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coltermorning · 1 month

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Of Love and Loss Ch. 18 (RDR2 Fanfic, Arthur Morgan x F!Reader, 18+)

Summary: To dodge any further run-ins with the law, you and Arthur leave the trail, coming upon a barn reminiscent of your past.

Author’s Notes: Sexual content in this chapter (can I get a FINALLY)! Chapter eighteen of this one.

Tags: Arthur Morgan x reader, high honor Arthur Morgan, minor character death, loss of parents, blood and injury, grief/mourning, survivor guilt, strangers to lovers, slow burn, smut, graphic depictions of violence

AO3 Link

Of Love and Loss

Eighteen: Escape and Release

Word count: 9229

Arthur rode hard the next few days, only stopping to make sure you were still following along. He had told those lawmen he was headed to the next town, so to avoid that confrontation, the two of you backtracked. It would take a week or two longer to reach your destination, but in the grand scheme of things, it was better than another noose. Truth be told, he wasn’t quite free of the last one—like it still cut at his neck even though it was long gone. He chalked it up to so closely avoiding death that the feeling would take a while to wear off. He had more pressing matters to worry about anyway.

The temperature soon dropped again, and the snow came with the cold in short bursts. Shelter was hard to come by, so at the first glance of trees, Arthur loosed rein and made camp for the night. You would both need some kind of sleep to make it to the next closest settlement. He wasn’t exactly sure how far away that was, but he didn’t want to be distracted with exhaustion in the case those lawmen did find you.

Skipping the fire, Arthur wordlessly built the tent with numb hands and little willpower, relying on the second nature that came with pitching canvas so often that he didn’t have to think about it.

Your voice carried to him from where you were tending to your mule, the sound floating over on the wind. “I think I prefer the tent to a town.”

He finished hammering the last stake in and looked to you. “You’re the only one. Even those two preferred the stable,” he said, gesturing to the horse and mule.

You eyed him over your shoulder. “Don’t get me wrong, the bed was…nice.” Your face went red, and Arthur had to keep from letting his very recent memories of you surface lest he get any ideas. “It just seems to me that towns means trouble. This is uncomplicated.”

Arthur kept his quip to himself, that those wolves had wanted to eat you in the tent just as bad as the lawmen had wanted to kill you in town. But you were right about the simplicity of it. If only it were meant to last.

“Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we can’t stay long. Being out in the open like this is easy pickings for any lawmen who’ll be after us.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we need somewhere to hide. This ain’t hiding.”

“So another town then?” you said, sounding more tired than he’d heard you yet.

“Not necessarily. There’s homesteads along the road to these bigger towns. Maybe we’ll come across one soon and we can all sleep in peace.”

“Maybe,” you said quietly, like you doubted it. Only he knew what that doubt was about, and it didn’t concern finding any homestead. It was about how little peace you had left.

Arthur rose to his feet and walked over to you, taking the brush you were using on Harriet, using it himself so you had no reason to avoid what he was about to ask.

“You want to talk about it?”

“About what?” you said with a sharpness he knew to be fake.

He eyed you. “You killed someone. I know it’s bothering you.”

Arthur thought you were deep in thought about the matter until he realized your gaze had fallen to the gun at his hip. Like the thing would come to life and bite you. He covered it with his hand. “Look, I know what you’re feeling. It ain’t nice. But keeping it all bottled up will eat you alive.”

You let out a pitiful laugh. “I know that already. I’m barely over the last thing.”

The last thing being your parents, something you weren’t over in the slightest. Something he didn’t expect you to be over for the rest of your life. “You don’t have to get over it. Just…I’m here if you want to talk. Believe it or not, I do have some experience in the matter.”

You laughed again, a more genuine sound this time though still sad. But it wasn’t until you met his eyes that Arthur’s breath caught in his chest. All he wanted, all he ever wanted these days, was to kiss that look you gave him. And he had to tamp down hard on every urge, every thought, in order to keep his desires to himself. That wasn’t what you needed from him right now.

“Thank you,” you said softly, turning back to your mule. A dismissal. Arthur accepted it and handed you the brush back, letting you be. You would talk when you were ready.

Glad the wind didn’t have its usual sting, Arthur stepped into the tent without worrying over warmth for once, letting his tiredness ease his bones. He knew the safety he felt in distance away from those lawmen wouldn’t last long, but he settled into it for now, laying back on your bedroll and letting sleep steal over him quickly.

It wasn’t long before Arthur woke to you kneeling in after him. You settled at his side and laid a hand across his chest, pressing a kiss to his cheek before curling against him. The feeling broke something in him. He wasn’t meant for closeness such as this, but there he was craving it, giving up all rational thought that it wouldn’t last or that it didn’t mean the same to you. For once, Arthur let himself believe that this was what he deserved. And sleep came easy when he thought of it that way—as just a man grateful to be lying next to you.

You and Arthur kept moving, kept pushing, getting farther away from the recent past that wouldn’t leave you be. After four days had come and gone, Arthur turned out to be right about the occasional homestead. He still refused to stop at the first one you came to, saying it was too easy for anyone on your trail to find you there. He wanted something a bit more off the path, much less obvious to a passer-by. So with this, you left the path. It was the first time you had done so since starting this journey, and you couldn’t deny it made you nervous. But Arthur seemed to know what he was doing and where he was going, and he hadn’t led you astray so far. After all the two of you had been through, you trusted him with your life. So you laid it in his hands and followed, unable to find the will to carry that weight yourself anyway. Grateful to have the comfort of someone you could rely on.

Two more days passed before any sign of human life surfaced, and when it did, it wasn’t quite what you expected. In a clearing of land that would be beautiful in the warmer months, an old barn stood alone, surrounded by nature and nothing else. No paths, no wagon tracks, no sign that anyone had lived here in ages.

Arthur was much more confident about approaching the barn than you, as it really was quite old and looked as though the roof may cave in at even the thought of more snow. You were also none too eager to meet someone living there. If anyone lived there at all. It didn’t seem likely, but you were done with other people for the time being. In fact, you hoped the rest of this trip held nothing but Arthur until you saw your extended family again.

The thought of your family had you distracted enough to follow Arthur all the way up to the barn front. He stopped his horse and swung off of her. “Wait here.”

You nodded and took Boadicea’s reins from him, looking away when he pulled his gun. The memory of that metal in your hand made your skin crawl. You couldn’t block out the sudden sight of how that man’s head had caved to the bullet you shot so easily, all semblance of life gone the moment you pulled the trigger.

You’d told yourself over and over that he was already aiming for Arthur, that if you hadn’t shot, he would have. You would be much more devastated over Arthur’s death than one you had caused, not to mention you’d likely be dead now too. Still, you couldn’t stop it as a skull was cracked open, and blood splattered on the brick wall, and what used to be an eye was nothing but carnage. Death was ugly in that it was so freely given. It took nothing to end that man’s life—a pinch of your finger. And everything was over in a moment and impossible to take back and so, so red.

The creaking barn door startled you when Arthur swung it open wide. “Place is empty. Bring them in with you.”

You gave Harriet a pat to remind yourself of the present—to stay out of that godforsaken moment—and started her forward, tugging Boadicea along. When the three of you passed the threshold, you forgot momentarily about death and a gun’s purpose. For before you was an open room that felt safer than anything you had yet come across—it closely resembled the barn your father had built in Montana.

Arthur closed the door behind you and your mounts, but you didn’t move to dismount. You could only stare at the open-aired inside of the barn with its stalls on one side and its loft above. It was much older than the one you’d left behind, its age obvious in its wood and how it had been pieced together, but it felt right. It smelled right. And you knew why—the hay over in the corner was fresh. Much too fresh for the place to be devoid of human life.

“You sure we’re alone?” you asked quietly, nodding to the hay.

“Seems we just missed whoever lives here,” Arthur answered, taking his horse from you and leading her back to one of the makeshift stalls. “There’s a journal on that table over there with an entry dated two days ago. Says the author was headed out to hunt some prized deer he’d been after for a few weeks now. He doesn’t expect to be back for another two or three days.”

“How convenient,” you said, though you weren’t sure you felt it. It seemed bad luck had followed you all the way here, and what was to stop it from reaching you in this place? Though you couldn’t deny the feeling of sentimentality and comfort it brought you. And this far off the path, at least the only person you would come across was the owner of this barn. You would take your chances that he would be better company than the lawmen that were sure to be after you.

You let that smell of fresh hay overtake you and got off of Harriet, leading her back to the same stall Arthur had taken his mare to. There was another stall beyond it, but it had a bed and a nightstand in it that both looked to be roughly handmade. It seemed whoever lived here had learned to live off the land entirely, making his own furniture, hunting for his food. Paying closer attention, you could even see parts of the barn that had been mended, new wood brought in and patched to keep the structure from falling apart.

You gave Arthur time to unsaddle Boadicea before leading Harriet in with her, glad the two got along well enough for the tight space. You took to unsaddling her too as Arthur brought some of the hay over for them.

“I’ll bet there’s a water source nearby if someone’s out here living rough like this. I’ll go-”

“No,” you said quickly, turning to him. “Just…stay. Just for a little while, then we’ll go together.”

He studied you a moment, then nodded. “Okay.” He motioned for you to give him the saddle you had just taken off your mule. You handed it over, hoping he wouldn’t bring up what you knew he inevitably would. What he already had. You couldn’t talk about that yet. Instead, you just wanted to lie on that handmade bed and take in the smell of this place, the memories it brought you. You wanted Arthur to tell you nonsense stories like he normally did to pass the time. You wanted to stay here forever and never have to face what you had done.

You stepped out of the stall and over to the bed, letting Arthur handle the saddle. You sat slowly, listening to the subtle shift of the rough wood beneath your weight. Your bed back home had been nothing like this, but still you found yourself smiling, your heart aching over the loss of something so mundane.

“What’s that look for?” Arthur said, peeking over the stall top at you while he lowered your saddle over it.

You weren’t sure what your answer would be until any thought of one got caught in your throat at the look he was giving you—a smug one. It took you a moment to get past how annoyingly handsome it made him, and even then, that left you to realize why he was making such a face. You didn’t exactly have much to smile over these days, and he knew that. So he must be thinking the same thing you were now, about the last time the two of you had had a bed and a moment to spare.

You shook your head at him.

“Nah, come on. It’s something.”

“It’s nothing,” you assured him, truthfully wanting to keep that peaceful feeling to yourself. You didn’t want to interrupt whatever he was thinking either.

He snickered. “You’re a shit liar.”

“And you’re nosy.”

He held up his hands in defeat but began walking over, every step closer making your heart pound a little harder. “Can’t deny that,” he quipped.

You kept eyes on him, like he would pounce if you didn’t. He entered the stall but leaned against the far corner, pulling out a cigarette. Most times, he did this to calm his nerves, but this seemed more like habit. He looked far too pleased with himself to be nervous.

“You eyeing me like that because you want one or because of those guarded little thoughts you’re having?” he asked, holding out the cigarette toward you.

“Neither,” you said too quickly. It just made him grin.

“It’s gotta be something,” he pushed.

“Forget it.” You wanted to scoff but found a smile on your face instead, though you did manage to break away from that blue-eyed stare. You laid back on the bed. His resulting chuckle ran through you like rich honey, catching on every crevice, sticking to you the same way the sight of his mouth did. You wanted him for it. But you were too worn down and too stubborn to admit it.

You turned away from him with force and settled down despite the even deeper laugh that pulled from him. At least you could attempt sleep with that sound ringing loud instead of the other that plagued you. You even found yourself smiling wider still when you heard him mutter, “Stubborn as always.” Perhaps so, but it was easy to be stubborn where he was concerned.

The days of hard travel melted away at the thought of Arthur and of how easy it was for him to distract you. Maybe he knew you better than you thought. That was…comforting, in a way. Comforting enough that without warning, sleep found you before you could even think to reach for it.

