#colonel william tavington

[fakehusbandgarbagedump]

[kijiboop]

Okay, this scene with Tavington catching fireflies is driving me to drink. Because he uses his fucking fingertips and doesn’t kill it. He catches it, holds it, examines it… and the camera cuts away before we see if he lets it fly away or flicks it away or kills it.

That ambiguity is something that picks at my brain in the case of the extended cut of the Patriot because why was it removed? To avoid humanizing him? Which makes sense. But they could have just as easily made him worse by having him squish it unambiguously.

I need @lyledebeast because my brain refuses to dig out the nuances that I know are here.

[malfoymanaged]

Can't believe I haven't posted these yet

[kylorengarbagedump]

Playing Soldier: Chapter 21 (NSFW)

Read on AO3. Part 20 here. Part 22 here.

Summary:

Words: 5600

Warnings: tavington is a secret munch, a mite of possessive language, two idiots swimming up the Nile

Characters: William Tavington x Reader

A/N: Co-written with @bastillia

Hello my loves! We're getting into the thick of it now, I fear! We have to say - coming from a fandom where our previous loves spoke very little, it's a massive change of pace to write a man who actually talks. And doesn't always say what he means. Hehehe.

Hope you continue to enjoy - Happy Valentine's Day, too. We love YOU and you are all our valentines (William Tavington polycule!?!??!) <3

Clink clink.

Still cloaked in the fog of sleep, you stirred, winced at the sun behind your eyelids. Water splashed, connected with skin, movement shuffled behind you.

Clink clink.

You pried open your eyes, rolling over in the bed, and spotted William standing over the basin. Clad only in his breeches, hair cascading down to his shoulder blades, he stared into the mirror as he guided a straight razor over his jawline. A swish of water, another swipe, and he tapped the edge of the blade on the porcelain.

Clink clink.

His eyes met yours in the mirror, and he cocked a brow. “I thought perhaps I’d need to call upon the coroner.”

“And indict yourself in my passing?” You sat up, cleared the croaking from your throat. “What gallantry.”

He did not fail, you noticed, to glance at your breasts in the mirror as the quilt fell to your lap. His gaze remained for only a moment before he shaved the other side of his jaw. When he said nothing, you surveyed the room. Nothing seemed altered from when you’d fallen asleep. You barely remembered sharing the bed with him at all.

You couldn’t decide if that disappointed you.

Muscles sore from your ride, you began to stretch, caught him stealing another glimpse of your body. The imbalance—him half-clothed, you fully nude—annoyed you. You spotted his shirt laid out neatly on the quilt, so you snatched it and threw it on before climbing out of bed.

William hummed, wiping his razor on a towel. “I will be needing that.”

You shrugged. “You will.”

You reached toward the ceiling with a groan, the sunlight filtering through the sleeves and silhouetting your arms. You wondered how the rest of your body looked, wondered if the curves of your hips and stomach glowed like the lines of your wrists and elbows. Feeling a stiffness in your hamstrings, you bent forward, your breasts swaying.

The weight of his gaze dragged over every inch of your flesh. It was not something you needed to see to confirm—but you peered behind you anyway and saw him staring. He regarded you like a snake would regard a mouse; like he ached to coil around you, squeeze the air from your lungs and then swallow you whole.

Your core tightened. Your breath hitched. You held his gaze and straightened, rolling your shoulders and curving your back until you stood tall.

It was impossible not to notice the powerful swell of his chest, of his shoulders—more impossible still not to let the gentle contours of his abdominal muscles lure your eyes down his body to the dark trail of hair that tapered from his navel to the waistband of his breeches. Water pooled in your mouth imagining where it led. Your eyes cut back to his, meeting twin slivers of limpid blue sky. You swallowed.

One display which had always perplexed you had been when the unmarried women of your village would mill about after church, pouting their lips and fluttering their lashes at the men. Now, in the span of one crashing instant, you understood. Now, you feared you might be at risk of performing any number of ridiculous behaviors if it meant keeping William’s attention fixed upon you.

To negate such a risk, you turned your back to him, bending at the hips to retrieve your stockings from the floor beside the bed. Heat stifled your cheeks. You were far too exposed as it was, and it was clearly impairing your judgment.

Clink clink clink.

You didn’t even hear him cross the room.

An arm hooked your middle and hauled you backward. You could barely utter a squeal before the world flipped, your head hit the pillows, and William slammed you down, caging your body beneath his.

“You may come to regret tempting me,” he said, his face hovering above yours, hair curtaining down to tickle your cheekbones. His tone was sinister, but searching his eyes, the only darkness you found there was desire.

“Oh?” A laugh bubbled up. You lifted your chin, peered down your nose bridge at him, and, in your best, most pompous affectation of his accent, said, “I doubt that.”

His gaze narrowed, a flash of satisfaction hidden within the withering mercy you found there. Jaw tensing, he palmed one of your breasts over his stolen shirt. When you hummed in response, his grip punished you, squeezing the tender bruises he'd gifted you the night before.

You gasped, squirmed, your eyes trained on his. He studied you, watched the discomfort contort your features, then tweaked your nipple between his fingers. Your back arched, you groaned, casting your arms around his neck in an effort to draw him closer. His attention flicked over your lips, and he attached his mouth to your throat.

Hips rolling, you sighed, your hands coiling into his hair. It slid like silk through your fingers, and you skated your nails across his scalp, shivering as he descended to your torso.

To your relief, William kept his more egregious markings below your collar, biting and sucking at the flesh he could uncover beneath the shirt. Lower he moved, lower, pushing the hem of the blouse above your waist, his expression sharpening the more of your body he revealed. His hands smoothed over your hips, squeezed, the flesh hilling between his fingers. His breath hitched. He stared.

“What?” An uncertain laugh caught in your throat. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one up close.”

William huffed. “Plenty,” he said, crushing you in his grip, earning a twist of your legs. Before you could complain, he groped at your ass, your thighs, marveling at the way it filled his hands. Like he was lost, captive somewhere distant, he murmured again, “Plenty.”

The timbre of his voice stilled your tongue. Heat flooded your face. Between your thighs, something pulsed, so deep and needy that you thought it might draw you into yourself.

A shaky breath escaped him. Instinct enthralled him. Jaw tense, William drove his teeth into the soft roll of your belly.

You squealed, scraping at his head, and he ripped your hands from his hair, pinning them to the bed before gathering your hips in his palms again. His mouth savaged you, sucking and tearing at your skin, pulling purple brands to the surface. You gasped, curled back into the pillow, undulating underneath him, your fingers folding into the sheets as your eyes squeezed out everything but raw sensation.

He moved further below your waist, marking every inch that infringed on his purview, groaning in his chest. The dip below your hip bones, then the fresh flesh of your legs, all of it tender and tempting to a man who had decided to devour you. Growling, William sunk his teeth into your inner thigh with such force you howled, fearing he’d found your femoral artery; but the soothing sweep of his tongue mollified you, settled you into a trembling moan.

Palms hooked beneath both of your thighs, hoisting them onto his shoulders, and you shuddered, mind spinning while he shifted to your other leg. He kissed up from your knee, burning a trail toward your center, your breath quickening the closer he drew. His breath brushed your folds, and you laughed, half-enraptured, head lolling along the mattress.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” you mumbled.

William kept his focus between your thighs. “Preparing to eat what is likely to be the only meal you’ll ever serve me.”

You laughed again. “Have I laid down with a cannibal?”

“Something of the sort.”

Another bite to your thigh—pain flushed to your toes—and before you could relax, his tongue traced your cunt.

“What the—” You jerked away, but he pinned your hips to the bed. “What are you—” Another slip of his tongue across your folds, this time dipping between them, forcing your chin to quiver with a rush of bliss. “Sweet immortal Christ…” Gripping the sheets, you stared into the ceiling and swallowed. “You…”

William sighed, spoke into your thighs. “Is pleasure so unfamiliar to you that you must protest its very existence?”

“Shut up,” you snapped, eyes fluttering. “Don’t—don’t stop.”

“Are you certain?” he said, skimming his lips across your skin. “Your behavior inclines me to believe you’d like me to.”

You growled, raised your head to glare at him. He met your stare, unflinching. You exhaled, flopped onto the pillow. “Please, William.” You tried to stop the tremor in your voice. “Please continue with…” You paused, waved the embarrassment from the air. “That.”

“What is that, precisely?”

“Oh, my God,” you groaned, covering your face with your hands. “I… I don’t know. Whatever that is you’re doing.”

“And what is it that I’m doing?”

“William!” You drew a deep breath, swallowing every remaining ounce of your pride, then leaned up, meeting his eyes. You found them alight with devilry. “Continue… kissing me between my legs. Please.”

He smirked. “You can be such a pleasant creature when it’s demanded of you.”

You fell back so he wouldn’t be able to see when you rolled your eyes. His mouth pressed to your folds again, and every lingering complaint vanished.

William started slowly, pressing kisses to your outer folds, teasing them with the tip of his tongue, his hands stroking your thighs when you twitched in response to his touch. Then he dipped inward, coaxing a moan from your lips, taunting your clit with his breath, his warmth. It ached, throbbed—against his mouth, you felt swollen and needy, like your cunt had ballooned to the size of a pomegranate and all it could do was plead to be pried open.

Whimpering, you raised your hips toward his face, hoping to entice him to meet your need, but he grumbled, barred you to the mattress with his arm. As if to spite you, he dragged his tongue over your cunt in a broad stripe, just ghosting your clit. You writhed in protest, tried to grab his head and force it forward, but he snagged your wrist from the air.

He glanced at you, chin gleaming with your wetness. “I’m beginning to conclude that patience is not a virtue you possess.”

You considered squeezing your thighs together and snapping his neck between them. But the thumping demand there resigned you to slacken wordlessly in his grip. With a smirk you didn’t even need to see, he released you and nuzzled against your cunt again. This time, his lips wrapped around your clit.

You arced toward the ceiling like the slash of a saber. A sound escaped you, one without a definition or even a name. Pure, iridescent ecstasy flooded you, crested in waves from the gentle, warm pressure of his mouth.

William stroked his tongue over your clit, suckled it in steady rhythm, earning another moan, another shake of your legs. The ministration of his mouth was focused, like it was employing memory, practicing what your fingers had shown him the evening prior; the escalating pressure, the slick circles, the feathery brush of the hood. A quiet groan left him, and you craned your neck, glanced down.

Between your legs was the most beautiful man you’d ever seen, his hair fanned across his shoulders, his nose nestled to the seam of your cunt, his pretty lips intent on bringing you pleasure. You whimpered, and he opened his eyes, greeting you with a gaze that was so laden with gluttony and lust and pride that you could only define it as sin.

If you’d had your wits, you might have remarked upon the uncharacteristic duration of his silence.

