Benstown
Written By: Commander Cody CC-2224
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Here we go with another Felicity/Ben fanfic with a semi-adventurous flick. Benjamin Davidson gets to be hailed as a town hero in Charleston, South Carolina. And Felicity seems to be quite thrilled about it…for a moment.
The plot ideas for this fanfic were borrowed from the Firefly series episode Jaynestown.
Disclaimer: I do not own Felicity Merriman and Benjamin Davidson, or any of the characters belonging to Felicity: An American Girl. The plot ideas for this fanfic were borrowed from the Firefly series episode Jaynestown, which was concocted by Ben Edlund. Ideas were also derived directly from the script, too, which can be found in ..
CHAPTER 1
Getting Ready
Seventeen-year-old Felicity Merriman was in her bedchamber, getting dressed. It was a beautiful spring morning of May, 1782. Today was the day when she and Mr. Merriman were to be taking a trip to Charleston for business reasons, where they were to stay for at least two days due to the long trip involved. Her engaged sweetheart Benjamin Davidson, still apprenticed to Mr. Merriman and had one more year to go before his apprenticeship would be over, would come along, too, to be of valuable assistance to him. Also included in the trip was her best friend, Elizabeth Cole, the same age as she was, as well as her beau, Phillip Michaels, who was at least a year older than she was, and to whom she was now engaged.
Felicity slid on her petticoats, and put on her elegant, flowery creamy, ivory-colored gown, motley decorated with tiny pale pink and blue flowers. Then she hastily slid her feet into her black buckled shoes.
Finally she gently took her favorite silver necklace with a tiny red heart-shaped locket the size of her thumbnail surrounded by a tiny silver outline. The blood-red jewel on the necklace was almost the same color as her hair. The smooth, straight top of the tiny jewel was crowned with an embossed letter L in an elegantly formed Edwardian cursive script. The L stood for Felicity's nickname, Lissie, even though the locket should have had an F; a fact that Felicity brought up during her mild complaint with Ben when he bought it for her from the Pratt's Jewelry Shop as his courtship gift to her on her seventeenth birthday. Plus, it was what Ben could afford. Still she got along fine with the L, and even cherished the thought of how the letter L reflected the sweet affections of her nickname.
Gently she slid it across her neck and clasped the silvered strings together. As she tenderly touched the locket with her right hand thumb and two forefingers, she reminisced on how Ben used to slide the necklace around her neck during the day of her birthday. It was such a dreamy, romantic moment for her.
Her dreamy moment was soon interrupted by a knocking on her bedchamber door.
"Come in," she called.
The door of her bedchamber opened and in entered her fifteen-year-old sister Nan. She wore a plain white apron over her flowery gown. Her mobcap, which perched over her auburn hair, had a bit of white satin lace crowning the edges.
"Gracious, Lissie!" exclaimed Nan. "Your bosom is showing!"
Felicity looked down on her chest. A bit of her fairly large, firm, nicely developed bosom was showing from the sides of the slightly revealing low-cut area of the bodice of her gown, with a tiny bit of her cleavage exposed. While Nan made sure that the bodice area was laced up properly, Felicity made sure that the entirety of her bosom was neatly tucked into the bodice itself.
Felicity sighed in exasperation. Nan almost always knew how to irk her older sister in the matter of little details such as that.
"You always have to vex me on little matters such as that!" complained Felicity.
"Just making sure that my older sister doesn't start attracting the attentions of men like a hussy," said Nan. "You are engaged to Ben. There's no need to attract the attention of another man by the way you display your body."
"One can't always be so prim and proper all the time," complained Felicity in exasperation. "Just you wait until you start wishing for the eligible, handsome, strapping young lads to start courting you."
Nan heaved a sigh. Being fifteen, she was now at the age to begin courting, but no eligible suitor showed up as of yet. Williamsburg was still in its halfway stages of recovering from the ravages of the war during the British takeover, and people were busy repairing damaged houses and devastated livelihoods. So like a prim and proper and sensible young lady she patiently waited for her turn to come.
Suddenly Felicity's youngest sister, Polly, who was eight years old, burst into the bedchamber.