Arthur watched over you as you slept. It was the first time he didn’t allow himself to join you in it in days. For one thing, he had no certainty about when the barn’s usual occupant would return. He didn’t want any surprises. But for another, he was a goddamn live wire of restless energy. He wanted to join you on that bed for reasons entirely opposite of sleep, wanted to know what thoughts you were too embarrassed to tell him. He wanted and wanted until there was nothing left to want because you were lying there not feet from him, beautiful on that bed. He felt the need to take advantage of that while he could. But he stayed away, unwilling to be so selfish. The phrase it’s for the best passed through his head so many times he was starting to get annoyed by it. Much more of this, and he would have to go outside for a beat, walk his energy off. That probably wasn’t smart either. The last time he had gone into a separate room as you all worked up like this, he had ended up taking himself in hand to the thought of you. That memory was so unhelpful that Arthur was nearly glad when you gave him an excuse to refocus his mind, even if it came at the cost of whatever peace you had.

“No,” you murmured, still held under by sleep. Arthur watched you but let you be, wanting to let you rest. Then you said it again, a desperate sound.

“You okay?” he asked softly. You didn’t hear him, caught up in whatever was making you plead like that.

“No…no!” You jerked awake. Your chest rose and fell in rapid breaths, your eyes wide.

“Just a dream,” he told you, resisting the urge to lay a calming hand on you. You looked at him like a wild animal would, like you didn’t even recognize him. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Your current predicament finally seemed to dawn on you, as your wide eyes softened some. “It’s- he was…”

Arthur was a breath away from distracting you from whatever nightmare you were still waking up from until he realized what it was very likely about—that man you’d killed. As hard as it would be, you needed to talk about it. Get it out in the open. So he kept his mouth firmly shut and watched you piece it together.

“They told me to kill him.”

He was right. “Who?”

You ran a hand over your face and laid back. “Those deputies. That marshal. Then you and…and Pa was…it didn’t make any sense.”

“You good?” Arthur repeated after a moment. You looked at him, hurt filling your eyes with a look so sad he couldn’t bear it. “Hey,” he said softly. “It was just a dream. It’s over now.”

That had the opposite effect he wanted it to. Your face crumpled. You were sobbing and turning away faster than he could stop you. He crossed the space and leaned over you, placing a hand on your shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“They’re gone,” you said through a racking sob. “And I almost lost you too. And I had to-”

He sat on the bed, letting you speak. Letting you work it out for yourself.

“I killed him, Arthur,” you choked out.

“I know.”

“No, in my dream. I killed him again. And he kept coming back to life, and they made me do it over and over again.”

Jesus. All Arthur could do was run his hand over the matted fur of your bison coat, his comforting words all dried up in the face of that particular horror.

“God, it was…it was so real.”

“It’s not real,” he assured you. “It’s done with.”

You just lay there crying, your breaths coming in a little steadier.

“Look, I know this ain’t the first or the last time that deputy’s death weighs on you. I’d be worried if it was. But it’s over now, and you can’t beat yourself up over a split decision like that.”

Your sobbing hardly let up.

“You saved my life,” Arthur said. “Twice. I’d be dead if you hadn’t done it.”

“I keep telling myself that,” you said, voice so weak it nearly broke him. Then you turned your face toward him, and the look on it did break him. Absolute despair. “But what would…what would they think?”

Your parents. Arthur lifted his hand to your hair and sighed as he brushed it back from your face. “I don’t know. But I do know they would be proud of you for how far you’ve come. And they would sure as shit be proud of you for feeling all this guilt even though you did what was necessary. Say what you will, but I know they raised you right because of that right there.”

You gave a weak smile that faltered on your trembling lip. Then you were crying again, and he knew there weren’t words to help ease that kind of pain. Best just to feel it. So he offered the only other thing he could. “It may not get easier,” he admitted. “But I’m here. As long as you need me.”

Surprisingly, that settled something in you. You raised up and wrapped your arms around him, hugging him tight enough for him to feel your shaky breathing. He hugged you back, letting you rest your head on his shoulder. Pulling you in close enough that the embrace became something he needed just as much as you did.

“I got you.” The words left him without permission, without hesitation.

You finally took a long breath and let it out, never letting him go. “I know you do.”

Pride took hold of him.

After a long time like this, you finally pulled away and wiped your face. “Thank you. I can’t say how much it means to have you here.”

“‘Course,” he answered, reluctant to let his hand fall from your back. But he made it, letting the moment be over at your discretion, not his.

You turned away, eyes falling to your hands on your lap. You still looked so defeated that he spoke. “Let’s go find that water I was talking about. Get your mind off things.”

You never looked his way but nodded nonetheless. He stood and offered you his hand. You took it, rising, passing him by with a small, timid smile of thanks. It wasn’t until the two of you were nearly out of the door that you turned, saying, “You remember how you said it didn’t matter that I couldn’t shoot your gun?”

How wrong he was. “Sure.”

“I…I didn’t have time to think about it. He was going to kill you and I…” Arthur let you work through your thoughts. Your gaze pierced him when it met his. “It mattered this time.”

He just stared.

“I knew the shot would kill him the moment I lifted that gun. And I’d do it again. A thousand times over.”

He tried to brush this off, unable to say what it meant to him. “I don’t know that I deserve that kind of loyalty,” he said with a breath of a laugh.

“You do. Whatever pain I have, believe me when I say I don’t regret it. I would have rather died than lost you.”

The words were a force, spearing so deep in Arthur’s chest that he felt his breath snag on them.

“I just wish you never had to make that choice,” he said lowly.

“It was him or you,” you said simply. “No matter how bad it was bound to hurt, I’ll always pick you.”

You and Arthur returned to the barn, having found a small river about half a mile east. You both had full cantines and full buckets for the horses. As satisfied as you and he deserved to be, you were quiet. You’d never seen Arthur quite so contemplative as he was now that you’d poured your heart out to him. A sentimental look you’d never seen before had crossed his face at your confession, and since, he seemed to be caught up in it. But you weren’t exactly talkative either, and you couldn’t bring yourself to regret what you’d told him. So silence it was.

You watered your horses and did the only thing there was to do—went back to sitting around the stall with the bed in it. Arthur mentioned going hunting again due to how low your food supply was running. “Tomorrow,” you’d told him. It was late afternoon anyway. You were tired, probably more so after that harrowing nightmare, and he looked to be in about the same shape as you. So, knowing his pride wouldn’t let him do so without you suggesting it, you patted the bed beside you.

“Come sleep. You must be exhausted.”

He eyed your hand on the bed.

“I’ll stay up,” you told him, rising quickly in case that was the fault he was finding with this. “Don’t feel like sleeping now anyway after earlier.”

He shook his head. “Don’t stay up on my account.”

“You need it more than I do,” you insisted. “Rest.”

When he didn’t move, you rolled your eyes and crossed the small space, landing a hand on his back and pushing him toward the bed. Stubborn man. He relented though, lying down with hat and coat and boots still on. Only, when you made to move away, he caught your hand.

“Ought to be safe enough all the way out here for both of us to rest.”

You didn’t miss the small gleam in his eye, the one he couldn’t resist. The one that was making your face heat.

“I told you, I need to put some space between that dream I had and- Arthur!” He pulled you down atop him, then seemed to think better of it and settled you against his side, wrapping an arm around you so you couldn’t move away.

“Bullshit,” he said, smiling now as he turned on his side to face you. “You’ll be sleeping like a baby in minutes.”

“I will not.”

“You will.”

“And what makes you so sure?” you snapped, both annoyed and exhilarated over how close he was.

“Because you’re still just as tired as I am.”

“Is the fact that I want to avoid a certain terrifying nightmare not getting through that thick skull of yours?”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” he asked, smiling wide when he caught you looking at his mouth. “‘Cause if I didn’t know any better, I’d say your mind was elsewhere.”

“It’s not,” you assured him, though he couldn’t be more right. Not as you thought of the last bed you had shared and of what the two of you had been doing while you shared it.

“Fine,” he said with enough sarcasm for you to know this was about to go south for you. “I can fix your little nightmare problem then.”

Curious, you took the bait. “How?”

Your eyes flicked to his mouth once more of their own volition, and his grin turned wicked. “I got something on my mouth, or are you just too busy remembering the last time we were in bed like this?”

You were flooded with such sudden embarrassment you couldn’t meet his eye, but that left you looking at his damn mouth again, and that was so much worse.

“Neither,” you said, your stubbornness digging its heels in.

“Admit it,” he coaxed, his smile so wide you wanted to return it.

“No,” you insisted. But this time, the hint of a grin in that word was your undoing.

“Either that, or stop lying so poorly,” he drawled. And the way his voice dragged out his words, so familiar and happy, had you throwing caution to the wind. Except you didn’t admit defeat in words. You proved it instead. Before he could react, you leaned forward and kissed Arthur, quick and sure. You pulled back beaming, then couldn’t help but break out into laughter at the shocked look on his face.

“That look,” you said. “Priceless.”

“You little-” He didn’t even finish the sentiment before he was on top of you, kissing you, his hat falling off at his eagerness. And you melted immediately into how good it felt, how much you needed this. How much you had missed it.

His fingers found the braid in your hair, something he seemed drawn to every time he got close, and pulled it away from your face as he continued to take your mouth. Then he grabbed your jaw with that hand, forcing your face up to stay with his as his tongue pushed into your mouth. Something about that greedy touch of his hand made you burn with desire. You let out a small noise into his mouth that made him pull back. He stared hard, his amusement gone, something much more desperate left behind.

Thinking you’d done wrong by that noise, you spoke. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

He crashed into you, his mouth on yours so wanting and brutal that you started to forget the world around you.

“Do it again,” he said into your mouth.

God, this was different. Before, he had been sweet and slow with you. He had eased you into lazy kisses and whispered words. This was not that. This was him wanting you more than you ever thought he would. It made you eager, to know he wanted you that way. To know you must be doing this right, as he slid his hand to your side, and the desperate grip he had against your ribs made you let out another quiet moan. It drove him mad. His kiss turned even more needy and harsh as his hand worked down your side, grasping your hip instead. His touch made you dizzy. You wanted him then, wanted him badly, in a way you didn’t know how to want a man.

“Arthur,” you breathed, half-question, half-need.

He pulled away again, looking at you so close you could see all the color in his eyes. Beautiful as he was.

“Too much?” he asked, the question soft for how aggressive he had just been.

“No. Not at all.”

You saw the same look come over him that meant he was about to kiss you again, but you stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“Can you…” It seemed so childish a thing to ask. But if you didn’t put it into words, your inexperience would likely lead to one embarrassing encounter. Still, you couldn’t get the words past your tongue.

“What?” he asked, his lips so close. The look of him so caught on the edge of his own desire made you not want to ruin the moment. So you changed tracks.

“Is this how you planned on getting my nightmares to go away?”

He smirked. “No. But if it’s working, I much prefer this to what I had in mind.”

“Which was?”

He seemed a little disappointed in all the talk, his eyes dipping to your mouth before he let out a small breath through his nose. “Your question game.”

So as not to unravel this perfect moment any more, you took his face in your hands and kissed him, a quick press of your lips to his. “Tell me about it.”

His smirk returned. And with it, he slid his arm under you and pulled you against him as he turned back on his side, your bodies flush in a way they hadn’t yet been. It made your desire course through you so strong you could feel your heartbeat pound in every part of you. Mainly lower than usual, a tight need forming between your legs.

“Only if you agree to my rules,” Arthur teased.

“Which are?”

“I’ll answer your questions, but each one costs you a kiss.”

You grinned like an idiot. “I think I can manage that. But what do I get when I answer yours?”

