Hi! Just a note to say that this chapter is in a couple of sections – the last section comes with a warning – it's a bit of fun (ehm) for mature readers so don't read it if you might be offended! The warning is repeated before the section begins (see below)

After dinner Grace was grateful when her Uncle Ederick led Tavington off to the card room to sample some of her Grandfather's brandy. She was slightly uncomfortable seeing that Joseph followed soon after – her Grandfather having been called away by General O' Hara for a report on the day's conflicts. Still there was little she could do. She had the feeling that Joseph may attempt to press Tavington further about his desired change of position and though she could not explain why a shiver passed slowly down her spine even to think of Tavington and Joseph serving together.

She and the other ladies had retired to the parlour. It was still early evening and the sun was only just beginning to die in the sapphire sky. As Grace looked around she noticed that Jane was missing from the party – in fact she had not seen her in the entire hour that had passed since dinner. Eliza was occupied with Miss Harrow and Miss Stanley, reading aloud in her usual monotone from a letter she had received from one of their friends in England. The letters had arrived with a shipment of freshly enlisted men earlier that afternoon. One of the foot-soldiers had brought them from the camp to the manor before dinner where they had been delivered to the recipients on a silver tray conveyed by the young maid Sally.

Grace was able to slip unnoticed from the stifling room. She resolved to find Jane and question her about the night of the wedding. As she searched the empty rooms of the manor (carefully avoiding the card room and her Grandfather's office) she heard raised voices in the library. As she drew closer she recognised one of them as Jane's.

'You are not to say a word to anyone,' Jane snapped.

'But Miss, it is more than my job's worth. I should never 'ave delivered it in the first place. I should 'ave turned it in to the General.'

'The letter was addressed to me wasn't it?' Jane spat back. 'It has nothing to do with my Grandfather or anyone else.' She then sighed – she had not wanted to row the young maid. If anything she wanted her on side and now she could see that Sally's bottom lip was beginning to quiver. 'Look Sally,' she went on more softly, 'you did the right thing bringing it to me privately. The soldier who delivered it is the friend of a dear friend of mine.'

'He didn't seem a very pleasant man, Miss, in fact he was …'

'Oh do be quiet Sally!' Jane said losing her temper again. 'You took the shilling he paid you didn't you? It's no use pretending to be virtuous now.'

'Tha' I did Miss. But I regret it now – really I do.'

'Well you're too late Sally. If you go to Lord Cornwallis now then he'll have you discharged – and probably deported to one of the colonies like a common criminal.'

Grace edged closer to the door of the library so that she had a clear view of the two girls. Sally seemed to be on the verge of tears. She was only a young girl – Grace thought no more than fourteen or fifteen. She was quite plain except for her huge dark eyes which were now glistening with tears as her hands wrung her starched white pinafore in anguish.

'Oh don't say tha' Miss,' Sally cried, 'my mother has five young uns at home and she relies on the little that I send back to her. I only took the shilling for her.'

Grace saw that Jane regretted her harsh words. Her cousin was spoilt but she was not without feelings. She put a comforting arm around the smaller girl. 'Hush Sal,' she said, 'do you want the house to hear you?'

Jane looked quite desperate. Her usually round face appeared strangely gaunt and her cheeks were flushed. Grace noticed beads of sweat forming at her brow.

'Look,' she went on, 'no-one will find out about the letter – I promise.' Sally looked up at Jane, Grace could see that she was desperate to believe her.

'Do you really promise Miss?'

'Of course,' Jane said, more confident now that she could see the younger girl was crumbling. She opened the silk purse that was fastened on a stringto her wrist and took out a silver shilling. 'Here,' she said, 'for the young ones.'

Sally's eyes were now as wide as the wheel of a spinning jenny. 'Oh I couldn't Miss,' she said, jerking her hand away.'

'Of course you can,' Jane said, pushing the shilling into Sally's slowly opening palm. 'Let's just forget about the whole thing. After all it was only a letter – and there is no harm that can come from it.'

Sally hesitated for a few moments. Two shillings in one day was a lot of money and it would support her family for many months. Her fingers curled slightly around the alluring cool metal. 'I suppose not,' she said slowly. 'Though I still think …'

'Quick I hear someone coming,' Jane said suddenly; she was irritated at the way the maid kept trying to talk her out of it. 'You better get back to the kitchens.'

Sally did not need telling twice, she scuttled away, the shiny new shilling wrapped firmly in a handkerchief with the one she had received from the foot-soldier - it had been a fruitful day for the young maid.

