meh

amazing reblogs and my own dumb writing 18+

[secondarysweets]

though your sins be as scarlet masterlist

Pulled from blood and fear, she is given no absolution—only shelter.

Taken from Saint Denis and folded into the Van der Linde gang, she bears the mark of violence and the promise of consequence. As the world fractures and loyalty rots, love emerges not as redemption, but as defiance: a whisper that even sins stained scarlet might yet be washed clean.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

[secondarysweets]

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Arthur still hadn't moved his hand from where it had stilled against the small of her back somewhere in the last five minutes, frozen there since she'd started telling him about what happened in Saint Denis.

"You shot him?"

He repeated the question again.

"Yes, but just in the leg," Elise said again, patiently. "I wasn't trying to kill him."

Arthur shook his head slowly against the pillow, and she watched the disbelief give way to something else entirely, something that pulled the corner of his mouth up even as his throat worked as if he might still be sick over the thought of her standing in that yard alone.

He pressed his mouth to her temple, then her cheekbone, then finally found her lips, slow and lingering, his hand coming up to cradle her jaw like he needed to confirm with his fingers what his eyes were already telling him.

"My little sharpshooter," he murmured against her mouth, and she felt the words more than heard them, felt the way his chest shook once with something that wasn't quite laughter.

"Don't sound so delighted about it."

"I ain't delighted he made you do it." His thumb traced the line of her jaw, slow and deliberate. "I'm delighted you didn't miss." He kissed her again, softer this time, his hand sliding down to settle at her waist, pulling her closer until there was no space left between them at all. She tucked her face against his neck, breathing him in.

His hand had found the hem of her nightgown, fingers tracing idle, absent patterns against her hip, and she felt the conversation tilting the way it had last night, the air between them going warm. She kissed the underside of his jaw, and he made a low sound and rolled her gently onto her back, his weight settling over her, unhurried.

"Arthur," she whined against his mouth.

"Mm."

"We are supposed to be talking."

"We are talkin'." His lips moved to her throat, and her fingers found their way into his hair, and for a long moment, there was nothing in the tent but the soft sounds of two people who had spent months convincing themselves they might never get this back.

A thin, rising whine cut through it, coming from the cradle in the corner.

Arthur went still above her. They both held their breath, waiting to see if it would pass, the way it sometimes did. It didn't. The whine climbed into a proper cry, indignant and wide awake, and Arthur dropped his forehead to her shoulder with a groan that turned into a laugh halfway through.

"Boy's got impeccable timing." He kissed her once more, quickly, then rolled off her and out of the cot in one motion, padding barefoot across the ground in his union suit. He leaned over the cradle, and his whole posture changed.

"Hey now," he said, low. "What's all this fuss?"

Arthur carried him back to the cot and climbed in, propping himself against the trunk at the head of the bed with Ben braced upright on his stomach, studying him.

"Look at the size of you." He said it with real wonder, turning Ben's small foot over in his hand like he was inspecting a calf. "You leave for a few weeks and you about doubled. What've they been feedin' you down there in Saint Denis?"

Ben blinked down at him and giggled, then grabbed two fistfuls of his hair and yanked.

"Ow, easy, easy." Arthur extracted himself, laughing, and Elise propped herself up on one elbow to watch them, her chin in her hand.

Freed from the hair, Ben settled into a stream of his own making, a long, satisfied babble pitched at no one in particular, his legs kicking, clearly delighted with the sound of his own voice. He had whole conversations like this sometimes, serious and one-sided, as if narrating something only he could see.

Arthur listened to it for a second, head tilted. "Hold on now, that's a fine speech you're givin'. Let's see if there's a word in there." He angled Ben toward Elise. "Say Mama. Go on, you were just sayin' it."

Ben kept right on babbling, unbothered, working his way through a string of sounds that drifted close to an actual word then away from it again.

"There." Arthur sat up a little. "You hear that? Right there."

"I heard several things," Elise said, smiling. "I'm not certain any of them were addressed to me."

"It was in there." Arthur pointed Ben toward her again, more deliberate this time. "Mama. Look right at her and say it. Mama."

Ben looked where he was pointed, looked back at Arthur, and laughed outright, like the whole exercise was the best joke anyone had told him all week. He lunged for Arthur's nose instead, missed, and got an ear.

"That weren't even close."

"He'll get there," Elise said.

