#their personalities appear to have been reversed though Mary comes across as rather tough whereas Clinton described himself as a “shy bitch”

[acrossthewavesoftime]

Official Sir Henry callout post

I know this post is about Taggie and Rupert in Rivals, but, hear me out:

Boston, 1774: A lonely, widowed, middle aged British official who's having rivalries left, right and centre intercedes when he hears about a sexual harassment case among his troops, employs the somewhat socially outcast ca. 20-year-old woman who's originally from a well-to-do Irish family as his housekeeper to protect her from further harm and proceeds to fall in love with her but doesn't want to confess his feelings to her as he doesn't want to come across as only being interested in her in that way as well. She is also very much married and pregnant and refuses any help he offers her in the guise as compensation for her excellent managerial skills quietly running his house and finances like the navy (or rather, like the navy should have been run in 1774, but that's another story entirely).

It takes another 1.5 years, the Evacuation of Boston and a shipwreck until at last, she turns up at his doorstep in New York, sick and fallen on even garder times, asking him for another employment opportunity.

Now they're in the same house again and there seems to be some chemistry but she tells him that she is married and doesn't want to commit adultery. They can however not leave the attraction between each other alone entirely, so as per her wishes, they do actually decide to at last get physical to some degree, but sex as the ultimate act of adultery is off-limits until the day she catches her husband with a sex worker and decides that her marriage is over all but on paper and moves in, her son included, with her General, a relationship lasting to his death.

I have said it before, and I will say it again: we need a series on Mary Baddeley and Henry Clinton.

one of my deepest darkest secrets is that the taggie x rupert relationship dynamic is literal catnip to me it hits every time. give me rakish older man who's so ruthless he scorches the ground of any place he's ever called home and then goes back to his empty life in his empty house and tries to remember how to be human, put a girl in front of him who's so genuinely good and unsullied and a little vulnerable and so sure he can be better than who he's always been that she almost makes him believe he can do it too and then - and this is crucial - make it so he absolutely cannot touch her no matter what. and then sit back and watch me implode