His gaze turned dark, downright conspiratorial. “I ain’t gonna ask you any questions.”

You raised an eyebrow, conscious of the way his hand had dropped low on your back, fingers skimming just above your backside. “No?”

He shook his head. “I just thought of an even better way to get your nightmares to go away.”

“Care to enlighten me?” All this touch was driving you crazy. You just wanted to begin this, to sate your need any way you could.

“How about I show you?” His voice dropped low, his gaze doing the same, straight back to your mouth.

“I’d like that,” you muttered. You weren’t sure if it was you or him who gave in first, only that your mouths met once more, taking much more than that which would allow any innocent questions to remain. Your mind reeled with the possibilities.

“One more rule,” Arthur said, his voice a low breath as his mouth moved from your lips to your neck. He pressed a soft kiss to your skin, the feeling sending a shiver down your spine. “If I do anything you don’t want me to, you tell me, and I’ll stop.”

How in the world would he manage something you didn’t want? You wanted everything he could give you. More.

You nodded, baring your throat to him when his lips brushed over that sensitive skin again.

“Use your words,” he coaxed.

“I will,” you breathed, the words coming out like another moan.

“Good,” he said, voice thick with want. Then he moved away. “You’re up then,” he said, eyes catching yours and holding them, that gleam in them making you want to kiss him again. “Fire away.”

You started to think of a question when he moved down, kneeling over you. He began taking off your boot, and your mind went haywire over possible reasons for such a thing.

“How long have you wanted to kiss me?” you nearly whispered, letting him take the other boot off, your socks not far behind. His touch on your ankles and feet was electric, any place his skin brushed yours like wildfire.

“Every second since you kissed me the first time,” he said, crawling back upward, meeting your lips with his for the question.

His answer shocked you. You had thought he regretted that first kiss with how he had acted afterward. But he had given in so easily to your request back in town, acting like getting to kiss you then was an honor. So maybe he never was regretful. Maybe he, like you, wanted it too much. Maybe you were both idiots then. But not now. Now, he brushed his lips against yours in a kiss so tender it left you simultaneously breathless and needing more. Then he threw you a smirk and moved back down.

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it before then. But it was different once I got to feel it for myself. All I could think about.”

Again, surprise. Had he wanted you before you’d even considered wanting him? You had to agree with him about that first time though—something had come alive in you that day. It seemed it had in him too.

Arthur started to unbutton your pants. His fingers so close to where that aching need coursed through you did something to you—your patience wore thinner.

“Was I any good at it?” you asked on an outward breath, knowing your inexperience was probably a detriment in that regard.

Arthur chucked as he got the last button free and slowly slid your pants from your legs. The tips of his fingers followed them all the way down, nothing but your short chemise blocking them now. “If you wasn’t, why on earth would I be left thinking about it all hours? Yes, you were good at it.” He tossed your pants aside into the growing pile of your clothes. “Still are.” He came back up and kissed you again, this time lingering. When he pulled away, he let out a satisfied hum. “Damn good.”

You couldn’t keep the smile off your face at that.

“Sit up,” he said, tossing your hat that had long since fallen off to the floor. You did as he said, very conscious of his weight over your bare legs. You wanted to feel his fingertips again.

Arthur slid your bulky bison coat from your shoulders, letting it fall away. He went to do the same to your older, underlayered coat but hesitated, meeting your eye.

“No more questions?”

“You’re distracting me,” you said honestly.

He smiled. “Think of another. I want an excuse to kiss you again.”

So did you.

“Can I undress you?”

He laughed again, that drawling sound that lit your bones with happiness. “Not this time. This is about your nightmares, remember?” You couldn’t understand how this could possibly be about nightmares, but you also couldn’t care. Not as Arthur’s hand lifted your chin, bringing your mouth to his in another achingly soft, drawn-out kiss.

When he pulled away, you were drunk on his touch, saying whatever thought came to mind. “But what if I want to?”

He smiled and went back to undressing you, taking your vest. “Another time.” But you wanted him now. Wanted to see all that muscle you knew hid beneath his clothes.

Any thought to protest fizzled away when his fingers came to your neck, beginning to unbutton your shirt. It was all that was left apart from your chemise.

“Have you thought of me naked?” you asked, all embarrassment over a question like that long gone.

His gaze hardened as he focused on the buttons. “Yes.”

“When?”

He finished with the last button and parted your shirt, helping you shrug it off before he met your gaze. “That’ll cost you two, I’m afraid.”

“Shall I ask a third?”

He grinned wide and came forward, pushing you back to the bed with the next kiss. This one was harder, his tongue finding yours. He pulled back only to move over you better, stretching his long body out over yours, the weight of him coming down on you like an answered prayer.

He kissed you a second time, trapping you between his arms, his body, and the bed. His knee moved upward, jutting between your legs and pressing into you in the perfect spot. You moaned into his mouth, loud this time.

“Thought about it plenty,” Arthur said breathlessly, mouth hardly an inch from yours. “Thought about you in that bath.”

“At the hotel?” you asked, and since it was technically a question, he kissed you again. Though you were willing to bet he would have done it regardless.

He pulled back and met your eye. “Wish I’d had the balls to go back in that room with you on my bed and do what I’ve been wanting to for some time now.”

“Which is?”

You hardly breathed waiting for an answer. You knew what it would be, but you wanted to hear him say it. All this talk was going straight to that pounding heat between your legs. You could still feel Arthur’s knee pinning you there, and it was all you could do not to move against the pressure of it.

“This,” Arthur whispered before kissing you again, this time leaving nothing to be said. It was just his body on yours, the way your mouths fit together so perfectly, the building need within you. Then he started to move down. He kissed your throat again, so softly you could die by that touch. His fingers skimmed over your leg, leaving a trail of desire over your skin. Then he caught the lower hem of your chemise. He kissed down your neck, your collarbone, all while beginning to tug your only remaining clothing upward. Anticipation ate you alive, your breath catching. Your hands found his back, clinging to the thick material of his coat. You wanted it off. Wanted him naked too. Wanted him to move that knee of his against you with nothing but skin.

Arthur pulled your chemise over your hips, his lips never parting from you. You let him do it with more consent than you ever thought you’d have for a man, even lifting into him to let him get the slip up your body.

It was only when he pulled the fabric past your breasts that he shifted, his mouth moving away. You missed his touch so immediately your eyebrows furrowed with want, but you let him be when you saw his eyes flick downward, taking in the sight of you. His jaw flexed with need, so much of his attention on something as simple as your body that you flushed under his gaze.

“Beautiful,” he said, his eyes slowly working their way back upward, noting every inch of skin like he was committing it to memory. There was a small hunger in his eyes, but also a softness that stole your breath. There was no doubt he meant that word. And before you could respond, his mouth was on you again, but not on your lips or your throat. His tongue found your nipple and flicked back and forth, a motion that made you strain against him.

“Arthur,” you moaned. Begging for more. Your hands clung tighter. His thumb found your other nipple and gave it the same attention his mouth was, and damn it all if it wasn’t the best feeling in the world. You’d never experienced anything like this. And to have Arthur being the one who did it to you…

He sucked with the slightest pressure, his whole hand engulfing your other breast and squeezing. It was too much and not enough all at once. Needing more, you moved your hips out of instinct. That forced his knee to drag against the most sensitive part of you. You sucked in a breath at how good it felt.

He pulled his mouth away, those blue eyes meeting yours. “You okay?”

“Don’t stop,” you breathed, desperate.

He grinned and went back to his slow, pleasurable torture, switching his mouth to your other breast. The feeling was so foreign that you didn’t know how to react to him, letting your body do what it craved instead. You rolled your hips against his knee again, twice, enough for him to notice as bursts of pleasure shot up your spine.

He pulled away with a slow chuckle, the sound dripping with smugness. “I’m getting there,” he said lowly. You didn’t know what he meant by that until you felt his knee move away and nearly whimpered at its absence. That is, until he tugged your chemise over your arms and head, tossing it aside. Until his hands moved lower. Your heart thundered.

“Been waiting to do this,” he murmured.

You didn’t know quite what he would do, only that the building pressure in your body coiled right between your legs, and that was exactly where his hand was headed as his fingers deftly brushed against your skin all the way down. He was surprisingly patient about it, dragging his hand down your side then back up, lower then back up. Kissing your shoulders and collarbone and anywhere he could find skin.

You were so busy with his slow touch you didn’t think about the absence of his mouth on yours until he came forward again, and all of your anticipation came flooding back as his eyes fell to your mouth in promise of another kiss. “One word,” he said lowly. “And I’ll stop.” But as his hand skimmed your hip, slowly grazing closer to the inside of your thigh, you didn’t think all the willpower in the world would allow you to stop him. You needed that touch more than anything.

“Don’t stop,” you whispered, and his mouth met yours.

You were aware of multiple things at once. Arthur’s kiss was slow but passionate, his tongue quickly finding yours and making that desperation course harder between your legs. His body was lined against yours, hard muscle meeting every crevice of you where he laid beside you. He was as needy as you were, so close to you like that. Like he couldn’t bear being even an inch apart. But last and most noticeable was his fingers, making slow circles on your skin. Moving closer inch by inch to the inside of your thighs. Out of mere need, you parted your legs for him. The motion had him making a low sound right into your mouth. He shifted beside you, moving closer still, partially leaning over you again as his hand dipped closer to where your legs met. Then, finally, his fingers brushed upward and against your skin. Against your very sensitive, somehow very slick skin.

“Shit,” he mumbled, breaking your kiss. His gaze was lowered beneath his lashes, not meeting yours. Confused, you spoke.

“Did I-”

“Perfect,” he said in answer, his eyes meeting yours with so much want you knew you would never forget the look of them. His hand skimmed down the seam of your body again, his heavy finger lingering this time. It sent a shudder through you, the feeling so good you let your head fall to the bed.

“You like that?” he asked, his usual confidence traded for genuine curiosity.

“Yes,” you breathed, looking up to see him watching you. He did it again, his thick finger running through that spot that made you satisfied yet needier still. He held your eye and smirked as he kept on, his hand moving back and forth. He went higher the next time, and you let out a sharp whimper when he hit a spot so coarse with nerves you couldn’t stand it. Lord above, did you need this. Him.

Arthur leaned over you again, and you thought he would kiss you until his head ducked low and his mouth latched onto your nipple. Your back arched with all the pleasure he was forcing through you. His tongue flicked against you, his finger resuming its slow and torturous work. Only, every few strokes, he went high and hit that bundle of nerves, circling his finger around it a few times before going back down. It was so good it scared you. So good it was building something within you, something you didn’t know whether to shy away from or meet head on. Arthur wasn’t giving you much option.

“Arthur,” you moaned, your hand coming around his head, fingers working through those golden brown strands of hair as he licked and sucked against your breast.

He let out a low noise. A groan. It made your pleasure tighten somehow.

He gave up entirely on moving his hand back and forth, circling his finger around those nerves instead, so fast it was dizzying and sharp.

“Arthur,�� you said again, though it was a warning this time. A warning that something was happening, and you didn’t know what.

He caught that desperate sound and finally released your nipple, looking up at you. When he saw your face all screwed up with arousal, he smiled. He shifted low enough that his hand dipped farther between your legs. Very far. “Just relax,” he said, his voice so filled with confidence you wanted to have him then and there, show him the same pleasure he was showing you. “You still good?” His gaze turned questioning, though there was still an underlying layer of hunger in it. Unable to resist him a second longer, you nodded. You wanted everything.

Without hesitation, Arthur pushed his finger against you until it- until it-

“Shit,” you hissed. But not because of pain. He was dipping his finger into you, and the feeling was so good, so perfectly satisfying of everything your body needed, that you immediately started rocking your hips against his hand.

He grinned. “I take that to mean you like it?”