Arthur was quiet for a moment, his thumb moving idly over Ben's small foot. When he spoke again, something in his voice had changed, gone careful in a way it hadn't been a second ago.

"Try." He stopped and cleared his throat. "Try Dada."

He tapped his own chest, twice.

"Dada. C'mon now." His voice had gone rougher than the moment called for. "Easiest word there is."

His brow furrowed. His mouth worked, opening and closing twice on nothing, his small hand flattening against Arthur's shirt as if he could feel his way to the word through his palm.

"Da," he said, finally, and then, with visible effort, like he was hauling something heavy up a hill, "Da-ah."

For a moment nobody in the tent moved. Arthur's hand had gone still on Ben's foot. He wasn't breathing.

"Yes." Elise sat up fully, her voice thick, reaching over to lay her hand against Ben's back. "Yes, mon coeur. You're right. That's Dada." She looked up and found Arthur's eyes over the top of Ben's head.

Ben squirmed, already losing interest in the achievement, more concerned now with the buttons on Arthur's union suit, but Arthur held on a beat longer than he needed to, his throat working, his eyes shining when he finally lifted his head.

Ben had moved on from the achievement of language entirely, more interested now in the corner of Arthur's union suit collar, which he'd gotten into his mouth and was worrying with considerable dedication.

"He's going to eat you," Elise smiled.

"He's been tryin' to eat everything within arm's reach since he was a few weeks old." Arthur reached past her toward the small trunk at the head of the cot, rummaging one-handed. "Here." He produced a piece of hardtack, holding it up for inspection. "That'll keep him busy."

"Is that sanitary?"

"It's hardtack. Ain't nothing alive on it, I promise you that." He offered it to Ben, who released the collar immediately and grabbed for it with both fists, jamming one corner into his mouth. "See? Happy as a clam."

Elise watched Ben gnaw at it, skeptical but not intervening. Ben made a triumphant sound and waved the hardtack overhead, apparently having achieved some small victory with it.

"Lord," Arthur muttered, rescuing it before it connected with anyone's face.

The hardtack had been gnawed down to a nub, rescued from being swallowed entirely, and Ben was now occupied with a far more interesting challenge: the buttons on Arthur's union suit, which he'd apparently decided needed loosening.

"You're gonna pull 'em clean off," Arthur said, extracting one from Ben's grip only to have him lunge for the next one down.

Ben, unconcerned with the adult concerns, succeeded at last in working a button loose, then looked up at Arthur with an expression of complete self-satisfaction.

"There it is," Arthur said. "Real proud of yourself."

Ben laughed, open-mouthed and gleeful, and made a grab for Arthur's chin.

That was when the noise started.

It began low, voices carrying across the camp, a few words indistinct but the tone unmistakable. Then Sean's voice cut through all of it like a poorly aimed shot, loud enough to scatter birds.

"There's a woman in Arthur's bed! Boys, there's a—someone come look at this—"

More voices. Laughter. Someone, Bill, maybe, said something too muffled to make out, but the laughter that followed it was not muffled at all.

Arthur's expression had gone flat.

"Oh no," Elise groaned.

Arthur was already moving, setting Ben down against Elise's hip in one motion and reaching for his shirt with the other hand. She pulled Ben against her side and reached for her dress, shrugging it on over her chemise, fingers finding the buttons without looking.

Arthur got his shirt on, didn't bother with more than half the buttons, and ducked out through the tent flap.

The scene outside was exactly as bad as it sounded. Sean was standing ten feet from Arthur's tent with his arms out like he'd discovered gold, grinning so wide it looked like it might split his face. Lenny was beside him, making an effort to look anywhere else. Bill stood a few feet back with his arms crossed.

"All right," Arthur said, in a voice that carried.

"Morgan." Sean's grin didn't dim even slightly. "Who've you got in—"

"It's her sister."

Silence.

Sean blinked. "What?"

"Miss Brooks's sister." Arthur's tone made the explanation sound like it ought to end the conversation permanently. "She arrived last night. She needed somewhere to sleep. I gave her my tent."

Sean's mouth opened and then closed and a sheepish look crossed his face.

"Her, right," Sean said. "Her sister. Of course." He paused. "You could've said something."

Elise appeared behind Arthur, Ben on her hip. She took in the assembled faces, relieved to be with them all again.

