having (voluntary, no worries) surgery and probably will be out of sorts recovering for the next couple of weeks afterwards and Bastillia will be dutifully obeying my orders caring for me, so no guarantees on a chapter publishing date (especially because this upcoming chapter promises to be fun and we'll want to get it right haha).

SO, please let me re-iterate how deeply pleased we are with those of who you read and engage and just in general make writing this story such a pleasure and joy. Creating little communities like this is the greatest gift of fanfic!! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and time with us. We love y'all sm and your comments make our week <3

(also shoutout to all my homies who recognized the John Andre name drop last chapter... mayhaps we are Turn enjoyers as well...)

Darkness hung in the chapel.

It banked the pews, swaddled the pillars, draped like silk from the rafters. Above you, it yawned into vacuous nothingness, up, and up, and up. Below your feet lay more pews. More pillars. More darkness. The same darkness.

A mirror.

One step forward, and the surface rippled. The darkness shuddered. A web, sensing an intruder.

You froze. Silence settled on your shoulders. Weighed you down. Molded your shape into the gloom.

It was suffocating. Scrutinizing.

You wanted to struggle, to jerk and thrash against it, but your limbs were leaden. Like the hour hand of a clock, your head swiveled around. And as your view eclipsed the altar, you exhaled relief.

His back was turned to you, his shape traced with light. Some of the darkness lifted from your lungs.

“William,” you breathed, a smile finding your lips. Your voice echoed, too loud.

He turned to look at you. His own smile met yours, and he reached out, his hand upturned, inviting.

You took a step toward him, then paused, your smile faltering. Something dark was trickling from his mouth.

Blood.

It dripped from his lips, sliced scarlet streaks upon his shirt. Then it began to pour. Down his chin, onto the mirrored floor. Through it. As if suspended in water.

You looked down and found the water up to your waist. You gasped, palms slapping the surface and sending ripples out to the edges of the room. Or where the edges had been. Now they were gone, and there was only water, rippling out into silky black nothingness.

You looked back up, searching for a tether, for an anchor, for William.

But he seemed farther away, and as he watched you flounder in fear, he began to laugh. The sound—hollow and cold—echoed into eternity.

The blood still flowed from him, swirling toward you, saturating the water, surrounding you. You stumbled backwards. Something caught against your foot, dislodging from the bottom and bobbing to the surface to turn face-up. A person, no—a body.

As you stared into the wide, lifeless eyes, you recognized the militiaman from Dorchester, his chest still gaping with your shot, spurting more blood into the water.

“No,” you tried to say, but your throat was clogged with wet iron. You staggered back again, bumping another shape below the surface.

Another body floated up, then another, and another. Nathaniel Jones, Elijah Smith, Adam Brown, Mary Hutchins. Each rose in turn, breaching the surface, faces frozen in silent screams of death toward the plunging dark above.

The laughter echoed louder, crueler. A cry lodged in your throat and you choked, sputtered, coughed out blood. It gushed from your mouth, joining the water, the gore, and you kicked away, hands gouging the surface, trying to propel yourself from the bodies, but something blocked you.

You wrested yourself around, grabbed blindly at the floating obstruction. One hand curled around a silver-buttoned lapel, the other tangled into a sickeningly familiar snarl of hair.

Papa and Grace.

Your scream split the web of darkness, and it tightened, the echoing laughter coiling around your neck to smother you.

You awoke into a sheet of sweat.

Hands gripped your shoulders, pushed them down, toward the water, the bodies, no—

“Shh, it’s all right.” The hands cupped your face, turned you to meet warm brown eyes honeyed with concern. “Hush, now. It’s only me.”

You gulped air, heart crashing against your ribs, your hand seeking your throat. It was slick, but not with blood. You glanced around. You were in your bed, in the hospital. There was a plaster ceiling above you, planks of wood beneath you. The only bodies in this room belonged to you and Lottie, and you were both still alive.

“Lottie,” you mumbled, relaxing into the mattress. She swiped your forehead with a vinegar-scented cloth. “Thank you.”

“What happened?” Lottie asked. “You were making such a fuss before you awoke.”

“Nothing.” You curled into yourself as your stomach cramped. “A nightmare.”

Lottie clucked her tongue. “Oh, that’s awful.” She continued to dab your forehead, your cheeks. It didn’t seem to affect the sweat. “Is there anything I can fetch for you? Spoonful of honey? That was my mother’s remedy for bad dreams.”

You tried to shake your head and failed. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

“Oh!” She grabbed a stool and sat down next to your bed. “I know. I can tell you about my dream, if you’d like!” Her cheeks grew round and pink with her smile. “It was a very good dream. I’ve dwelt on it all morning.”

This managed to tug the muscles at your mouth into the semblance of a grin. “All right, then,” you said, forcing one eye to remain open. “Tell me of your dream.”

“Well,” she said, as if she were beginning the greatest tale ever told. “I dreamt I attended a party. A very grand party. I was wearing a handsome gown, the kind that the rich Philadelphia ladies wear. With silk fabric and a bright shimmery bodice like pure moonlight.” She positioned her hands in the air, plucking up the skirts of her imagined dress. “Everyone was having a lovely time, there were so many little hors d'oeuvres and special foods that I’d never tried before.”

“Hopefully no olives,” you grumbled.

Lottie giggled. “Oh, hundreds of olives!” she teased. “Anyway. I found myself in a massive ballroom. It had windows up to the ceiling, and a chandelier, and in the background there was a string quartet playing the most beautiful song you’ve ever heard. And then…” She sighed. “The most handsome man I’ve ever seen approached me. And you’ll never guess what he asked me.”

“Ah.” You exhaled—the only kind of laugh you could muster. “‘Which way to the privy, my dear lady?’”

“Don’t be so silly!” she said, lightly flicking your nose. “He asked me to dance.” She sighed again, her gaze drifting to the far wall. “I can think of nothing more romantic.”

Another exhale. You closed your eyes. “I can think of a few things.”

“Oh?” She hummed in pretend thought. “Like chess?”

Your brow furrowed. “Shut up.”

She giggled again. “That was romantic, though, wasn’t it?”

“No.” With a pained groan, you rolled over onto your back, as if this would end the discussion of William’s intentions. “It was a distraction.”

“A romantic distraction.” She prodded your hand gently. “Oh, come now. He knows you quite well, don’t you think?”

Cracking another eyelid open, you gazed at her. “What do you mean?”

“He recognized the perfect thing to lift your spirits!” She gestured to you laid out in your bed, as if to demonstrate that you hadn’t wandered off out of boredom and died in the forest. “And it worked, did it not?”

Even if that were true—that both of you equally knew the other well—it wasn’t something you wanted to ruminate on at the moment.

You sighed. “Not if my nightmare is any indication.”

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself with those thoughts,” she said, folding the vinegar cloth and laying it across your forehead and temples. It felt blissfully cool. “Dreams don’t really mean anything. They’re just… reflections. Of our fears and desires.” She met your eyes to silence you before you could begin to protest being afraid of or desiring anything. “It’s up to our actions to lend or deprive them of power. Don’t let it hold sway over you, and it won’t.” She patted your hand and stood. “Simple as that.”

As she shuffled around the room, you watched her, her words washing over you. Getting caught up in this war business hadn’t been entirely bad, you supposed. Without it, you’d have never made her acquaintance.

“Thank you, Lottie,” you said. “That was very wise.”

“Mhm. It was.” She placed something on a tray and bustled back to you. “And I have more sagely advice for you.”

“Really,” you said, allowing your eyes to close again. “And what might that be?”

Lottie plopped the tray on your lap and you flinched with a half-eaten yelp, cloth falling down over your face. Wincing, you batted it away, deciding to look at what she’d delivered: a bowl of steaming porridge, a spoon stabbed into its thick body.

“Eat your breakfast,” she said.

The only meal less appealing to you would’ve been a bowl of olives. But you knew she was right.

You sighed and pried the spoon from the bowl, carrying a lump of porridge toward your mouth. “If I must.”

You took a bite. Shuddered. You might have preferred the olives.

Not more than an hour later, your breakfast returned to greet you, and you vomited it into the bucket beside your bed. Despite Lottie’s attempts to keep you nourished, the same occurred with your lunch. And as if these spasms had inspired an infinite array of aftershocks, you continued to heave out almost every ounce of fluid you had into the afternoon.

By the time you spied the shadows of trees reaching across the yard, your head felt as if it had been soaked in fog. Every shift of your body brought a new, painful dry heave, shook your muscles until they trembled like hot jelly.

“I’m here,” Lottie cooed into your ear. Her hand rubbed circles into your back. “Don’t fret.”

You flinched as your stomach tried to turn itself out over the edge of your bed, your head hovering over the clean pot she held for you. You knew you needed to drink water. But thoughts could barely form in your mind, and you imagined it would meet the same fate as your meals, anyway.

A distant sound through the fog—the door to the hospital opening. Lottie leapt from your side, the pot clattering on the floor.

“Colonel Tavington,” you heard her say, and your heart twisted into a network of roots. “Sir, my apologies, but she’s—she’s not—excuse me—”

Boots hit the wood, crossed to your bed, the force vibrating up your skin. You felt him stop at the edge of your bed, could sense him hovering, but your body refused to move, refused to nudge your head from its place in the crook of your arm. A shaking breath entered your lungs, and you exhaled—a dry, rotten sound.

William stepped closer. As if cued, your stomach clenched, and you tried to vomit nothingness. Lottie darted over with a gasp, trying to cloak your body with hers.

“As you can see, Colonel, she’s not well enough to—”

William bit out your name. You wanted to meet his gaze, but found your eyes too sore, your mind too exhausted. For reasons that were not fully comprehensible to you in your current state, this fact made you ache to die.

“How long,” he asked, lethally calm, “has she been in this condition?”

Lottie rubbed your back. “All day, sir,” she replied. “Since breakfast.”

Boots beat the floor again, storming from your bed. “Moore!”

The sensation made you shudder with another convulsion, another groan. Lottie shushed you, her soothing winnowing to ambience as those same footsteps returned, this time accompanied by another pair. William’s voice sliced it all through, restrained in volume, but his tone perched on the edge of fury.

“... and your patients suffer as you whittle meaninglessly at your desk.”

“Colonel,” said a second, weary voice belonging to Dr. Moore, “I assure you I’ve provided all the care to her that’s available to me here.”

William snorted. “Then it’s no wonder why so many men die of disease under your watch,” he replied. “If you bothered to spare her a glance, you’d see she’s in clear need of additional care.”

“While your advisement is appreciated,” Moore said, approaching your bed, “we’ve given her fluids, provided her with the medicine we have to reduce her fever and relieve her nausea. That is the prescribed treatment for a patient with her symptoms.”

“And yet her condition deteriorates.”

Moore sighed. “That is true,” he said, more thoughtful than you could ever remember hearing him. “But if her ailment is what I suspect, there is little more I can do for her.”

“And what,” William said, as if he was seconds from snapping Moore’s neck, “do you suspect?”

A pause hung in the air. This was a question to which not even you knew the answer, but it was also one you’d been in denial of pursuing. Perhaps you’d hoped that by refusing to acknowledge the existence of your illness, it would simply dissipate into the ether. Now, though, it seemed as if it would sooner have you dissipate into the ether yourself. All of your dismissal had done nothing but make it demand your obedience.