"Good morning, Lissie," she burst out. "Ready for your trip to…Charleston?"
"Just about, replied Felicity, as she straightened her uncovered reddish-auburn hair and pinned it up with a white satin ribbon.
Polly perked her head up and looked at Nan. "What's all this talk I hear about this 'bosom'?" she asked impertinently. Polly could be just as cheeky as her older sister.
"Something your older sister is rather obsessed with," Nan muttered slightly. "'Tis something you have when you eventually get older. Now scoot. You're far too young to know about such things."
"I'm not obsessed!" retorted Felicity.
Nan sighed. "I just can't help feeling a mite jealous of you, Lissie," she said. "You have a nicer bosom than I do."
Polly mischievously came up closer to her older sister and lightly touched Felicity's left breast, with her right hand recoiling fast like a spring. Felicity scowled at her.
"Quit touching my bosom!" she exclaimed.
Nan crossed her arms and gave a rather skeptical face as she watched her older sister straighten up her the low cut area of her bodice and gently pat and massage her breasts firmly with both hands, with her right hand tenderly cupping her right breast, and her left hand tenderly cupping her left breast. Nan couldn't help but feel a little jealous while watching her older sister, as her bosom was a little flat-chested, and not as fully developed as her older sister's was, though it was a little larger as a normal girl's.
"Hmm," said Nan disapprovingly. "Not obsessed indeed."
"Oh, come one, Nan!" said Felicity exasperatingly. "When you eventually become older, about my age, in about three years, give or take, your bosom will more or less develop fully. So don't feel jealous."
Nan rolled her eyes, feeling sort of satisfied and assured. Polly walked near the far left end of Felicity's bedchamber and plucked a few strings of Felicity's guitar, which was perched on a little dresser.
"No, no, no, don't touch that!" cried Felicity. Polly immediately looked at her eldest sister as she took her fingers off the rather delicate strings.
"Aww," she complained. "Why not?"
"You're not old enough."
"You got to have a guitar like that when you were ten," Polly protested.
"Wait two more years," replied Felicity, trying to be sweet on her sister as best as she could.
Polly sighed before she asked another question. "So…when will you and Ben get married?" she asked.
Felicity sighed. "I don't have to tell you many times," she said. "Ben and I won't get married until spring of next year. Besides, we're still courting. How can you possibly think of such things too soon?"
"'Tis a fascinating topic for her to discuss," remarked Nan, as she attempted to lace up her older sister's stays.
"Now not two tight, Nan," said Felicity. "I don't want to suffocate and die on account of those wretched stays."
Polly found Felicity's final statement to be quite humorous that she giggled quite loudly to herself.
"Not funny!" retorted Felicity. "I don't want such a thing happen to me!"
"It won't," assured Nan, as she fixed up the stays in a manner where Felicity could breathe better. Felicity took a deep, exhilarating breath and exhaled luxuriously.
"Ahhh," crooned Felicity. "That's much better. Thank you, dear sister, for not being so cruel to me as regards to the stays."
Nan gave an affectionate peck on her older sister's left cheek. "You're still my dearest sister," she said to her. "I guess 'twould do no good for you to bear the cost of suffering while being prim and proper." Felicity couldn't help but admire the way Nan looked at her in a motherly fashion, despite the fact that Nan was three years younger than her older sister. "Although a touch of primness and propriety wouldn't hurt," she added.
Felicity widened her eyes in reaction. Suddenly she heard Mrs. Merriman's voice.
"Lissie, Lissie!" Mrs. Merriman called.
"Yes, Mother?" Felicity responded loudly.
"Gracious, Lissie! Your breakfast will get cold if you don't come downstairs to devour it! Your Father will be leaving pretty soon, so you'd best hurry!"
"Coming, Mother," replied Felicity, as she struggled to slip her feet into her black buckled shoes. Felicity rushed out of the bedchamber seconds after Nan added her older sister's mobcap on her head.
A/N: The name Michaels (or rather, Phillip Michaels) was borrowed from MackenzieW's American Girl fanfiction story titled The Return of Bananabelle. I thought the name Elizabeth [Cole] Michaels had a rather nice ring to it, so I decided to make use of the name Michaels.