Sean, to his credit, pulled his hat off.

"Miss Brooks," he smiled, "Didn't know you'd come back. It's good to see you."

"Thank you, Sean." Her voice was warm, which somehow made it worse for him. "Emma arrived with me. She had a long journey and I'd ask that she be left to rest a while longer." She gave Sean a long look. "Without any further disturbance."

"Yes, ma'am. Absolutely." He turned. "Boys. You heard her."

Lenny had already drifted backward. Bill uncrossed his arms and walked away. The two by the fire found other business to attend to. Arthur waited until the last of them had dispersed, then turned back to Elise. Ben was watching the retreating figures with great interest.

Jack Marston came barreling around the side of the tent with his boots unlaced and his shirt untucked, and pulled up short when he saw Ben on Elise's hip.

"Ben!" He shrieked. "Ben's back!"

"He is," Elise said, crouching to Jack's level. "And look how big you've gotten yourself."

Jack ignored this entirely, already reaching up toward Ben with both hands. Ben, for his part, lurched forward with enthusiasm, grabbing a fistful of Jack's shirt.

"He remembers me," Jack exclaimed, with enormous satisfaction.

"Of course he does." Elise steadied Ben's weight.

"Mama said you were gone," Jack said, matter-of-fact, already pulling faces at Ben, who responded with a shriek of approval. "She said you weren't coming back."

Elise furrowed her brow at this revelation. "Well. Here I am."

"I knew you would." Jack glanced up at her briefly, then back at Ben, already losing interest in the adult portion of the conversation. "Can I hold him?"

"When we sit down somewhere. He's heavy now."

"But I'm strong, Miss Elise!" Jack said, with complete confidence, and flexed one small arm to demonstrate.

Before she could respond, she heard Mary-Beth's voice from her periphery.

"You're back!” She took Elise's hands. "Oh, we missed you. Both of you." Then her eyes moved to Emma with transparent curiosity and not a trace of guile. "And you are..."

Emma smiled at her, warm and immediate. "Emma Brooks."

"Mary-Beth Gaskill." She looked slightly dazzled. "I've heard so much about you!"

Tilly had arrived at Mary-Beth's elbow in the meantime but her gaze held on Ben.

"May I?" She held out her hands. Elise passed him over without ceremony.

"Lord," Tilly said softly. "Look at the size of you." She glanced up at Elise. "How much has he grown?"

"A great deal, apparently. I've been hearing about it all morning."

"He's enormous." Tilly turned him to face outward. "Look at those cheeks." She addressed this to Ben directly. "You’ve got some chubby cheeks, haven't you. Yes you do."

Ben, flattered, clapped excitedly.

Karen had materialized and was already leaning over Tilly's shoulder with her hands on her knees, studying Ben with frank appraisal. "He's going to be enormous. Look at the legs on him. How the hell did you squeeze him out?"

"Karen!" Tilly exclaimed.

Karen straightened. "He's going to be six feet by the time he's ten, is what I'm saying."

Emma watched all of this with an expression of quiet, contented observation, her coffee cup cradled in both hands. She caught Elise's eye and said nothing, only raised one brow a fraction.

Elise looked back at Ben, held securely in Tilly's arms, crowing at Karen while Jack tugged at his bootlace from below and made faces, and the anxiety that she had been holding in her chest eased.

Elise scanned the camp until she spotted Abigail at the river's edge, crouched over a washbasin with Jack's breakfast dishes stacked beside her.

"Come," she said to Emma. "There's someone I want you to meet."

The grass was still wet from the night's dew, and they picked their way down the slight bank carefully. Abigail heard them coming and glanced up, her hands still moving in the water.

"Abigail." Elise smiled. "I'm so glad to see you. This is my sister, Emma—"

"Miss Brooks." Abigail's eyes moved briefly to Emma, then back to her dishes. "Welcome back."

The words were correct. The tone was not. Elise felt the chill of it like a door swung open on a cold morning, and it startled her enough that she missed a beat before pressing on.

"We arrived last night. It was a longer journey than we'd hoped, the roads north of Saint Denis were awful after all the rain." She paused. "How have you and Jack been keeping?"

"Fine." Abigail lifted a plate from the basin, rinsed it, set it aside. Her eyes did not come up again. "Jack's well."

Emma's shoulder brushed Elise's, the faintest possible contact.