But your wits were rollicking somewhere in the aether, far beyond your reach.

He swirled his tongue around you, jaw working, his hands clutching you to his face as if your cunt made his heart beat. Your breath came faster, your chest heaving, sweat slipping down your spine. It rose over you, an inevitability, a breaking deluge of pleasure, and you tossed your head back and forth, panting, urging with sounds that you didn’t even believe could qualify as words.

Wet, swollen, stiff, your clit throbbed, your core clenched. He hummed against you, a rumble of permission. A slick circle of his tongue, a squeeze of your ass—and you came, crying into the air. Euphoria locked your joints, hardened your muscles, and you shook until your climax descended and seeped from your toes. Your breath was still seeking you, your body liquefying to the bed when William pushed forward, shifting your calves onto his shoulders.

Mind wounded by bliss, your eyes pried apart only to see him looming above you, a lock of hair hanging at his cheek. His jaw was tight. His gaze was familiar—you’d seen the exact same one when he was slitting innocent throats.

Spying the half-lucid question in your eyes, he pushed down his trousers, pulling free his thick, needy erection. He gave you a mirthless smirk.

“My turn.”

And then his cock slammed inside you.

William groaned, driving into the root, your soaked heat swallowing him with ease. Not a second was spared before he was drawing back, plunging back in, folding you in half, the angle driving straight into your belly, then again, again, setting a brutal and desperate pace from the start. His mouth fell open in rapture, every thrust punctuated by his growling breath.

Beneath him, you were a moaning, incapacitated mess, numb to anything beyond your body. The clap of flesh, the scent of sweat, the cadence of your heart—all of it diminished in comparison to the dominion he was fucking into your cunt. You could not move, could not speak, could barely even breathe. All you could do, all you wanted to do, was be filled with his cock.

He leaned closer, hips easing into long, deep thrusts that throttled your sanity, pierced something exquisitely painful.

“Meet my eyes,” he said through ragged breath, “and remind me who owns this cunt.”

Wincing, you obeyed, locking stare with a man you’d only seen in the throes of war. Sunlight shimmered in the violent blue of his irises and died in the void of his pupils. His lip furled, teeth grit, muscles taut as his hips hammered yours.

“You do,” you murmured.

Delight flashed across his face. “To whom do you succumb?”

You had never heard words that flooded you with such bliss. “To you,” you whined, “William, only to you—”

William moaned, cock pounding into you, hollowing you out, and his hands found your ankles, cranking them toward your ears. Subsumed by pleasure, by lust, you wailed, nails scraping his shoulders, and his head bowed, hair curtaining his face, your name slipping from his lips once, twice—

“Hell,” he hissed.

He wrenched himself from your core and crushed your thighs together, thrusting between them, his head falling back. You watched, entranced, as his cock twitched, shooting white, sticky loads across your stomach, a throaty sound rumbling in his chest with each pulse.

As the tail of his orgasm receded, he shuddered, releasing his hold on you and letting your body flop to the bed like a discarded doll. His gaze hazy with vestiges of euphoria, he settled onto his heels, gazing over your wrecked figure before exhaling and stretching out on his back next to you.

The room whirled around you. You glanced down. Some of his seed had collected in your navel. The rest clung to your skin, little viscous stripes of spend. You were certainly a soldier by now—what else could these be but decorations for distinguished service? A laugh bubbled in your throat, and you failed to catch it.

“What?” William asked, his voice still thick.

“Nothing,” you replied quickly. Then wondered if he’d think it was funny, too. “Just considering if I could count these among ribbons awarded to those in the military.” You gestured to the remnants of his climax.

William raised a brow, peeking at your naked lower half. His lips curled in a smirk, a quiet huff escaping his nose, and he looked away, closing his eyes. “If an officer’s seed anointed one to honor, the brothels would lose nearly all their employ to damehood.” He paused. “And the Welsh farms half their sheep.”

You snorted, curling to your side as you broke into a full laugh. “Oh my, Colonel,” you teased, smacking his shoulder. “So uncouth!”

“You’ve not heard the worst of it,” he replied dryly. “Consider the married women in your little colony who would find themselves promoted.”

You rolled your eyes. “But how many of those promotions would have been sought by mutual effort, hm?”

William offered a careless shrug. “I’ve no control over that.” He opened an eye to look at you. “I much prefer my quarry to submit of its own accord.”

Flame licked your neck, your cheeks. “Ha-ha,” you replied, shooting him a playful sneer. “Is it a man’s duty to become impossibly swollen with pride after coming off within five feet of a woman?”

To that, he said nothing, only exhaled through his nose. You each laid there, inches from the other, silence settling like a sheet, your gaze drifting from his still-exposed body to the morning beyond the window. Already you could hear the chatter of soldiers, the shuffling of activity in the yard. You would probably need to find the hospital. Probably need to find a way to begin cataloguing whatever intelligence you could gather.

You glanced at William, his eyes still closed, his arm resting on his forehead, his chest softly rising and falling with his breath. A horrendous mote of warmth glowed in your belly. Even more horrendously, you wondered what he might think if you drew closer to him.

Revolted at your own weakness, you rolled over, faced the wall. This man was at the least your inconvenient sexual partner and at the most a means to an end. Nothing more than that.

He released a long breath. “I'm departing for the field this morning.”

Your chest tightened. You frowned. “Oh.” Behind you, you heard him shift, roll off the bed. “The lands won't rape themselves, I suppose, will they?”

William crossed toward the basin, shooting you a glare on the way. “I might conclude you harbor traitorous tendencies given your manner of speech.” He took a rag and washed himself off, tucked himself away.

“My manner of speech betrays no such thing,” you replied. “An alignment with the Crown does not endear me to your methods, nor the implications of your victory.”

He snorted. “One would believe a woman such as yourself should admire the methods most effective for achieving said victory.” He plucked a brush from the table near the basin and ran it through his hair.

“A woman such as myself?” You dragged yourself up to sit, taking advantage of his preoccupation to wipe away his seed with the sheets. “Pray, and what sort of woman might that be?”

“The sort with a deep predilection for violence.” He smirked, starting to separate his hair, coasting the brush through the first strand.

You couldn't fight the grin that broke across your face, so you ducked your head to hide it instead. Then, you heard it—that tiny, needling voice in the back of your mind. The one you so often throttled into silence lest it prick you with unpleasant truths.

He was leaving.

And it was possible that you didn’t entirely want him to.

Irritation rose in a wave, smothering whatever foul urge had tempted you to smile. If you were honest, your anger was directed nowhere but inward. But that didn’t stop you from turning its teeth upon the source of that intolerable warmth.

Grumbling, you swung your legs off the bed and marched up behind William, yanking the brush from his hand.

He stared as if you’d backhanded him across the face. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re taking far too long,” you said, tossing the first section of hair over his shoulder. His height had you rolling onto the balls of your feet to ensure you’d gotten all of it. “I’ll do it.”

From the mirror, he met your eyes, looking as if you’d just suggested that he eat the jam from between Cornwallis’ toes. Yet, despite his silence, he did not move away. With a grimace born more of performance than sincerity, you began brushing the larger portion of his hair. Copper luster rippled under the bristles.

“Though I make no admissions regarding my behavior,” you said, wincing at the ache already building in your arms as you divided his hair into sections, “whatever you perceive it to be does not reflect how I wish for men like my father to be treated.”

You spied a wooden chair next to the side table and leaned to drag it toward you.

“Ah.” He eyed your movements in the mirror as you stepped up onto the chair behind him, steadying yourself on his shoulders. “A fair argument.” The chair teetered fractionally on an uneven floorboard, and a hand came back to grip your calf. “Perhaps you’d prefer the methods of a man such as Major Ferguson, then?”

Finding stability, you scowled at him in the mirror and returned to brushing his hair, attributing the warm patter of your heart to all the blood returning to your arms at this angle.

“How dare you invoke his name.” You held out your tongue as if Ferguson were a bad taste you’d like to forget. “I know nothing of that man’s methods regarding anything beyond…”

You abandoned the thought, shaking it off like acid droplets and frowning at the strands between your fingers.

“Don’t you?” he said, his head cocking slightly. “If I am, as you say, a Butcher, then perhaps he is the shepherd.”

You stilled, your eyes snapping to his in the mirror. He held your gaze, brows lifting fractionally. Finding yourself unwilling to ponder the implications of that statement just now, you huffed and resumed brushing. “I’ll neither speak nor hear another word of him.”

“Visit to sister dearest not turn out as you’d hoped, I take it?”

“I’m sure I’ve no idea what you mean.”

“Considering I’ve received no reports of Major Ferguson’s head turning up on a spike.”

“Did I not just say I wish to hear no more of him?” You glowered at him in the mirror, and swore you saw the shadow of an impish curve to his mouth. You snorted, shaking your head. “I simply do not and will not ever understand it.”

“The rituals of those with a sense of civility, you mean?”

You gave his hair a tug. “No.”

The black ribbon rested on the side table beside you. Looping one arm over William’s shoulder, you clung to him and leaned over to grab it, body pressing against his. His fingers flexed on your leg as you balanced.

He frowned when you settled back. “The ribbon—”

“I’m aware.” With a sigh, you continued, turning the ribbon over in your fingers. “The… need for it at all. Every woman my age is either already married or prays each night for her husband to rise from the earth by morning. As if they yearn to fling themselves into imprisonment at the first opportunity.”

“Every reasonable woman should yearn for such a sentence,” he said with the ghost of a smirk. “Or her potential suitors might begin their courtship by purchasing a gravestone rather than shackles.”

“Oh, you are such a gentleman.” You frowned, tugged his hair again. “Count me among the unreasonable few who would sooner die by the plague than within my warden’s cemetery plot.” Turning your nose up and reprising your earlier imitation of his voice, you added, “Though I’m sure that all sounds barbaric to a man raised to be in want of an advantageous union and a well-bred wife.”

His hand twitched, like it was unable to decide to hold on or let go. “Though I make no admissions regarding my upbringing,” he replied, lightly mocking your earlier tone, “whatever you presume does not reflect wherein I place my values.”

Your fingers tightened around the ribbon. He had said he’d had no want or need for any of it—that included courtship and marriage and all of its useless ilk.

His words should have been a relief. They were a relief.

You exhaled, steady. A man who had no desire for attachment was no threat to a woman who refused to be possessed. That is, outside the throes of passion.

“Then we are in agreement,” you murmured. You gathered his hair securely at the base of his scalp, just as he’d done the last time you’d watched him. “There is no need for such frivolity.”

William was as still as marble. You started to fold each section of his hair over the ribbon, fingers mimicking memory—a tight wrap at the top, then woven down the length of the braid with firm, even tension.