How could you not? There was a tiny remnant of pain, like your body wasn’t used to this kind of movement inside of you. But of course it wasn’t. And the pleasure it brought you surmounted that pain a hundred times over.

You couldn’t even answer Arthur, too busy meeting his hand with every stroke, your eyes squeezed shut.

“You better answer me.”

Those taunting words were so true to him that the knowledge of the present came crashing into you—that this was Arthur pleasuring you. Arthur. Something crested within you at the thought, your pleasure forming into something greater.

“Yes,” you breathed. Then, because you couldn’t stop yourself, “Yes.” You sucked in a breath and said it a third time. All while his finger dragged in and out of you with so much pressure you panted.

“Good,” he teased, the word complete smugness. His pace sped up, his finger going deeper, curling harder. “I want to feel you let go for me.”

Your brain slowed, trying to decipher what that meant while trying to maintain your pleasure.

“Need to,” he said, this time a desperation of his own on the edge of those words. You were about to ask him what he meant when his thumb came down on those nerves again, working against you while his finger continued to pump in and out of you. It was your undoing. Your need surmounted, making you wince with a harsh breath. The pleasure was too much. It was going to tear you apart.

“Arthur,” you moaned again, your hands coming down around his forearm. He just worked you faster, pushed in deeper. You moved your hips against that rhythm and let your body chase it. “I can’t-” You took in a quick breath and held it. “Can’t stop it-”

“Don’t,” Arthur demanded. That dominance of his was so easy to obey. Your pleasure snapped, turning into something…something electric. It was sharp as lightning and good as anything you had ever felt all at once, and suddenly your whole body was shuddering against Arthur’s hand as his finger stayed buried and his thumb kept on those torturous circles. Your back arched as a new kind of release hit every inch of you, burning you alive. You moaned and jerked your hips when Arthur wouldn’t stop, a flutter of pure gratification starting at that bundle of nerves and releasing through you. It was insurmountable—something you were forced to allow to take over. So you did.

“That’s it,” Arthur said lowly, his thumb finally slowing. Though he didn’t remove his finger, and you didn’t want him to. It was buried so deep inside of you, you wished he would keep it there forever.

You were letting out one long, breathy whine when you finally came back to your senses. And when you did, you opened your eyes to find Arthur staring down at you. His expression was devastating. A man undone by his need for you. It made you happy and proud and shy all at once. You memorized that look, unbelievably satisfied. Like you never had been.

“Was that what you needed?” Arthur said, that knowing smirk returning.

You didn’t even have the fight left in you to shove him for that. Your whole body felt like liquid. You just nodded, matching his smile.

“Good,” he said, slipping his finger out of you, the sudden absence of it making you already impatient for its return.

Arthur rolled off the bed, and you were about to tell him to come back when you saw what he was doing—stripping his boots off. Your heartbeat kicked up with nerves when he took his big blue coat off too. That is, until he threw it to you. It landed over you, and the feeling made you realize how very bare you remained. It wasn’t like it mattered much. He had already proven he liked the way you looked without your clothes. Still, something in your pleasure-logged brain cleared, and you found yourself plunging your arms in the too-big sleeves and wrapping that soft, fur-lined coat around your naked body. It smelled like him, and an incredible wave of satisfaction rolled over you at the thought.

Before you even had a chance to lay down, Arthur was pulling off the bed’s fur blanket and laying down beside you, covering you both in it. He pulled your back tight against his front, so close you felt him breathing against your ear when he finally settled. You had never felt more content in your life.

“Better?” he muttered.

You didn’t know if he meant your new sleeping arrangements or in general, but the forceful pleasure he had wrung from you made it impossible not to feel better.

“Much,” you said with a hint of tiredness. “You’ll have to teach me that.”

You could feel him stiffen behind you, his response taking longer than usual. “You mean…”

You turned back to meet his gaze, that stunning blue green so close you couldn’t look away, even though his brow was pinched together in concern.

“What?”

“You never done that before?” he asked. “Yourself?”

The very idea was laughable. You turned away, unsure if such a thing should have been expected of you. “No.”

“You’ve never found your pleasure before,” he said, like he didn’t believe it. “That was your first time?”

The first time experiencing it, knowing there was a name for it, anything. Wasn’t that obvious?

“I thought we’d already had this conversation. I’ve never even kissed a man before you.”

“I know that,” he said. “But it don’t take two for pleasure.”

Your face burned hot at that. Like you were an idiot for not knowing. “I didn’t know, okay? I thought you figured that.”

He sensed your embarrassment and backtracked. “I didn’t- I dont mean to be...I just figured most everyone tries it at some point.”

“Well, not me,” you said simply. “When would I have even had the opportunity to try something like that? I slept in bed with my parents. We were together every second of every day.”

Arthur took a moment to respond. Then, “Fair enough.” You couldn’t help but laugh, even when he said, “You’re just full of surprises.” It reminded you that you were the one who had kissed him this time, that surprised look on his face over it just plain funny. And suddenly you were laughing for no real reason, laughing in Arthur’s arms, your happiness bursting at the seams. “What you on about?” he groaned.

“Nothing at all,” you teased. But you knew what it was. You had been miserable for so long, it was only a matter of time before your joy came back. And Arthur had been the one to help coax it forth.

“I don’t believe that for a second,” he said. But you never responded, too busy smiling like an idiot. Too busy with the happiness that seemed to radiate from all the places he touched you, beginning and ending with those protective arms of his.

The minutes ticked by, and you soon realized fatigue was taking comfort’s place, your eyelids growing heavy. It was still nowhere near nighttime, but you were exhausted by all the travel and the need Arthur had just pulled from you. You let your eyes close and were already close to drifting off when you mumbled, “How did any of that help my nightmares anyway?”

Arthur kissed the tip of your ear, the feeling relaxing you further. “Just go to sleep.”

You didn’t have the energy to argue, dropping off into nothingness like it had been waiting for you all along.

_________

Chapter nineteen is here.

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synchronousemma · 2 years

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Friday, 15th July: Emma calls on Miss Fairfax

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Read: Vol. 3, ch. 16 [52]; pp. 296–303 (“Now Emma could, indeed” to “‘good bye’”).

Context

Emma visits Jane Fairfax; they are joined by Mrs. Elton. Emma returns to Hartfield, where she presumes she will find Mr. Knightley. She reconciles with Jane on her way out.

We know that “to-morrow” is “Saturday” (p. 300); previous events mark this as the third week of July.

Readings and Interpretations

Calling on Miss Fairfax

Susan Morgan writes that Jane Fairfax, “dark, quiet, and apart,” is fascinating to readers of Emma; she always seems to be on the “outside” of the narrative, “not part of Emma’s domain”; she has an “independent sense of herself which Emma cannot absorb” (p. 41). “[W]e are kept ignorant” of Jane’s “mind” and “heart” throughout most of the novel, only for the denouement to be just as mystifying:

Finally, at the end of the story, the secret engagement is revealed and Jane is free to be candid and unreserved. And what happens? Jane goes off in a carriage with Mrs. Weston and does open her heart. But the curious reader is not allowed to be present and is given only the briefest account. The last opportunity for getting acquainted with Jane comes when a chastened Emma goes to her home to offer apologies, friendship, and intimacy. And there sits Mrs. Elton, whose presence effectively destroys any hope of speaking freely with Jane. The reader’s disappointment is as great as Emma’s. The single unreserved moment she, or the reader, is allowed with Jane is that hurried expression of apology and good feeling in the hall. It is just enough to be assured of Jane’s natural warmth and charm, but not enough to allow us to know her. (pp. 44–5)

For Morgan, Emma’s disappointment has been caused by her own behavior:

Emma has deprived herself, and the reader, of knowing Jane. Knowing Emma is a delight but the external world, beyond Emma, must also have its allure. When the secret of the engagement comes out near the end of the story one has the sense of emerging from the mind into the area of events. Jane exists outside where acts have consequences, and Emma’s games have caused her real pain. […] We learn that there is no escape into imagination. But we also learn something even more important. Jane’s world, that place outside Emma’s control, is not so very dull after all. Things do happen in idyllic Highbury, even in Miss Bates’s tiny, drab rooms. One need not make up stories for life to be interesting. Emma need not fear that involvement in the world of other people would stultify her. […] How much more interesting it would be to have had Jane’s confidence than Harriet’s. And by the end of the story Emma would probably even admit that matchmaking cannot compare as entertainment to falling in love. (p. 45)

Thus not only is Jane “proof that Emma cannot structure human relations according to her own fancies”; she is also the only character who “provides a worthy alternative to Emma’s imaginings” (ibid.). The novel is not a didactic one that champions the chastening of (female) imagination: rather, “[i]t is about the powers of the individual mind, the powers of sympathy and imagination, and about how these powers can find their proper objects in the world outside the mind,” represented in large part by Jane Fairfax (p. 46). “Emma’s isolating manipulations are wrong not just because they are dangerous or vain or thoughtless or untrue, but because of what she will miss” (p. 45).

Cisely Havely notes that “[i]n the closing chapters of Emma secrecy and disclosure are foregrounded”:

Emma’s own engagement remains secret for a while, and keeping Jane Fairfax in the dark is a ‘secret satisfaction’ [p. 297] which briefly places Emma in a moral position comparable to that previously occupied by Frank and Jane. When Emma has at last pressed Jane into revealing something of her future plans her final outburst is, to say the least, ironic: ‘“Oh! if you knew how much I love everything that is decided and open!” (418) This, coming after Mr. Knightley’s ‘beauty of truth and sincerity’ could suggest that the author herself feels a pang of conscience about her own methods. But like Emma, she has been unable to resist the pleasures of a secret. In the same episode (Emma’s visit to Jane) Mrs. Elton with her hints and ambiguities has effectively been parodying Jane Austen’s part. She knows Jane’s secret and wants to score a few more points off Emma by hinting at her superior knowledge and yet withholding it […]. Although this is wonderfully comic, the sterner reader will acknowledge that Mrs. Elton's behaviour is very reprehensible. Yet it is only a cruder version of Jane Austen’s own narrational strategies. An odd pun — ‘ridicule’ for ‘reticule’ — at a moment of complex knowing and not knowing underlines the doubleness of language at this juncture. (pp. 233–4)

Havely makes, therefore, the common point that Austen (or her narrator) allows herself literary freedom which the characters are denied.

Miss Bates’s speech is at times as ambiguous as Mrs. Elton’s, but less intentionally so. Thus Kathleen Steele:

Miss Bates, head full of her niece’s engagement, cannot help herself from talking about “Jane’s prospects,” their “happy little circle” at home, and the “charming” and “very friendly” Frank. Unsure of who knows what information and wanting desperately to share this important and celebratory news, Miss Bates expresses a number of incomplete thoughts, illustrated by the thirteen dashes that mark this passage. In an effort to maintain secrecy, she erases the grammatical subject of intonation units 12–14 [“‘Charming young man!—that is—so very friendly’”], praising Frank without mentioning him by name; in unit 15 she pretends that she had been talking about their doctor, Mr. Perry, though both Emma and the reader know the truth. Still, she obeys the two main discourse constraints. Perhaps the surety of Jane’s upcoming marriage allows her to better control her speech. Tasked with an important, but not emotionally distressing responsibility—being the bearer of a happy secret—Miss Bates finds she is at the center of the Highbury circle. Yet this time, she is not the object of disdain; the excitement she feels still has a cognitive effect on her language, and requires effort to control, but here that effort is less wearying, less anxiety-ridden. (n.p.)