“Marsh fever,” Moore replied, finally. “Ague, if you like. Or malaria, if you want the academic consensus.”

“I do not.” William stepped closer to Dr. Moore. “Marsh fever is hardly incurable, Moore,” he snipped, “so I’m uncertain how I am to entrust my soldiers to your substandard care if you cannot resolve illness in a nurse.”

“Well, Colonel,” said Moore, footsteps carrying him away from William, “if that is indeed her ailment, what she requires is Peruvian bark. And I’ve unfortunately used the last in curing your soldiers with my meager skill.”

“Then obtain more.”

Lottie leaned close to your ear. “I can make them leave, if you’d like.”

You grumbled. You weren’t sure if you wanted William closer or further away.

Pages shuffled. A quill began to scribble. “My stock is back in Charleston. As are most additional supplies I’ve been denied here.” Moore continued to write. “I’ve sent correspondence to the quartermaster for a shipment, but it could be a month before it is on its way, what with the supply line troubles.” His voice softened. “She’s likely to succumb before it arrives.”

A slight intake of breath next to you. Not even a gasp of disbelief. You knew, then, that if Lottie saw no reason to protest, your condition was more serious than you’d estimated. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of thoughts crossed your mind at once, none of them assignable to words, and none of the words able to be spoken aloud in your state regardless.

Would you really, truly die in a British fort hospital? Bested by fever?

“Does she have a week?” William asked.

Moore was silent for a moment. “That’s… likely. But—”

“I’ll deliver it myself.” William paced toward your bed, paused, then back toward Moore. “Where in Charleston, doctor?”

“Colonel—”

“Where in Charleston?” he growled.

“The hospital.” For the first time in perhaps the entire time you’d known him, Moore sounded stunned. “The matron will know. Mrs. Smith.”

“Very well.” Without sparing another second, William stalked to the hospital door and threw it open. “Wilkins! My horse!”

It slammed behind him, quaking the walls.

Beside you, Lottie dared to breathe. You felt her eyes on you, felt her clammy palm as it smoothed over your damp shoulder. Grunting, you shifted, but she shushed you again, forcing you to still.

“Don’t.” She massaged your back. “It’s all right.” With a non-negligible degree of incredulity, she added, “Colonel Tavington will be… he’ll make sure you’re well.” As the statement hung unchallenged, she laughed to herself. “You had better be well.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “If you… well, there will be no one with whom I can discuss this. And I simply must.” A tiny pout. “When you’re well.”

You grunted again in assent.

Exhaustion collapsed into a dreamless sleep. Or, at least, you believed it to be sleep. Beyond the naive edge of your awareness, the world had melted into a shimmering aurora, a flitting collection of sounds and impressions that your conscious mind floated through like petals on a pond. Thoughts circled you in the aimless current.

Marsh fever. Malaria. Peruvian bark. Without it you would die. Die. Would never see Grace again. Never see Papa again. Never see William again.

William. Worried. Worried for you. Off to Charleston for you. You.

Why you?

Why?

Water dribbled from your mind down your chin and neck.

William was too late.

Your brain was leaking.

Why?

More water, smothering your lips, spilling over your tongue. You coughed, sputtered, choked on your brain’s own fluid.

Why?

“Why?” you groaned.

Lottie cradled your neck, forced another sip into your mouth.

“Because you must drink,” she demanded, adding your name in admonishment. “Please. Please, drink.”

Your throat worked as if it were forcing a boulder down your burning esophagus. Your brain wasn’t leaking after all.

Another gulp, another, until your mouth felt clean of your own bile and the heat on your skin began to cool. Your stomach, mercifully, was cooperative, and did not squirm like a mouse pup impaled on a needle. That cup finished, you gasped, every little particle of your flesh screaming for more, more, more water, to be flooded with it, to drown in it, more, more—

“More,” you spat, stuffing the cup back in her hands. “More.”

“Oh, thank the Lord…” Lottie whirled around, skittering to the barrel to fetch you another.

You swallowed a second cup and a third, exhaling when you realized you could salivate again and your tongue had swelled to its normal size. A fourth cup, and the air ceased pulsing. Noise stopped assaulting your ears.

“Thank you,” you managed to mumble.

“Good,” she said, and held out a roll of bread. “Now eat.”

You clawed the roll from her and scarfed it in seconds. It felt light and full, like it was stuffing itself into the cracks in your stomach lining, plugging it from coiling around itself. Relief rushed your blood, forced an exhale from your veins.

Now an over-saturated stem, you flopped back to the bed, the sheets and mattress gritty with your sweat. You didn’t care. The sleep that took you this time was certainly and most verifiably rest.

Rest that lasted until a buzzing poked through the barrier of your unconscious.

“Psst.”

A mosquito. You swatted at the air, twisted in your bed, hoping to shoo it away. Then it spoke, saying your name as if it were trapped beneath a blanket.

“Psst!”

Grumbling, you swatted again, this time connecting with soft, warm flesh.

“Ow!”

You jolted awake, seething with ache, greeted not by a talking mosquito but by Benedict Goddard, his face glowing in the moonlit dark.

“Wh—” You shook your head, ignoring the way your brain seemed to slosh inside your skull. “Goddard?”

“Well, good evening to you as well,” he whispered, rubbing his cheek.

“There’s no way that caused you injury.” You tried to shove his shoulder, but found your muscles offered little in the way of power. “What are you doing? Get out of here.”

“Lottie mentioned you finally managed to eat for the first time in days,” he said. “I thought maybe you were feeling better.”

“Days?”

Had William already been gone that long? You rubbed your eyes. They hurt no less.

He nodded. “Yes, I've been trying to meet with you since we returned, but Lottie kept barring me from entering, saying, she's far too ill she's far too ill, but she's asleep right now, so I—”

“All right, all right. Be quiet.” You sank into your pillow, speaking between your teeth. “What do you want?”

He snuck closer, voice meeting yours in volume. “Thought you might want to know that I’ve received new instructions from the drop,” he said. “The information I provided was verified—they’ve approved me to convey intelligence.” He nudged you. “This means I can take your place while you’re ill! Isn’t that fantastic!”

“Hush!” you hissed, craning up to glance around the hospital.

“It’s all right, you’re the only one in here right now,” he said as you flopped painfully back to your pillow. “I made sure, I’m not daft.”

You sighed, not necessarily pleased your fate was in the hands of a boy.

“I’m not a boy,” he said. “I’m seventeen.”

“Ah.” You’d said that out loud, then. “Yes, of course.” You considered him, unable to find fault with the earnest desire in his gaze to be recognized as a man. “You must exercise caution, though, Goddard. Even speaking about this here—”

“But you’ve been ill, how else—”

“I understand.” Nausea crawled over you. There was no way to tell if it came from the conversation or the malaria. “I just urge you to be ten times as cautious as you typically might be.”

He nodded. “You can rely on me. I promise you.”

“Fine.” You nestled further into the mattress. You were exhausted already. “What news from the other side, then?”

Goddard screwed his lip in thought. “British supply lines are still being decimated... Major Ferguson is preparing to march over the mountains toward North Carolina... Patriots are not happy about that…”

Hopefully unhappy enough to kill him. “Anything else?”

He hummed in thought.

“What of my father?” It had officially been weeks since you’d heard anything about or from him, and now, being ill, you worried if he’d ever learn if you did succumb. “Any word on him?”

Goddard shrugged. “I wasn’t given specifics on particular people.”

“Of course.” The danger involved in revealing data on individuals risked not only the safety of those individuals, but also the safety of anyone in close association with them. Including you. Though that did not change how you wished to hear from him. A shiver rippled over you, and you pulled the sheets closer. “Very well, then.”

“I could ask?”

You leered at him. “Goddard, the danger in—”

“No, you’re right, you’re right,” he said, holding up his hands. “I won’t.”

“Good.” Another shiver, this time shaking your bones. Wincing, you pulled another blanket on top of you, folding yourself into as tight of a ball as you could manage, your teeth chattering. The five minutes you’d spent speaking had apparently expended all the energy you’d built for the past however many days it had been. “Move along, then.”

“Oh, dear.” Worry tinged his voice, which eliminated the last of your patience. “You really are ill,” he said. “Will you be all right?”

“I’ve never been better,” you growled. “Quit my sight now, won’t you?”

“All right, all right,” he said. “Don’t despair. I won’t disappoint you.”

You mumbled an acknowledgement and turned your back to him, holding your breath until you heard his footsteps disappear.

Perhaps he hadn’t been deserving of your ire—but you would refuse to reconsider your application of it. You were near-death, had been held under the surface by your sickness for days you’d not even had the presence of mind to count, only to awaken and be informed that your father was as intangible as the wind and the intelligence you worked so diligently to procure and produce was now to come from the hands of a man-shaped puppy.

The hazard and its consequences resembled a noose too closely for your comfort. If Goddard were to be caught, if you were to be caught…

An ache surfaced again, this time from somewhere far too deep within you to be from fever. It hovered above you as you drifted into darkness, a flash of feeling, like a lighthouse signaling you from the shore.

What was it trying to tell you?

You watched it from the distant waves of unconscious rumination—a flicker, a pulse, a heartbeat, shining brighter, blinding you to everything but its reality—

William. William. William.

Fingers curling into your face, you hid from its cruel demand, from what it lit before your eyes, until its brightness became heat, fire, burning, scorching you alive to illuminate what you knew to be true:

You cared for William Tavington.

The horror of it ensnared you like a sea beast and dragged you to the depths, chased by this unquenchable fire to the belly of the earth. You realized then, this fire would continue to hunt you despite all you’d done to starve it, that it would follow you from the flower-filled field to the blood-flooded chapel if you allowed it, that you would either die by its flame or drown in your attempts to extinguish it. This fire was inextricable from you now, despite reality, despite the knowledge that subverting him and caring for him were as incompatible as him wanting your father dead and caring for you.

And why didn't you know if Papa was safe? And why couldn't you know? And why were you constrained to a bed while a man-boy endangered your life?

And why, why, why did you care about this bastard of a British officer?

You stared into the fire, refusing to burn. As it recognized it had been tended, its source winked into the night and you cooled, skin scoured by its touch. Returning to the surface, you were left now at the mercy of the waves.

One swelled beneath you, lifting you toward unfamiliar constellations. Perhaps caring was not as damning as you initially conceived. Perhaps, another dipped to inform you, it was possible to care like a pastor cared for his parishioners, like a shepherd cared for his sheep. A caring absent of romantic, erotic influence. Perhaps, insisted the undulating ocean, you could care for William Tavington and still, like the patient pastor observing his errant flock, see him condemned.

The sky twinkled above you. Beneath you, the sea dropped off a cliff. A rumble, crack like a quake, and it fractured, stars linked by fissures, the sun splitting through them. Chunks of it crumbled away, falling toward you, discarded pieces of the world. They crashed, one, then another, then another, into the ocean, throwing it toward the sun.

All of it loomed, waves waiting to consume you, to crush you into nothingness and turn your body to bubbles.