“Indeed not,” he finally said.

William watched your hands, his brow softening. He was quiet for a moment; a moment longer than you’d ever anticipate him holding his tongue. His breath was slow and even. The silence should have been comfortable.

It wasn’t.

You had reached the tips of his hair when he cleared his throat.

“How is your sister, then?”

“Ugh. Besotted,” you spat automatically. Your eyes widened. Perhaps that wasn’t information you wanted him to have. “Not that it’s any of my business. Nor any of yours.”

He snorted, brow furrowing. “You think me liable to gossip idly about the romantic inclinations of my fellow officers?” He turned his head slightly, peering up at you over his shoulder. “Or do you believe I hold that much interest in your sister’s future?”

“You did ask.” You yanked his head straight by his queue, and he grunted. You finished wrapping the ribbon around the bottom. “I simply prefer to respect her privacy.”

William was silent again. You felt his eyes on you, flicking over your face, following the careful motion of your fingers. Perhaps the entire concept was unfamiliar to him—caring for another person, wanting to protect their boundaries and dignity.

“If it’s anyone’s business,” you grumbled, “it’s my father’s.”

“And yet he is absent, unable to offer his counsel.”

Your stomach sank. There was a reason you’d felt as if Grace should have yielded to your whims. It was a reason you did not feel like examining too thoroughly or for too much time.

“You seem to take my father’s choice to enlist in the Continental Army quite personally.”

“And you seem to believe it reflects nothing but admirable character.”

You almost did it—almost bared your claws and sank them into his cheek. But you wanted to fight that urge, now, especially because he was about to leave and while you didn’t care if he did and didn’t care about him, you simply didn’t feel like punishing him for your own stubbornness.

“What do you believe it reflects, then? Those faults you accused him of before?” The queue finished, you scanned around for his pomade and found it on the side table, too. “Selfishness, I believe you said?” You hung from him again to grab it. “A desire for martyrdom?”

“Perhaps.” His hand dropped from your calf as you stood. He shifted in front of you. His back seemed straighter, his muscles stiffer. “Qualities suffered by any patriarch.”

You hesitated, staring at him, seeking his gaze, unable to capture it. Your heart crawled in tender curiosity. You couldn’t bring yourself to strangle it.

“Perhaps that can be said.” You popped open the pomade. “But such faults do not preclude a loving heart. My father loves me. And my sister. In the ways he knows how.”

He shifted again, like coals were burning his feet. “And how fortunate you are to have received such a generous and considerate love,” he replied, “taking into account how you apparently have no need for it.”

“I never said that,” you snipped. “I have no need for marriage. It’s an entirely separate matter.”

The pomade stuck to your fingers. You inched forward so your breasts brushed his shoulders as you smoothed the substance over his hair, laying down the stray strands.

“Besides,” you added, “love is, by your own admission, not a sentiment with which you’re acquainted.”

Section by section, you could’ve sworn he was leaning into your touch, could’ve sworn his neck tilted to meet your palm.

“More fortunate then am I,” he said softly.

You took the brush in your hand, swept the pomade through, holding your breath like he’d snap if you exhaled too quickly. His jaw was loose. Your throat felt thick. You met his eyes in the mirror again, your fingers grazing his ear.

“Would you say,” you began, your pulse banging against your sternum, “that a flawed yet earnest love is worse than never receiving love at all?”

William examined his reflection. His gaze flicked to yours, narrowing imperceptibly to anyone who wasn’t you. His throat bobbed. He looked away.

Feeling a chill settle on your bare legs, you moved to step down from the chair. It wobbled beneath you, and William’s hand slotted into yours, steadying your descent.

Breathless, you looked from your hand in his to the blank mask of his face. You began to step back, but something caught around your waist.

Looking down, you saw his fingers hooked beneath the hem of your—his—shirt. He lifted it gently from your body, his knuckles grazing your skin as you raised your arms to release the garment back into his possession.

He held your gaze for just a moment longer, then turned, glanced once more at his queued hair in the mirror before pulling the shirt on and moving toward the rest of his uniform.

You blinked, took a step backward, folding your arms over your naked chest. “Satisfied?”

“It’s adequate,” he muttered.

Pulling your lips in over your teeth to hide your contentment, you nodded. It was flawless.

You gathered your shift and stockings from the floor, beginning to put them on before realizing the pomade still coated your fingertips. Stealing a glance over your shoulder to ensure he wasn’t looking, you smeared it between your thighs.

Dressing occurred in silence. Though your hands were now clean, you were unable to shake away the static tingle in your palms. Being so close to him, touching him without an inch of intention to then indulge his cock had felt like stroking a cat backwards. And though you had ensured he’d be leaving more quickly, you somehow had been spared no relief by the realization of it.

“I’ll be heading to the hospital, I assume,” you said once fully dressed, now having managed to get your stays and bodice on. Thank the gracious and holy Lord above you’d thought to stow a replacement ribbon in your pocket. “Is that where my belongings will be?”

William was finished as well, weapons holstered, his satchel in hand. “Your deductive reasoning knows no equal.”

“It’s so like your delusion of superiority in that way.” Tilting your chin in the air, you flounced over to his bedside table and grabbed Il Principe from it, then returned to him. “You almost forgot your tyrant guidelines,” you said, opening his satchel and dropping the book in.

William gazed at you, unamused, but did not give the book back. Instead, he moved toward the door, and when he glimpsed you over his shoulder, he stopped. Stared at you. Memorized you standing there as you bathed in waxing sunlight.

You crossed your arms, feeling somehow more exposed than you had when you’d been undressed.

Straightening, he rested his hand on the doorknob. “I anticipate reports of your good behavior upon my return,” he said, and his voice dipped lower, “though I may equally anticipate the ones of poor behavior for alternative reasons.”

You pinched your bottom lip between your teeth, catching a laugh. “Then I shall anticipate your return regardless of my conduct.”

He huffed. You spied the hint of a smirk before his face was wiped blank, and he stepped toward the door and opened it. When you didn’t move, he looked at you expectantly.

“Well,” you said, smoothing your hands down your petticoats for lack of anything better to do with them. “Good day, then.” Avoiding his eyes, you strode to the door and slipped past him. The moment you crossed the threshold, he snatched your wrist.

Without a word, William whirled you around and collided with your lips in a summer storm kiss. His hand curled around your back and pulled you against his body, and before you could respond or even aspire to return his advance, he broke from you and stepped away. His eyes lingered on yours like nectar lingered on the leaves of wild cherry.

Your cheeks burned. Clearing your throat, you glanced around. But the two of you were alone.

“Farewell, Colonel.” With one last glimpse of him, you bowed your head and retreated into the hall.

His gaze weighed on your shoulders as you slipped down the stairs.

“William,” he called after you.

[dellamortte]

You know, it's an ugly business doing one's duty but just occasionally... it's a real pleasure.

[minacoleta]

Happy Borfday to @rtbyg !!!

[anteroom-of-death]

I need that fictional man to be my deadbeat baby daddy.

[fakehusbandgarbagedump]

[kylorengarbagedump]

Playing Soldier: Chapter 1

Read on AO3. Part 2 here.

Summary: With your father off to serve the Continental Army, you've taken up the mantle of protector for your family - so when redcoats arrive on your property looking for him, you stand your ground. Sure, this ends in your arrest as a prisoner of war, but you don't plan on making it easy for them.

Until, of course, your interrogation is co-opted by Colonel William Tavington - the cruel, brutal Butcher of the Continentals.

Unfortunately for you, he's also the most beautiful man you've ever seen.

Words: 5500

Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, William Tavington is Not Nice

Characters: William Tavington x Reader

A/N: THIS IS CO-WRITTEN WITH MY GORGEOUS PERFECT LOVE, @bastillia.

If you made it through, thank you for reading this first chapter to a mini-story about a villain from a film that's 24 years old. No better way to celebrate Fourth of July than fantasizing about fucking a British soldier!

Bastillia and myself are currently in a Jason Isaacs phase and we desperately need him and in particular William Tavington. So! Here you go. <3

Love y'all so so much!

Grace found you in your father’s rocking chair, dressed in his clothes. Taking a seat on the porch bench next to you, she let her head fall back, her gaze following the ceiling. When you didn’t speak, she sucked in air through her nose and sighed. 

“Are you going to sit out here all night again?” 

You shrugged, and she nudged you.  

“You and one gun won’t stand much of a chance against a bunch of redcoats.”

You frowned, glancing from the pistol in your lap to the dirt path cutting across the grassy field in front of you. Evening’s claws crept across the village, sank into the horizon. Since the fall of Charleston to the British, darkness carried an hourglass with it, the bottom growing heavier every night. Jaw stiff, your eyes followed a firefly as it drifted and winked out like an ember over the grass.

“You would rather I let them burn our home?”

Grace sighed again. “They won’t burn our home.”

You turned on her. “Won’t they? Mrs. Miller has a cousin outside of Charleston. Told me they fired her barn.”

“That’s one person.”

“Mr. Allen said his brother told him about a whole town down the way from Camden they found burned to the ground.”

Grace snorted. “Ah, yes, Mr. Allen, our esteemed purveyor of truths.”

“Grace. If…” You gripped the barrel of the pistol, your mouth drawing tight. She didn’t know, and it had to remain that way. There was no ‘if’ to your father’s return in her mind. He’d left the truth behind his departure only with you.  “I won’t let father come home to a pile of ash.”

A family of crickets swelled in song. Grace shifted closer to you. “You would rather I let him come home to your grave?”

You looked at her. Seeing her expression, a small part of you softened. She wasn’t wrong to worry. Your eyes ached, your head heavy from the lack of sleep. But even when you decided to lie down, your mind refused to release you to rest. Your shift as sentinel would end when your father returned home. With a sigh, you slumped back. The chair eked back and forth on the planks, the drumbeat of your station. 

“Let’s talk about something else,” you said. “Nathaniel’s been paying you quite a bit of attention, hasn’t he?”

Grace stiffened, battling a grin. “Yes, he has.” She folded her hands in her lap, her cheeks reddening. “Why?”

A laugh rumbled in your throat. You knew it. “What do you think about him?”

She pinched her lips between her teeth. “Well, he’s very sweet. Very kind. He always has been, you know the Joneses, they’re such good people.” Her shoulders melted into the bench. “He’s been walking with me after church. Just through the town. We look at the flowers.” She sighed, finally letting herself smile, her gaze drifting until her eyes hesitantly found yours. “What do you think about him?”

“Me?” you replied, as if you didn’t know the question was coming. “I don’t know him that well.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. What have you noticed about him?”

You hummed in thought. Nathaniel Jones. 