"I'm glad to hear it," Elise said, keeping her voice pleasant. "He looks wonderful. He's gotten so tall since—"

"I've got to get these finished before the morning gets away from me." Abigail's hands kept moving, steady and deliberate. "If you'll excuse me."

A silence followed that said everything Abigail hadn't. Elise stood in it for a moment, something behind her sternum pulling tight, and then Emma's hand found her elbow, gentle and unhurried, the kind of guidance that didn't look like guidance at all.

"Of course," Elise said. "We'll leave you to it."

Abigail didn't look up.

They walked back up the bank in silence. When they were far enough away, Emma said nothing, only tilted her head at Elise with an expression that asked the question without words.

"I don't know," Elise said quietly. And she didn't.

Miss Grimshaw was tallying something in a small ledger near the supply wagon, her reading glasses perched at the end of her nose and her expression suggesting the numbers weren’t the answer she wanted.

"Miss Grimshaw." Elise approached with Emma in tow. "I'd like to introduce my sister, Emma Brooks. She'll be staying with us for a time."

Miss Grimshaw looked up from her ledger, assessed Emma.

"Miss Brooks," she said, with a short nod. "We'll find you settled soon enough." She closed her ledger. "Now, as to your sleeping arrangements."

"That's actually what I wanted to ask about," Elise interrupted. "Is there anything available?"

Miss Grimshaw's expression underwent a subtle shift and she removed her glasses.

"Miss Brooks," she sighed, addressing Elise. "When you joined our camp, you took the last available tent." She paused, folding her glasses with deliberate care. "Which means that there is, at present, nothing left to offer your sister." Her eyes moved between the two of them. "Unless, of course, you were to vacate your current accommodation." Another pause, shorter this time. "Given that you appear to have a frequent bedfellow, perhaps you would be more comfortable in his accommodations."

The heat hit Elise's face before she could stop it, a slow, thorough flush that started at her throat and climbed. She was aware, acutely and miserably, of Emma standing directly beside her.

"I—" She cleared her throat. "I haven't, that is, we haven't—"

Miss Grimshaw's expression remained perfectly composed.

"Emma can take my tent," Elise said, with as much dignity as she could salvage. "That's settled. Thank you, Miss Grimshaw."

"Mm." Miss Grimshaw opened her ledger again. "Glad we sorted it."

They walked away. Elise stared fixedly ahead, her cheeks still burning. Emma waited until they were well out of earshot before she spoke.

"So..." Her voice was light, entirely too light.

"It isn't like that," Elise said too quickly. "We share a bed. Nothing more than that."

Emma's expression did not change.

"Emma, I mean it. We haven't, we've been perfectly proper with one another. We haven't done anything untoward."

"I didn't say anything, Lisey."

"You're giving me a look!"

Emma pressed her lips together, suppressing a smile. "I'm sure you've been the very picture of propriety."

"We have," Elise exclaimed, and then added, because honesty compelled her: "Though it hasn't been without some effort."

Emma made a sound that she quickly converted into a cough. Elise looked at her sideways.

Arthur nervously rounded the side of Hosea's tent, part of him hoping that the old man was still gone but instead he ran smack into the three of them arranged around Hosea's small table. Dutch had his boots up on the corner of the table. John was peeling an apple with his knife. Hosea had a cup of coffee going cold in front of him.

The laughter died when he saw Arthur's face.

"Sit down, son," Dutch said, pulling his boots off the table with a thud. "I heard you nearly cost Hosea a card game yesterday."

"I'm fine."

"Sit down, Arthur."

He sat down with a heavy sigh. "Emma Brooks is here," he said. "Elise's sister. She came back with them last night."

Dutch tilted his head, waiting for the rest of it. John's knife stilled on the apple peel.

"She won't be going back to Saint Denis."

"All right," Hosea said, carefully.

"It ain't all right." Arthur looked at his coffee. "Their brother-in-law Martin Fontenot. He had plans for Emma and Elise that they didn't take kindly to, and the situation, resolved itself. But Fontenot ain't the type to let a thing go."

"How resolved?" Dutch asked.

Arthur glanced up. "Enough that there'll be consequences."

Dutch studied him for a moment, then leaned back in his chair, pulling one knee up to his chest. "How bad?"