“I’ve got the tea, right here, sir,” said one of the waves in a voice sweeter than kelp. “She just needs to drink it.”

“Rouse her, then,” said another, this voice arrogant and irritable and more comforting than any sound you'd heard in days.

“Well, I would, but my hands are occupied and she's quite difficult to—”

“Fine.”

This wave subsumed you, crashed down around you, its enormity suspended above you before it swooped beneath your shoulders and dashed you alive against the shore.

“Listen, you little beast,” you thought it whispered, and then knew it demanded, “wake up.”

#william tavington #colonel tavington #colonel william tavington #jason isaacs #the patriot #playing soldier #fanfiction problems #just having a silly goofy time yk

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kylorengarbagedump · 29 days ago

Note

I thought about you the second the robe opened 🫡

thank you so much........ this is the legacy i leave

#nerd whinings #cuties #jason isaacs

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kylorengarbagedump · 29 days ago

Note

BABES—are you watching the new season of white lotus? jason isaacs and that accent is literally tearing me apart

BABES WE'RE LITERALLY WATCHING EPISODE 4 RN AND IM DYING!!!!!!!!!!

#nerd whinings #cuties #HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GO ON LIKE THIS #jason isaacs #I HOPE THAT'S HIS REAL WEINER BC GIRL IM SALIVATING!!!!!!

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kylorengarbagedump · 1 month ago

Note

In honour of chapter 23, I present to you and @fakehusbandgarbagedump

This is being framed and hung inside the temple of Will Tavington’s Big Fat Ass Appreciators, Inc

#STOPPP AKAKWKELSKDLRK #the fucking. chess piecesnaosjakskeke #playing soldier #fanfiction problems

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kylorengarbagedump · 1 month ago

Text

Playing Soldier: Chapter 23

Read on AO3. Part 22 here. Part 24 here.

Summary: You're like a tiger pacing around your cage.

Words: 7600

Warnings: sexually tense chess game (literally)

Characters: William Tavington x Reader

A/N: Cowritten with @bastillia.

This is easily one of the most challenging and exciting fics we've written so we're hoping y'all are enjoying it hehehe. We're trying out a whole host of new things, trying to expand our skills as writers and it's really just a delight to be able to share it with people who enjoy it too.

For those who know us, you know it isn't likely we'd include pregnancy or babies in a story so I'm sorry to disappoint everyone else!! (says the person who wrote a Handmaid's Tale AU... but that's different okay it's like connected to the universe it's like the entire plot of the source material OKAY🧍🏻‍♀️)

ANYWAY. Love y'all so very much, your participation and engagement and excitement and discussion is so loved and appreciated. <3 HAPPY MARCH <3

The world gathered like clouds.

A puff of light. The rumble of voices on the horizon. Darkness, deep as the sky. Softer than air. You were suspended. Floating, sinking, floating again. The surface, miles above. Or was it below? Flickering. Calling.

Calling your name.

A groan rumbled somewhere in the enigmatic mass of your body. Breath—yours—escaped. Drew in. Escaped. Every nodule of awareness blinked to life with an agonizing ache. Another breath, the earth shifting like mountains around you. Like flaying the skin of a rotten apple, your eyes finally opened.

“She’s awake!” said a blob in a sea of blur. “Dr. Moore!”

Details drew into focus like a watercolor coming to life. In front of you, Lottie, her hand clasped around yours. Beneath you, a bed. Above you, the ceiling of the hospital, where you for some reason were lying down instead of working.

Footsteps approached, and Dr. Moore breached your awareness, his attention trained on adding to the collection of notes in his hand. He met your eyes over his spectacles, then returned to writing.

“I seem to recall asking you to rest,” he said, as if being here was the greatest strain on his time he could possibly envision. “So imagine my surprise when you’re carted in here half-conscious.” Before you could protest, or even respond, he continued, “I would suggest you heed my orders next time, though I suspect I am wasting my breath in saying it.”

“What orders?” Lottie asked. “Do you know what ails her?”

He paused, eyeing you. “Your last menstruation?”

Lottie gaped at how blatantly he’d used the word. “Dr. Moore!” She glanced around the hospital, and back to him, “Her… she was last indisposed not more than a week ago.”

“I can speak for myself,” you replied, your voice peeling from your throat like old wallpaper.

Dr. Moore looked at you expectantly. You shrugged.

“But she’s correct.”

He sighed, continued scribbling. “Then it may be a number of maladies,” he said. “You need rest and fluids.”

You grumbled. “Not necessary. I’m already feeling better,” you said, moving to sit up. “I hardly—ah—”

Every joint, every muscle in your body throbbed and pulled you back to the bed.

Lottie squeezed your hand. “You are incorrigible,” she murmured affectionately.

Glancing at the ceiling, you replied, “So I’ve been told.”

“I can always bleed you,” Dr. Moore said.

“No.” You glared at him, then winced as a beat of pain pulsed through your eyes. “You can let me die first.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Lottie said.

“Then stay put. Or I’ll order one of the privates to tie you to the bed. And I know you don’t want that.” He looked to Lottie. “Ensure she doesn’t move.”

Lottie nodded, chin sticking in the air. “Of course, Dr. Moore. Thank you so much.”

She glanced at you, prompting you to offer your gratitude. Gratitude you didn’t have and wouldn’t admit to, because why would you be grateful for being ordered to lie down and do nothing like some helpless child?

So you turned your head to the wall, pouting like a regular child.

The next couple of days passed with little memory and littler excitement. The volume of water you’d been forced to swallow rivaled a lake, and the hours you’d slept nearly consumed each day. You spent more time unconscious than conscious, spent more time seeing the sun from behind your eyelids than feeling it on your skin. And by the third day, despite the fact you felt no better in condition from the previous two, you felt sicker of boredom than you did your actual illness.

You needed a rest from all of this rest. Just a moment.

Lottie spotted your movement and bustled over to your bed from the other side of the hospital. She’d been irritatingly adherent to Dr. Moore’s instructions. During the times when you’d been awake, she’d ensured you wanted for nothing. Least of all privacy.

“Good afternoon,” she said sweetly. She pressed the back of her hand to your forehead, your cheeks. “Your fever has yet to break.”

You swiped at the sheen of sweat on your upper lip. “So it would seem.”

Lottie’s brows pinched up in concern, and she dabbed your temples with a cool cloth that smelled of lemon and vinegar. A sigh leaked from your nose.There was no way you’d be getting out of bed as long as she was being so attentive. Grimacing, you rolled onto your side and picked up the cup by your bedside, lifting and dropping it to demonstrate its emptiness.

“Ah. Out of water.”

“Oh!” She frowned, picking up your cup. “I’ll fetch you more. Our barrel’s just run dry, so I’ll have to pop over to the main house to get some.”

“Really?” you asked, as if you hadn’t heard the ladle scraping the bottom of the water barrel minutes earlier. “Well, don’t trouble yourself…”

“It’s no trouble!” Lottie clapped your cup decisively on the bedside table. “I’ll go right now. I’ve just completed my rounds anyway.” She patted the top of your hand. “I’ll return shortly.”

With the most reluctant smile you could conjure, you replied, “All right. Thank you, Lottie.”

The moment she disappeared from your sight, you threw the sheets from your body.

The swollen throb of pain that every movement created had now fallen into the background of your perception. Though the room swirled in your skull, you drew deep from the air to steady yourself, breathing through your nose and out your mouth. You stumbled to your feet, waddled over to the robe hung by your bedside, threw it on, and stuffed your feet into the wool slippers underneath it.

Placing your hand against the wall, you waited for your head to stop pounding before you turned and listened. You heard nothing aside from the faint, ever-present rustle of Dr. Moore in the supply room. With freedom in sight, you crept your way out of the hospital.

You winced against a sky anemic with clouds, the sun a cracked yolk spilling through. A breeze buffeted you. It was mild, but it pierced your robe to the sweat-soaked shift beneath, turning it to ice. Your teeth chattered, and you clenched your jaw, grumbling as you bustled along.

A passing soldier cast you a frown. You responded with a leer.

You had left with the hope that a destination might present itself to you as you wandered, but as your shivering deepened, the clearer it became that you’d need to seek warmth. You’d be damned if you’d turn back to the hospital just yet, but your surroundings offered no tempting respite either. Only scattered cabin barracks, some supply tents, and a laundry station. You kept your head down, avoiding meandering soldiers’ gazes and skirting sparse clusters of women and children. Then, as your path led toward the edge of the fort’s main grounds, you spied the stables.

A sigh escaped you. Dry straw, warmth, and some non-human company sounded akin to heaven after the past several days.

You trundled down to the wooden structure, where a redcoat sat slumped outside the main door, chin on his chest, snoring softly. Breath held, you tiptoed past him and slipped inside.

Warm air draped you like a blanket, filled your lungs with the sweet, earthy scents of hay and horses. Your whole body relaxed as you made your way along the row of stalls, stabilizing yourself once against a wave of vertigo. As you passed war horse after gleaming war horse, you spied one set of withers that stood at least a hand shorter than the rest. You smiled.

“Hello, Puck.”

You folded your arms over the top of his stall. The stout little bay raised his head, ears pricking toward you. You held out a hand and he snuffled it, wiggled his lip against your palm, making you grin wider.

“I’ve missed you, friend.”

He gave a soft snort and lowered his head back to his hay. Peering around, you spied some assorted tack and grooming supplies along the opposite wall. You teetered over and grabbed a dandy brush, then ducked into Puck’s stall, latching it behind you.

His ear gave a relaxed flick in acceptance of your approach, and you stroked a hand down his shoulder, his neck, admiring the faint ridges of muscle along his topline.

“They’re making a soldier of you yet,” you murmured, drawing the brush over his coat. “Of us all, it would seem.”

You paused with a sigh, draping your arms over his back and laying your head on him. He radiated warmth, and your eyes fell closed, letting the chill seep from your body. After a few moments, Puck swung his head around to nuzzle curiously at your robe pocket.

“Wish I had a sugar plum for you,” you told him, cracking an eye open to scratch his forehead in apology. “And a great green field where we could run together.” You hummed at the idea. “Where not a soul could order me to waste away in bed.”

Letting out a huff, you straightened, and began to brush him again.

You brushed him, and you cursed your mortal body for harboring something so tedious as a fever. You brushed him, and you cursed your fledgling country for its indefatigable mettle, for drawing this war—and the peril it brought your father—to intolerable lengths. You brushed him, and an ache yawned in your chest for your broken family. You brushed him, and you brushed him, until he shone like burnished bronze, and you longed…

To see William.

“Ugh!”

You dropped the dandy brush and sank onto a pile of straw, face buried in your hands. Puck nuzzled your ear, blew sweet breath across your fingers. It helped you resist sinking them into your hair and ripping it out.

“Has illness weakened me, Puck?” you mumbled into your hands. “Have I gone completely mad?”

You dragged your palms down your face and let your head thump back against the stall wall. In answer, Puck flicked his tail at a bug on his belly.

“Easy for you to say,” you said with a rueful smile. “Would that I had a tail to banish all that afflicts me.”

It was then that you heard the stable doors grind open. Puck’s head shot up, and a chorus of whickers echoed from one end of the barn to the other. Then a cacophony of boots and hooves trampled up the aisle, scattered through with male voices.