“Well…” His jawline was seldom free of razor wounds. “Probably a little clumsy.” The grooves in his fingers were always tread with dirt, the collar of his shirt tanned by sweat. His hands had stained almost every page of his Bible. “Not sure if he ever washes without needing a reminder.” He always showed up to church with at least one piece of tack fastened wrong on his horse. His mouth would mimic reading aloud during service, but his eyes would be trained on the floor. “And I don’t think he’s very bright.”

“Really.” Grace studied you. “Mrs. Jones taught all of those boys, though.”

“Doesn’t mean they all have the same capacity to learn,” you mumbled. But before Grace could protest, you shrugged. “Kind is good, though.” You offered a small grin. “Kind is very good.”

With a laugh of relief from Grace, the two of you lapsed into comfortable silence, basking in cricket song. The rocking chair squeaked back, forth, back, forth. It squeaked in tempo with your heart, rumbling, louder, a vibration skittering through your toes. Deeper, deeper it grew, staccato in its cadence, a pounding that rocked your porch. 

It wasn’t until Grace turned to look at you, her eyes shimmering in starlight, that you realized it wasn’t your heart at all. Torches floated over your lawn and up the dirt path, bobbing in rhythm with horse hooves. A dozen of them, each illuminating a soldier in a crimson jacket.

Your throat thickened. Your stomach tightened. You squeezed the handle of your father’s pistol. Beside you, Grace whispered your name.

“Quiet,” you said. “Just get behind me.”

You leapt to your feet, crossing over the top step of your porch to lean against one of the wooden columns, gun held slack but unconcealed at your side. The officer in front—a white-wigged man with a sword on his hip—held his fist in the air. Behind him, the squad stalled to a stop, dust swirling in the halos of light. 

Swallowing, you stuck your chin toward the sky, hoping that your father’s farm boots made you a little bit taller, that the breadth of his shirt made your shoulders even a little bit wider. The officer in front dismounted his horse and waved his hand, and a soldier behind him joined him on the ground. Together, they marched toward your home. 

“Officers,” you said. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?”

At the foot of the stairs, the inferior officer looked between you and Grace. His brow furrowed, he leaned toward the ear of his superior. “No record of a son according to our intel, sir.”  

You frowned, but didn’t correct him. Being mistaken for a man had its benefits in this situation.

The superior officer scrutinized you, hairline to hips, his lips screwing in thought. Whatever he was considering, he didn’t say it—instead, he cleared his throat and pulled a piece of parchment from one of the pouches on his hip. 

“Good evening,” he began, his nose wrinkling as he glanced at you and Grace. “You may call me Sergeant Dalton, this is Corporal Bancroft. Is this the home of Michael…” His eyes narrowed as he tried to read the last name. But you didn’t care to wait.

“Yes,” you said. “This is his home. We’re his children.” You stared between them. “Is that all? My sister needs to be getting to bed soon.”

Dalton returned the parchment, his hands meeting behind his back. “You’re aware your father is an officer in the Continental Army?”

Your heart—it was definitely your heart, this time—thumped in your temple. This was the part you didn’t want Grace knowing about. The soldiers waited, studying your face. You needed to say something. Words died on your tongue.

“What?” Grace stepped forward, peering around you. “No, he’s not. He’s been away—”

“Grace, be quiet,” you hissed. 

But she’d already caught the interest of Dalton. “Would you like to continue, young miss?” He advanced a step toward you both, and your finger slipped into the pistol’s trigger well. “Or perhaps you’d prefer to submit to questioning regarding your father’s whereabouts?” He glimpsed your hold on the gun. “Come along, quietly, and you may very well be pardoned by His Majesty’s army.”

You shook your head. “Just take me. She doesn’t know anything.”

Grace whispered your name, grabbed your hand, and proceeded to undermine you. “No,” she said. “Take me. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Dammit, Grace—”

“That’s enough.” Dalton looked at you, then at Grace, then at Bancroft. “Arrest them both.”

---

In the tent, the air was thick with breath and sweat. Candles swayed in the center, their lambent glow hovering on the walls, deepening every shadow. Voices filtered in from outside, so low that they clogged together through the canvas. Sharper was the ache where your bindings had begun to bite your wrists to rawness. Louder the pulse in your own eardrums, and the sniffled prayers coming from the young man bound beside you. 

Twisting your wrists sent a knife of clarity to your brain. You bit back a hiss—you needed to think. 

By your estimation, they’d brought you between two and five miles beyond the outskirts of town. But between the darkness and the burlap sack which had been so benevolently foisted upon your head for the entire wagon ride here, it was impossible to say for sure.

More alarmingly, you’d lost track of Grace somewhere in the weave of shoves and barked commands. When the tents had been erected, you’d been thrown in with the men—Elijah Smith, Adam Brown, and Nathaniel Jones, as fate would have it. Whether this was somehow a genuine mistake even after your thorough handling by the soldiers, or some drawn-out taunt to your choice of attire, you also had no idea. 

Each unknown seemed to hook itself upon a tender sinew in your mind, and stretch it taut. You tried shaking your head, but that only set off a ringing in your ears. 

Beside you, Nathaniel sobbed out another prayer. Your teeth ground together.

Craven would have to be added among the placards you’d already tacked to his character, you decided. 

Outside, hooves thundered again. As they slowed, one pulled ahead of the others and into the heart of the camp. Your ears pricked. There was an unevenness to its gait, the rattle of a bit shank as the horse threw its head before slowing to a halt several yards away. Voices rose and hushed, soldiers shuffling. A distant chorus of acknowledgement to a new arrival.

“Colonel, sir,” said one that sounded like Dalton. “The Dragoons weren’t—I wasn’t aware you’d be arriving.”

“Another detail among many which seem to slip your awareness, Dalton,” said the voice belonging to this colonel, whoever he was. “The rebels, then. What have we learned?”

Dalton was silent for a moment. “Well… Nothing yet, s—”

“Nothing.” 

“We haven’t begun the interrogations, sir.” 

Boots struck the ground. As his horse was led away, the colonel dusted his coat twice. And, with the manner of someone chiding a forgetful child, said: “Well, no time like the present, is there, Sergeant?” 

There was movement, grass rustling, canvas flapping. You stuck out your neck as if this would help you hear—all it managed to do was strain your collarbones. Beside you, Nathaniel was still sniveling, sorry for himself and his whole family, as if now was the time to be crying. Closing your eyes, you caught the frayed wisps of voices, drowned by the sound of his sobs.

“Nathaniel,” you murmured. When he didn’t respond, you kicked his boot. "Nathaniel.”

He snorted up snot. “What? Who are you?”

You rolled your eyes. “It’s me. Grace’s sister.”

“Grace’s—” He inventoried your outfit. “Dear God. I didn’t recognize you. Is that why you’re in here with…” His eyes gained focus through his tears. “If you’re in here, where’s Grace? Is she all right?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out!” You tilted your head toward the origin of the other voices. “Be quiet.”

Nathaniel choked and nodded, his nose still leaking, his face ruddy. You caught a sigh in your chest and sat straight, listening for intakes of breath, stammers, the scrape of metal, the chime of glass, anything that would give you insight.

The colonel’s voice first, dipping in and out of your perception. “All of you have… Captain Michael…”

You swallowed. This was about your father. But he should be with the Continentals up near Virginia by now. 

“... his crimes against the King’s army… may be spared and released.” 

Spared and released? Civilians weren’t targets, torture wasn’t permitted, you had nothing to fear from soldiers who would be your future brethren—this was according to the Loyalists in your village, anyway. Recent reports sparked doubt in their confidence. This colonel concealing threats stoked it further.

God, you hoped Grace wasn’t in that tent.

Silence. The candles wavered under the sodden air. One, two, three steps in the grass. You closed your eyes. 

“Very well.” The click of a pistol. 

Your breath stalled. 

“Wait! Don’t—don’t…” 

Grace. Grace was in that tent. Your consciousness slipped with a skip of your heart, but you sucked in air, fighting the ring in your ears. If you were going to help her, you needed to be alert. 

“Is—is that Grace?” said Nathaniel.

You kicked his boot again.

“I’ll tell you everything I know. Michael is my father.” Grace’s voice was tight, trembling. “But he’s—you have the wrong idea about him, sir. Or the wrong man entirely. He’s not a soldier in the Continental Army, he’s been away visiting our grandmother in Pennsylvania.”

“No,” you whispered. “No, Grace, no…”

“How very interesting,” came the colonel’s even reply.

A gunshot split the night. 

All three men beside you flinched at once, and your bones flashed to ice. When the tin-whistle screech died in your ears, someone outside was screaming. Another was pleading.

“No! No, no…” It was Grace’s voice. Relief hit like opium. She was sobbing, incoherent between retches and sputterings of "you killed her,” and “oh, God, no, please no…”

You swallowed bile. Nathaniel resumed his prayers with fervor, now rocking back and forth. Elijah joined him.

“Colonel Tavington, I must protest,” came Dalton’s voice through the chorus of grief, before dropping lower. “... cannot abide… protocol… my jurisdiction—”

“Fortunately for you,” the colonel—Tavington—said, “these prisoners are no longer under your jurisdiction. They are under mine. But do feel free to stand by, Dalton, if you’ve the stomach for it. Perhaps you and your men could benefit from a demonstration, hm?”

“Sir,” was the only acknowledgment Dalton offered.

“Tavington,” said Adam, looking at Nathaniel and Elijah. “William Tavington? The Butcher?”

Elijah met his gaze and nodded without stopping prayer.

Your father had never mentioned any Butcher, but tonight was giving you plenty of context. Bracing against needles of panic, you closed your eyes, forcing your breathing to slow. Wails wracked Grace, and your chest squeezed. She had never seen death. Perhaps naively, you had hoped to keep it that way. 

A gasp rippled through the women, and then Tavington spoke again.

“Now, now, darling girl. Shall we try this once more? Perhaps without lying.” The scrape of a ramrod resounded, then another click. 

“I’m not lying” The tone of her utter despair tightened your throat. “I—I promise, that’s the truth. You can ask my sister. She—”

“Which of you is her sister?” 

“I…” Silence. “She’s not in this tent. I don’t know where she is. But you arrested both of us, sir, she’s around here somewhere!” Another whimper crawled its way out of her. “There’s no need for anyone to die, please.”

You chewed your lip. You’d had enough. “Colonel!” you called out. “Leave her alone. I’m in here.”

“Stupid girl,” growled Elijah, “you’ll doom us.”

Ignoring him, you sat up straighter and willed your nerves to harden. Grace cried out your name, but was cut off with a yelp as leather cracked against skin. Fury roared within you.

Through the hot surge of blood, you heard footsteps marching toward the opening to your tent. Whoever this Butcher was, you’d halfway convinced yourself you’d spit in his face. But you needed to play it smarter than that, needed to keep Grace safe. With what little information you gathered, you at least knew he was a man, and from what you knew about men, they were easily swayed with a bit of physical encouragement.