"Could mean unwanted attention from the law. Could mean Fontenot tries to come himself. I don't know what direction he takes it, but either way, having her here brings eyes to this camp that we don't need." He set the coffee down. "I'm not saying she can't stay. I'm saying we need to be smart about it."

Hosea turned his cup in its saucer, his expression thoughtful. "What does smart look like to you?" he asked.

"Keeping a low profile. Not letting the girls go into town for a while. Moving camp sooner rather than later." Arthur ran a hand over his jaw. "I don't know. I'm still workin' it out."

Dutch leaned forward, elbows on the table, and Arthur saw the moment he found his angle. "I understand your caution, son, but think about it! Two daughters of the Saint Denis aristocracy, and where do they end up? Here. With us." He spread one hand, an expansive gesture toward the camp beyond them. "Their world failed them, Arthur. Their laws, their society, their name, all of it failed to protect them. And where did they run? They ran to us."

"They ran from Fontenot," Arthur quipped. "Let's not flatter ourselves."

"The destination matters," Dutch said, unperturbed. "A man like Fontenot, men like all of them, they think they can take whatever they like, because the law permits it, because money permits it. And yet here we are. Still standing." He paused, for effect. "I am not afraid of him or anyone else that tries to come after us."

"That's real encouraging, Dutch."

"The question isn't whether we're afraid of him," Hosea said. "The question is whether having the younger Miss Brooks here puts the camp at greater risk than turning her away does." He looked at Arthur directly, and his voice was even. "Because the alternative you're dancing around is handing that girl back to her brother-in-law. And I don't think you came over here to suggest we do that."

Arthur shook his head. Elise would never forgive him and he doubted he would forgive himself.

"Thought not," Hosea said. He picked up his coffee. "She stays. We're careful. We move when it makes sense to move, which we were going to do anyway." He took a sip. "It isn't a complicated problem, Arthur. It just feels like one."

"I just," Arthur paused. "I don't want anything coming down on Elise. She's been through enough."

"Then protect her," Dutch said, simply. "That's what you do."

The table went quiet. John had resumed peeling his apple, though from the angle of his head he'd been listening to every word.

"There's something else," Arthur tried to keep his voice steady, more nervous than he had been previously. "I asked Elise to marry me." He paused just long enough to gauge their different reactions. "She said yes."

A large smile washed across Hosea's face, and then he reached across the table and clapped Arthur's forearm.

"Happy to hear it, Arthur!"

Dutch was quiet for a moment, his chin resting on one knuckle. Then he exhaled through his nose and sat back. "Marriage," he started. "I've never thought much of the institution, as you know. A legal arrangement dressed up in sentiment, a man declaring ownership, a woman agreeing to it."

"That ain't what it is," Arthur rebutted. "Not for me."

"No," Dutch agreed, and his voice shifted, the rhetoric dropping out of it. "No, I don't suppose it is." He gave Arthur an unguarded look. "You've always been more traditional in that way, in most ways." He paused. "You deserve some happiness, Arthur. God knows you've been short on it."

Arthur found himself hanging on Dutch's every word.

"She's a good woman," Dutch continued, and then, because he couldn't quite help himself, "and she's been a fine addition to this family. Both of them will. Saint Denis high society will be furious, and I confess, it gives me some personal satisfaction."

"Glad it works for you on multiple levels," Arthur said drily.

John had been quiet for the entire conversation. He'd finished peeling the apple and was eating a section of it with an expression that had been growing increasingly stormy.

"This is all real sweet," John said, "but now Abigail's gonna hear about it."

Hosea looked at him. "And?"

"And then I'm gonna have to hear about it." John gestured with the apple slice toward Arthur in a way that managed to be simultaneously accusatory and defeated. "You know what she's like. She's gonna spend a week telling me what a romantic gesture it was, and how some men know how to commit, and how Jack's getting older now and maybe it's time we—" He ate another section of apple and scowled at the table. "It's like you didn't think about how this was gonna affect other people, Arthur."

"My heart bleeds for you, Marston," Arthur's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"I just don't want Abigail getting any ideas, is all." John continued.

"John," Hosea said pleasantly.

"What?"

Hosea reached over without looking and smacked the back of John's head, not hard, but enough to get his point across.

"Ow—"

"Congratulate the man."

John rubbed the back of his head and looked at Arthur with a sheepish look. "Congratulations," he mumbled, with as much grace as he could locate, which was not a great deal. "I mean it. I do." He pointed the knife he was using to slice the apple at Arthur. "I just want it on record that you've made my life harder."

