Chapter Nine
Buffy downed her whisky and held the glass out for more. Will refilled it wordlessly. So she'd get drunk, fall into bed with him and wake up sure she'd forgiven him.
Right.
He looked at her face, and drank a lot of whisky straight from the bottle.
Maybe.
He waited nervously. It wasn't going to be pretty. They'd come into Angel's office to talk, at Buffy's insistence. He hadn't dared say no.
"Is anyone going to say anything?" Dawn asked. "Or are we all going to sit here glaring at each other?"
"No one's glaring at you," Buffy said.
"He is."
Right on cue, Will swung his hard blue gaze on her. She stared back, unflinchingly. She didn't seem to be very afraid of him, Buffy thought. Not your average meek, polite English daughter. But then she didn't even sound very English. She had the same flat Colonial vowels as Buffy and Xander and Willow. But Will had come over to America ten or twelve years ago, which must have been after Dawn was born. She was several years too old to have been born after he'd arrived.
Buffy was confused.
"How old are you?"
Dawn lifted her chin. "Sixteen. I'll be seventeen soon."
"Six months," Will glowered.
"Oh, you remembered," Dawn sounded bitter.
"Of course I sodding remembered, you stupid little chit, I can't forget the day my marriage prospects were ruined forever."
"You had marriage prospects?" Buffy asked with heavy sarcasm.
"Damn right I did. I was bloody eligible."
Dawn snorted. "Didn't seem to do you too much harm. You completely hid me away. If it hadn't been for my grandmother-"
"Don't you bring my mother into this," Will rounded on her.
"Oh, right, because she's your mother, and not my grandmother," Dawn said. "I was forgetting. I'm so sorry, Miss Buffy, I shouldn't have introduced myself as his daughter when I'm plainly not."
Buffy privately thought that she'd never seen two people more alike. "So then... what are you?"
Dawn looked stubborn, and not a little bit proud. "Illegitimate."
"...Oh."
Will sighed and drank a bit more whisky. "It's not what it looks like," he began.
"Oh? So you don't have a sixteen year old illegitimate daughter hidden away somewhere?"
Will looked wretched.
"It's quite simple," Dawn said. "My mother was a French girl he met when he was a green young ensign, fresh out of the nursery, serving drinks to his colonel in Paris. Spike came home, and found out she'd got there ahead of him, some clerk had taken pity and given her my grandmother's address in London, and when he got there she was already on the payroll. Working in the kitchen until I was born."
"You got some French maid pregnant, then left her?" Buffy said.
"No!" Will said. "Well, yes. But I didn't know. I just left with my regiment and she stayed in Paris and the next I knew was when I came home for Christmas and Marie was out here with Dawn."
"So you sent her to work in the kitchens?" Buffy's voice was getting higher and higher with incredulity.
"No, his mother did," Dawn said matter-of-factly. "She could have just turned her out. It was quite good of her to keep my mama on. She didn't have any proof that Spike was anything to do with it."
"Why do you call him Spike?" Buffy sidetracked.
"To annoy me," Will said. "Look. When I found out what had happened I offered to set her up back in France."
"Send us both away because you didn't want us hanging around to shame you," Dawn nodded.
"No," he rubbed his face, "I didn't mean it like that. Stop twisting what I say."
"So you didn't want me out of the way?"
"Kept you on, didn't I?"
Dawn rolled her eyes. "You had me living in the cellar with the coalboy."
Buffy stared at him.
"His mother looked after them," Will defended, "they were the same age and he - she - she was fine, all right?"
Dawn folded her arms and gave him a hard look.
"Tell her about Cecily."
Will looked sulky. He reached for the whisky but Buffy put her hand over it and asked in steely tones, "Who is Cecily?"
Will drummed his fingers nervously on the desk. He glanced at Dawn, who sighed impatiently and said, "His wife."
Buffy gaped. "You have a wife?"
"Had," he corrected. "She's dead now."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Will muttered. "I wasn't."
Buffy's swift contrition vanished as soon as it had arrived.