Quoting and Misquoting

Bharat Tandon notes that, in Emma, Austen repeatedly turns allusions and quotations “to creative, and sometimes distinct, comic ends” (p. 30). In this section, when Mrs. Elton attempts to quote two lines from a poem in reference to Frank and Jane, her “literary tactlessness produces [an] unintended effect on which Austen seizes”:

Once the news of Jane and Frank’s secret engagement begins to be revealed, Mrs Elton, typically, attempts to score points off Emma on the mistaken assumption that she is out of that particular loop […] and makes some unsuccessfully ‘coded’ remarks to Jane: ‘Let us be discreet—quite on our good behaviour.—Hush!—You remember those lines—I forget the poem at this moment: “For when a lady’s in the case, / You know all other things give place.”’ What is surprising about this moment is not that Mrs Elton is misquoting yet again, but the specific pitch and context of the poem that she misquotes. John Gay’s animal fable of ‘The Hare and Many Friends’, first published in 1727, is primarily an emblem for the perils of inoffensiveness. The hare of the title assumes she has secured the loyalty of all the other animals by being superficially polite to them (‘Her care was, never to offend, / And ev’ry creature was her friend’ 25 ), only to find that, when the hunt arrives, those same animals are too keen on their own affairs to offer any practical assistance, as demonstrated by the bull:

Love calls me hence; a fav’rite cow Expects me near yon barley mow: And when a lady’s in the case, You know, all other things give place.

So, in effect, Mrs Elton has compared the two young lovers, whose happiness she is supposedly promoting, to a pair of cattle in the breeding season; nevertheless, her tactless allusion is then brought in line with the novel’s meditations on what goes to make up true and false friendship (‘You have been no friend to Harriet Smith, Emma’ (p. 66)). (pp. 31–2)

Gabrielle White notes the misquoting, writing that “[r]eplacing what a ‘stately bull’ pleads as excuse with the word ‘For’ could intend a mean jibe by Mrs Elton at the secret engagement; though perhaps it is all just a muddling through. That in itself, however, is hardly the frame of mind one looks for in someone giving assurances and purporting to lead society’s attitudes” (p. 67). For White, the reference to this fable retrospectively casts doubt on Mrs. Elton’s “claim that her brother-in-law ‘was always rather a friend to the abolition’”: “In the case of both Emma and Mrs Elton we have seen that being a friend can involve making blunders and injuring the interests of the person purportedly being helped” (p. 67).

Lesbi-Honest

Tiffany Potter argues that a “tone of sexual tension, often unrecognized in the Emma-Jane relationship even when noted in Emma’s friendship with Harriet,” runs throughout the novel and culminates in this scene:

Although early in the novel Emma huffs, “I must be more in want of a friend, or an agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of conquering any body’s reserve to procure one. Intimacy between Miss Fairfax and me is quite out of the question” [vol. 2, ch. 6 [24]; p. 132], she does indeed set out to “conquer” Jane to gain a “companion” capable of “intimacy”: “It was a more pressing concern to show attention to Jane Fairfax . . . and with Emma it was grown into a first wish […]” [vol. 3, ch. 9 [45]; p. 255]. Even more tellingly, Emma’s language in reference to Jane soon becomes very much like the terms she earlier used to describe her attraction to Harriet. Her desire is demonstrated in that “she was longing to see her” [p. 297] and refers to her as looking “so well, Emma tells the blushing Jane, “Had you not been surrounded by other friends, I might have been tempted to introduce a subject, to ask questions, to speak more openly than might have been strictly correct. — I feel that I should certainly have been impertinent” [p. 302]. Jane’s response that she “had always a part to act” [ibid.] appears to refer, as do Emma’s suggestions, simply to Jane’s clandestine engagement to Frank Churchill. Once again, however, the homoerotic undertone perceived by the reader is clear and must be considered to understand the full sexual and social implications of Austen’s work. (pp. 192–3)

Potter argues that “[s]upport for the existence of this tone […] can be drawn from some helpful comparisons between the discourse of women in Lister’s I Know my own Heart and in Emma’s final conversation with Jane”; for example, “the repeated use of Emma’s chosen word ‘impertinent’ in Lister, where the word is always used in a flirtatious or sexually suggestive context between pairs of women” (p. 193). The relationship, however, seems doomed to non-consummation:

Yet the obvious attraction between the two women never moves beyond the most cursory of female relationships during the novel, and there is no indication that anything more will develop after the heroines’ respective marriages […]. Until the end of the novel, Emma posits her attraction as jealousy and dislike. She is jealous of Jane Fairfax in much the same way that Mr. Knightley is jealous of Frank Churchill: each of the newcomers threatens the incumbent’s position as most desirable person of his or her gender. Thus, even after Emma eventually appears to come to terms with her attraction for Jane, the two women can never have a purely female relationship, since the compulsory heterosexuality and marriage dictated by their community has placed them in social competition. Both women are also, of course, being manipulated by Frank Churchill so that Emma sees the suggestion of Jane’s attractiveness to Mr. Knightley while Jane sees her fiancé flirting outrageously with Emma, his decoy, who, he in turn suggests, “never gave [him] the idea of a young woman likely to be attached” [vol. 3, ch. 14 [50]; p. 287], at least to a man. Ironically, it is Churchill’s perceptive recognition of Emma’s interest in relationships with women that prevents her from establishing one with Jane Fairfax. (p. 194)

Similary, Susan Korba writes that “Austen reserves the truly charged and sexually ambiguous moments for the reconciliation between Emma and Jane Fairfax”; the novel’s ending, with both Jane and Emma heterosexually paired off, represents a “denial of [Emma’s] sexuality” (p. 159).

Dark Mirrors

Many scholars point out that Jane Fairfax would have been a more typical choice of heroine than Emma Woodhouse. Susan Morgan writes:

In terms of fictional conventions, we would most expect Jane Fairfax to be the heroine of Emma. We know, on the unimpeachable authority of Emma’s jealousy, that Jane is elegant, accomplished, intelligent, and beautiful. Her charm is marred only by a reserve which turns out to be more than excusable because of the secret she has been suffering under. Jane comes from the external world, the big world of real events, to the idyllic isolation of Highbury. […] Jane is poor. She arrives in Highbury with real burdens, real conflicts, real feelings. Her situation is such that her acts, her decisions, and the acts of others unaware of her situation, will have real and lifelong consequences for her. Unlike anyone else, Jane is introduced at the moment of the crisis of her life—she is the person for whom internal attitudes have corresponding external effects, she is at the point where events will bring her permanent happiness or despair, and she has the superior intelligence and the emotional sensitivity to be aware of her situation.

[...] Emma has gone about making up her own heroine, even providing her with a series of romances. Harriet, after all, is a storybook girl: fair, sweet, and seventeen, with “those soft blue eyes and all those natural graces” (p. 23) and an unexplained past. Yet Jane is the dark realistic heroine whose history most fulfills Emma’s fancies, and Emma misses all the romantic intrigue that is actually going on. (pp. 40, 45)

Why, then, are Jane’s confidence and consciousness avoided throughout the course of the narrative? For Wayne Booth, avoiding Jane’s point of view is essential in allowing the reader to form sympathy for Emma:

Sympathy for Emma can be heightened by withholding inside views of others as well as by granting them of her. The author knew for example that it would be fatal to grant any extended inside view of Jane Fairfax. […] It is not only that the slightest glance inside Jane’s mind would be fatal to all of the author’s plans for mystification about Frank Churchill, though this is important. The major problem is that any extended view of her would reveal her as a more sympathetic person than Emma herself. (p. 100)

This does not, however, touch on why Emma must be the focal point for narrative and for sympathy. For Paul Fry, who argues that “[m]any rejected plots linger in the plot of Emma, as if pointing to their own unsuitability,” it is a matter of narrative ethos:

The pining away of the first Mrs. Weston, the death of Lieutenant Fairfax, and the pining away of his wife—these are Interpolated Tales summarily dismissed in matter-of-fact prose. They are tales not told precisely because they are “interesting” in Mr. Elton’s sense of the word, and from this sort of affectivism the narrator recoils with ironic disrelish: “Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure to be kindly spoken of” [vol. 2, ch. 4 [22]; p. 116]. (p. 131)

“Jane Fairfax’s false choice, her decision for a secret engagement, forces her to appear in the attitude of a Heroine”; but “Romance” is something which the moral world of Emma dismisses as being akin to “[s]ham” (ibid.). Characters of “Lachrymose Interest” (such as the first Mrs. Weston) must remain “peripheral, on the border of things in space and time,” because “[t]o remain in Highbury is to belong to the main plot in ethos as well as in circumstance” (p. 133). Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax, “for all the restitution the finale allows them, can never live in Highbury”; they are “threats against the cognitive property of the community,” and therefore subject to “banishment” (ibid.).

Indeed, abjuring the conventional choice of heroine—including her in the narrative, but in such a way as to flaunt her peripheral status and make her non-inclusion notable—seems a part of the narrative experiment of Emma. Elizabeth Sabiston writes that Emma is “highly experimental”; before George Eliot or Henry James, Jane Austen “conceived the notion of dispensing with plot and creating a heroine so vital, irrepressible and imaginative that the entire novel comprises the dialectic of her limited point of view and Austen’s discreet, subtle corrections” (p. 139).1

Footnotes

On Emma as experimental see also Mullan (2015).

Discussion Questions

What gives this section its emotional register? How is the reader ‘meant’ to feel upon Emma and Jane’s reconciliation?

What is the point of Mrs. Elton’s (mis)quotation? Is it merely a jibe at her pretensions to literariness, or does it have further-reaching implications on the presentation of friendship in Emma? Is it an intentional insult on Mrs. Elton’s part?

Why has Austen steered clear of the most typical subjects for novels and romances in Emma?

Bibliography

Austen, Jane. Emma (Norton Critical Edition). 3rd ed. Ed. Stephen M. Parrish. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, [1815] 2000.

Korba, Susan M. “‘Improper and Dangerous Distinctions’: Female Relationships and Erotic Domination in Emma,” Studies in the Novel 29.2 (1997), pp. 139–63.

Morgan, Susan J. “Emma Woodhouse and the Charms of Imagination.” Studies in the Novel 7.1 (Spring 1975), pp. 33–48.

Mullan, John. “How Jane Austen’s Emma Changed the Course of Fiction.” The Guardian (5 December 2015).

Potter, Tiffany F. “‘A Low but Very Feeling Tone’: The Lesbian Continuum and Power Relations in Jane Austen’s Emma.” English Studies in Canada 20.2 (June 1994), pp. 187-203. DOI: 10.1353/esc.1994.0034.

Sabiston, Elizabeth Jean. The Prison of Womanhood: Four Provincial Heroines in Nineteenth-Century Fiction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1987.

Steele, Kathleen. “‘Even Miss Bates Has a Mind’: A Cognitive Historicist Reading of Emma’s Miss Bates.” Persuasions On-Line 39.1 (2018).

Tandon, Bharat. “The Literary Context.” In The Cambridge Companion to Emma, ed. Peter Sabor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2015), pp. 17–35.

White, Gabrielle D.V. “Emma: Autonomy and Abolition.” In Jane Austen in the Context of Abolition: ‘A Fling at the Slave Trade’. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan (2006), pp. 52–72. DOI: 10.1057/9780230506138_3.

#Emma #Jane Austen #Emma Woodhouse #Jane Fairfax #Miss Bates #Mrs. Elton #e

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latibvles · 4 months

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27. boxed for harriet morgan

##27 — BOXES

harriet morgan u are a national treasure and the whole of the bomb group adores you (literal). that's all the notes I have for this one. send me a prompt for the bomber girls!

—

Airmen were superstitious by nature — Harrie was no exception to that.

She knew she had a package or two waiting for her this morning. Her ma made it a habit to send her a plethora of things: books she left at home, hair ribbons, and some type of snack, too. Enough to share with the rest of her crew and still have leftovers. And her ma always wrote too — testifying that she prayed over them too, sending her love and blessings with all the pastries and articles of clothing.