Grace waited in the shadows a few moments longer until Jane had taken the letter out of the pocket of her dress and smoothed it out to read; she then crept up behind her cousin peering over her shoulder. 'Who's the letter from Jane?' she said suddenly. Her gaze had fallen down onto a scrawling hand on a crumpled piece of parchment. She could just make out the initials at the bottom C. W.

Jane jumped as though she had been stuck.

'Don't you ever knock?' she said angrily.

'I didn't realise that I had to knock to enter the library, Jane.'

'Well you should when it is obvious that the person in it desires privacy.' Jane spun on her heel to face Grace – matching red spots had appeared on both her cheeks.

'Funny – I was sure that I heard Sally's voice not a moment ago', Grace said innocently.

'Spying at keyholes now are we Grace? Well it wouldn't surprise me with your background.'

Grace had to try hard force an angry retort back down her throat as her fists balled automatically at her sides. She was not going to rise to the bait and forget why she had come to question her cousin.

'You haven't answered me. Who was the letter from?'

'I don't think that's any of your affair,' Jane said. She made to push past her cousin but irritatingly Grace stepped in front of her.

'Wait a moment Jane,' Grace said. This was not going at all how she had planned. She had hoped to gain Jane's confidence not antagonise her. The letter, however, had thrown even Grace. She had a fair idea who the author might be but she was desperate for a less unpleasant explanation. Jane stood hands-on-hips as she waited for Grace to continue. 'Look – it's not from … Well, I mean ..' Grace struggled to find the right words.

'Stop babbling Grace and get out of my way. I am sure that your husband will be most concerned if you stay from him any longer.'

There was something in the contemptuous way Jane spat out this last sentence which made Grace even more uncomfortable.

'Please Jane, Eliza is worried about you; even I am worried about you. You have not been yourself since the wedding. Why is the letter such a secret?'

'Who said it was a secret?' Jane said stubbornly. 'Just because I do not wish to share it with you! If you must know it is from an acquaintance in England.'

Grace raised her eyebrow sceptically. 'Who?

'That is none of your business. It is someone who desires my return.'

'A beau?'

'Perhaps,' Jane said with a secretive smile. But Grace knew instinctively that that was not the whole of it. If Jane had had a beau in England then she would not have been able to resist sharing such information with Eliza and herself. Further still, she would not have had to pay Sally for her silence and nor would the foot soldier who had delivered the letter from the camp. As Jane had spoken her eyes had brightened almost feverishly and Grace knew she was lying. She decided, however, to let the matter drop for the present as it was obvious Jane was not about to confide in her. Jane, sensing her chance, made to leave, folding the letter back into her pocket.

'Just be careful Jane,' Grace said, as her cousin reached the door. Jane made no reply but simply drew her shoulders back and left the room to return to the parlour.


Grace had a book in her hand but she was not reading it. Instead she was gazing out of an open window into the vast, inky night, disturbed only by the brilliant white crescent of the moon. As darkness had fallen around the manor the last of the company in the parlour had trailed to bed. Only Grace remained. She had her knees tucked up to her chest on the easy chair furthest from the slowly dying fire. A chill whistled through the shutters but the night was too beautiful to shut out.

Grace sighed. She wished that she had just followed the others to bed but she knew that more than a few eyebrows might be raised if she sloped off to bed without the husband of her barely two-day old marriage and so, unwilling to provide the old hags with any more fuel for their gossip, she had waited. She cursed herself now for caring what the other's thought of her.

It had, however, given her an opportunity to ponder over what to do about Jane (who had been the first to retire – seemingly eager to get away from Grace's eyes) but she tired of that now. There was nothing that she could say to Jane to get her to confide the source of her strange behaviour. Grace reasoned that even if it had been Jane who she had seen with the amorous soldier, and even if he had sent her a letter, there was no evidence that anything too improper had occurred, particularly in such a short space of time.

It was not in Grace's nature to be patient. Once she had decided that she was irritated with waiting for the Colonel she could not settle back down. She snapped her book closed and stalked from the parlour. She decided to go and seek him out. So resolved was she that she had quite forgotten that she had been earlier pleased to avoid him.

As she drew nearer the card room Grace could see that her Uncle Ederick and Tavington had almost emptied the bottle before them. Joseph was not with them any more and the two sat back reclining in ornately upholstered chairs, brandy glasses as large as fishbowls in their hands. The burning oil lamps cast large webbed shadows over Tavington's self-satisfied face and a fire spat with venom in the background. He had such a malevolent smile upon his face that it made Grace shiver. His eyes were like glass shards, piercing the room with their ice-blue intensity.