"Are you going to tell me? Or do I have to get Dawn to spell it out?"
Silence. Eventually Dawn rolled her eyes and explained, "Cecily was the girl his parents wanted him to marry, because she came from a good family and had lots of money."
"Of course."
Spike missed the daggers look Buffy shot him, so busy was he staring fixedly at his hands.
"Only as soon as they found out about me, they suddenly stopped being so interested. And so did everyone else."
"Lots of men have illegits," Will said sulkily. "They just don't have them around buggering up their home lives."
"So eventually he had to resort to dastardly tactics," Dawn went on. "He compromised her."
Buffy raised her eyebrows.
"I was in love with her," Will said defensively. "And she could have said no."
"Evidently 'no' wasn't a word in her vocabulary," Dawn muttered.
"Meaning?"
"Even I knew about her," Dawn said scathingly. "As soon as you went back to your regiment she was off with every young man around town. Looking for 'comfort' because her husband was away and she'd no children to keep her company."
"Yeah, well, that changed, didn't it?" Will muttered.
"You have more children?" Buffy asked nervously.
"No," he said shortly. "Cecily did."
He refused to say any more on the subject, so it was left to Dawn to explain. Again.
"He was off in France and Spain a lot," she said. "War, war, war. England's really good at war. No one's happy unless they're advancing on someone. Anyway, I think I must have been about five - just old enough to start learning how to clean the chimney - when the rumour spread around the house that Cecily was expecting."
"How nice," Buffy said coldly.
"Was for her," Will said viciously.
Buffy blinked at his violent tone.
"And right about the same time," Dawn went on, "Grandm - his mother," she changed it pointedly, "got quite sick. So she wrote him to come home. Which he did. And then," she flicked her eyes at Will, who was leaning against the desk, looking sullen, staring at the opposite wall. "Then he told us the news."
"What news?" Buffy asked in dread.
"The same fever that killed Marie a few months after Dawn was born also... affected me," Will said stiffly.
"What kind of fever?" Buffy asked, suddenly cold with sweat, certain it was some kind of sexual disease she'd now have picked up from him.
"Mumps," Dawn said. "I think."
"The same thing that killed Drusilla's sister," Buffy said softly, looking at Will, who gave a bare little nod, not looking at her.
"Who?" Dawn asked.
"It doesn't matter for now. I'm not sure I understand what this has to do with anything," Buffy said. "Why was it important that you'd had mumps?"
Will reached for the whisky bottle, and this time Buffy let him have it. He drank a lot, shuddered as it burned through him, then took a breath. "Before Marie there hadn't been anyone else," he said slowly. "And there weren't any since, not until Cecily. And we were married for nearly five years. I was home a lot, she came out to see me when she could tear herself away from her young men. I wasn't celibate, Buffy. But Cecily never got pregnant. Not from me. We thought there was something wrong with her. She was barren. I thought..."
He trailed off, staring off at an unseen distance. After a while Dawn spoke again, more softly.
"They thought the problem was with Cecily. As it was so abundantly clear to everyone," she gestured to herself, "that he was perfectly manly."
Will suddenly grabbed Buffy's empty glass and hurled it at the wall where it shattered noisily. Dawn shrieked and covered her face with her arms, but Buffy sat still.
"The mumps sterilised you," she said, and he gave a little affirmative shrug, still not looking at either of them. "You knew that, so you knew Cecily's child couldn't be yours... What did you do?" she asked, fascinated.
"Got on a boat and came over here."
"Just like that?"
"Pretty much."
"And you?" Buffy glanced at Dawn.
"Wasn't like I was ever going to have another one," Will muttered, and Buffy stared at him. Somewhere in there was something that was quite sweet.
Somewhere.
"What about Cecily?"
"Left her to rot in hell."
"After making sure everyone knew," Dawn added, looking a bit gleeful. "No one would talk to her. People spat at her. It was fantastic."
"Sounds it," Buffy said faintly.
"Of course, then she died in childbirth," Dawn added, frowning a little. "But I think she deserved it."