Harrie made a point to never open these packages before they took off. She’d always pick them up from the post, set them gingerly atop her cot like she was setting the table back at home, but she’d never opened them.

She figured if they had something to look forward to on the way back, then it’d help them beat the odds. That, and gorging themselves on her mom’s homemade cookies and blessings seemed like a hard earned reward. Harrie made a point to send back the tins they were sent in, often with some type of trinket for her little cousins to fawn over.

Word traveled fast in Thorpe Abbotts — not so much about the blessings, but definitely about the treats.

“Anybody seen Juney?” Harrie asks, turning her head this way and that in the armchair. “Don’t want her missin’ out this time.” Fern waves her hand dismissively from her spot perched on the arm of the chair.

“We’ll just save her one. She’s got a grandpa’s bedtime anyway.” Fern explains, which makes Harrie laugh quietly under her breath. Of course, this corner of the front room had garnered its fair share of curious eyes. Fern perched on the arm chair, Carrie by the fireplace and Inez returning from the snack bar with napkins — likely to run Viv and Willie their hard-earned luxury rations, straight from the kitchen of Mary Morgan herself.

There were also a couple editions, men trying to stake their claim on the inevitable leftovers: Harper, from DeMarco’s crew, sat right across from her, burning a hole through the packaging. And although Blakely was keeping his distance, Harrie didn’t miss the way the pilot’s curious eyes would drift to the boxes balanced delicately in her lap every now and again — she makes a mental note to run one to him when she’s handing them all out.

There’s a whistle behind her, the soft thump of hands smacking the hard leather of the chair. She turns around to grin up at Douglass, who’s grinning right back at her, all teeth and mischief as he eyes the packages.

“Another package from my best girl?” he drawls, which has Harrie groaning and batting at his hands as he reaches over to pick at the packaging.

“Quit talkin’ like that ‘bout my ma, Dougie,” Harrie huffs, knowing he doesn’t mean it. “And lay off, we got manners ‘round here. Gotta read the card first,” Douglass’ hands retreat, but he sits on the opposing armrest. Part of Harrie feels like she’s ten years old again, and all her cousins and her brother, too, are watching her open up all the presents or blowing out candles. She takes the envelope too and tears into it, clearing her throat. “Dear Harriet…”

She goes through the typical stuff — local baseball scores, church gossip, how the animals were fairing. She skips over the more personal stuff for the sake of not dampening the room with her at-home worries. That was to be further looked into in the barely-there privacy of her cot, not read aloud among her friends.

“Send your friends ma’ love. Prayin’ over ya always, I hope these treats do somethin’ to make ya’ll smile a bit. Love momma. P.S, Pa sends a welcome gift for your new Commandin’ Officer,” Harrie wraps up, smiling by the end of it — an ear-splitting thing that makes her face hurt as she pockets the letter and then tears into the first package, undoing its wrapping.

The box is a well-polished wood thing with a gold latch, and Harrie recognizes it immediately as her pa’s cigar box. She can’t help the small gasp as she pops it open. Covering the cigars, however, was a small stack of photographs that she’s quick to snatch up before shutting it quickly, shuffling through photographs. She’s never been more happy she committed to not opening up her packages until after today’s flight.

“Look Carrie, s’that calf I was tellin’ you about. Nervous Nellie,” Harrie beams, extending her arm to give her friend the picture. “N’ these are the baby chicks. Well… I guess they ain’t babies no more, but they was when I hatched ‘em.” She points to the one still tucked under their hen’s wing. “I named that one after you Dougie, that one’s Hammy n’ that one’s Juney. Oh! There’s Harper.” Harrie points out each chick named after a bombardier in the company, and although his eyes roll at first, he starts chuckling as she goes down the line.

There’s a few others in there, some with her cousins and all the animals Harrie doted on at home. She pockets the pictures too, closes the cigar case and sets it before her on the coffee table. Then, she gives her small audience a sweeping look.

“Now don’t ya’ll go grabbin’ at me. ‘Specially not you two,” she points to Harper, who makes a noise of half-hearted offense, and then Dougie. “Rules are rules. Ladies first, then you can go callin’ dibs and what-not.”

With that in mind, she opens up the second, smaller box, and lets out a disbelieving laugh.

“Thank you, Mrs. Morgan,” Fern declares as Inez passes Harrie a napkin. She takes out one of the apple turnovers delicately packed into the metal tin and immediately passes it to Fern, who passes it to Carrie, until they’ve gone around their immediate circle. Then Inez plucks two to run to Viv and Willie, and Fern takes another for June. Harrie rises with the tin, laughing at the prolonged stare that the guys are giving her.

“Alright, alright, one each — Blakely!” The pilot, who was now making conversation with Kidd, snaps to look at her. “Quit actin’ polite and come over here ‘fore the rest are gone.”

As Blakely makes his way over, Harrie does the quick mental math to save enough for Jo, and one for Colonel Harding, to go with the box of cigars. And she silently prays that the blessings her mom sent with the turnovers will last to the next flight, the next package. But when they approach — she doesn’t admit to that. She just smiles and continues to hand out the extras, more than happy to share all of her gifts.

#ch: harriet morgan #*poet writes #masters of the air oc #mota oc #hbo war oc #mota fic #masters of the air fic #yeah she named her baby chicks after the bombardiers #why do you ask?

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latibvles · 1 month

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Poet i am obsessed with the Mouse Hole crew and have been rereading some of your fics about them! Just wondering if you had any hcs for the more (imo) underrated gals of the group like Lorraine, Lena, Harriet, Fern and Carrie? Keep up the great work, love your writing!!

Hi friend!!! Glad you’re rereading and enjoying them!!! It feels like a good start just to know people read them, let alone go back and reread. I definitely do because all 10 of them rattle around in my brain like ping-pong balls. For the sake of the fact that I’m a yapper I’ll throw them all under the cut and break them up by character: I have a lot to say!

LORRAINE IVANOVA

So I think I’ve said this to friends but Lorraine’s older sister Vera is the one who writes their stories down after the war. Which says a lot because I think Lorraine’s relationship with her older sister is… strange, a little strained because they’re so different. But the love is there.

She’s bilingual! She speaks Russian and English. She and June are the ones who were raised by immigrants who didn’t have English as a first language.

She’s the second tallest out of the girls at a whopping 5’9”

She has a lot of respect for Jack Kidd and I think that, if they had spent more time around each other, they could’ve been very good friends.

I wrote about Lorraine being the one to get into some trouble in this fic for the prompt list. Of which to say I definitely think she and June are a bit of a tandem when it comes to fights. Lorraine is a woman of action and very few words at the end of the day.

LENA CONNOLLY

No siblings and apart of the only child club. I always imagined that she’d work with cars or something after the war because Lena is still a very hands-on person.

Out of all the guys in the 100th she and Crank get along great, but predictably Curt is the one she jives with first as two New York Irishfolk.

I’ve always wondered if she gets with anybody after the war / if it would be a OC or an opportunity for a crossover moment with BOB or TP. She has a very “brothers I never had” view of the guys she served with so she isn’t exactly going home with a wartime sweetheart.

Most often Fern’s co-swindling conspirator. And the one scrutiny June by the neck to keep her from getting them kicked out of a pub with her short fuse.

Very good at baseball, and a big fan of the sport. It’s something she and Major Egan bond over in the POW Camp.

HARRIET MORGAN

I’ve said this before: biiiiiig crush on Helen when they first meet. She’s all heart eyes over her for a little while like a schoolgirl until things start getting Real for Harrie in terms of the war itself.

I went “how neat would it be to crossover her and Malarkey and make them friends” because of their extremely similar circumstances (losing their best friends since training, cold trauma, etc). So I think they end up in a similar circle after the War.

Harrie has a way of worming herself into everyone’s hearts but if I HAD to pick a 100th Bestie™ for her, it’s a toss-up between Blakely and Dougie. She and Blakely have a brother/sister dynamic in my head

Rainy days are her least favorite. So we can imagine that she’s struggling a little in England. Good at persuading officers into giving her free bike rides.

I think out of everyone, her shift in personality from the start or the war to the end is the one that’s most noticeable for better or for worse. My sweet girl.

FERN CARMINE

If she didn’t make it in the USAAF she was going to become a USO Girl for the obvious reason: she has the voice and the charisma for it.

Went to boarding school for most of her life & her first kiss was with a girl. And has been the first kiss / awakening for many girls since.

Has always been close to her father and her dark secret is that she still wrote him even when he initially wasn’t writing her back. Eventually he starts though.

Gets interviewed a lot at the beginning because she’s apart of an Old Money Family. This tapers off just slightly when they get to England, but she was photographed with Viv for a TIME cover (which she enjoyed quite a bit, to be fair).

She and Curt would dance together quite a bit at Thorpe Abbotts. His is the death that hit her the hardest.

CARRIE HUGHES

As nervous as she gets, she really hates the days when the 349th flies a practice mission while the others go on a bomb run. The waiting aspect of it makes it considerably worse for her.

Her dad is a cop and her mom is a school teacher! Carrie is very girl-next-door-like in nature, the type to hide behind her mother’s skirts as a kid.

She painted sets for school musicals when she was in high school! I think she’s very creative but is also humble to a fault about it. Always a little nervous when asked to talk about herself.

A fairly decent darts partner though, mostly taught by friends in her neighborhood.

Her favorite part of the flight is being over the channel because she has a very romanticized idea of the ocean & the beach. She really loved the flight from Greenland to England guys

Hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing those!

#ch: lorraine ivanova #ch: fern carmine #ch: harriet morgan #ch: lena connolly #ch: carrie hughes #masters of the air oc #poet’s mail box #*poets anonymous

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latibvles · 3 months

Note

hello! could you please do 🍰⚾️☀️📎 for harriet morgan please!

🎂 : when is their birthday? do they like celebrating it?

This is a good one! I like to sort out star signs which I am still doing for the bomber girls. I feel like she’s a Gemini maybe? So late May/early June is the idea I have for her there. I do think she likes celebrating her birthday — she grew up on a farm so there was lots of space for birthday parties — and lots of cousins for party guests.

⚾ : can they play sports? what is their best position if they play a team sport? what's their strong suit (speed, power etc.)?

Yes! She can. Harrie grew up with a brother so lots of sports. I think baseball is a given for the time period but I think she’d be pretty okay at basketball too. She’d like to play outfielder because she has the arm for it. I would say her strong suit is strength because like I said: she grew up on a farm. The physical training part of Boot Camp wasn’t the hard part for her.

☀️ : are they a morning person? what is the first thing they do in the morning?

She’s a morning person, on days where she doesn’t have to fly I think the first thing she does is wake up Carrie if she’s not up already. At home, she often went straight into morning chores.

📎 : a random fact.

I wrote about this in a request but she has, in fact, named her newest set of baby chickens after some of the bombardiers. Partly because she thought it was funny and partly because according to her, the chickens also have “explosive personalities.”

#ch: harriet morgan #poet’s mail box

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coltermorning · 6 months

Text

Of Love and Loss Ch. 13 (RDR2 Fanfic, Arthur Morgan x F!Reader, 18+)

Summary: You and Arthur get to know the town better, getting to know each other better in the process.

Author’s Notes: This chapter needed some major reconstruction, so I apologize for the wait on it! I split it in half and completely changed the ending, but I’m so glad I did because it’s one of my favorite chapters now. Enjoy all the fluff and these two getting drunk together for the second time :) Chapter thirteen of this one.

AO3 Link

Of Love and Loss

Thirteen: Townsfolk

Word count: 5416

You startled awake at some point in the night, darkness pushing in through the lone window. Once you had your bearings, a sudden panic overtook when you realized Arthur wasn’t there until you saw him lying on the floor beside you. You’d slept through his return. And the fool had refused to wake you, had let you have the bed. This was no better than lying under canvas for him. You told yourself you would berate him for it once he woke, but the thought soon eddied away when your tiredness overtook you once more, your panic easing away now that you knew he was there beside you, that you didn’t have to face the bedroom alone. You fell back into dreams of your family, of a past life, of a time when you were never alone.