Grace felt quite breathless as she wondered exactly what she was looking in on. She had the strangest feeling – as though she was in London again instead of South Carolina and had stumbled upon its darkest depths. The room reminded her of the stories she had heard about the backstreet taverns that housed the phantoms of the underworld.

'To prosperity,' Tavington said raising his glass to Ederick. Ederick seemed to hesitate. Grace noticed that he was looking less certain of himself than Tavington. She thought that his bony fingers trembled slightly as he held his glass aloft.

'To prosperity,' he said slowly, before knocking back the smooth brown liquid with a grimace, as though steeling himself.

Tavington reached his hand out to the bottle and refilled Ederick's glass, his eyes never leaving the other's for a second. His own glass still contained a large measure of the General's brandy. He held the glass up once more.

'And now, Henry, let us drink to the agreement that we have made.'

Again Ederick raised his hand only slowly. He seemed to be mesmerised by Tavington and their eyes were locked with an unnaturally rigidity. Grace noticed, however, that Ederick also shrank back in his chair, trying to put as much distance between him and Tavington as was humanly possible.

'To our agreement'

Tavington's eyes burned like a fireball as he drained his glass and threw it straight at the stone wall. It shattered into a mass of glittering pieces that fell into the fire grate and mingled with the embers to make jet-black diamonds; the fire that danced behind them making them glimmer in uncanny brilliance.

At the sound of the breaking glass Grace gave a small gasp. Tavington turned his eyes to the doorway. His face did not alter as he looked upon her. Ederick spun round in his chair to glare at Grace; the spell binding him to Tavington suddenly broken.

'What are you doing here?' he snapped. 'Didn't your grandfather teach you not to listen at door-ways?'

Grace forced herself to remain composed. 'I wasn't listening at the door-way, Uncle,' she said. 'I heard a glass smash and I came to see what had caused it. I don't have the slightest interest in anything you two have to say.' She feigned a yawn, preying they couldn't hear the quick rhythm of her heart. 'Particularly since all you seem to converse about is war or the tactics of war – I find it most dull.'

Grace was relieved so find that her Uncle looked slightly appeased. He got to his feet. 'Well next time you will announce your presence. I do not take kindly to nosey young girls. What Tavington and I discuss is not for your ears.'

Grace nodded. 'Yes Uncle,' she said meekly. With that Ederick stalked from the room.

Tavington had maintained his silence throughout the exchange. He was not concerned that Grace had overheard all that they had discussed as if she had then he would be able to see it in her eyes. She had heard only the latter part. Still he did not like the way that she had hidden herself in the shadows. As he looked upon her he saw that for the first time she appeared frightened. Her chin was still stuck out defiantly and she stood with an air of boldness; but the pulse in her delicate neck was beating fast and her bosom quivered beneath its lace encasing. He smiled – he intended take advantage of this weakness.

He got to his feet and crossed the room to the doorway, pleased with the way Grace physically shrunk back. 'Shall we go to bed?' he said taking her arm firmly. It was not a request.


Warning: What follows is a bit of fun for mature readers only – you will not lose the plot by not reading it, so if you are offended easily then turn back!

Tavington maintained an ominous silence as he led Grace to their bedchambers, a flickering candle in his hand. Grace's mind was racing. She did not know exactly what agreement her Uncle and the Colonel might have made but she knew instinctively that whatever it was would have unpleasant consequences – the way her Uncle had shrank under Tavington's gaze, like a sail losing its wind, had told her that. She wondered if she dared question Tavington further.

'You do not appear to have quite as much to say for yourself as you did at dinner,' Tavington said interrupting her thoughts.

Grace grimaced. She had forgotten that he would still probably be angry at her. 'No,' she said, deciding that it was better to avoid the bait.

'No what?' he said, his eyebrow arching. They had reached the bedroom and he drew himself round to face her placing the candle on the oak cabinet that stood against the wall.

Grace hesitated. She knew what he was getting at but decided to play dumb. 'No I do not.'

Tavington smiled slightly, but there was no mirth in his eyes. 'No you do not, Colonel,' he said. 'Do not think that I have forgotten your little jibe at the dinner table Grace.'

Grace gave a small derisive snort as though she thought him ridiculous. She really felt like fleeing the room but she knew that he would prevent her from leaving. Instead she made to shrug past him. He grabbed her arms roughly and forced her to face him.