Buffy opened her mouth to comment, then closed it again when she realised she couldn't think of a thing to say. It was rather an awful, emasculating thing to happen to him, and it was dreadful that his wife had cheated like that, but on the other hand he'd been hiding an illegitimate child in a chimney somewhere. So to speak.
She was just about to ask where Dawn lived, and if Will lived there too, and how the girl had tracked him down, when Will stood up abruptly, bottle in hand, and announced, "I'm going to bed."
Surprised, Buffy managed to nod, and it was only as he brushed past her that she started to tell him to stay. But then she saw him blink furiously, and had an awful feeling he was going to cry.
"Will, don't-"
"Sod off," he snapped. "Just - go away. I don't need to - just sod off. You too," he glared at Dawn, who looked like she was about to say something. She backed away, hands raised, and the two women watched him stalk out of the room, slamming the door as he went.
"Well, that went well," Dawn said.
"Yes," Buffy said numbly.
"Are you all right? You look sort of pale."
"I - I think I need to go after him."
She rose to her feet, but Dawn caught her arm, shaking her head.
"He's too angry now. Let him calm down. Come with me and we'll talk with the others. The gentleman who owns this house, and your godfather and his friends. He seems nice."
"Yes," Buffy repeated, just as vaguely as before. She let Dawn lead her from the room, followed the smell of food to the dining room where dinner was being served, and then she sat and made polite small talk with everyone, glossing over what she couldn't remember with feigned distress about the shipwreck and her mother, and looking to Angel for help when Giles asked her something she was supposed to know.
She learned about her father's plantation in Virginia and how her mother had gone on running it after his death. She learned about how Henry Summers and Rupert Giles had been very good friends in England, had come over together and started life in Virginia, before Giles had moved up to Massachusetts to look after his sick sister, who had died leaving him Anya to care for. She ascertained that Giles had no idea about anything untoward in her history: if Angel was telling the truth and she really had robbed coaches in Virginia, then Giles was completely and quite happily ignorant of it.
She also learned that Anya and Xander were extremely interested in each other, although no one had to tell her that. There were practically flames leaping up across the table where they smouldered at each other. As Cordelia passed her with a carafe of wine, Buffy caught her sleeve and murmured, "Could you see they have rooms nearby each other?"
"Already have," Cordelia gave her a smile and a little wink before moving on, and Buffy sat back, satisfied that at least someone was going to have a good night.
Eventually Giles excused himself to retire to bed, apologising that he was old and the journey had been long. He thanked Angel elegantly and left the room, followed by his niece and Xander, yawning fakely. Buffy glanced at Dawn, who rolled her eyes and said, "All right, I'll go to bed too. I'm not that much of a child, you know."
"I'm sure you're not," Angel said, but the lascivious look he gave her sent Dawn scurrying. Darla smacked him.
"Stop lusting after other women," she said, "or I'll have to hurt you."
"Oh, please do," Angel leered.
"I think I'll go to bed too," Buffy rose to her feet before it all started getting inappropriate. "I'll see you in the morning, before we leave...?"
They nodded, hardly noticing her, and Buffy left the room wearing a faint smile. Objectively, she could see that Angel was a very attractive man, but she wasn't sure what she'd ever really seen in him. Part of her suspected he may have been pulling her leg. And then part of her suspected he'd pulled a lot more than that.
Her room was empty, the bed looking big and cold without Will lying in it. She supposed she should go and see him. Talk to him. Console him.
She brushed her hair, bit her lips for colour, then went in search of her missing lover.
First she got hold of Doyle and asked if Will had taken another room. Doyle said that no, he hadn't, and in fact he'd left the office and gone straight to the stables. Buffy was terrified he might have run away, but Doyle assured her he'd left his greatcoat behind, and he'd definitely be coming back for it.