With the shards of a plan coalescing, you shifted up onto your knees and thrashed your shoulders. Pain leapt from your wrists up your arms, but the movement had the intended effect—the front laces of your shirt slackened, the collar slipping open until it threatened to drape off of one shoulder. Pulse thundering, you settled back onto your heels. Exposed. Ready to bare your throat to the enemy. 

Boots came to a halt outside. Then the entrance peeled open, and the Butcher stalked through. 

You could make out little more than his silhouette. Tall and broad, head bowed to accommodate the tent’s low threshold. Then he straightened, took a step forward, and another, until candlelight thawed the shadows from his face. And as it did, the searing core of your anger surged and flashed to mist. 

He was disarmingly handsome. High cheekbones framed a face carved from cruel marble. His eyes, alive like blue signal fires, penetrated the dimness from beneath the bastion of his brow. Peering down a curved nose, he struck a hawklike poise, with shoulders squared and hands clasped behind his back. His long, dark hair was combed back into a bond at the base of his skull. Immaculate, apart from a single errant strand that drifted down to brush his jaw. Even beneath an ink wash of darkness, you devoured his shape. 

And, against every rational instinct left thrashing for air—found him exquisite.

A prickling sensation rose under your skin, spread hot across your bare collarbones and up your neck. You bolted your eyes to the floor, shifted on your knees. His presence stole even more air from the tent than you’d thought was possible. With a pang of frustration, you blinked hard once. If you were to have any chance of surviving this encounter, if Grace were to have any chance, you needed to pull yourself together. Now. 

One slow, controlled breath flowed in through your nose, out through your mouth. You dared to glance up again. 

The colonel’s head swung down the line of men, surveying his prisoners as a wolf might a flock. And then his eyes landed upon you.

“The sister,” he said, advancing. “Playing soldier with the men.” He clucked his tongue. “Quaint.” Your teeth ground in your skull, but words were not as forthcoming as you’d hoped when you’d shouted his summons into the night. The Butcher moved closer. “Is your father so thoughtless, leaving his daughters vulnerable while he dies in war?”

“My father,” you began, “trusts me to take care of the family while he’s away.” 

Tavington’s eyebrow cocked. “You’ve done a wonderful job, then, haven’t you?”

The venom his beauty had diluted was gathering on your tongue again. With effort, you swallowed it. Stick to the plan. Eyebrows pinching together, you made a show of slouching in capitulation to his jabs. You then conjured a pained whine and wiggled in your restraints, hoping your shirt would expose more of your clavicle, that he’d be able to see the sway of your breasts when you moved.

The colonel frowned, but did not drop his gaze. “Something the matter?”

“I’m sorry, sir.” You pulled breath through your voice, fluttered your lashes. The focus required not to crumble under the frigidity of his gaze could have earned you regional acclaim. “These restraints are just so tight.” You wrested your shoulders back and forth as if to demonstrate, gasping from the very real pain that screamed in your wrists. “Perhaps you could loosen them just a little…”

Next to you, you felt Nathaniel watching, caught from the corner of your sight his mouth agape in horror. The realization irritated you. What had he done for Grace other than whimper like a beaten dog for God’s help? Yet another strike against him.

He wasn’t important. Bargaining for Grace’s safety was. 

Meanwhile, Tavington had tracked your movement, his expression indecipherable. Your palms sweat in fear you’d managed to find the one man impervious to the temptation of sex. 

“Poor dear.” He crossed behind you, and you stifled a sigh of relief.

Strong hands slid down your forearms and found the bindings on your wrists. The leather warmed your skin, his breath skimmed your nape. Goosebumps raced over you along with an undeniable desire to shiver, but you held your breath, fighting it off. Instead, you tipped your head to the side, exposing the bare skin of your shoulder to his view, along with the intriguing pocket of darkness that had formed down the front of your shirt, between your breasts. 

Tavington paused. Your breath stalled. With an unforgiving grip on the ropes, he undid the knot—and then yanked it tighter. The fiber gouged your flesh, air fleeing your chest. 

He stood and wedged the sole of his boot along your spine, shoving you forward. You smacked the dirt with a cough.

Your cheeks burned. So you had managed to find this previously-assumed-mythical man. Fine. If your body wasn’t going to work, you would find an alternative strategy. 

“Perhaps that may help you focus less on squirming and more on the task at hand.” Tavington’s boots crossed your vision, shiny enough that you could almost glimpse your own pathetic reflection. With a grunt, you twisted to glare up at him. He was watching you like a child might watch ants under a magnifying glass on a sunny afternoon. “I’m going to show you a map. You’re going to show me where we can find your father. And if your sister gives me the same answer, you both may leave with your lives.”

Hoping the ground would yield a new perspective, you studied him. The horse he arrived on—it’d had a lame gait. Then there was his hair—a single thread of it kissing his jawline. His hands were concealed, his jacket and boots impeccable. But his stock-tie—the knot had been pulled slack, one tail creeping from beneath his collar. 

There was so little to gamble with. But you had to try your luck anyway.

You snorted, using your shoulder as leverage to hoist yourself back onto your heels. “That will prove fruitless for you. She doesn’t know where he is.” You leveled him with your stare. His own bore into you, almost hollowed you. “My father only entrusted me with that knowledge.”

Tavington stepped forward. “A mistake on his part, perhaps, given the situation you find yourself in now.”

“No,” you said. “I think he had the right idea.” 

A tiny, almost imperceptible smirk curled his mouth. “Then you’ll have no problem telling me exactly where he can be found.” He exhaled, the next words drawn out as if your lives were an inconvenient tedium. “Or you and everyone in this tent will suffer until you do.”

Nathaniel quailed. You jut out your chin. 

“Do your worst.” 

Tavington’s lip twitched. He snatched his pistol from its holster.

“You won’t kill me!” you spat. “You need me. Or you will fail.” Your voice was tight. 

Tavington regarded you coolly from over the pistol’s frizzen. That moment’s silence was admission enough—a mote of triumph surged within you.

“Terribly sure of yourself.” As stony as his expression remained, you caught a certain bile now laced through his tone. “Pity,” he tutted, moving forward to rest the barrel between your brows. “To think such a pale imitation of bravery could save you.”

“It’s your risk to take,” you spat out, heart drumming your chest. 

Something flashed across his expression. Seizing your chance, you held his gaze and pressed your forehead into the gun barrel. 

“No cavalryman of honor rides his horse to lameness.” Fear bubbled in your throat, but you swallowed it. “Look at you, Colonel. Your hair, your stock-tie—utterly disheveled. One might think you rushed here. One might even think you need something. Desperately. But you won’t get it if you kill me.” You flicked your eyes toward the other tent. “And if you hurt Grace, you’ll have to, because I promise that if you lay another finger on her, you will leave here with nothing.”

The tent was silent. Tavington dropped to a crouch before you and pressed the pistol under your chin. The barrel moved, guiding your head side to side as he examined your face. You swallowed, heat creeping onto your neck with the intensity of his attention. He was reading you, calculating his next move. You followed the single strand of his hair. You wondered how it felt against his skin.

”Tell me,” he murmured, his breath brushing your nose, “upon which observation I struck you as a man of honor.”

Tavington stood, unsheathed his sword, and in one swift movement, sliced Elijah across the throat. A sheet of blood draped down his chest. Your eyes widened. Adam and Nathaniel screamed. The sword gored Adam’s neck, silencing him, and with its blade still lodged there, Tavington raised his pistol, cocked the hammer, and blew a bullet right through Nathaniel’s head.

The blast flayed your senses to a single tone pealing through your skull. When the world reformed, something warm and slick had smattered your face. You smelled iron.

You heard Grace shout your name, ripped through with terror, and as you heaved a breath to reply, Tavington wrenched the sword from Adam’s flesh and trained it against your windpipe. Adam’s body joined the rest, the dirt rusting with their blood.

“Ah, ah,” Tavington said, eyes sparkling with glee. “Best if sister dearest thinks you’re dead. Kinder that way, don’t you think? At least, of course, until we find out if you have anything of value to offer.” 

Dalton charged into the tent and cursed. He gestured toward the bodies still soaking the ground. “Colonel, please,” he said. “I must insist. I won’t know how to explain all of this to the General.”

Tavington turned toward him, his excitement waning. “How unfortunate for you.”

“I—I know, sir. But please. Let us just take the rest of these women to Charleston. We can handle this there.”

Crickets hummed in unison again. Tavington looked back at you. The terrible thrill flickered alive again.

“Take them, then,” he said, regarding you like a cougar would regard a lamb. “But leave this one with me.”

The sergeant nodded. “Uh, yes. Yes, Colonel.”

He disappeared again. Orders echoed to round up the women and get them on carts to Charleston. From the other tent, you caught Grace’s horrified, desperate tears. Everything inside you was bursting to call out to her, to soothe her despair. But Tavington’s blade prodded your throat. One noise could send it through.

You waited like that with him until the carts creaked off into the night. The bodies around you settled into death, their final breaths a gurgled epode to the dirt. It was impossible to stop the tears of anger that stung the corners of your eyes. Worse still, there was no way to hide them. No move you could make that wouldn’t add you to the litter of cooling corpses. All you could do with your last scrap of dignity was hold the Butcher’s stare.

A smirk flashed over his face. Your throat thickened.

“Now, there’s an obedient little soldier, hm?”

You held your breath, cheeks hot with humiliation or agitation or something altogether unfamiliar. God, what a bastard. If only you’d had your gun on you; you would’ve been happy to demonstrate just how much of a soldier you could be. 

Tavington watched you, checking your compliance as if you were his dog in training. The closer he moved, the greater the heat in your chest, the thinner the air waned. His attention in any other scenario would've felt flattering—he followed every line, every curve of your body, eyes scouring your skin like chipped timber—only he sought the evidence of your deceit, anxious for an excuse to pile you on top of his casualties. 

In any other scenario, the something altogether unfamiliar would've been simpler to define. In any other scenario, you might have wanted him closer.

Tavington raised a brow. Whatever he was searching for, he didn’t find it—or the weight of your information while alive was greater than his desire for your death. 

He lowered the blade. You exhaled.

“Your father is a fugitive. Tell me where I can find him,” he said quietly, jaw tight. “And your sister may fare well in her trial for treason.”

Your heart pounded in your throat, in your temples. You had no idea where your father might have headed, and you didn’t have any intention of handing that information to this monster, regardless. But you first needed to survive him. The rest would come later.

“Yes, sir,” you said, nodding. “If you show me on a map where he escaped from, I can show you the path he likely followed.”

Tavington considered you for a moment, then offered a mirthless grin. “I advise you not to move.”