Soldiers.

You drew your knees to your chest and wriggled toward the stall’s front corner, keeping out of sight. Around you, activity whirled—commands rang, tack was stripped, horses were shut into vacant stalls.

“The equipment, sir?” said a voice directly on the other side of the wall that hid you.

“Leave it,” said another. “Sort it in the morning. Get that wound seen to.”

“Yes, sir.”

Back from Charlotte, then, there was no doubt. Your chest squeezed. Presumably, that meant William was back, too. Would he seek you out? What would he think of you in your state? Perhaps he had simply died in the field, and half your problems with him.

The idea was more instinct than hope. It did not comfort you.

The voices gradually dispersed, and only after calm had settled in the air once more did you ease to your feet, peeking over the stall door.

The stable aisle was a shambles, streaked with mud and grass, strewn with discarded equipment. But mercifully empty. Picking up the dandy brush, you slipped out of Puck’s stall. From the sound of it, there was little point in showing back up at the hospital now and making a further burden of yourself, as much as you craved an opportunity to lose yourself in work.

Heaving a sigh, you picked up a tangled bridle. Perhaps Dr. Moore’s method was worth a try after all. You set to organizing.

“Won't do to have all this out of sorts,” you said, looping the bridle’s crownpiece over a hook on the wall and picking up an abandoned hoof pick, “will it, Puck?”

“Who’s Puck?”

You flinched with a yelp, whirled around and hurled the pick at the intruder. His hand caught it mid-air.

William Tavington stood at the entrance to the barn, his brows raised as he glanced at the pick, then at you. Beside him stood his chestnut mare, her reins in his other fist.

“Will—Colonel,” you gasped. “I—”

“Who is Puck?” he said again, placing the pick on a shelf as he crossed toward you. “And why have you abdicated your post at the hospital?”

“Puck…” Ache slammed the inside of your skull. You tried to shake it away. It worsened. “The horse,” you said, gesturing to the pony. “Puck is the horse. And Dr. Moore won't allow me to work.” You straightened. “He says I'm too ill, for whatever reason.”

William scanned your attire, your unkempt hair, the veil of perspiration across your collarbones. “Are you ill?”

“Absolutely not.” You snorted. “He's making a fuss over nothing. I'm completely fine.”

William came closer, and you met his stare, unwilling to cede ground and expose your pained muscles or the unabating chill racking them. He gripped your chin, tilted your head one way, then the other, scrutinizing your face. You hoped your skin didn't appear as sallow as you felt.

“Hm.” He dropped you, eyes locked on yours, and you swallowed, warmth tingling in your belly. “You named the horse?”

A confused grin broke your lips. “You don't name yours?” you asked, gesturing to the mare.

“There's never been a need.” He grabbed her reins and led her to the stall behind you. “You find that utterly abominable, I imagine.”

“Not as abominable as riding your animal to lameness,” you replied as he stripped the nameless mare’s tack and shut her inside, “but I suppose it would be foolish to expect that you limit your cruelty to a single species.”

He hummed, depositing his saddle, bridle, and saddle bags onto a rack. “Perhaps I should take Dr. Moore’s suggestion under advisement and tie you to the bed.”

Your throat thickened. “He—what?” You glared at him. “Why were you speaking to Dr. Moore about me?”

William shrugged, tugged up the leg of his breeches to reveal a bandaged wound on the inside of his knee. “Your absence was noted.”

Your jaw dropped. “You're…” Having been banished from work was now doubly, triply antagonizing. “Who treated you?”

You took a step toward him, only for the ground to flip around you. Seething, you balanced against the wall, your stomach rolling into your throat. You drew in a breath.

“You’re not ill?” William said, his tone indicating a completely unearned degree of disbelief.

“I’m fine.” You didn’t care if Dr. Moore himself had tended to it. You needed to ensure it had been done correctly. “Let me see.”

He stared at you like you were insisting that he grow himself another set of limbs rather than let you examine the ones he had now.

“Don’t be—don’t be difficult.” You scowled at him, swallowed your nausea, and took another step. “I’ve been stuck in bed for days—”

He swept into your space, captured your waist, and pressed you back against his mare’s stall. You winced, your mind spinning faster than your head, your feeble resistance meeting steeled strength. William’s eyes flicked over your face, and for the first time in your life, you worried a man might assess your appearance and find you wanting.

You met his gaze. He held it, jaw shifting, and exhaled.

“Get yourself dressed,” he murmured, “and meet me in the main house drawing room in twenty minutes.”

He lingered there for just a moment before pulling away, leaving you dizzied and clutching the wooden planks behind you. After a few steadying breaths, you straightened, cleared your throat. William was halfway down the barn aisle.

“In case you’ve forgotten,” you called after him, “I am not among the soldiers obliged to follow your every order.”

He paused, turning halfway back. “If it is your preference, I shall order one such soldier to bind you to your bed.”

With a lift of his brows, he turned and departed the stable.

Huffing, you turned and plopped your chin on your folded arms, looking into the chestnut’s stall.

“Next time you’re out,” you said to her, “dump him into a thornbush, won’t you?”

She snorted softly, and you took that as agreement.

Activity in the hospital had reached a low thrum when you teetered back through the door, just enough to allow you to slip back to your cot, chin aloft, and begin to snatch pieces of your clothing from the basket beneath it. With your outfit bundled in your arms, you waddled behind a screen in the corner to change. You’d barely finished pulling one set of petticoats up over your shift when you heard a tiny, indignant throat clear itself behind you.

You turned to see Lottie, arms crossed, a frown on her freckled brow, blocking the narrow gap between the screen and the wall.

“And just where have you been?” she asked, then examined your gathered clothing. “And where do you think you’re going?”

“Lottie, I—”

“You’re fortunate these men returned when they did,” she gestured to the hospital, now markedly fuller than when you’d left, “or I’d have gathered another search party, and this time I’d have left an armed post at your bed!”

“I just needed some air.”

You tied your outer petticoats and shrugged your bodice on, buttoning it as deftly as you could with trembling fingers.

“Oh, and one daring escape wasn’t sufficient?” She gestured to your attire. “Go on then, try and trick me again, I won’t have it.”

She drew up to her full height, as if to fill her petite frame with every ounce of authority it could harbor.

“You would never have let me leave otherwise,” you countered.

“I might have, for a minute or two,” she said, lifting her chin. “If you’d just asked nicely. But not any more. I’ll not allow it.”

You couldn’t help but feel a little proud of how firmly she was standing her ground. And of the state of the hospital—orderly, every soldier already attended and either dismissed or resting peacefully.

“You’ve handled things well today,” you told her, draping your kerchief around your shoulders and stuffing the tails beneath your collar. “I know it wasn’t easy to get all of those soldiers treated so quickly.”

“Oh,” she said, shoulders relaxing a fraction as she glanced down. “Yes, well, Dr. Moore handled most of the bandaging and such, but I did my best to—” She stiffened again, eyes snapping to yours, and pointed a finger at you. “No. No, no. You can’t heap praise upon me and expect to get out of this.”

“Just let me be one less person to fuss over for the evening,” you said, clawing your hair into some semblance of presentability despite the sweat at your nape and the vicious ache in your arms. “I’ll even tell you where I’ll be this time, if it will appease you.”

She eyed you, searching up and down for deceit. “And where might you be, then, if I permit it?”

You sighed. No use in hiding the truth from her. “Colonel Tavington has invited me to the main house drawing room.”

Her brows shot up, all sternness evaporating as a grin quavered around the corners of her mouth.

“Oh!” She pinched her lip between her teeth. “What ever for?”

“He wouldn’t say.”

Her grin won out, and she shuffled closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “He did ask about you earlier.”

“Did he now,” you grumbled, blotting your brow on a sleeve of the robe you’d discarded. You still weren’t sure what discretion meant to him, but you were starting to think perhaps you’d learned the wrong definition of the word. “Fascinating.”

“I thought so,” Lottie said, far more excited than you wanted anyone to be regarding your relationship with a man. “And now he’s surprising you,” she mused dreamily. “How romantic.”

You grimaced. “I doubt that’s the intention.”

“I suppose I can allow this one outing.” She giggled, reaching out to smooth a crease in your kerchief. “On one condition.”

“What would that be?” you sighed.

Lottie gingerly took your hand and led you, now appropriately clothed, back out to your bedside. She grabbed something from the side table and turned, presenting you with your full water cup.

“Drink.” When you didn’t take it, she insisted. “Please.”

Rolling your eyes, you grabbed it and quaffed the entire thing in a painful gulp, shaking off the grotesque shudder it brought your bones. “Thank you.”

“Don’t think I won’t be collecting you at sunset,” she whispered, taking the empty cup from you. “You’re not to be engaging in any vigorous activities.”

“Lottie!” you hissed, glancing around. “I have no intention of such anyway.”

Lottie pinched a grin between her teeth, nodding as if to say sure you don’t.

With a huff, you smoothed your hands down your skirts, hoping you didn’t look half as clammy as you felt.

“All right,” you said. “See you later this evening.” You turned for the door.

“Yes, you will,” Lottie sang after you.

Your feet carried you to the main house with an urgency you resented. To meet him in the main room was such an odd request—there was little for you to do in a room without a bed. Perhaps he was inviting you to a scolding. Perhaps the general would be seated and ready to serve you with punishment for insubordination. Perhaps it was neither.

That thought was more terrifying than either of the previous two combined.

When you entered the house, a handful of officers rapt in conversation turned to look at you, their faces paling at your appearance. You sneered, gathered up your petticoats and pushed beyond them to the drawing room, whispers bubbling as you passed.

The room itself was empty but for furniture. The lit candles and a warm glow from the sleepy sun falling toward the horizon joined the fireplace to your left, which had been stoked to dispel the incoming chill. At the hearth, you spotted two chairs tucked under a small table, and on the table was a checkerboard furnished with wooden chess pieces.

Your heart skipped. You gripped the frame of the entrance and cast about for William, your ears catching footsteps behind you, and turned to greet them.

William met your eyes and continued into the room, back straight, his outer jacket removed, leaving him in his waistcoat. You tried not to linger on the curve of his backside.

“I assume you know how to play,” he said, taking a seat at the black.

You blinked, feet hesitating at the threshold. “Have caution, Colonel, lest your assumptions betray a favorable perception of my intellect,” you replied. “But yes, the owls did teach me.”

He allowed himself to smirk, then nodded toward the chair opposite him. You inched into the room, clinging to the wall as long as possible before skittering across the floor and sitting down. Blood pulsed in your toes, in your ears.

You had never imagined a scenario where you would sit across from William Tavington without a barrier of authority between you. Even your fantasies had involved him eschewing the arrangement altogether, whether that meant taking you behind his desk or on top of it. Now you both observed the same table, neither side superior to the other.

Perhaps your father's notions of liberty and equality weren't so quixotic after all.

Nausea gripped you, and you groaned, rubbing your brow as you stared at the board. Chess. You knew the rules. But you hadn't played in a few years. Once war had broken out, Papa had been riveted by its development, and he was the only one to ever play with you. Grace hated the game.

“White moves first,” William said.

“I'm aware,” you replied, frowning at him. “Just give me a moment.”