Reassured, Buffy went got herself a cloak and stepped out into the dark night. The sky was clear and full of stars and the air was cold and biting. She shivered into her cloak, pulled the hood up over her loose hair, and crunched over the gravel to the stableblock. It was full of horses, but empty of Will. Buffy searched everywhere, annoying the horses, and eventually stomped out, hot and frustrated, and was about to give up and go back up to her big cold bed when she caught the scent of smoke. Tobacco smoke. And if she looked carefully, she could just see a glow coming from the direction of the terrace.
She set off as stealthily as she could, which was pretty silent, and crept up behind him as he sat on the low wall surrounding the terrace, smoking moodily, his back to the house. She had one hand over his mouth and the other over his eyes before he even knew she was there, and she enjoyed the sensation of him struggling against her before she whispered in his ear, "Shh or you'll wake the whole household."
He stilled. "Buffy?"
She moved her hands to rest on his shoulders. "Who else?"
"I dunno. Could be bloody anyone." Spike sucked in some smoke and blew it back out again. "Everyone around here's got some reason for sneaking around. Half of 'em'd like to kill me."
"You really think so?" Buffy was amazed at his vanity.
"Well, your Angel's still got a candle burning for you. Good old Rupert probably thinks I'm after your virtue-"
Buffy snorted.
"And Dawn's had a gun on me more than once."
Buffy's eyes widened. "Dawn?"
"Scarier than she looks, love. How'd you think she got me to bring her over here?"
"Wasn't she five?"
He was silent for a bit, and Buffy had to hide a giggle, slipping her arms around his neck and holding them loosely there.
"Spike," she said, and felt him stiffen. "Why do people call you that?"
"Army nickname."
"Because...?"
"Various reasons."
"Such as?"
He hesitated, and Buffy sighed. "I'm not going to be shocked."
"I impaled three people with the King's Colours."
"The-?"
"The Union Flag. You know? Red and white crosses on blue. It's everywhere. Must be held high at all costs. Some poor little bugger's got to stand around like target practice, carrying this bloody great flag. Red, white, and blue are hardly what you might call subtle on a battlefield."
"Why couldn't you just shoot those people?"
"Takes too long. Got to keep reloading."
"But, surely..." Buffy trailed off, and Will leaned back against her.
"They were after the flag," he said simply.
"So you stabbed them with it?"
"Yep." He looked back at her as she stood with her arms around his neck. "Shocked?"
Buffy considered it. "Seeing as how I met you holding a gun on two defenceless people, no, I don't think so."
Silence. A chill wind blew across the terrace, and Buffy instinctively moved a bit closer.
"What do you do with it?" she asked.
"With what? The flag?"
"The money. The money you steal from travellers."
He shrugged in her embrace. "Dawn spends most of it."
"You live with her?"
"Officially. She has the house to herself. Buys horses and dresses and things like that. Pretty things. Goes to parties."
"I thought you were ashamed of her."
He sighed. "I was ashamed of her when she was this big-eyed kid my mother said I had to provide for. People tell you something's a mistake and it's not so hard to believe. Could have had a much better time without her. Marie, too. She didn't deserve to die, not like that, alone in a foreign country, brand new baby and no family to care for it."
"Your mother cared for it."
"My mother said someone must look after it. She didn't actually do it herself. She and Dawn hardly saw each other. Kid was like a charity case. No one wanted her. Not even the woman feeding her. It was just my mother trying to make me feel guilty."
"Did it work?"
"Hell, yes."
"Are you still guilty?"
Will sighed again. "Of more things than I can remember. But I don't feel ashamed of her any more. Look at her. She's grown up so well. Despite me."
"Why did you really bring her over?"
He was silent for so long Buffy thought he wasn't going to answer. Then he said, "I walked out of the house when I heard Cecily's news. Went to my club and got drunk. Three days later I rolled up at home, proceeded to tell the entire household the whole sordid story, and walked out again. I was still half-cut. Really all I wanted to do was make sure Cecily got what she deserved. And then the damndest thing happened. This tiny little urchin came out of the drawing room with a duster in her hand, and Cecily yelled something about me disowning all my children, and I just thought, 'I'll never have another child. I can't lose this one.' And I grabbed her grubby little hand and took her with me."