You must have truly needed rest, as you awoke a second time to Arthur reentering the room, having slept through him ever leaving it. You were normally a lighter sleeper.

“Just stabled Harriet and Bo,” he said. “Figured they could use a good rest and plenty of hay.”

“Does this mean we’re staying?” You couldn’t help the hope that lined those words.

Arthur caught it and smirked. “What, my company that miserable?”

Truth be told it was…quite the opposite. But before you could blush over the thought of that kiss, you pushed on. “You don’t see me running for the hills. Yet.”

“Yet,” he replied with a low laugh. He turned to the small mirror and basin the room had to offer, running his hand over his beard. It had grown long in the time you’d been traveling with him. His hair had too, starting to hang down past his eyes when his hat wasn’t pinning it back.

“You’re starting to look like a Montanan,” you told him. Starting to, because most men’s beards were twice the length of his in those snowy mountains.

“I usually keep it short,” he said, still looking at his reflection. “But it’s sure as shit been cold enough not to.”

You shrugged. “You get used to it.”

“The cold or the beard?” he asked, his hand falling as he turned to you. And when his eyes landed on you, the room suddenly felt a little smaller.

“The cold. Afraid I’ve no experience on the latter.”

He smirked, and you hated how much that look burned you up inside. You turned away.

“Well,” he said. “I’m starving. Want to go eat a proper meal? See a little of this country for yourself?”

Your heart gave a nervous kick at the very idea.

“It’s either that, or you’re staying here,” he added, and you knew without having to look at him he was just trying to rile you. Of course you would come with him, no matter how begrudgingly you did.

“Forgive me for not liking either of those options.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, and I can think of worse ones. Especially having to deal with me when I haven’t eaten, so come on.”

You rolled your eyes and wondered when the day would come that he would stop using his humor to get you to agree to things. Or maybe when you would finally find the will not to listen.

You threw your legs over the bedside and stood, realizing you were still wearing his clothes. “It won’t be…odd for me to walk around looking like this?”

“Like that? Sure,” he said with a laugh.

You glared at him. His amusement wasn’t helping.

“Here,” he said, crossing the room. And you let him invade your space without pause as he turned up your coat collar, sticking your hat low on your head to hide your hair. No matter that your heart was racing. That you felt disappointment take hold when he stepped away.

“Could pass for a man now. Ain’t no one looking a man’s way, ill-fitting clothes or no.”

“Great,” you said flatly. But Arthur just gestured to the door, and you scowled and did as he said, making for it.

After eating one very well-deserved meal of oatmeal piled with sugar, you and Arthur explored the town. It was interesting to see how mankind lived all intertwined like this. And sure enough, you got to look around relatively unnoticed. After a stop at the launder for your and Arthur’s clothes in which you weren’t even glanced at, you came out with a newfound confidence. It was nice being looked over, being an afterthought. All you had ever known of other people was unwanted attention, and now you felt freer than you ever had around so many eyes. It made for an enjoyable morning.

Arthur found a barber and stopped in, annoyed with all that hair after all. You sat outside in the sunshine and watched the people mill about. If where you were headed was anything like this for you, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

You were basking in the rare heat when you heard spurs clicking in your direction.

“Ready to go back?” Arthur asked.

You turned to answer, but when your gaze landed on him, words escaped you. His beard was now nothing more than stubble, his hair shorter but still framing his face, his hat in his hands instead of on his head for once. He was…distractingly handsome.

Apparently thinking you had fallen into another one of your spells of not speaking, Arthur put his hat back on his head. “I posed that like a question, but let me rephrase. You’re coming with me.”

The way he cleaned up so well plus him demanding that of you…it had you blurting out words to shake your sudden stupor.

“Why not stay? Get to know the town a little better, I mean.”

He smirked at you. You couldn’t figure why, your nerves at looking at him making it hard to do so.

“Do my eyes deceive me?” he jeered.

“What?”

“You, sitting around enjoying the place.”

“I just- I’ve never-”

“Save it,” he said, holding up a hand. “You don’t have to explain it to me. But tell you what, let’s go back, let it get dark, then I’ll show you around. Town’s always best at night anyhow.”

You could feel the nerves veritably rushing through you at the prospect of that, at all these people, at him. But you just nodded and stood. “Lead the way then.”

You were pondering what it would be like to finally get to experience this kind of life when you looked up and were faced with Arthur’s broad back, his mere presence carving a path through the people walking about. Had it always been that broad? And had he always looked that good in that big coat?

You shook your head to get that particular madness out of it and went back to watching the townsfolk. Anything to distract you from the one thing you wouldn’t allow yourself to think of for the remainder of this trip.

Nearing the hotel, you still felt those cursed nerves, but you had fully convinced yourself they were nothing more than timidness over the town. Certainly not a lone room and a bed and an outlaw to keep you company.

Arthur sat in the chair in the corner of the room and drew in his journal. He had stripped his coat, the heat of the day making it sweltering inside the hotel. He was just glad it wasn’t snowing. He’d had enough of that to last him the year. So he took up his time drawing the town you found yourselves in, debating what trouble to get you into tonight. He’d told himself miles back he’d show you how to cut loose for once, only now it seemed not the brightest idea he’d had. Now all he could think of was those men’s eyes on you at that shit hole of a trading post. But he’d given you his word, and he wouldn’t go back on it. Not when you had shown genuine excitement for once, all over seeing the glamor of city living. Well, glamor was a stretch, but it was something to you at least. More than could be said for Montana. So he sketched down a few bricks on a building side, debating all the while some type of harmless fun. Harmless, because his type of fun usually ended up being anything but. He wouldn’t show that particular genius to you lest you both end up in a jail cell. He grinned at the very thought.

The sound of the creaking bed reached Arthur’s ears, and he snuck a glance at you, seeing you sprawled out on your back, lazily reading the ledger you held above you. You were calmer here. He could tell you felt safe when you had been fine staying outside while he visited the barber earlier. And especially when you’d wanted to stay. Considering what happened in the last settlement, he was surprised you even wanted to do that much. But this trip would be coming to an end in a few short weeks, and maybe you, like he, knew it was time you got used to being on your own. Or without him, more like. Though he did feel a certain pride that you felt so safe around him, the same pride that still plagued him while he sat there admiring his shirt on you. It made him want to…well. Best not to think on that.

“Think I could make it as a trader in Nebraska?” Your eyes remained on the ledger despite the question.

“I know you could,” Arthur said, going back to drawing. “Better question is, would you want to?”

You sat up then, sitting cross-legged on the bed in a way that drew his eye.

“It’s what I’m good at.”

“You’re good at hunting,” Arthur said. “Those are two different things. You want to be a traveling salesman on top of that?”

“Maybe. Probably not.” You looked down at the ledger, your lower lip catching between your teeth. It took everything in Arthur not to stare at your mouth. “I don’t know,” you went on. “Maybe I could have a stall in town. I’m sure I could sell something if it was as valuable as what Pa used to sell.”

“Sure,” Arthur said, surprised at your ambition. How far you had come, willing to consider opening your own stall in a town you used to think you would never make it to. Planning a future for yourself. He was proud of you for it.

“Anyway,” you said, shutting the ledger and setting it aside. “You got any thread? Sewing needle?”

He let his amusement show. “No.”

You scoffed. “Of course you don’t. I was going to offer to sew up your coat.” You pointed at it where it lie on a trunk under the window, the afternoon sun shining down on it.

“Well, I ain’t got any.”

“Sure.” Then you stood and crossed the room, headed right for the door.

“Where you think you’re going?”

“To find some. Most women have a needle and thread on them. At least, the ones working here probably do. I’ll go ask.”

“Hang on. I didn’t keep you cooped up in here all day just to get snatched now,” Arthur said.

“I won’t get snatched,” you said, already opening the door and shooting him a glare all at once. Like an entirely different person from the one who had followed his every step just yesterday. For some reason, this sudden confidence shut Arthur up, and he let you be. The door closed behind you with force, leaving him shaking his head and going back to his journal.

The minutes ticked by, and Arthur got to a stopping point with his drawing and stood, moving to the window to have something to do with his restlessness. Looking out over the back street, he spied a small, dingy-looking saloon that didn’t even have a name, just ‘saloon’ written in big block letters. It would normally be a place he would be drawn straight to if it weren’t for the fact that he couldn’t take you there. Certainly not with the kind of population that frequented those places. His population, he thought with a chuckle. You were damn lucky Dutch and Hosea had drilled some manners into him, what few they could. But the place did give him an idea for the night’s festivities.

The door creaked open behind him, and Arthur turned to find you with thread in hand, showing it off in triumph.

“Told you. She even had blue.”

“How ‘bout that?” he teased, though he was secretly grateful you had gone so far as to get the proper color thread. No one else would have bothered with something like that.

You motioned to his coat, and he picked it up and threw it to you. You took his spot in the lone chair and set to work, Arthur trying not to watch too closely. He instead went to looking back out the window, thinking of what the pair of you could get up to.

“This is a pretty wide gash. You sure you didn’t get scratched too bad?”

Arthur hadn’t given a moment’s thought to the scratch the wolf had left behind on his arm. He had enough scars to forget to worry about the smaller ones.

“Nah, it ain’t bad. Don’t need any stitches at least.”

You were quiet for a moment, likely thinking of your own nasty scar. Then, “Your shirt needs mending too. I’ll work on it once we get it back from the launder.”

Arthur looked at you then. You were never so nice to him this…willingly. It reminded him of when you’d cleaned the blood off his face, and the thought made something finally click in his brain.

“You do this kind of thing for your parents?”

He knew he’d gotten it right when you didn’t immediately respond. Then, in a small voice, “Momma taught me.”

You didn’t talk about her much. Usually only your father and all he had taught you. But Arthur was willing to bet that defiance in you didn’t come from him. It was a trait best suited to daughters who had learned how to fight through testing their mothers.

“Well, I’m glad she did. I’m dogshit at sewing.”

You snorted a laugh. “I’m not surprised.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You may be pretty at shooting a gun, but sewing’s a far cry with those big hands.”

Arthur felt his face heat at the word pretty but barreled through the feeling it brought him. “I sewed you up just fine.”

Now it was your turn to be embarrassed. You went red. “And you’re not going to let me forget it, are you?”

He felt his smile widen of its own volition. “Never.”

You didn’t respond, only smiled down at your sewing. Then you were bringing the needle away, gathering up the thread. “Done.” You handed the coat back to him. He took it and examined the new patch, a small line of darker blue now marring his right coat sleeve. It was a token of sorts—something to forever remind him of this trip.

“Thanks.” He meant it. You just waved him off.

Instead of putting the coat down, he put it on, not buttoning it up to keep the heat at bay. “Well, we may as well get going before the shops close. I have one more errand to run.”

You didn’t hesitate to stand, your eagerness returning. “What errand?”

He grinned. “You’ll see, nameless.”

He hadn’t called you that in a while, and it had you swatting at him as you passed, heading for the door. He opened it before you could, holding it ajar for you with hand outstretched. It made you even madder, and all he could do was laugh as he shut and locked the door behind you both.

The town was livelier at this hour, just as Arthur suspected it would be. Most folks were off work, in town to blow off steam after a long day. The heat had tapered off with the setting sun, turning it into the perfect golden evening. It was as good an introduction to regular life as you would ever get.

“You plan on telling me where we’re going?”

Arthur glanced at you, at your funny-looking clothes. “We could always stop at the launder, get you your clothes back.”