"Noted," Arthur said.

Hosea refilled his coffee and settled back in his chair with a smile plastered across his face.

"Arthur," Hosea reached over again and patted him on the back. Hosea raised his cup in celebration. "She's a lucky woman."

Arthur ducked his head, the tips of his ears going warm, not used to such praise.

Elise walked back from Miss Grimshaw's wagon slower than the distance required. Her face was still warm from the comment, and she pressed the back of her hand briefly to her cheek as if she could wash the color out of it before anyone else noticed.

It was one thing to share a bed on nights when the cold or the nightmares made it impossible to be alone. It was another thing to make the arrangement permanent.

She had said yes to him last night. She had meant it with everything she had. But this felt like the larger admission, somehow, larger than a wedding itself, which was still vague enough to live in the abstract, still months off, still something that happened to other people in churches with witnesses. This was smaller and immediate. Her trunk was beside his cot. Her books on his shelf. Ben's cradle wedged into a space that had never held more than one man's belongings.

What if he hesitated? Not a refusal, she didn't imagine that, but a pause, a beat too long before he answered, and she would see it and know it and have to pretend she hadn't.

She reached her own tent and stood outside it a moment before going in, resettling Ben on her hip more than he needed resettling, buying herself a few more seconds of not yet.

"Well," she said to him, mostly to hear her own voice do something steady. "No use standing here."

She found the men arranged in the easy configuration, Bill with his arms crossed and his hat pushed back, Javier leaning against the wagon wheel, Charles a half-step apart from both of them. Arthur was facing her, or would have been, if he'd been looking in her direction. He was saying something to Bill with an expression on his face that she rarely got to observe unguarded, relaxed, a little wry.

Charles saw her first. Something shifted in his expression, quiet and attentive, and then Javier glanced over, and then Arthur turned, following the direction of their attention.

His face changed when he saw her. Not dramatically, but there was a loosening, something going softer around the eyes, and then one corner of his mouth came up.

"Hey, honey," he smiled.

"I'm sorry to interrupt." She wasn't, especially, but it seemed polite. "When you have a moment, could I have a word?"

"Go on," Bill said, sounding aggrieved. "We weren't talking about anything important."

Arthur handed off his coffee cup to no one in particular, Javier caught it out of reflex, and walked over to her. Ben, who had been observing the group from Elise's hip, lit up at the approach and lunged forward with both arms.

"Easy, easy." Arthur caught him before the transfer could become a disaster, settling the boy in his arms. "Where's the fire?"

They walked a little apart from the others, toward the quieter end of camp where the trees were packed in close and the morning light fell through the leaves in slow-moving pieces. Elise kept her eyes forward.

She smoothed a wrinkle from her sleeve that didn't need smoothing. "The thing is, Miss Grimshaw spoke to me earlier. About living arrangements. Emma needs somewhere to sleep, and I have, I had—" She stopped.

Arthur raised an eyebrow at her apparent distress.

"I've given Emma my tent," she said. "Which is the sensible thing. She needs it and I—" She pressed forward. "I was wondering whether Ben and I might share yours?" She made herself look at him. "If that's agreeable?"

"Well," he pondered aloud.

"If it's too much trouble—"

"I didn't say that." He looked at Ben, appearing to consider. "It ain't a large space."

"I'm aware."

"Got my habits."

"Habits?"

"Sleep with the gun on the right side under the pillow."

Elise's brow rose dramatically. "Oh... well, all right."

"Can't abide socks in the bed."

"That doesn't seem—"

"Just thinking it through." He pressed his lips together in a way that did not successfully conceal his amusement. "Lot to consider."

She could feel the color in her face. She kept her chin level and her expression composed and waited for him to finish enjoying himself, which he did, eventually.

"Lisey." His voice had dropped into something quieter, the teasing gone out of it. He reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair back from her face, his thumb grazing her cheek as he drew his hand back. "That was always the plan. You and Benny, with me. That was always where you were going."

She exhaled.

"Was going to ask you myself," he added. "You just got there first." He shifted Ben to one arm and extended the other toward her, and when she stepped close, he settled it around her shoulders, easy and unhurried, his hand warm through the thin cotton of her sleeve. "I'll move the trunk and the bed. Don't think about lifting it yourself."