"No regrets?"
"Every bloody second. She was a whiny little brat. Cost me a fortune too: had to kit her out properly so people wouldn't question it when I said I was leaving for a new life after my wife had died. My cover story," he explained. "I was leaving everything. Mother, Cecily, the army, everything."
"You deserted the British Army?" Buffy said.
"I did. Are you impressed?"
"Oh, very. What rank were you?"
"When I left? Lieutenant."
He said it the English way, Leftenant, not the American literal pronunciation, and it took Buffy a while to realise what he meant. Something in her was tugging familiarly, but she couldn't figure out what it was.
"And then what? You met Drusilla on the way over..."
"I think the word there is 'rebound'."
"Probably what drove her crazy," Buffy muttered. "And now? Where do you live?"
Will hadn't missed her crack about driving Dru crazy, and he smiled at the dark garden. "Up in the north of the colony. Past Boston. Quite a way. I wonder what the hell Dawn came here for?"
"You didn't think to ask her?"
"When was I supposed to do that?"
"Before you stormed out like a child, maybe?"
Will made a face Buffy couldn't see in the darkness, but didn't really need to. She was still standing behind him, his head resting on her chest, his soft hair tickling the tops of her breasts where her cloak had fallen away.
"Listen," she said, and she really didn't want to have to say the words. "Tomorrow, I-"
But at the same time, Will started speaking, and Buffy shut up to hear him, especially after he began with, "Can I ask you something?"
"I probably won't know the answer, but sure. Go right ahead."
"Will you talk to Dawn for me? Tomorrow? I just have the feeling she won't tell me why she's here. I think she kind of liked you. She might talk to you."
Buffy was silent for a while, and Will bit his lip. Dammit. Shouldn't have asked her. He just wanted her to bond with Dawn. Maybe if they became friends, Buffy would still occasionally come into his life.
Bad idea, Will. On all counts.
"Are you afraid of talking to her?" Buffy asked, and there was laughter in her voice.
"No, of course not," Will said hotly, then realised she was teasing him. He turned his head, saw her smiling down at him, and reached up to the back of her head to pull her down to him. Her lips were cold but her mouth was warm and her body curved around his until she was sitting beside him, her back to the garden while his faced the terrace, kissing and touching with more sweetness than ever before. Buffy knew she was leaving in the morning, and Will knew he couldn't keep her in his life. Best not to allow either of them to hope for more, he reasoned.
Still, a good send off would still be in order. Something to remember each other by.
"It's cold out here," Buffy murmured as she kissed his neck.
"I don't feel it. You're keeping me warm." His fingers started unfastening her riding habit. His hands, warmed by much activity under her cloak, were gentle and reassuring as he stroked the bit of her breast that was above her corset, and then started to free the rest of it. Buffy gave up on trying to get him to come indoors and decided she'd just have to keep busy if she wanted to be warm.
She unbuttoned his waistcoat and pulled his shirt out from his breeches and stroked the warm skin of his stomach. Odd how his skin should be so soft but the muscle under it so hard. Will had freed one of her breasts now and was stroking it as he kissed her mouth, rolling the cold hard nipple between his fingers, making her moan into his mouth and arch a bit closer.
"Buffy," he whispered, lifting his mouth from hers for a second. "I want you. Now. Out here."
"Mmm," she agreed, hand slipping down to his crotch and finding a pleasantly large bulge there. "I can tell."
He suddenly reeled away from her to swing around and stand up on the terrace, reaching for her and pulling her down to the ground beside him. Her cloak - one she'd borrowed from a knowing Cordelia - was thick, and so was the velvet of her outfit, and she didn't feel the cold stone beneath her as Will laid her down and started kissing and stroking her again. She gasped a bit as the cold air hit her thigh when he bared it, but she was soon warmed by his insistently hot touch.