You sighed. This felt like the most important chess move you'd ever make. But there was no point in stalling. You weren't stupid. You might even win.

Using the only opening you remembered, you pushed a pawn forward. He responded immediately with his own pawn, mirroring yours with a confidence that perturbed you. Defense, you thought, would be the best strategy, until you could discern his style of play. So you moved a knight onto the field as sentinel.

As you fell into the rhythm of the opening moves, you felt yourself leaning towards the hearth. Its warmth suffused the ceaseless ache that had wrapped itself around your bones, loosened it just enough to coax a sigh from you. William’s focus jumped to you, then back to the game, where he launched his bishop on an early offensive charge.

Your eyes narrowed, swept over the rank and file of the board. A memory nagged you from somewhere deep—that same set of moves, met by your logical counters. Then heat in your face, anger, incredulity. Your father had tricked you. William was performing the same trick.

Your gaze speared him. He blinked, impassive.

In any other case, you’d have wanted to punish his aggression with your own. In any other case, you’d have thrown your father’s lessons on patience to the wind. Right now, though, you didn’t particularly care to be ill and humiliated.

You scanned the board. Considered. Then nudged a pawn forward as sacrifice.

William’s lip quirked, and without hesitation, he captured your offering with his bishop.

“Who is really responsible for teaching you?” he asked.

Now, it was your turn to smirk.

“My father,” you replied, and your knight sprung from its ambush to take his bishop. “Who was your teacher?”

He gave a soft snort in concession to your maneuver. “Hardly a matter of consequence, is it?”

“That isn’t fair.”

He sighed. “Now you find winning to be unfair?”

“No.” You frowned, gesturing to your pawn in his possession. “You captured my piece and asked me a question. I captured your piece,” you said, holding up his bishop, “now you must answer mine.”

He stared at you for a long moment. Heat prickled your skin, no longer only from the fire’s glow. Then his attention snapped back to the board, and he advanced a pawn.

“My father.”

You gasped, affecting disbelief. “You have parents? You weren't belched forth from fumes of sulfur and coal?” When he said nothing in response, you shrugged and moved your queen into play. “Do you write them?”

William leaned forward to swipe another of your pawns. “I don't believe it's your turn to ask a question.” His eyes met yours. “How much did your father teach you, exactly?”

You sighed. “Everything he could.” Your focus darted over your pieces, then his. “Nothing at all like your elite schooling, I’m sure. He isn’t a worldly man.” An immediate strategy wasn’t revealing itself to you, so you shifted a bishop defensively. “Though he does have a penchant for the classics. Greek epics in particular.”

William hummed and advanced a knight. You responded with a pawn push, brightening as you saw a path to a potential capture and opportunity to question him. But he snagged your own knight with his, and you slumped back, pouting.

“What of your mother?” he asked. “How old were you when she passed?”

“Oh.” You blinked. “Barely eight. Perhaps seven. She died of fever. Grace was still an infant.” Leaning in again, you took his central pawn with the maneuver you’d set up last turn. “Ha!” You plunked it into your growing pile of captured pieces. “Now answer me. What of your family, hm?”

“What of them?” William shrugged. “My father is dead. My mother failed to respond to my last letters. I’ve no current knowledge of my brothers–-be they living or not.” He flicked a piece forward. “There's little to say of them.”

“But what—” You paused. Glanced over the board. There were no captures you could reasonably make on this turn, so you huffed and moved a bishop into position. Still, there was nothing precluding you from making a statement. “I…” You swallowed. “I'm sorry to hear of your father.”

At that, William snorted. “His death is not one worthy of your sympathy.”

You frowned. “That’s awful.”

“What is?”

“To feel that way about your father.”

William leaned back, his mouth cocking in derision. “If your father had spent all of his time pissing away every second and cent you possessed on gambling and wine, I imagine you might feel the same way.”

Your lips pressed together. His brows raised.

“But you haven’t asked a question, have you?” He leaned forward and swept your other knight from the board with his queen. “What do you remember of your mother?”

You stared at him, then blinked down at your fingers. It had been a long time since you’d thought of her in any detail. It felt strange to do so now.

“Her name was Eleanor. She had strong hands,” you mused, gaze picking over the game. “Tired eyes. A soft voice.” You nudged a pawn. “She spoke of missing home often.”

“Catawba?” He pushed his own pawn to meet yours.

A laugh puffed through your nose. “No,” you said, stealing his piece with your waiting bishop. “But you’ll have to earn that.” You grinned, and he tilted his head in acceptance. “Why do you want to know so much about my mother?”

“Curious,” he said. “Who you favor.”

You sat back, feeling aware of yourself for some reason. “Well, I hope I’ve given you enough information for a conclusion.”

“‘Soft voice’?” he replied. “Certainly not your mother.”

A smirk tugged at your lips. “And with your disposition, I imagine you must favor your father.”

“You wouldn’t be the first to make such an assertion.” He stole a pawn. “Where was the home your mother so missed?”

“Outside of Philadelphia,” you replied, irritated at how much larger his pile was growing than yours. “My father moved us here when I was too young to remember. He wanted to demonstrate slave labor wasn’t necessary to run a farm.” You shrugged. “I’d say he’s proven his point out.”

“Further proving my own, as it were.”

This time you barked a real laugh. “And what do you mean by that?”

“Taking on immense hardship to demonstrate a principle?” His brows lifted. “A resemblance might be struck.”

“Immense hardship?” You snorted. “Do I appear to be suffering under a great burden?”

“You wish for me to judge how burdened you are based on your current appearance?”

“Oh, shut up.” You grumbled. Leaned forward. Saw that his knight was vulnerable, and toppled it with your queen. “Serves you.” You shot him a grin. A corner of his mouth lifted. “What about your burdens?” you asked. “Did you not join the war because your father pissed away everything your family had before riding the pale horse?”

“One reason,” he sighed, “among several.”

“And the others?”

“I answered your question.” He shifted a piece, then settled back in his chair.

“Pedant.”

He shrugged. “Your rules.”

Scowling, you considered your next move. Your only opportunity for capture would leave your queen vulnerable, casting the entire game in his favor. But one thousand questions were jammed behind your tongue and you wanted nothing more than to undam them, to toss them like logs into the flowing river between you and dive in after.

To hell with your queen. You reached across, plucked up your piece, and took his.

William blinked, looking from the board to you. No doubt wondering if he had misjudged your intellect after all. You didn’t care.

“Who’s your one friend?”

His head jerked back a fraction, as if you’d slapped him with the question. “What?”

“At Middleton Place,” you explained, “I asked if you had any friends. You said you had one. Who is it?”

A flutter passed through his jaw, then released. He blinked. “An officer,” he said, brow creasing in thought as his shoulders dropped fractionally. “Stationed up north.”

“What’s his name?”

“John André.”

He stiffened, glancing at the board, then at you. The freely given answer hung in the air, delightful to you as the first firefly of spring. You hardly breathed for fear of chasing it away. William leaned an elbow on the table and slid a rook toward your exposed queen.

“Does that satisfy you?”

“It may.” A smile played at the corners of your lips as you considered his move. There wasn’t a single counter you could think of that would save you now, but it hardly mattered. “Does John André know that he’s your only friend?”

William’s brow twitched. “It was he who informed me of the fact.”

At that you laughed, leaning back in your chair to cover your lips with your fingers. His attention flicked over your face.

“A man of eminent wisdom, this John André,” you said.

A half-smile touched his cheeks, and his gaze shifted to the fire. “A man of eminent frivolity, mostly.”

“Come now,” you chided, “do not speak ill of your friend while he is not here to defend himself.” Grinning, you narrowed your eyes at him. “Surely such ‘frivolity’ mustn't have evaded your own participation, or you would not so readily deem him a friend.”

“The facets of our friendship extend beyond trivial amusements.” William’s head dipped to the side in consideration. “But he certainly threw a devil of a party.”

“Indeed?” It was impossible to keep your delight from your voice. “Grander than the one at Middleton Place?”

“Much.”

Your smile widened. “How grand?”

William tipped his head this way and that, as if imagining the scale.

“As grand as befits the sending off of our esteemed General Howe,” he said, smirking as his eyes landed upon you.

Your jaw plummeted. “You attended the Mischianza?”

He hummed, expression awash with amusement. “Heard of it?”

“Myself and every other literate soul in the colonies,” you said, head wagging in disbelief. Three months must have gone by before you’d stopped seeing weekly condemnations of the debauchery committed there in the papers.

His brow arched. “Is it so inconceivable that I was in attendance?”

Yes, you thought. It absolutely was. The idea of William Tavington strutting about a massive gala against a backdrop of festooned ships, jousting tournaments, extravagant and scandalous costumes, and every other Lucullian detail you’d read about—it was absurd enough to be, in a word, utterly inconceivable.

“I’d sooner believe you took the stage to recite Cato,” you said.

He shrugged. “That I did as well.”

You beheld him for a few seconds, then snorted out a laugh. “Perhaps I should have stipulated that answers be given honestly, for now you surely jest.”

William placed a hand over his breast, as if swearing an oath. “I wouldn’t dare.”

You leaned forward, searching him for deception. “You really trod the boards of a stage?”

He gave a single nod.

“Where?” you demanded. “When?”

“New York,” he said. “At Major André’s behest.”

“Well,” you said, giggling through your own disbelief. “How obliging a friend you are. A man of the arts, is he?”

“Very much so,” William replied, his half-smile unfading. “But with meager talent for acting.”

“And where do his talents lie, then?”

“Music,” he answered. “Poetry, painting. His set pieces were extraordinary.”

You covered another giggle with your fingers, studying him across the table. “You on a stage,” you murmured. “I simply cannot imagine it.”

His smile widened, softening his face, and your heart suspended in time.

“Pray,” he said, “how do you imagine me to have passed the cold and dark months in New York?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” you said, leaning back. “Such a rousing city as York mustn’t have left you wanting for diversions, least of all the type to keep you warm.”

Your cheeks grew hot. It hadn’t really been your intention to suggest he divulge the history of his sexual exploits, though now that you’d spoken the words, you couldn’t quell your curiosity. You wondered if he had interpreted the same meaning from the statement.

William paused, his eyes searching yours.

“They grew wearisome,” he finally said. “Did you never tire of your own diversions?”

“No,” you said, grinning. “Never.”

“What were they?”

“Well.” You pinched your lower lip between your teeth. “Papa kept us busy with our lessons when we weren’t tending the farm. But I got to make my rounds in the village for illness or injury.”

“That is schooling and work,” said William witheringly, “not diversion.”

“But it was diverting!” you said, crossing your arms in your own defense. “Particularly when men would shriek like babes from the smallest needle prick.”

“And had you soaked said needles in whiskey?” he asked, eyes glinting.

“Gin.”

He smiled again, and another flush suffused your cheeks. You cleared your throat.

“In the summers, our village made great sport of racing young horses over obstacles,” you said. “Then the breeders would go on to sell their winners for extraordinary prices.”

“And you participated?”

“Of course.”

William gave you a curious look. “An unorthodox pastime for a lady, some might say.”

There was no criticism in the statement. All you could detect was curiosity.