'Unhand me', she said, her anger starting to get the better of fear. 'If you cannot take a joke then that is your misfortune.'

He grabbed a handful of her hair from where it hung down her back and moved his other arm to her waist pulling her body close. He wrenched her head backwards so that she was looking directly into his eyes; her face was so near to his that he could see the reflection of his face in her flashing pupils.

'You will call me Colonel,' he said softly, 'or you will feel my hand.' Grace tried to struggle against his grip but he held her fast, his eyes locked to hers. With every movement she made the hairs that he held in his hand ripped painfully from her scalp. 'You will not speak out of turn in my presence and you will not discuss what happens between us in private.' His breath was now heavy on her face and their bodies were so close that the buckle of his belt cut into her hips. 'Neither will you hide in the darkness and listen in to personal conversations; you will remember that you are a lady. Do you understand?'

Grace could not stand to be so close to Tavington any longer. Her body was beginning to feel weak. She answered to gain her release.

'Yes, Colonel.'

Tavington let go of her hair almost immediately. He felt that he had won a victory over the young girl. He loosened his grip on her waist, but though she moved back slightly she did not turn away from him as he had expected. He watched her carefully.

As soon as he released her Grace knew that she was going to ask him the question that she had not dared to before. The way he had held her had made her feel strangely reckless. She braced herself, not knowing what his response would be.

'What did you agree with my Uncle, Colonel?' she said as forcefully as her nerve allowed.

Tavington did not react. He had known that she must have heard the toast to his and Ederick's agreement. However, he had scarcely expected her to question him about it. His hand itched at his side.

'That is none of your concern', he said. 'Mark that I have told you to not to speak out of turn.'

Grace couldn't prevent her next words from leaving her lips; her heart skipped a beat as she spoke, her skin tingling with trepidation. 'You tell me to mark what I say Colonel, but perhaps you should mark yourself, particularly if, as I suspect, the agreement you have made leads to the wronging of others.'

Grace tried not to flinch as Tavington lurched forward, angrily raising the back of his hand to strike her. He had come away from his evening with Joseph and then Ederick feeling confident that things would go the way he planned them and he did not need his troublesome wife to poke around in his affairs.

He did not, however, inflict the blow. In the split second it had taken him to threaten her he noticed that she had seemed to expect to be struck. He lowered his hand. He regarded her for a few moments, taking in her white papery skin, and her lips, blood-red and full. The light in her eyes danced like a moonbeam reflected in a bottomless pool and she had the air of a wild-cat about to pounce. She was annoyingly alluring when riled and Tavington felt a lust begin to overtake his anger. However, he could not let her get away with her remarks. He reached for her just as she bolted.

'Let me go!' she said desperately; but he caught her easily and wrestled her to the bed staying her kicking legs with a rippling thigh. He forced her onto her stomach holding her struggling arms tightly behind her back with one arm.

Grace was incensed. He held her firmly on her stomach, her face practically smothered in the pillow as the coarse rogue stems of the feathers poked out from the thin silk and stabbed her cheeks.

'Unhand me or I'll scream,' she spat. She did not care now who heard her. She wanted people to hear her. She wanted them to know exactly what type of a husband the noble Cornwallis had chosen for his granddaughter. Tavington was now half on top of her; he brought his head close to hers and lowered his mouth to her ear.

'Scream away if it will please you. No-one will believe that it is not the cries of ecstasy - we are, after all, on our honeymoon.'

Though Grace could not see the Colonel she could almost feel his smirk.

'In any case you seemed to be more than willing to voice your ardour in such a way on our wedding night,' he went on, the vibrations of his lips tickling her ear. Grace coloured. She remembered how she had moaned at the moment of climax.

'Now,' he went on, 'consider this your last warning. If you anger me again then I will fulfil my marital duties by thrashing obedience into you. And heed me, I will leave the door open so that the entire house hears your screams and knows that they are of your own making.'

Grace grit her teeth beneath him, her face burning crimson. She knew she was beaten. She did not doubt that he would carry out his threat.

'Good', said the Colonel.

Tavington did not release her. As soon as the expression of her fury had aroused him he had resolved to satisfy his desire. He was still exhilarated that he had gained an agreement with Ederick, who had at first been difficult to persuade, and he thought that it must be this which gave his lust an added intensity. He began to attack her neck with his mouth and tongue, working up to bite the velvety tip of her ear. He did not care whether Grace would be willing – as his wife it was her duty to humour the urges of his body. Grace struggled, but as his tongue pushed his way to the soft pad behind her earlobe he was amused to find that her arms relaxed slightly in his grip. The sleeves of her dress were cut to the bone of her shoulder and he could see that the flesh of her upper arms was raised in bumps. He didn't know whether it was the result of the chill from the open window or the way his lips worked her flesh but the sight made his manhood swell.