You caught the amusement on his face and frowned. “I don’t want them back yet. I was enjoying blending in just fine earlier.”

He figured. Looking ahead, Arthur found the shop he needed just down the main road. “Going to the gunsmith. I need more revolver cartridges since you shot all mine at nothing.”

“And you wonder why I’m mad at you all the time,” you muttered under your breath. He grinned.

The gunsmith had a fairly bare-bones shop, but it had what Arthur was looking for. He coughed up the money and was soon putting the cartridge boxes in his satchel, getting a few out to stick them in his gun belt.

“As riveting as this is,” you said, watching him do it, “I had hoped for a more…memorable evening. To be one of the townsfolk, if you will.”

Arthur finished and waved at the gunsmith, opening the door for you. “You always gotta be on a man’s case so bad?”

“It’s the duty of every woman.”

Arthur barked a laugh and pointed at the saloon he had already scoped out—the Red Horse. It was the biggest of the three saloons he had seen in town. Biggest usually meant easiest to blend into. “That’s where we’re headed. You up for it, miss townsfolk, or is that not memorable enough for you?”

He could see your eyes catch on it, see the way you clammed up with nerves before you calmed yourself back down. “No, memorable is a good word, I think.”

“Good. Come on then.” You both made to cross the street, but a horse and rider came barreling through so fast from around the corner you didn’t see it in time. Arthur grabbed your hand and yanked you back. He expected you to be cross about his saving your hide, as you tended to be, but instead you looked down at your hand. He was still holding it. He dropped it and cleared his throat. “You’re welcome.”

You wouldn’t meet his eye then, turning to attempt the street again. Or maybe to get ahead of him so he couldn’t see that blush on your face, but it was too late for that. He had seen it, and it was making him stare after you like an idiot.

Arthur remembered himself and rushed after you, putting all meaning of that blush behind him lest he let some pitiful semblance of hope get to him.

The saloon was lively and growing fuller by the minute, the bar full and nearly all of the tables the same.

“Beer or whiskey?” he asked you, having to talk loud over the man at the nearby piano as he pushed you into the room.

“Beer,” you responded, busy taking in the scene before you. Life at its very simplest. Gambling, alcohol, and a good time. Women, too. There were women hanging off of men’s arms everywhere, and Arthur hoped the sight would settle you some, as it seemed to settle you having women around in that hotel.

“Over here.” Arthur steered you toward the bar and let you stand behind him as he got the barman’s attention. He placed his order and handed more money over, thinking he needed to count through all he had left before the trip was over. He didn’t want to find himself without the means to get back to his gang. The bartender handed him two beers, and all thought of that washed away as Arthur pushed back through the growing crowd with you and made for a less populated wall to stand against.

Enjoying the first taste of his beer with more satisfaction than he could name, Arthur sat back and watched you. He had to keep from laughing at the way your head kept turning in all directions to take everything in. This would be a regular night for him, given that the gang had made it into town, but for you it was likely a whole new world.

“Careful not to hurt your neck there,” he said, smiling over his beer.

You shot him a dirty glance but saw him drinking and seemed to remember the beer in your own hand. You brought it to your mouth to take a sip, and Arthur couldn’t resist watching the way your lips touched the bottle. Something shot through him at the sight that he let be for once.

“God, that’s terrible,” you said, cringing. “Is there any alcohol that doesn’t taste like shit?”

He chuckled. “Probably not. But that’s not why you drink it.” He thought of how much gin he had downed with you that had led to a kiss and knew that to be true.

The pair of you took to arguing over how well you could handle yourself in a town like this before a game of poker across the way got so rowdy it couldn’t be ignored any longer.

“Ever played cards?” he asked.

You shook your head. “Don’t know how.”

“Come watch me then. I’ll show you.” And, at your sudden reluctance, “Relax, I won’t make you play.”

You eyed him and took another swig of beer before cringing just as noticeably, motioning at him to lead the way.

There were only two players left sitting at the poker table, but both had such high stacks of chips that Arthur knew better than to get in on the game until after one busted. Those high stakes were also why a crowd had gathered and was cheering so loudly for one man or the other. The pair of you watched alongside them, most rooting for the yellow-haired working stiff nearest you. The other man, a well-dressed but worse for wear man with a hatted, dark-haired head had men cheering for him that all looked just like him—well-dressed but sloppy.

“Stick it to him, boy!” someone shouted at the working man. His cards were visible to those standing behind him, showing a strong hand—two high-value diamonds to the flop’s two of the same suit.

Arthur knew as the turn revealed the third diamond—giving the man a flush—that he had his opponent beat. And sure enough, he went all in. Either bluffing or drunk, the other man followed suit and swiftly lost all his winnings.

“Now, now hold on,” he slurred, standing. “I saw him stick that diamond up his sleeve an hour ago!”

“Awe, save it, Lawrence!” someone in the crowd shouted back.

Arthur was too amused to notice you leave until he turned to find you gone entirely. Panic overtook him before he spotted you against the nearest wall, watching from a distance. He stormed over.

“What are you doing running off like that?”

“I didn’t want to be in the middle of…whatever that is.” You pointed to the poker table, and Arthur watched as the interaction between the two players started to get heated, the slimy-looking one not wanting to pay up.

He turned back to you. “Fair enough. But warn me next time.”

You eyed him.

“What?”

“Nothing.” You turned your attention back to the others, taking another sip of beer. And Arthur was mad at you for it, for distracting him like that when he should have been giving you a piece of his mind. But instead he watched your mouth again, watched as your lips pursed against the glass and thought of how they had felt against his own. He turned away and took a sizable drink himself.

To take his mind off of things, Arthur started explaining poker to you, namely the game that had just been played. You asked a few of the usual questions—what call and check meant and why the seedy man’s high card didn’t win him the game. Arthur finally seemed to explain things well enough that you said, “I get it. Go play then. I’ll watch.”

“I ain’t leaving you over here.”

“I know you want to play, Arthur. Go. I’ll stand closer if it makes you feel better.”

The sarcasm lining your words had him ready to argue.

“Just go,” you said with a small smile, pushing against his chest. Your hands on him made him comply. Made him melt into compliance, more like.

“I’m…getting another beer,” he said. “Then poker.” He hadn’t even realized he was out until then.

“Go then. I’ll be fine here.” Arthur really didn’t want to leave you. But you were looking at him with a light in your eyes you didn’t normally have. And he knew, stubborn fool that he was, that he wouldn’t always be there to protect you. Now was as good a time as any to test you when you were so comfortable being left alone.

“Stay here,” he said, voice filled with as much authority as he could muster.

“Yes, Arthur,” you teased, and even that did something funny to his insides. Christ, what the hell was he doing, getting so worked up? He needed to be drunker than this. Much drunker.

Two beers later and deep in his cards, Arthur kept turning to make sure you were there. You always were, usually shaking your head at him for the way he played his cards—he was almost out of chips to show for it.

He had a decent hand but not a great one when he heard you come up behind him and whisper, “Fold.”

“Why?”

“Because I saw the other man’s cards.”

Arthur had to stifle his laugh, but he did as you said. Then he was finishing his beer, cashing in while he still had some money left, and leaving the table. Only when you were far enough away so as not to be overheard did he turn to you. “That’s cheating, you know. I didn’t take you for a cheater.”

“I didn’t take you for a terrible card player.”

“I walked into that,” Arthur said as he stepped up to the bar to order yet another beer, this time two. Once in hand, he gave you the second one. “Cheers.”

You looked around for something to do with your empty bottle. “Here,” Arthur said on a laugh, forgetting how much you really didn’t know about this sort of thing. He took it, set it on the bar top, and turned back to you. “Now. To long, miserable, back-breaking travel. And not long left to go.” He held his bottle neck out to yours.

You smiled. “To you, Arthur.” You clinked the bottles together.

“Awe, come on, nameless. Don’t get sappy on me now.”

That smile of yours remained, and Arthur returned it before turning his bottle up.

The night went on, more beer drank and more people spilling in the doors than you had likely ever seen in your life. Arthur knew he was due to be cut off when he saw a few patrons dancing and thought it a good idea for the two of you to join them. Just for a moment. Then he came to his senses. But he asked you anyway, knowing it would irk you.

“Spare me a dance?” He held his hand out to you.

You swatted it away. “Very funny.”

“I’m serious.”

“No, you’re not. I don’t think you know the meaning of that word.”

He barked a laugh. “Probably not.”

“Why don’t you show me this big, bad outlaw I’m supposed to be traveling with instead?”

“What?” He turned to you, shocked you brought it up.

“I keep hearing about him,” you joked. “Haven’t seen him for myself yet.”

“And you ain’t going to. You don’t want to.”

You leaned in close to talk low, and Arthur made a point not to look at you lest he think about how easy it would be to kiss you. “You mean to tell me you haven’t thought of picking anyone’s pocket tonight? Not one?”

Truth be told, he had. It was overcrowded, the patrons were drunk, and it would be easy enough to get lost or blame it on someone else if things went south. But he wouldn’t risk that with you here.

“Maybe,” he said.

“Some outlaw you are,” you teased, and the winning smile you gave him stopped him in his tracks. Half for the look of it, half for how happy you could be while talking about the worst parts of him. Like it didn’t matter that he wasn’t a good man. Like you enjoyed his company anyway. He couldn’t say how much that meant to him.

“Anyway,” you droned on, finishing the last of your beer. “Let’s go back. I’m tired.”

“You’re even whinier when you’re drunk,” he quipped, but he downed his beer too, even through the particularly hard hit you landed on his arm for that one.

He got up and motioned toward the door. “Lead the way then.” You shot him a mischievous look he wanted to kiss right off your mouth. But too quickly, you turned and nearly disappeared into the crowd, so for the second time, Arthur grabbed your hand to keep up with you. The warmth of it in his grasp filled him with whatever happiness he had left. Especially when you wound your fingers through his and led him on.

The two of you made it outside, and only then did you drop his hand, never bringing any attention to the fact that you held it in the first place. He wanted to grab yours again, keep it held in his all the way back. But, he realized, you were already walking, not looking back. He jogged to catch up. Then, like a fool, he debated threading his fingers through yours every step of the way back. He never quite found the courage.

It only hit Arthur that you were about to join him in this hotel bedroom, and that he very much didn’t want to sleep on the floor, when you stepped through its doorway. He watched you shed your coat and hat and boots, doing the same so as not to draw attention to the way his eyes caught on you. After he got his satchel and gun belt off, he turned to find you already curled up in the bed like a cat.

“You’re not sleeping on the floor again, are you?” you said through a yawn.

“My back may never recover,” he joked.

“Come up here then.”

You said it so simply—such an easy thing to agree to. He knew he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t resist doing it. So he lifted the sheets and laid down beside you, letting you curl around him in a way that had his heart pounding through his shirt. You laid your head right on it and yawned again. “I can hear your heartbeat.”

“That’s a relief. Let me know if it stops.”

You let out a laugh. A genuine, easy laugh that had Arthur wanting to turn your face to his and kiss you then and there. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. The two of you were just lonely and drunk and had each other for company. That didn’t mean he could do something you may not want from him—something you didn’t understand. Not to mention how it would eat at him when he had to leave you so soon. So, he didn’t turn your face to his. He wrapped his arm around you instead and pulled you close, his head resting atop yours in a way that was so comforting it was almost worse.

“I’m glad you’re here, Arthur.”

Your voice was small, heavy with tiredness. And the words cut into him, because he was the one you wanted to help heal your loneliness. Of all people, him.

“I’m glad to be here, nameless.” He truly was.

After long enough that he thought you asleep, you whispered, “Not nameless.”

“What then?” He had never wanted to know a name so badly in all his life.

You just yawned again, curling against him. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

Arthur smiled, looking forward, for the first time in a long time, to waking up.

_________

Chapter fourteen is here.

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