“Some might. But only because ladies are unfairly discouraged,” you retorted. “My father always said I was a hundred times better with a horse than any young man in Catawba.”

“Perhaps because they are the only creatures on earth to receive from you a soft voice.”

You grinned. “Perhaps they are the only creatures on earth deserving of it.”

To this, he seemed to have no argument. Your focus drifted down his collar, his waistcoat, to the game left abandoned between you. Recalling that it had been your turn, you batted at a piece, not much caring where it ended up.

“It makes sense, you know,” you murmured.

“What does?” He made an idle move of his own.

“Your talent for acting.”

He scoffed. “I wouldn’t call it a talent.”

“Oh, I would.”

He looked up to meet your impish smile.

“And what makes you say this?” he asked.

You leaned forward, examining him. “You keep your expressions under such discipline. Very austere.” You hummed. “But your eyes betray you.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” you said. “They speak so clearly what is on your mind.”

“Mhm.” He raised a skeptical brow. “And what is it that my eyes say?”

You studied him. He held your attention, unblinking.

Lifting your chin, you adopted your best William Tavington impression, and said: “Stop making observations about me that bear uncomfortable veracity.”

His shoulders jumped in the closest thing to a true laugh you’d ever seen him produce.

“Very precise.”

“Accurate, too, I assume.” You flashed a grin, plunked a piece across the board.

“And what are they saying now?” he asked.

You met his eyes again. Fire glittered in them like sunset through a waterfall. As they engulfed you, your stomach flipped—certainly a symptom of your illness, and not because these long seconds of eye contact made you feel more naked before him than any of the times he’d been inside your body. You swallowed the thickness in your throat.

“Nothing repeatable aloud, I'm sure.”

He exhaled through his nose. “Astute.”

You chewed the inside of your lip, your fingers curling in your petticoats, feeling a suffocating urge to scoot closer in your chair, to bump your knee against his, to rest your feet along his own. Yet the imbalance between you gave you pause.

Certainly this urge was so tempting because he was the only man you’d ever wanted any form of intimacy with, physical or otherwise. But how many women had inspired this same feeling in him?

Exactly how vulnerable did your lack of experience make you?

“William?”

His gaze held to yours. “Hm?”

“How many?” you asked. “Before me?”

“How many what?” He cocked his head. “Assaults have I received from swamp witches?”

You rolled your eyes. Typical. “No,” you replied, lowering your voice. “You know very well what I mean.” You cleared your throat, enunciating carefully. “How many women have shared your bed?”

William stared, considering you. “Before you?” Glancing down, he absently rolled a piece across the board with no concern for its fate. “One.”

You balked. “You've only had intercourse with one other woman?” you hissed between your teeth. “You said you'd seen plenty!”

“I have.” His stare locked to you again. “That’s not the question you asked.”

No muscle in his face twitched. Only his eyes informed you that this was the truth.

You settled in your chair, blinking the realization into life. He’d had a serious partner before you, then. The fact of it made you want to squirm, made an unfamiliar emotion writhe in your chest like a colony of worms. It had probably been some high society woman, someone with some semblance of formal education, someone who arose wearing a dress made of ruffled silk to powder her hair and face and then went to sleep on a bed of shillings.

Not that it mattered. Obviously.

Nodding, you shuffled your claimed chessmen around on the table. “What… ah, what was her name?” you asked, as if it was a question of little consequence. “What was she like?”

“I don’t recall,” he replied with a lift of his brow. “It was a single night, years ago.”

Your jaw dropped, and you snapped it shut with a clack. You gazed at him, recognizing the implicit admission that the person he’d shared his bed with most—as two was greater than one—was you.

The gap in experience felt at once like a crevice and canyon. Perhaps his exposure to intimacy in its alternative forms was as limited as yours. But his singular mention of discretion contrasted against what you’d learned earlier today gave you no comfort or reassurance as to what on God’s emerald fields was happening to you.

William eased back in his chair. “Curiosity sated?”

“Not quite.”

He held out a palm, inviting your query forth. You worried your lip before looking up at him.

“I thought you requested my discretion,” you said. “So why have you been asking about me?”

Footsteps approached the drawing room, and you peered over your shoulder to spot Lottie peeking around the wall.

“Good evening, Colonel,” she said, nodding toward him. “I’m afraid I must collect our esteemed nurse for the night so she may rest.” A terribly playful grin broke her face. “Dr. Moore’s orders.”

You turned, meeting his gaze, finding the same reluctance there that you felt in your bones. The both of you exhaled simultaneously, a shared ache seeping with your breath into the room. He glanced at Lottie and nodded, but said nothing.

“All right, Lottie,” you said, offering her a tight smile. “I’ll be along.”

She looked between you with mischief in her eyes and dipped into the hallway to wait.

You took a breath and made to stand, the planet itself spiraling underneath you with a pounding against your skull. The pain of illness that you’d somehow relegated to the perimeter of your awareness pounced every muscle at once. Groaning, you held your hand against your forehead as if that would affix the world’s axis beneath you. Another deep breath, and you prepared to rise again. Your eyes focused and found William standing in front of you, his hand proffered.

Something tightened in your chest. Jaw tense, you curled your trembling fingers around his, found them soothed in the bedrock of his grip. He helped you to your feet, and your head spun again, your hand squeezing his instinctually—and he squeezed back, ensuring you remained standing.

Now stable, you looked up at him, your hand still clutching his. He made no indication of moving. He only stared at you.

“Goodnight, William,” you breathed.

You leaned in, brushed your lips across his cheek, grazed the growing stubble. Easing back, you began to pull away, and his grip tightened. You blinked, your attention falling to where he held you, only to watch as he raised your knuckles to his lips.

If his eyes before had been sunset through a waterfall, they were now stars through stained glass, a refraction of feeling you had no capacity to identify. Your breath left you. You held onto him, your vision fuzzing.

William lowered your hand and released it, and you stepped away, still unable to break his gaze.

“I expect to find you following the doctor’s directives tomorrow,” he said.

You finally averted your attention to study the floor before looking to him again. “If I must.”

William was still as a lake. His fingers twitched at his side.

With a nod, you fled the room, finding Lottie in the hallway, head and heart slamming against the boundaries of your body. Her smile exploded from her face, her arm curling around yours as she guided you from the house.

“Time for bed, lovebird,” she giggled.

You glanced at her, then at the door, unable to escape the memory of William’s eyes, the encroaching dawn within them, how it devoured you like the shivering dew of morning.

#william tavington #colonel tavington #colonel william tavington #the patriot #jason isaacs #playing soldier #fanfiction problems #girl help my heart is exploding

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kylorengarbagedump · 2 months ago

Text

Playing Soldier: Chapter 22

Read on AO3. Part 21 here. Part 23 here.

Summary: You are definitely not sick and you don't know why everyone keeps looking at you like you are.

Words: 5200

Warnings: emesis

Characters: William Tavington x Reader

A/N: Co-written with @bastillia.

Hello loves! Welcome back <3 We hope everyone is feeling well and having a lovely week as February draws to a close and we hope you enjoyed the chapter!

So pleased to hear people enjoyed the growing vulnerability between our worsties <3 MUCH more to come, if this chapter isn't an indicator. We hope you continue to enjoy, and love y'all so very much!!

A tap-tap-tap resounded at the door.

“Come in.”

You frowned, quill trailing across your lower lip as you tried for perhaps the dozenth time to focus on the line you’d last penned. Surely there was something else you’d meant to include. Glancing up, you saw a head of red curls poke into the room.

“Tea?” Lottie bustled in with a heaping tray, bumping the door shut with her hip.

“Lottie.” A smile softened the lines that had etched your brow, only for them to reappear in suspicion. “What’s the meaning of such maid service?”

She plopped the tray onto the cramped table, prompting you to push your ink stand and letter aside.

“Is it a crime to dote upon one’s friend?” she asked innocently, blowing a curl from her eyes and taking a seat across from you. “I just thought you could use it, seeing as you’re feeling poorly.”

“What makes you say such a thing?” you asked, eyes devouring the spread she had gathered. Your stomach squirmed painfully to life. Had you eaten today?

“Oh, no reason,” said Lottie, setting her chin on her fist and scowling in mock scrutiny. “You’ve only been green as a frog’s arse all day. And you nearly keeled over at Bancroft’s bedside earlier. And don’t think I didn’t notice.” She jabbed a finger at your budding protest. “I won’t believe you if you tell me you’ve spontaneously developed a squeamishness for double-jointed elbows, no matter how strange his look.”

You snorted. “Lottie, I’m fine. I swear it. But thank you for the tea.”

“I knew you’d say that.” She reached across the table and laid the backs of her fingers against your forehead, then your cheek. Her hand felt cool, your skin tender, and you winced. Lottie frowned. “You are most certainly not fine.”

“It’ll pass.” You waved her away, selecting a piece of gingerbread from the tray and inhaling its warm aroma.

“It had better,” she said, sitting back and busying herself with the pouring of tea. “Hospital work is nigh on intolerable without you there, you know. Dr. Moore can be such a grouch. I can’t stand him when he’s in his moods.”

“I’ll not cease working,” you assured her, shoving the gingerbread chunk into your mouth so you could accept your teacup. Then, through the moist, spicy mouthful, added, “I’d sooner actually keel over.”

“Of that I’ve no doubt,” said Lottie with a sigh, before brightening and twisting to delve into her pocket. “Which is why I’ve brought you something. It’s one of your, er…” She produced a familiar, slender glass bottle filled with murky liquid, and displayed it proudly. “Com-poptions!”

You managed to swallow through a smile. “Decoctions.”

“See?” Lottie sagged. “I really need you out there. I’m hopeless.”

“You are not hopeless.” You took the cordial from her. It was one from a batch you’d prepared last week in preparation for the weather to turn. Willow bark, ginseng and echinacea. The very thing you would have selected for yourself. “Look at this.” You held it up and swirled it. “You’ve brought me exactly what I need.”

“I have?” Lottie’s eyes widened. “I saw you give one to that private who came down with fever yesterday, so I thought perhaps…”

“You thought perfectly.” You smiled, a small glow building in your chest. You were proud of her. “You’re a good nurse, Lottie.”

Her cheeks pinkened, and she glanced down to fidget with her sugar spoon. “Thank you for saying that,” she murmured. “Sometimes I think I’m more hindrance than help to Dr. Moore. It’s a wonder he hasn’t banished me for good.”

“I’ll chew his ear off if he so much as dreams of it.”

You unstoppered the cordial and threw back its contents. Bitterness crashed into your throat, singed your nose, and you cringed, shuddering to your bones before soothing it down with a gulp of tea.

When you looked back up, Lottie was frozen in horror as though she’d just witnessed you swallow a live snake.

“What?”

“You’re a masochist, do you know that?” She smacked her tongue as if she, too, could taste the medicine. “At least wait until supper and mix it with punch, or something.”

“And spoil the taste of the cordial?” You grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes, flinging a bit of candied orange peel at you that went straight down the front of your bodice.

After you had both recovered from an ensuing fit of laughter (and you recovered the sugary treasure from the depths of your bosom), Lottie sighed and wiped her eyes, leaning back to indulge in a long sip of tea.