With that, he turned on his heel, striding outside. Breath trembled through you, your eyes jumping around the tent. They’d stripped it of anything potentially useful—no knives, swords, guns, not even a damn rasp or a pair of nippers for the horses.

“Colonel Tavington, sir,” came a voice from outside. 

“Do I appear at liberty, Bancroft?”

“Well, no—”

“Then it can wait.”

“But sir, it’s—”

“As you were.”

“It’s correspondence from General Cornwallis, sir.”

Silence. Your head cocked. He was unmoored. And behind you, candles crackled dutifully. 

If you had any stitch of time to take at all, it would be now. 

Your limbs moved autonomously. You rolled onto your side, working your bound hands beneath your thighs, tucking your legs to your chest. Wincing at the strain in your wrists, you forced them all the way around your legs. Now in an awkward quadrupedal position, you turned and focused on the candles. With a dizzying level of concentration, you managed to suppress the cries of pain as you dragged yourself forward. 

Your wrists throbbed. Numbness pricked your fingertips. Your lungs screamed for air. None of it mattered. Balancing on your heels once more, you wedged your shirt collar between your teeth. Then you reached up and held your wrists over the flame. 

Pain wasn't immediate. First there was only heat. Heat, and the acrid taste of your own heartbeat in your mouth. The fibers between your wrists frayed, dissolving like sugar upon the little tongue of flame. And then, it began to bite. 

If you’d wanted to shout before, it had been nothing compared to this. Everything inside you lurched with the singular need to snatch your wrists from the flame, cradle them to your chest. Your teeth tore into linen. Your eyes squeezed shut.

Blisters bubbled to life on your flesh, agony lodging in your throat. Vision blanching, you could feel every muscle shake violently as they went to war with your will. 

Just as surrender mapped a cannonfire course down your arms, the fiber snapped and your wrists sprang apart. You collapsed to your knees and elbows, wrangling the sobs that clawed your chest, blinking against the cotton fog that threatened to blanket your senses. 

Move. You need to move.

You spared one glance back toward the tent entrance before prying a candle from its pricket and shambling for the lip of the tent. As you flattened yourself to slide under, you caught the vacant stare of Nathaniel Jones. Behind him, the shapes of the other two men could have been cloth-covered stone. A lump wedged in your throat, which you swallowed with force. 

Was it regret? Maybe. Pity? Assuredly. Either way, all you could do now was slip beneath the edge of your canvas prison and light them a pyre. You left the candle on its side, the flame licking at a piece of rope rigging. And you ran.

Silhouetted against the summer night sky, you could just make out a treeline. That would be your haven, if only you could make it. Your feet attacked the uneven ground, somehow keeping you upright. You looked back just in time to see the tent erupt in flame, to hear the bellowing of redcoats and screeching of their horses.

The fire’s ghost haunted your skin. Pain hammered up your shoulders, and as you made your way into the forest, you bit your tongue to silence a burgeoning whimper. Familiarity with the terrain was your advantage, but you needed silence to make full use of it.

You leapt to avoid leaving footprints and snapping branches and dropped against a tree. The tent’s blaze pulsed in your periphery. Drawing a slow, long breath, a familiar rhythm rumbled close, closer. Rumbled, then pounded and clanked in an awkward, head-tossing gallop. 

Tavington’s horse. 

You froze, sunk to the ground, spying the torch that danced with the horse’s gait and watched as it met the treeline, spilled light on the leaves. It tracked through the forest, a flame aching to swallow a moth. The light’s edge nearly skimmed your toes. 

Tavington growled—a deep, furious grind in his chest—and tore off down the perimeter.

When you were certain he’d gone, you stood and kept moving, pressing your wrists together to will the pain away. You’d find somewhere to hide. You’d wait them out tonight. 

Tomorrow, you’d find Grace.

[dellamortte]

I advance myself only through victory.

[meep-meep-richie]

my holy trinity

[ravenstoneart]

Some practice of Jason Isaacs in the Patriot!

[knitepercival]

[fakehusbandgarbagedump]

[lambjurk]

god bless america 😔 (for giving us the patriot)

[kylorengarbagedump]

Playing Soldier: Chapter 16 (NSFW)

Read on AO3. Part 15 here. Part 17 here.

Summary: I learned that it is (was?) also called 'morning glory' in the UK. How delightful.

Words: 5700

Warnings: no <3

Characters: William Tavington x Reader

A/N: Co-written with @bastillia <3

*throws this chapter up before disappearing into Thanksgiving*

HELLO!! Thought we'd give thanks to y'all by getting (read: me forcing Bastillia to stay up late and edit with me) a chapter up before the holiday. So so happy the last couple chapters were well-received, we were both so delighted to hear you enjoy what we're trying to do here <3

We shall sadly take a break from smut for the next couple chapters, but there's much more to come (cum. lol.)!!

We love y'all so much, happy holidays to those who celebrate, and see you soon <3

It was a dream. Or divine intervention. Or perhaps it was your mind, finally untangling the yarn of your thoughts in its half-conscious liberty. Whichever it was, it struck you like an epiphany, throwing your eyes open.

You were the cub. Papa was the bear. Catawba was the bear’s den.

You jolted upright in a triumphant shout. Next to you, William Tavington flew awake, snatching his flintlock from the bedside table and pointing it directly between your eyes.

“What the—” You scowled, backhanding his wrist to shove the gun aside. “Good morning to you as well.”

The man across from you blinked into thought, his hair draped in messy ribbons over his face. His gaze focused, finding you in the bed beside him, and scanned your naked, bewildered figure before his arm relaxed and the pistol fell onto the sheets.

“Christ alive, woman,” he grumbled, rubbing his temple. “I’d pity your other bedfellows had they ever existed.”

You rolled your eyes. “I can’t say I envy any of yours if they received a greeting as welcoming as mine.”

He snorted. Glimpsed you as if about to say something. But instead tossed his hair from his face and sank onto his pillow before replacing the gun where it had been resting.

As of the haze of sleep cleared from your sight, you found yourself unable to look away from him. The morning sun opened like a magnolia flower, petals of light streaming color through the window and highlighting the stubble sprouting on his cheeks, the mahogany branching through his hair, the grey budding in his irises.

You wanted to be closer to him—to press your lips to the underside of his jaw and feel the scrape of beard, to push your hands through his hair and wrap it like thread around your fingers. You wanted to seal yourself against him, soak in the heat of his skin, wanted to whisper his name and hear his breath catch in his chest.

And as you stared, rolling that strange and saccharine fantasy across your palate, you realized that his name now labeled the space he occupied in your mind. No longer could you gaze at him and think Colonel, or Tavington without his name attached, too. The man who laid next to you was William. And you wanted to invoke it like a prayer.

Shifting toward him, you paused. You’d definitely just had a revelation about where your father was headed. Was rolling around in bed with a British colonel the most responsible action for you to take? If anything, you needed to be leaping into your clothes and—

William rolled onto his back, stretching his shoulders. You immediately shelved your scheming.

A tent sprang from the sheets between his legs. And despite the discomfort between your own, your eyes widened, vision tunneling on that silhouette like a fox poised to pounce.

Your throat worked.

“You’re…” You didn’t care how inexperienced it made you appear. You couldn’t not stare at it. “Eager.”

He raised a brow. From the corner of your vision, you saw him seek your gaze only to realize you were far too fixated on his erection. Pausing, he considered you, eased back against his pillow.

“Well,” he murmured, “if you’re so curious…” He pulled the covers back.

Your throat thickened with lust. In the light of day, his cock was even more impressive than the one in your memory. Thick, even girth, a slight curve all the way to its pink head, long enough for you to sob when he bottomed out inside you. Tiny veins pulsed underneath the skin—you wanted to trace them with your fingers, your tongue. Wanted to feel it throb like it had in your palm. Like it had when he’d emptied himself between your thighs.

At some point, your jaw had dropped open. Drool was seeping from the corner of your mouth. William said your name, which you intended to respond to, except you kept thinking about how his seed had tasted and how you wanted more.

Then two of his fingers trailed from the base up the underside of his shaft, making it twitch. You choked, drew in a trembling breath, and finally managed to look him in the eyes.

“Uh,” was the only sound you could make. You wiped your chin free of saliva.

His lip curled in amusement. “Do you want a turn?”

You didn’t know what to say. His fingers slid back down in a slow tease, and he seethed, his stomach tightening with pleasure. Desire shook you, and you squirmed, putting pressure on your clit with your thighs. As he dragged a finger around the root, earning another needy throb from his cock, you shook your head.

Right now, you were fully content to watch and learn.

Encircling the base with his thumb and forefinger, he dragged back up, pushing skin to the tip, then coasted over that sensitive little place where the head met the shaft. He inhaled, his jaw stiffening, then looked at you, studied all the flesh you’d left exposed to the sun. Eyes focused on your breasts, he gripped his cock and led it through a long, firm stroke.

You swallowed again. Your cunt clenched, your clit ached—you shifted your hips, squeezed your thighs, trying in vain to relieve the tension between them. But as he stroked himself again, and again, each movement releasing a quiet breath of relief, your efforts became futile. You needed to touch yourself, too.

William’s attention remained on your breasts until you revealed all of yourself from the sheets, settling onto your pillow and easing your legs apart. The pain from your core was humbling—even as it tightened around nothing, it made you wince—but your clit clamored despite it. Watching as he guided his cock leisurely through his fist, you snuck your hand over your stomach and to the crux of your thighs.

He exhaled, smirking. “You’re eager.”

Your first finger skimmed over the throbbing hill between your folds, and you huffed, shocks of delight darting to your toes. “I…” Speaking like this—naked and unabashed and gazing at one another—felt dirty. Filthy. Made your face burn.

You loved it.

“Perhaps I am,” you admitted, and drew a languid circle around your clit. “Oh…”

His throat bobbed, and his jaw shifted. “I would think better of your innocence had I not been the one to make you bleed.”

“I said I was a virgin,” you replied coyly. “Not innocent.”

“Mhm.” William’s smirk grew wider, and he pinched a drop of fluid from the head of his cock, slicking it around the head and pumping it along his shaft. His eyes fluttered, his breath faltered. “Perhaps we’ll have to explore that more thoroughly.”

Excitement lit your spine, and you gasped, nodding. The thought of it—finding yourself in his bed over and over, of being the object of his desire and the subject of experimentation, of becoming familiar with William—broke a smile across your face. You swirled around your clit, mouth parting with an ecstatic moan.

“Yes,” he said. “You’d like that.” He rolled his wrist, teased himself by sliding his fingers up the underside before thrusting into his fist again. “You’d like to be my very own whore.”