His mouth descended on her breast, and Buffy held him there as he spread heat through her entire body. His fingers crept up between her legs, and she returned the favour by slipping her hand inside his breeches and finding him hot and hard and ready for her. They stroked each other for a while, Buffy biting her lip to try and keep herself quiet as he nibbled at her breast and slipped his fingers up inside her.
"Spike," she gasped, and neither of them really noticed her use of his nickname until much later, "I want you. Now. Out here."
He looked up and grinned at her echo of his own words, then he kissed her thoroughly as he parted her thighs and settled himself in the best place in the world. Well, nearly the best. He slid into her, and felt like he was coming home.
Outside the air was freezing, and the bits of Buffy's skin that weren't covered by her clothes or by her lover, were covered in goose-pimples. But she didn't notice, because inside she was burning up. She was sure she'd just burst into flames, the heat inside her was so intolerable. She bucked her hips up and tightened around him and was rewarded with a groan of pleasure. He fit her so well, felt so right and so good between her legs, like they were made to lie together like that. And then when he moved inside her, Buffy's eyes rolled back in her head and she clutched at him, trying not to moan so loudly she'd wake everyone up.
"Please don't stop," she gasped.
"Wasn't planning to."
"Don't ever - ah! - stop..."
Spike looked down at her heaving breasts and flushed face, and knew he never wanted to stop.
But eventually he had to, because she started moving faster and slicker against him, pulling him deeper inside her, writhing closer, gasping incoherently wanton things, and he only just had time to acknowledge that she was breaking and falling over the edge before he fell with her, and they collapsed together in a tangled heap on the cold terrace, panting and clutching and heavy and sated.
"We should," Buffy dragged in a cold breath, "go inside."
"Mmm." Spike's face was buried in her neck, breathing in the scent of her, hot and aroused and helplessly desirable, and he wasn't really listening to what she was saying. Then she started pushing him off her, and he looked at her, hurt.
"We'll freeze," she explained, and without her heat surrounding him, he realised she was right. It was bloody cold out here.
He hastily rearranged his clothing as Buffy did the same, and then he took her hand and led her back inside, sniggering suddenly when he realised the back of her cloak was smudged with dust and dirt. Buffy frowned at him, and he tried to clear his face.
"Nothing," he said. "Just... uh..."
"I know," her cheeks got a bit pinker. "I can't believe we just did that, either. Anyone could have seen us."
"Yep," he pulled her against him and kissed her neck, felt her pulse kick up. "And wouldn't that have been dreadful?"
Buffy was saved from answering - because she had a feeling she wouldn't have found it so dreadful after all, and she was shocked at herself - by footsteps along the corridor. It was Cordelia, a quilted and embroidered gown over her nightdress, carrying a cup of drugged milk to Drusilla's room. She raised her eyebrows.
Buffy felt her face get hotter. She quickly untied the cloak and handed it over, eyes averted, because she knew Cordelia had seen her necking with Spike.
The brunette eyed the stains on the cloak and glanced up to meet his eyes. He winked and pressed his finger to his lips, then said out loud, "Night, then," and towed Buffy away to her own room.
Cordelia looked at the cloak, at the disappearing couple, and resolved to get the garment washed immediately. Thoroughly.
Twice.
A.N. Technically speaking the King's Colours referred to is not the Union Jack used today, but a simpler version that didn't include the Irish Flag of St Patrick, as Ireland wasn't part of the United Kingdom until forty years later. The flag would therefore have been a blue background with the white diagonal cross of St Andrew (Scotland) and the red upright cross of St George (England). In the centre would have been the title and number of William Darling's battalion, surrounded by the King's (George III) crown.
The King's Colours were to be upheld at all times during battle and it was considered to be a great humiliation if the flag was captured. Hence our hero's patriotic determination to hold on to the damn thing before he got bored and started impaling people with it.
Another aside: When he says he lives upstate Massachusetts, this could be anywhere up to Maine, as the whole area was known as the Massachusetts Commonwealth at the time.
Wasn't that a fun history lesson? Okay, now I'm off. Crimbo is coming, so updates might be patchy. Which will make such a difference, eh?