“Not sure how I’m going to explain that stain to the laundresses,” you said, brushing sticky crystalline specks from your kerchief. “Incorrigible gossips, the lot of them, and you know it.”

“Oh!” Lottie pitched forward, tea sloshing over the side of her cup. If it burned her, she hardly seemed to notice. “That reminds me! I simply must tell you.”

Bewildered, you nodded, leaning back just a little lest her cup evade her control entirely and cause yet another inexplicable stain. She bounced in her chair and leaned toward you, big brown eyes sparkling.

“I was dropping off the hospital laundry this morning,” she continued, sotto voce, “and I overheard the most extraordinary thing.”

You blinked, your own grin starting to form. “Extraordinary?” You wiggled toward her. “Do tell.”

“So,” she began, taking a preparatory sip of tea and setting her cup down. “You know how some of these officers have women coming and going, right?” She made a swishing motion with her hand. “In and out, in and out—”

She then made a more lascivious gesture with her hands before clapping them over her mouth to stifle a fit of giggles.

“Indeed I’m aware.” You tried to share her mirth, but your stomach twisted, and you took another bite of gingerbread.

“Apparently, a couple of weeks ago, one of the laundresses thought she spied some sort of… spillage on one of the sheets of the officers,” Lottie said, still giggling. “And then another one confirmed she’d heard a woman howling from that particular officer’s room the day before!”

Your twisted stomach started to sink into the floor.

“And you’ll never guess which officer it was!”

Through a mouthful of bread, you mumbled, “Who?”

“Colonel Tavington!”

Your teacup jolted, liquid splattering onto your petticoats. “Mmm,” you said, as if you were too busy chewing to give her a real response.

“Can you believe that?” She laughed to herself, taking another sip of tea. “Can you imagine him lying down with a woman?” A thoughtful hum left her. “Can you imagine him even having a conversation with one long enough to get her there?”

“Mmm,” you said again, nodding along. Every inch of skin above your waist felt like it had gone up in flames. You weren’t sure how long you could pretend to eat. “Fascinating.”

“Isn’t it just?” Lottie eased back in her seat. “Any port in a storm, I suppose.” She grabbed a piece of gingerbread and nibbled off an edge. “Though Colonel Tavington seems a particularly frigid choice for any ship to seek harbor. No accounting for desperation, though, is there?”

You frowned. “Oh, I’m not sure about that,” you replied, suddenly realizing you felt defensive of him for no discernible reason. “But that’s his private business.” You took another sip of tea, averting your gaze. “And whoever the woman is. Her private business as well.”

Lottie cocked her head. She placed her teacup on the table. “What are you talking about?” she said, brow raised. “What do you mean, private business?”

“Nothing.” Your head throbbed. “Just that—”

“Since when have you ever cared about respecting the private business of anyone here?” Her eyes narrowed, and she drew closer, freckled cheeks puffing. “Just over the weekend we were laughing about Dr. Moore’s poor wife, putting up with his nonsense.” She held her index and thumb out less than an inch from each other. “Or weren’t we?”

Shaking your head, you tried to put your teacup down as it continued to shudder between your fingers. “Well, you said it seemed like desperation,” you spat, “and all I’m saying is that you don’t know what reason any woman might have for lying down with him. And that isn’t our business.” You cleared your throat, still unable to meet her stare.

“You’re serious.”

“Completely,” you replied. “Besides.” You straightened in your seat, primly plucking a piece of candied orange peel and popping it into your mouth. “It’s not as if he’s the worst-looking man I’ve seen.”

Lottie studied you, silent for a moment. Her jaw fell open. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, my goodness.”

You swallowed. “What?”

“It’s you,” she whispered.

“What?” you said, feeling the heat rush your cheeks again.

Lottie’s face erupted in joy. “It’s you!” she squealed, pointing at you. Giggling madly, she kicked her feet and slapped the table, making you jump. “Heavens above. I can’t believe it. You!”

“No! No, that is not what I—“

She gasped, as if a thought just occurred to her. “Though, now that I think of it,” she said, somehow simultaneously ignoring and examining you, “it’s harmonious, isn’t it?”

“Harmonious?” You balked, stomach coiling into a fist. “I—first of all, I’m n-not—” You shook your head, tried again. “Colonel Tavington and I—”

“—enjoy amorous congress!” she cried. “Making the beast with two backs! Taking turns about the cabbages!” A thrilled cackle left her, and you shushed her. “Oh, I am too delighted by this.” Leaning forward, she furrowed her brow. “And furious. How could you keep this from me?”

You swallowed your nerves. Looked around. “I—” Groaning, you buried your face in your hands. “Could you please lower your voice—”

“You must tell me everything,” she said, jostling you by the shoulder, then jerked her hand back. “Ooh. My apologies. I shouldn’t do that when you’re poorly.”

“I’m not—”

You slumped into your seat. Perhaps you were ill. Perhaps you’d get lucky and die right now.

Lottie’s volume dropped to a conspiratorial level. “How is it?” Her eyes simmered with sincere curiosity. “I mean… What’s he like?”

“He's…”

Three words came to mind: Boorish. Brutal. Overbearing.

And then three others, quick behind them: Curious. Careful. Captivating.

“He’s—”

“Do you think you'll be married?” Lottie asked, squirming closer.

“What?” you squawked, face twisting in horror. “No! What on earth even prompted you to ask such a thing?”

“Oh, pardon me,” Lottie said, taking an innocent sip of her tea. “Wasn't my intention to touch a nerve.”

“Touch a—no, you haven't touched a nerve,” you replied, inching away in your seat. “You must stop saying such… such nonsensical things.”

Lottie paused, looking at you with actual confusion. “What's so nonsensical about you getting married to the colonel?” she asked. “He's the only man I've not seen you immediately indict upon mention of his name.” A shrug, another sip of tea. “Surely that accounts for something.”

“It accounts for nothing,” you snapped. When she shrunk slightly in her seat, you recomposed yourself, curbed your bite. “I… There is no logic as to why we should be married simply because we find time to… ah… converse.” Your stomach roared in protest of what was surely the idea of marrying a man like William Tavington. “I can imagine nothing appealing about such an arrangement.”

“No?” Lottie tilted her head, searching you for deception. “You truly don't wish to fall in love?” she asked, as if you’d instead said that you never wished to see the sun again. “To find yourself a bosom companion?”

You snorted. “Who have you known to marry for love?”

“I hope to,” she said with a small shrug, eyes dropping to her hands. She fiddled with her spoon again. “My mother and father were utterly devoted to one another. I dream of a love like theirs.”

Trying not to roll your eyes, you dipped your gingerbread in your tea before having another small nibble. “Then they were fortunate. From my observations, it isn’t a common occurrence.”

“What about your father?” She looked up again, imploring. “You don't believe he loved your mother? Or she loved him?”

Shrugging, you replied, “I should think not. Though I never got the opportunity to know her well enough to tell.” You watched the steam whirl in wisps from your tea. Your eyes ached. You tried to blink the pain away and met Lottie’s gaze again. “And he's rarely mentioned her since she passed. She might as well have become a ghost while she still lived.”

You had never begrudged your father this. He’d struggled without her whether he’d loved her or not.

“Hmm.” Lottie ran her thumb over the edge of her teacup handle, her focus dancing between you and the wall. “Well…” she said with a tone that implied she was about to deliver terrible news. “You don't think that may be because, perhaps, he…” She exhaled. “Perhaps he loved her so deeply that to speak of her caused him pain?” Her gaze was nothing but empathetic concern. It was something you had never understood how to achieve. “Perhaps it was arduous for him.”

You shook your head. “That does not sound like my father,” you replied, “or anyone I know. What's to be gained from avoiding speaking of something because it's difficult? That simply doesn’t make any sense.” You shrugged, taking a final sip of tea and standing. The room spun, but only a few degrees. “Anyway, enough of this discussion. I really must be returning to work.”

Lottie frowned. “But you’ve barely had a bite of—”

“I’m truly fine,” you insisted, dusting off your petticoats of the few crumbs on them. “You are far too generous with me. The medicine is working already. I'm as well as can be.”

She eyed you like a cat might eye a stranger. “Mmhm.” With a shrug, she collected your plate. “Well. Off you go, then.”

“I’ll see you later,” you said, squeezing her shoulder. “And thank you again.”

She softened fractionally, shrugging you off with a smile. “Don’t mention it. Oh!” She reached across the table for your letter. “Don’t forget this.”

“Ah, of course,” you said, perturbed that you had forgotten it at all. “Silly me.”

Lottie gasped, pausing with the parchment still between her fingers. “Are you writing to your sister?”

“I am.”

“Oh, do allow me to write her a post-script, won’t you?” She clutched the letter to her breast. “I must implore her to visit. You know how I adore her already, and we’ve never even met.”

You shook your head, but smiled. “All right. Be quick about it.”

Beaming, Lottie snatched the quill and began to scribble.

The walk to the courier’s office felt longer than it had previously, the floorboards more unsteady. Perhaps you’d been sedentary too long and needed to get the blood flowing back to your brain and extremities.

You would be fine. But a shake of your head made the edges of your vision swim, so you breathed deeply and focused on placing one foot in front of the other, memory guiding you until you had finally dropped the letter off.

A return to your work, then, would set you to rights. And a bit of fresh air couldn’t possibly hurt.

Stepping outside, you met a late September breeze. It kissed your skin, chased the haze of nausea from your insides. For a few steps, you even felt normal. Then you heard it.

“Psst.”

You stopped, ears cocked, and glanced from side to side. Your symptoms so far hadn’t indicated anything remotely serious, but an onset of auditory hallucinations would necessitate re-evaluation.

“Psst!”

Whirling, you stumbled as you looked around, the movement making your brain spin on its stem. Then you saw it. Peeking around the corner of an outbuilding was a red-headed face which, at first glance, you could have sworn was Lottie again.

You squinted, ready to call out and ask her what game she meant to play, when a red-coated body stepped halfway into view. Benedict Goddard beckoned you frantically toward him.

“Withering body of Christ on the holy cross, grant me patience,” you muttered to yourself, and, with all the haste your body currently allowed, marched in his direction.

You gripped his lapel and ducked behind the building, dragging him back with what you hoped wasn’t an utterly pathetic display of strength. Goddard was unperturbed when you released him, and in fact appeared to be vibrating out of his uniform with excitement.

“Do you have it yet?” he announced to the world.

“Quiet!” You peered around the corner. No one seemed to be nearby, thank the all-merciful slumbering baby Jesus. You turned to scowl at Goddard. “What are you talking about?”

“You said you’d have something for me to deliver soon,” he pressed, only slightly quieter. “And that was a week and a half ago.”

You frowned. Had it really been that long? The leaf of parchment burned your skin beneath your stays where you’d been keeping it. It was best hidden there—at least in William’s absence—and you’d been easily able to slip it out from time to time when some new detail needed jotting. Infantry numbers. Artillery pieces and the status of ammunition stores. A few officer promotions and other relatively inconsequential details. All diligently enciphered, of course.

Ice enveloped your stomach as you recalled consciously omitting such crucial intelligence as the movements of high-ranking officers between forts, and certain new routes for critical supply convoys. Every time you’d pulled out your parchment to write these down, it was as though you could feel William’s breath brush your neck, see the flash of humanity in his eyes in the mirror while your fingers carded through his hair.