“Hell,” you gasped, the thrill of it ratcheting the tension between your thighs. “I would.” Your finger moved faster, you imagined him finding you in the hospital tent and bending you over one of the tables; imagined the groans grazing your ear while you climbed astride him in his bed; imagined staring into the stars as he fucked you in the field. “A-anywhere you wanted.”

William huffed, his thighs tensing, his cheeks and chest flush. His lust-laced gaze hung on your cunt, his breath picking up. “For anything I wanted,” he muttered. He gripped his cock tighter, his hips bucking now, seeking more and more of his fist. “Hm?”

Anything he wanted could be anything, and if you were of sober mind, you may have hesitated at that. But watching the most beautiful man you’d ever seen stroke his cock to the thought of you; watching the blue in his eyes grow a hunger and depth like the sea as he stared at your cunt, your breasts; watching his cock twitch and pulse with the intensifying need to come… well, the less terrifying that seemed.

In fact, anything sounded like a contract. One to which, in your current state, you’d happily sign your life.

If this was how he would tame you—oh, how desperately did you want to be tamed.

“Perhaps,” you said through your shallow breath, a grin sneaking onto your face. “If you believe you can compel me."

His lip curled in a sneer. “You will come to heel when called,” he said, and his free hand reached to snag your hair at the base of your neck, pulling you close. “After all,” he breathed into your ear, “we both know you cannot resist coming for me.”

Before you could whimper in assent, he captured your mouth with his own.

William—how strange and awful and exhilarating to call him that each time—consumed you, kissed you as if your lips alone could bring him deliverance. You whined, returning his ardor, desire surging you in gooseflesh. Your fingers moved faster, flicked and played at your stiff clit, and you moaned into him, your orgasm burgeoning at your thighs.

You didn’t want to break. Not yet.

Gasping, you released yourself and grasped his cock at the base. William stifled a groan, stuffing it down into his chest and ceding control. You squealed, elated, mimicking his movements until you felt his fingers tighten in your hair and his teeth clamp onto your lower lip.

“Christ,” he muttered, and groped between your legs until he found your heat. “Determined, aren’t you?”

With a nod, you caught his mouth again and slipped your tongue into it, humming in bliss when he caressed your swollen, tender clit. You were so wound, so taut with need already that the friction of his rougher, thicker fingers made you spasm to your shoulders. More fluid leaked from the head of his cock, and you glazed his shaft with it, relishing the way he pulsed in your fist.

A finger moved toward your entrance, making you cry out, a stab of pain locking your joints. If this concerned him, though, you couldn’t tell—he stuffed that single finger inside of your core and growled as you constricted around him.

“That’s it.” His thumb rolled over your clit, sketching fast rings around it. “Do you feel how tightly you grip me when you’re near to breaking?” he said, his breath husky with pleasure, his voice low. “I’d apologize for the pain…” His finger stroked a spot inside of you that made you twist with ecstasy and agony at once. “... but you do so enjoy it.”

Your head fell back as you convulsed with desperate breath. Like a sudden, furious tide, your climax loomed upon you. Your muscles froze. And with a brush of your tender clit, the encouragement of his finger, it crashed into you.

He kissed you as you came, swallowing your wails as his hand followed your jerking body. It came in angry, exhausted swells, as if your nerves were flayed open, and you melted into its dissipation, nipping at his lips before control returned to your limbs.

It was perhaps a miracle of his own that he hadn’t yet covered your hand in his seed. Thank the sweet Lord who you hoped was not looking down upon you at just this moment, though. There was still so much you were curious about. And you were, after all, nothing if not one who learned best by being hands-on.

Or, as appealed to you in particular this morning, mouth-on.

William’s tongue darted across your lower lip one final time before he drew away, easing from the quivering depths of your cunt. He brought his hand up between you, letting the morning light play across the slick sheen of your pleasure coating his finger. In a rush of pure instinct and before you could think too hard about it, you leaned forward and enveloped it with your lips.

He made a soft noise deep in his throat, and when you tentatively suckled at the pad of his finger, his hips flexed into your slackened grip. The taste of your own undoing zipped like lightning across your raw senses, grounded by the earth and salt of his skin. It exhilarated you. You needed more of him.

Flicking your gaze to his from beneath your lashes, you drew his finger in further and dragged your tongue to the tip, this time mirroring the act with a slow stroke of your hand up his shaft. Just as he had done, you lingered at the little valley below the head, teased it with the barest touch.

William seethed, crooked his finger behind your teeth and tugged your jaw open. His eyes stormed with something primal, dancing between your open mouth and the needy cock twitching at your palm.

“One might think you long for your lips to be wrapped around something else,” he growled.

Face hot, you nodded. Even without him prying your mouth apart, you’d hesitate to say it.

He tutted. “Judiciousness doesn’t suit you in this instance.” He released you, and you coughed. “Speak, girl. Tell me exactly what you want.”

You glanced at the shiny head in your hand, his desire dripping from the tip. You’d read enough, overheard enough married women giggling behind their palms to know exactly what you wanted to do, you just hadn’t imagined yourself actually ever wanting a man enough to do it. To your embarrassment, your mouth watered as you envisioned yourself settling between his legs and—yes, dear sweet innocent and hopefully oblivious Christ, yes. That was what you wanted.

“I…” You swallowed, and met his stare. “I want…” You could envision it, and yet the words felt trapped beneath the anvil of your tongue, your cheeks stoked to furnace-heat.

William frowned. “A shame,” he said with affected disappointment. “And your mouth was functioning so adeptly just moments ago.”

“I want,” you spat, fueled by his imperiousness, “... to…” Fire blazed in your face, but you wouldn’t let it stop you now. With a huff, you forced your lips to form the words. “I want to use my mouth.” You circled your thumb slowly over the swollen head of him. “Here.”

His hips bucked. A muscle fluttered in his jaw. His gaze flashed, the fever behind them melting the last links on his restraint.

“Now,” he said, “was that so difficult?”

You rolled your eyes, forgetting yourself. “You're impossible.”

A smirk—like he'd been waiting for you to show just a shred of snark—split his face. “Actually,” he purred, his hand slinking behind your head to nest itself in your hair, “I find myself rather amenable to your request.”

His nails scraped your scalp, and he forced your face toward his cock.

All you could do was loosen your jaw, eyes wide as you took him in your mouth for the first time. Whimpering, your tongue pressed to his shaft, your lips sealing around it, saliva pouring from your cheeks. He was hot, like he’d been kissed by the sun, his taste a mixture of his skin and the brine of his seed. It made you groan, made your vision fuzz with lust.

William held you there, his breath trapped in his chest. But there was no way you were rushing this. You shifted, dragged your fingers over his thighs, making sure you had his attention before sucking softly on the head.

Instantly, his body tensed, a grunt escaping, the grip on your hair tightening. The reaction made you cunt revive itself from stupor—you did it again, and again, holding his stare, humming against him, as if his cock was a delicacy you were delighted to devour.

As he hissed, groaned in bliss, his chest rolling with quickening breath, you thought perhaps there could be an argument made in favor of that thought.

You slid your tongue up and down the tender dip at the head of his cock, suckling at him like he needed savoring. He twitched against your tongue, and you moaned, spurred on, taking him another inch into your mouth.

“That’s it,” he breathed. “More.”

Swallowing against him, you took the barest advance, now aware he wanted to use your mouth just like he used your cunt. But you coughed, halted by reflex, and you eased back, returning to sucking at the head.

His jaw stiff, William gripped your head, pushed you further onto his cock until the tip hit the back of your throat. You choked, gagging spit down his shaft as you lurched away, but he held you there, excitement alive in his gaze as he watched you writhe, watched tears build in your eyes.

“More.”

Lip furling, he snapped his hips into your mouth, and you heaved, helpless against him, groaning pathetically until he finally released you. You wrenched free, spit stringing from your lips as you retched, coughing away the urge to eject the contents of your stomach.

“I thought you wanted to use your mouth.”

Eyes watering, you cleaned your face with the back of your hand. “I did,” you managed to say.

He was unmoved. “Then I suggest you continue.”

You coughed again, glaring at him as he coldly returned your gaze. Taking a breath, you lowered yourself to his cock again, slicking him with your lips. Watching him, you started to bob your head, ignoring each time you wanted to gag, until finally, the instinct subsided. Instead, you whimpered in gratification, saliva soaking his shaft as you stared at him.

You couldn’t imagine what you looked like: naked, your lips wrapped around his cock, your head bouncing like a buoy as you sought to drain him dry. But you didn’t begrudge that, didn’t recoil as you thought you might have every other time you’d heard of women doing this. Instead, you ached for his approval, your heart raced at the thought that he could actually come off in your mouth.

Even suggesting it to yourself made you whine, made your eyelids flutter. You held him in your focus, the heat between your legs burning bright as his breath became rapid, as his jaw began to slacken. You shifted, your hands suddenly so limp, so empty; you curled one around the root of his cock, pumping it in time with your mouth, pulse skipping when he gasped in bliss.

William ran his fingers through your hair again, his head almost falling back. From the pink in his cheeks, his panting in uneven rhythm, you knew he was getting close—he grew harder, more swollen in your mouth, and you squeezed him tighter, swallowing him over and over.

“Yes,” he groaned, “that’s right.” His eyes were slivers of sky, barely able to focus. “So much—so much prettier like this.”

You whimpered, something like joy flooding you, and he grunted, his head falling back, his fist twisting in your hair. His muscles hardened beneath you, his cock throbbed. You held your mouth on him, moaning onto him as he came.

His seed spilled from his cock in warm spurts, filling your mouth and smothering your tongue. It was just how you remembered: the unmistakable essence of him. You swallowed it all, kept your tongue to his shaft and felt it pulse with each release, entranced by the way his brows pinched together, the way his teeth grit out his bliss. His hips rolled with his climax, and you worked his cock gently until he stuttered to a stop, collapsing into heavy, labored breath.

As you eased off of him, you realized you were trembling, your thighs were warm, your belly tight. You swallowed again, falling onto your side, watching as William meandered his way back to reality, his gaze falling on you from under hooded lids. He looked to the ceiling, exhaling through his nose before glancing at you again and wiping the ring of sweat that had begun to bead on his forehead.

“Passable performance,” he said, taking another breath before pushing himself upright and moving to leave the mattress.

“Such eminent praise,” you mumbled, yet unable to stop yourself from grinning.

As you watched him rise from the bed, you rolled onto your back, not content to miss a moment of his body in the daylight. The sun rose over his skin and shimmered where you'd scratched him, where you'd sunk your teeth into him. Between that and the pleasant aches where he'd choked you, bitten you, rended you, you were satisfied that even if you never did this again, the both of you would remember it for some time to come.

Would you do this again? He had said as much, but that was in the throes of passion. You weren't sure how reliable those words were.

"So..." You sat up straighter, eyes following him as he pulled on his stockings. "Did you..."