He spun her over, his lips curling with satisfaction as he looked into her face. He seemed to have an intoxicating effect on her; even though he had threatened to thrash her only moments before her pupils betrayed her bodily awakening and her face was as flushed with arduour.

He decided that he would not disappoint her. He reached down and ripped her dress open at the chest, tearing straight through both over and under-garments as he did so, baring her naked bosom. It was modestly full - the line of her cleavage as curved as a globe. She looked up at him in shock, her hands automatically reaching up to cover nakedness, but he wrenched them away and repositioned them above her head. He probed the soft lines of her breasts with the palms of his free hand and chafed her nipples with his fingertips. Though she was fighting, Grace could feel desire burn through her once again, building like a crescendo as he fondled her freely. He attacked her lips with venom feeling their swollen tenderness beneath them - surprised at the stirrings in his crotch which made him grope her bosom with a greedy want. He probed them roughly with the flat of his hand before repositioning his grip on her exposed thighs. Here he caressed the flesh there with firm pincers in such a way as to make Grace exhale fast and deep, her heart now racing in her breast.

Tavington could not wait any longer - the strength of his want surprising him as it had the night before. He pulled his breeches down to his ankles revealing thick imposing legs with bronze taut skin as coarse as sack-cloth; the occasional silver web marking an old injury. His body forced a path to hers like a bayonet charging the field; her limbs were pushed aside like fallen and forgotten soldiers. She gasped as he hitched her skirts up around her waist and tore her undergarments away to bury his member violently inside her body. He took her with long and swift thrusts plunging himself deeper and deeper into her depths; the intensity of his need to own her body making sweatpour into the crevices of his clothed torso.

The speed of Tavington's assault confused every nerve of Grace's body, from temple to fingertip. She felt like her body was drowning; her head being pulled further and further under so that she could think of nothing but the waves that wracked her body. At the same time, however, her body burnt and tingled in fiery pleasantness. She tried to move her arms from his, clinging to any way she could to still the passion that threatened to take her and supplant the anger and indifference she felt for the Colonel, but he held them fast above her head. She felt as though she could hardly catch her breath and yet she heard her own gasps each time he plunged forward.

Grace kept her eyes closed, remembering Tavington's warning from the night before, but in the darkness of modesty her body began to respond to his. She was powerless to stop her widening legs, and her knees bent up automatically so that they were at painful angles to her body; she rocked her hips in rhythm with his thrusts, desperate now to feel the rushes of pleasure that passed through her body every time his solid length thrust into her.

Tavington was watching Grace carefully even as he felt his body carried away by his lust, more frantic than he would have liked. He saw with satisfaction the alterations she had made to her positioning and decided to aid her by moving his hand to the ample flesh of her backside, grasping it between his fingers and using his grip as a leaver to penetrate her more violently; if she wanted him to take her hard then he would oblige her.

Grace gasped loudly in pain; so bewildering was his onslaught that in these final thrusts she could not tell whether she shrank from them or assisted their intensity. All she knew was that when her body became rigid with her climax a series of desperate moans escaped her lips and Tavington did not attempt to stifle them.

When he had finished he bent forward on his elbows still pinning her to the bed, his lips only inches from her own. 'Quite the vocal whore tonight Grace,' he said, his quiet voice filled with a firghtening malice. He managed to conceal his own shortness of breath, regaining his composure just before she opened her deep brown eyes. He turned his gaze deliberately towards the door and she glanced quickly in the same direction – Tavington had left it open. 'And dear Uncle Joseph only across the hall; I wonder what he will think?'

At these words Grace was brought back to her senses as quickly as if she had been slapped with them. She looked deep into Tavington's eyes and knew that he had somehow tricked her.

'Next time perhaps you will think before bucking under me like a filly in season; rattling the shutters with your moans.'

Grace was too humiliated to speak and Tavington once again felt his victory. He relinquished her body from his and she got to her feet to undress for bed. She felt as though the past minutes had been a strange dream. Tavington watched as she peeled away the torn and sweat-soaked garments leaving her skin cold and clammy in the chilled air of the room. He smirked – it had been a triumphant day.

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