You’d been meaning to sit yourself down and force your hand to write out the damned intelligence anyway. After all, these details could be life or death for Papa, and that was what mattered, was it not? Wasn’t that the whole reason you were even still here? And yet, you’d avoided the task like the plague anyway.

“Goddard, I-–” You let out a huff, gritting your teeth. “I just need—”

“Are you all right?” he suddenly asked. “You look ill.”

“I’m fine,” you snapped with a glower, to which he shrugged sheepishly. “And I do have the letter, but I just need a little more time—”

“You have it! Brilliant.” Goddard’s eyes darted to your hands, your pockets, as if parchment might leap into the air from one of those places and present itself to him. “Give it here, then! I can take it to the dead drop before the rest of the bloodybacks return.”

“Goddard, you are a—” You paused, blinked. “Wait, when are they meant to return?”

He shrugged again. “How long can it take to sack Charlotte? Meanwhile, it’s up to us to help prevent future sackings, is it not?”

“Hopefully not,” you grumbled under your breath, considering the fumbling attempt at espionage that was currently underway where you both stood.

“Oh, come now,” said Goddard, lightly socking your shoulder. “Where’s your faith in the glorious cause?”

“Hush! This isn’t a game.”

“Then let me do something real!” His eyes grew insistent. “Give me the letter. I’ll deliver it safely, I swear I will, but it’ll only get more difficult the longer we wait.”

You swore under your breath. He was right. And you’d been stalling.

At this point, you wouldn’t be terribly shocked if every member of the extended Goddard family somehow appeared from thin air to disgruntle you with irritating statements.

“All right.” You crammed your hand down the front of your stays. With one last glance around, you slid the folded parchment free and held it out to him.

Goddard’s face lit up, then scrunched into a grimace as he hesitated mid-reach. “That’s where you kept it?”

“Do you want the damned thing or not?” You shoved it into his hands. “Christ.”

Holding the parchment by one corner like a dirtied napkin, Goddard slipped it into his satchel. You rolled your eyes while he fastened it shut. Looking back up at you, he beamed, patting the secured parcel.

“I won’t let you down.” He rocked onto the balls of his feet, chest puffing, making him look rather like a little boy trying on his father’s boots. You tried not to let that discomfit you.

“Try not to be reckless,” you said. “Remember what we discussed.”

“Make the drop and get out,” Goddard recited. “Remember the code phrase in case of capture. If compromised, eat parchment. Wait, must I really do that one?”

“What? No, that wasn’t even part of—“ You pinched the bridge of your nose, sighing. “Listen. Do not attempt to convey any information in addition to what I’ve gathered. When, and if, our contacts authorize you as a source based on your last dispatch, then you may. But not before. Understood?”

He nodded, copper curls bouncing on his forehead.

“And for the love of God, do not wait at the dead drop to meet whoever might be collecting it.”

He slumped, rubbing the back of his neck. “Not even just… just to make sure they got it?”

“No, Goddard. You mustn’t. You’ll endanger far more people than only yourself if you do so.”

With a hung head, he nodded.

“Swear to me that you won’t.”

“I won’t!” he said, dejected but earnest. “Promise.”

You sighed, relaxing a fraction. It was hard to deny that you felt a little better having the letter off of your person. Though it being on Goddard’s instead did not instill tremendous confidence.

“Off with you, then.” You dismissed him with a jerk of your head before you could change your mind. “Try not to get killed.”

Goddard bounced again, nodding, then just as you turned away, leaned in and whispered, “Liberty or death!”

“Don’t—ugh.” But in the time it took you to turn back, he had already skipped off, a spring in his step and potential disaster in his purse.

There was no benefit in dwelling on it—this you knew, despite every nerve rattling in protest as you watched him depart. So you shook it off, turning as though to physically banish the walking liability that was Benedict Goddard from both sight and mind, and resumed your course to the hospital.

You found it just as you’d left it earlier, a few patients napping or reading in their cots, and the muffled sounds of Dr. Moore rummaging around in the supply room in the back. You’d concluded that the act of organizing and reorganizing must soothe his nerves in some way. At this point, you doubted the supplies themselves could benefit from yet another sorting.

Still, you left him to it and strode straight to your medicine cabinet, which was situated next to a workbench strewn with your herbal supplies. It was chaos to the naked eye, but you had a clear system of organization in your mind. Much to Dr. Moore’s frequently verbalized dismay.

Pulling the cabinet open, you frowned. Your patients were guzzling decoctions as if they were rum rations, especially the willow bark. Some of the soldiers with more chronic ailments had begun to ask for them on almost a daily basis. Not to mention the demand for salves that had shot up now that the weather was cooling and joints were creaking. It was high time to make calculations for a resupply.

As you lost yourself in the tinkling of glass and the ritual of counting, you failed to notice Dr. Moore’s reappearance.

“You’re back.” He crossed to a patient’s bedside in your periphery. As you peered around to greet him, he pushed up his spectacles and frowned at you through them. “You look a fright.”

“And I hope you had a pleasant lunch as well,” you snipped, turning back to your vials.

“I’ll not abide you dropping dead on me,” he sighed, soft footsteps moving to the cot behind you. “As much as my patients might find some small relief in it. Rest tomorrow.”

“I am quite far from death’s door yet,” you replied, scratching down herb notations and numbers on a leaf of spare parchment from your workbench. “I’ll continue working, thank you.”

You turned your nose up and made to brush past him. To your utter shock, two hands came down on your shoulders, gently but firmly spun you, and plopped you down on the empty cot.

“Excuse me!”

Dr. Moore ignored you, instead feeling your temperature, fingers probing your neck for your lymph nodes. He bent in front of you, peeled each of your eyes open to inspect them before straightening again and plucking up your wrist to take your pulse.

You huffed. “I don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing by—“

“Since I already know you’ll refuse bleeding for this fever,” he said, turning his back and moving toward the next patient, “I am ordering you to rest tomorrow. If this order is ignored, your alchemy shall be henceforth prohibited from use in my hospital.”

“I beg your pardon?” You gaped. “But you can’t, it—it helps!”

He glanced back at you, taking a seat at a bedside stool and drawing a fleam from his apron.

“Then you should ensure it remains in use, no?”

With a final lift of his brows, his focus turned from you to his patient, marking the conversation closed. With a final harrumph, you rose from the cot, snatched your parchment and herb basket, and stomped out of the hospital.

He’d said you needed to rest tomorrow, had he not? There had been no clause prohibiting you from finishing your work today. You could manage that just bloody fine, given the daylight left.

As you wove through the fort’s lower town, your muscles joined in protest against the pace you’d tried to set. Your head, too, spun and pounded with a fervor that made your teeth grind together in frustration.

A bit of food, perhaps, would see you through. After all, you’d only had a couple of sweets all day. You didn’t feel hungry—in fact, your stomach felt like a squeezed lemon. But if you forced something down, you’d feel better.

A quick detour brought you by the kitchens, where you pilfered a half loaf of yesterday’s bread and an apple before making your way to the outskirts of the fort. A long, grassy hill led down to the forest’s edge, scattered with abatis that gouged the earth like a giant’s deadly game of jacks. You wobbled your way down among them, nibbling your bread and apple as you went, until you’d passed the hulking redoubt at the bottom and found yourself on level ground, swathed in the shade of trees.

Taking a moment to orient yourself, you made your way toward a clearing where you’d found a healthy patch of echinacea last week. You cursed as your ankles tried to fold across the ground litter, grasping at trunks as you went. Any moment now, the food would lend you more strength. You paused for another bite of bread to be sure.

God above, it just had to be today, in your weakened state, that Lottie saw fit to disarm you with gossip of William. It just had to be today that Goddard grew pushy about the bloody spying business. Of course.

It all had to be today.

You kicked at a rotten log, nearly sending yourself sprawling, but steadied again with a grumble. The clearing was just ahead. Forcing down another bite of apple, you emerged into dappled sunlight and spotted the echinacea patch. You stumbled to it and sank mercifully to your knees.

You grasped a stem and began to tug the plant, root and all, from the earth. This, at least, felt right, even though everything else today felt decidedly wrong. Your body was ailing, your mind muddled, the discretion surrounding your situation with William was in jeopardy, your faith in Goddard shaky as a foal’s first steps.

Of course, just when you’d managed to convince Grace by way of letter that things hadn’t worked out with “John,” now your problems had propagated. You hoped you could trust Lottie not to spread your business. If you listened to the voice that sat deepest within you, you knew that you could. But it didn’t stop needles of apprehension from rolling over your skin, setting you on alert like a fox scenting the wind.

Another root released its hold on the earth.

Harmonious, Lottie had called it. Well, what on earth had she meant by that? How could she possibly identify any harmony between yourself and William? What, solely due to the fact that you hadn’t dragged his very name through fire and brimstone at first mention?

The next stem snapped under your grip. You growled, digging around the base.

That had been the exact same reasoning Grace had used when you’d tried to explain your bruises to her. And in the exact same fashion, she’d raced away with her own conclusions before you could even draw breath to defend yourself. Perhaps the two of them truly would get along.

A whirl of nausea squeezed your insides, and your grip slackened on a stubborn cluster of flowers. Sucking a breath, you refocused, and threw your weight against the stems.

Was it just as obvious to everyone else? To anyone who might bring up Colonel William Tavington anywhere within your general vicinity? Had his attention transformed you to a branded heifer, bellowing to be bred and ignorant to the bull inside the barn? Had the world decided to gather around the farm and laugh as you wandered the fields? It hardly seemed fair.

You reached for your basket and missed it. Your body pitched, the world inverted, and you caught yourself on your hands, muscles quivering violently as you sat hunched over the dirt, fighting the urge to be sick.

A bubble of panic rolled up and popped along your scalp. One by one, like braziers on a castle wall, a series of realizations winked to life. You were out here alone. Evening was approaching. You hadn’t told anyone where you’d be. Patrols were sparse with half the soldiers gone. It was a long climb back up the hill to reach the fort.

And you weren’t entirely sure you could stand back up.

Breathing slowly, you tried to crawl forward, to ease a sense of balance back through your body, but the grass and shrubs swung back and forth around you, mocking your stubborn lack of forethought as you inched along the edge of the clearing.

Perhaps you could make it just to the treeline. At least then you might be able to call out for a soldier on guard, or someone on an evening walk, or—

The world gave a savage spin. You buckled, lurched to the side, and vomited into a patch of shrubs. You convulsed, heaved again, emptying everything down to the bile in your belly until you thought your own viscera might decorate the earth.

Whimpering, you rolled your forehead across your forearms, tried to focus again on breathing. But all you could perceive was the ache through your being, the gauzy ringing between your ears. Then a sensation—like falling away from your body. You reached for your limbs. Nudged them forward. Whether you made it an inch or a mile, you couldn’t say.

The last thing you remembered was the cool press of leaves on your cheek, and a gentle breeze before the world funneled to black.

#william tavington #colonel william tavington #colonel tavington #the patriot #jason isaacs #playing soldier #fanfiction problems #uh oh guys do u think he's gonna be upset!!!!

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