How did one ask the question? When shall you take me next, William? Shall we meet each morning so you may feed me your seed? Ah, excuse me, but I must needs inquire when I can expect to come off around your cock again.

No, none of those felt right.

"Did I..." William looked at you, brow raised. "Did you have a question, or were you inquiring if I, at one time, sewed?"

"What?" You blinked, shook your head. "No, I—why would I ever care if you sewed?"

He shrugged, eyeing you with a smirk as he stepped into his trousers. "Absurdity has never precluded your inquiries in the past."

You frowned. "Don't be an arse." Shifting on the bed, your attention drifted to the window. "I was pondering if you... If we..." To run outside nude and fall face-first into a pond would feel less humiliating than this. William seemed to know it, too, since he was waiting far too smugly for you to speak. You glared at him and glanced at the ceiling. "Were you sincere?" you asked. "When you implied we should do this again."

"Ah," he replied dryly, a glimmer of amusement in his gaze, "that makes far more sense than an interest in my experience with textiles." Before you could roll your eyes, he started to throw on his shirt. "I see no reason to complicate the situation."

"Ah," you said. That answered exactly zero percent of what you'd asked. "Which means..."

He glanced at you. "Of course.”

You were only a bit surprised when your shoulders unbunched at his response. Of course. You were two adults who enjoyed some level of sexual association. Of course you would do this again.

And, of course, the next question on your mind: when?

If you’d been smart, you would’ve stuck with Lottie and gotten on the carriage to the Goddard home in Charleston (you hoped she wasn’t too worried about you). But now, you weren’t even sure what the rest of the day was going to look like for you, let alone what William’s plans were. Would he return to the field? Would the expectation be that you and Lottie would return with him?

Was it proper to wonder about any of this, or to even ask?

There was still some part of him, you knew, that didn’t trust you, and rightfully so. Because beyond even your worry for the next minute, the next hour, you worried for Grace.

If the bear’s den was indeed Catawba—which you were sure it was—that meant that Papa and the rest of his soldiers were headed in that direction, and that could mean any number of things. The most reassuring thought was that it meant nothing. But given your last conversation with him, how casually he tossed out Grace’s name as a proxy for your correspondence, you were far more convinced it meant something you would very much not like.

Perhaps your father would be disappointed that you hadn’t managed to get any useful information from the British in the meantime, and you certainly wouldn’t if you headed home, but that had long lost its importance to you. His insistence you collect intelligence was his delusion, not yours, and you were clearly incapable of doing it anyway, since your most daring attempt to do anything surreptitious ended with you bleeding and coming on a British officer’s cock.

Your relief for Papa’s well-being was still palpable. But the insinuation that he might bring violence even within a mile of your home made your palms sweat. Plus, there was now the issue of Patrick Ferguson, who appeared genuinely enamored with Grace, and whose proximity to her had the capacity to place her in even greater danger.

More than putting your mouth on William Tavington’s body again, or having a part of his body inside yours, you needed to get to Catawba.

You continued to lie on the bed, watching as William crossed to the bedside table and grabbed the black ribbon he’d unwound from his queue the previous night. Sitting on the bed, he ran his fingers through his hair before separating it into strands.

He felt your eyes on him, obviously, as he turned, brow raised.

"Something the matter?” he asked, voice laden with sarcasm.

“No,” you replied, averting your gaze. But that didn’t feel satisfactory. You realized you wanted to say more. And it wasn’t even for duplicity’s sake. “How well do you know Major Ferguson?”

His brow lowered in irritation. “Only the Lord could grant me insight as to why you’d inquire about that name.” He placed the end of the ribbon at the base of his scalp and started to plait it into his hair.

“I’m just curious about his character.”

“What do you mean, curious?” His gaze flicked over your frame.

You sighed. If Ferguson was already asking to write her, then there was no secret to his affection. “He’s…” The thought alone made you shudder with disgust. “He wants to write my sister,” you said. “He seems quite taken with her.”

William snorted, continuing to wind the ribbon through his braid. “If her familial association hadn't brought me to pity her before, I certainly do now.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Or perhaps I pity him,” he mused, “if she is as mendacious as her sister.”

You frowned. “You know nothing about her,” you said, your voice low, “so I suggest you stop speaking as if you do.” When he didn't reply, you added, “Besides, he deserves no pity. He’s awful.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say awful,” William replied, with the clear indication that he was indeed saying Ferguson was awful. After tying off the end of the plait, he started to wrap the ribbon around the tips. “Perhaps she maintains a predilection for chimerical, self-serving, aspiring martyrs.” He paused, as if his next words held deep meaning. “May remind her of her father.”

A growl rumbled in your chest. “I don't know if you think you're being amusing,” you said, “but I am not amused.”

“Amusing?” he said, glimpsing you with disdain. He tucked the ends of the ribbon into the queue. “No. Merely stating my observations.”

“There's nothing for you to observe.” You gathered the sheets to cover yourself. “So don't sit there and pretend as if you have insight on my family that you could never claim to have.”

“Far better than your willful ignorance, I'd say.”

About one thousand swords leapt to your tongue, and you imagined yourself wielding all of them at once. One in particular unsheathed itself, ready to plunge—you being undeserving of your parents' love doesn't deem all families devoid of it—

Glaring at him, you opened your mouth. Met his eyes. Remembered what he'd said last night. How he'd said it.

Why apologize for speaking truth?

William spoke his own truth at this moment. He had never, and likely would never know love as you had known it. And for that, your fury collapsed into something with far fewer teeth. You shook your head, chuckling to yourself.

“Something entertaining?”

“No,” you said dismissively. “It’s… I pity you, I suppose.”

His jaw tightened, his shoulders locked. “I don’t deign to presume what a choleric bog woman finds pitiable about me.”

“There is nothing more important to me in this world than my family,” you replied. “Without them, my life would be rather empty.” You glanced at him. “I imagine your life must feel quite the same way.”

“Your imagination deceives you,” he said. “You fail to consider that, perhaps, you'd be at liberty to define your life free from their influence.”

You raised a brow. “As if all influence is uniformly negative.”

“No,” he said, a thin, sardonic smile on his lips, “and clearly the influence you’ve received has molded a most modest, affable, and submissive young lady.”

“And your lack thereof has provided all the favors for your manners and mercy,” you snapped, sitting forward.

William’s mouth quirked, as if you’d proven his point. You glared at him, your hands curling in and out of fists. You were, for some reason, irritated that you'd lashed at him. A part of you had been sincerely perplexed by his perspective, but you’d somehow managed to steer him into bickering with you again. It seemed that every vine of curiosity you extended also had to be tempered with rows of thorns.

Regardless, there was no point in trying to salvage the conversation now as long as he was going to use it as a way to goad you into an argument. You were beginning to suspect he gleaned some demented little thrill from it.

Then again, you may not have been innocent of such an accusation, either.

Grumbling, you relaxed against the headboard. Released your rage in a long exhale.

“I’m going to Catawba.”

For all of the spite in his tone, his brows furrowed in a flash of disappointment. He looked utterly sour. “You what?”

“Not for long.” You shrugged, crossing your arms. Even if you hadn’t already been looking forward to having sex with him again, having knowledge of British movements still gave you the greatest opportunity to keep your family safe. “My sister is there. I haven't seen her in months. I'm worried for her.” Pursing your lips, you sought his gaze. “I want to see her.”

William stood, plucked his waistcoat from the floor. “Allow me to think on it,” he said. “Given your recent—and poor—attempts at subterfuge and a history of collaboration with the Continental army…” He leveled you with his stare. “No.”

“What?” You sat forward, leering. “Surely you don’t believe you can mete out your own form of punishment,” you replied. “I don’t need your permission. My parole has been cleared since before I started serving in the field hospital.”

“Precisely my point,” he said, finishing the buttons on his waistcoat. “You serve the British Army, my cavalry, and, therefore, myself. We depart tomorrow for Fort Carolina. I expect you to be part of the marching order.”

You felt your hackles raise. “Well, firstly, I’m not a soldier,” you said through gritted teeth. “Secondly, I’m asking for a few days. Send me with an escort if you think it’s necessary.” He glanced at you, brow raised. “I just want to see my sister.”

William grabbed his jacket and slipped his arms into it, silent as he adjusted his boots and then glanced at himself in one of the mirrors on the wall, running his hand over the wisps of hair that hadn’t been integrated into the queue. With a sigh, he turned toward a leather satchel that had been placed next to the bedside table and started to rummage through it.

“Major Ferguson is slated to head in that direction from Charleston, I believe,” he said, as if it was the most incredible burden for him to admit it. “You may join his caravan, if you so wish.”

“Ferguson?” You frowned, and he met your gaze with the barest but still infuriating sparkle of glee. It made you want to tackle him to the ground and bite his throat. “You are punishing me. This is punishment.”

He stood, a tin of pomade in his hand. “No,” he said, smirking. “This is serendipity.”

You huffed, knocking your head against the headboard to demonstrate your displeasure. You supposed you couldn’t disagree with that. “Yes,” you admitted. “Fine.”

“You know…” He slicked the pomade over his hair before pocketing it. “You’re far more appealing when you decide to agree with me.”

You rolled your eyes. “I truly, genuinely, positively loathe you.”

“Mm, a mutual agreement then.” William stepped forward and pressed his mouth to yours, biting your lip before pulling away. “I’ll inform the major.”

Just the tease of his attention was enough to revive the warmth in your belly. You screwed your expression into a frown, cocked your head. “What, shall I go like this?” You gestured toward the sheet half-covering your body. “Depart with unlaced stays and a ball gown?”

“Carriages have been arranged for officers and their company,” he said, almost as if he was irritated by the question. “They’re set to leave for Charleston before noon.” He grabbed his satchel and holstered his flintlock. “Ferguson will gather you there tomorrow.”

You studied him for a moment, then nodded. “And where are you going?”

“Meddlesome creature, aren’t you?”

Heat rushed your neck. “No,” you insisted, “I want to know if I need to be leaving this room or if you’re coming back here.”

William stared at you a moment, lingering on your mussed hair, your purpled flesh. “You’ll want to depart soon,” he said, and turned toward the door. “Though it’s not a quality you possess, I expect you to try to be discreet.”

“Oh, yes,” you replied. “So simple when you’ve had the same effect on my torso as a volley of roundshot.”

Sneering, he opened the door and disappeared behind it. The sound of boots marched down the stairs, becoming distant as he met the first floor.

You gazed at the room, taking inventory of your stockings, your shoes, your petticoats and bodice. Your broken stays.

A small, not-insignificant part of you felt almost—to your utter horror—disappointed that he was gone. You glanced between your legs and silently cursed what lived there. Perhaps a break was for the best.