Later, Elise stood back with Ben on her hip, bouncing him without quite meaning to, watching Charles and Javier carry her trunk into Arthur's tent like it was any other piece of camp business.

Javier said something to Arthur she couldn't hear, and Arthur's mouth curved, brief and private. Charles came back out first and gave her a short nod on his way past. Javier lingered a moment longer at the entrance, glancing back at her with an expression she couldn't quite name, amusement, maybe, or something gentler than that.

Arthur emerged last, ducking out of the tent and brushing his palms against his trousers, and something in his shoulders had eased that hadn't been there an hour ago.

"That's the last of it," he said, coming toward her. He reached for Ben before she offered him, settling the boy against his hip like it was already habit. "Go on and see to whatever else needs seeing to. I'll take him a while."

She watched him carry Ben off toward the grass where Jack was waiting.

Arthur dropped down to the ground without ceremony, folding himself into the grass, and Ben immediately lurched in his direction and grabbed two fistfuls of his trousers.

"Hey, Benny." He scooped him up and settled him against his chest. "You ready to stand up?"

Ben kicked both feet, which Arthur took as assent.

He stood himself, got his boots set even in the grass, and lowered Ben down until his feet touched the the leather. Ben's legs buckled, then braced. His hands gripped Arthur's forefingers with surprising firmness, his knuckles going white with the effort of it.

"There you go." Arthur held still, kept the grip easy. "You got it. Look at that."

Ben was looking at his own feet with an expression of profound suspicion, as though the ground was new and not entirely trustworthy. Then he looked up at Arthur and shrieked once, triumphant.

"I see it," Arthur told him. "Real impressive."

"Can he walk?" Jack had materialized at his elbow with his hands behind his back, peering up at Ben with the solemn interest of a boy conducting research.

"Working on it."

"Mama says I walked late." Jack crouched to study Ben's feet. "Do you think he'll walk before me?"

"Reckon so."

"How do you teach him?"

Arthur looked at his boots. He'd seen it done, once, somewhere he couldn't quite place, a memory with the edges worn off. He unbuttoned one of the boys shoes and then the other and set them down in the grass, then lowered Ben until his feet, small and socked and curled slightly at the toes, rested on top of them. Ben's weight settled. He blinked downward.

Arthur kept his hold on Ben's hands and took one slow step forward. Ben lurched with it, instinctively, his foot staying on the boot. Another step. Another lurch. Ben made a startled sound, and then, when the ground did not rise up to claim him, something that might have been the beginning of delight.

They went six steps before Ben's concentration broke and he made a dive for the grass. Arthur caught him, lowered him to the ground, and Ben immediately rolled and grabbed a fistful of clover.

"He'll get it," Jack said, authoritative. He dropped to his stomach in the grass beside Ben and propped his chin in his hands.

Jack was quiet for a moment, watching Ben work through his handful of grass with systematic focus. Then, without looking up:

"Are you Ben's Pa?"

Arthur's hands stilled on his knee. "Yeah," he said. "I am."

Jack looked up at that, a small crease forming between his brows. "But Miss Elise said he didn't have one."

Arthur turned this over. It was true enough, what she'd told him, and true enough still in the way that mattered to a four-year-old who wanted the world to make sense. "That was before," he said. "I'm going to marry his Mama. So that makes me his Pa now."

Jack considered this. "Oh," he said, thinking it over. "Do you get a new Pa when someone marries your Mama?"

The constriction in Arthur's throat came without warning. He kept his eyes on Ben, who had abandoned the grass entirely and was making a dedicated study of his own fist.

"Something like that," he said.

Jack considered this development with the gravity he brought to most things, chin still propped in his hands, eyes on Ben's fist.

"Maybe Uncle Charles could be my new Pa," he said, thoughtfully. "Or Uncle Javier?"

Arthur glanced over at him. "That so?"

"Uncle Charles is real good at huntin'. He showed me a hawk's nest once." Jack turned this over further, clearly building the case in his head. "Javier sings good. Mama likes it when he sings."

"Does she?"

"Uh-huh." Jack pulled up a fresh handful of clover, apparently satisfied with his reasoning. "I think either one would be fine."

"Well." Arthur reached over and resettled Ben, who had gotten one sock most of the way off and looked prepared to eat it. "I expect they'd both be flattered to hear it. But you got a Pa already, far as I know."

Jack's face dropped. "I know," he said, after a moment.

Arthur pried the sock the rest of the way off before Ben could commit to it. "I reckon your Pa's the one you got."

"But he's not around much."

There wasn't a good answer to that, or none Arthur was equipped to give a four-year-old sprawled in the clover with a sock's fate hanging in the balance.

"Sometimes fixin' a thing takes longer than gettin' a new one," he said finally. "But it don’t mean the old one ain't worth fixin'."

Jack squinted at him, unconvinced, or maybe just unclear on what any of that had to do with hawks' nests. "Are you gonna fix him, Uncle Arthur?"

"I ain't in charge of fixin' anybody but myself, and even that's slow going." Arthur caught Ben's fist before it found his own nose. "Your Pa's gonna have to come around on his own."

Jack seemed to accept this as final, if not entirely satisfying, and returned his attention to Ben.

Elise opened up the worn leather trunk. She had been reluctant to take any space that was uniquely his, but he'd waved a hand at it earlier and told her to use it for whatever wouldn't fit on the shelf, and so she'd knelt in front of it after Emma was settled, working through the layers of someone else's life.

Through the gap where the tent flap hung open, she could see him. He was crouched over with Ben standing on the tips of his boots, gripping Arthur's fingers, while Jack lay sprawled on his stomach a few feet away, chin propped in his hands, delivering some commentary Arthur was only half attending to. Ben took a lurching step. Arthur said something she couldn't hear, and Ben shrieked with delight.

She let herself watch a moment longer than the task required, then went back to clearing space at the bottom of the trunk, where her fingers found a small leather case tucked beneath a folded shirt, the kind meant for keeping paper dry against weather and years.

She should have left it. She told herself that even as her fingers were already working the clasp.

The first photograph inside showed a woman sitting alone against a plain backdrop, her dress high-collared and dated by a decade or more, her hair pinned in a style Elise's own mother might have worn as a young woman. She had Arthur's eyes, or rather he had hers. His mother, surely. He hadn't said much about her beyond her name and that she died when he was very young. She set it aside with more gentleness than the paper strictly required.

The second was nothing like the first. A police photograph, stiff and institutional, a placard held beneath a hard, weathered face, the same hat Arthur wore now, she realized with a small jolt, tipped at the same unconscious angle. Lyle Morgan, the placard read. She looked at it longer than she meant to, searching the face for Arthur and finding him there despite herself, in the set of the jaw, the line of the mouth. She did not smile this time. She set it down without ceremony and reached for the next.

The group photograph came after that, three men younger versions of faces she knew. Dutch stood in the center, his hands on the shoulders of his companions. Seated was a younger Hosea. And beside them, half a head taller than both, a young man who might have been twenty. He was younger, skinnier, with a fire in his eyes that had long since gone out. She traced her thumb along the edge of it.

The last photograph was different from the rest, the paper thinner, worn to near translucence at one corner, as though it had spent a long time being folded and unfolded, carried and put away. A formal portrait, the kind taken in a studio with a painted backdrop and stiff, borrowed chairs: a young woman in the front, dark-haired and lovely, and beside her, a young man Elise recognized with a small, unsteady jolt as Arthur. Younger than she'd ever known him, smooth-jawed, his hair combed into some semblance of order, his posture was a bit stiff and awkward given the formality of the portrait.

Elise did not recognize the woman. She turned it over and in delicate handwriting it said, Mary. No date. No surname. Just the name, and the soft foxing of age along the border.

She looked at the young man in the photograph, so unlike, and yet so plainly the same man laughing in the grass outside, and something small and unwelcome uncurled low in her stomach.

She made herself set the photograph down and picked it back up almost immediately.

He'd told her about Eliza and Isaac, about his childhood, and about things far worse than this, things that had cost him nights of sleep to say aloud. But he had never once said the name Mary.

She turned the photograph over again, as if a second look might produce something the first hadn't, a date, an explanation, anything that would let this be simple. It didn't. The couple in the photo was infuriatingly unbothered by the fact that Elise had no earthly idea who she was.

A wife, she thought, and dismissed it. He would have said. Wouldn't he have said?

Unless it was the kind of thing a man didn't say. Unless it was the kind of photograph that got folded and unfolded a hundred times over because a man couldn't quite bring himself to throw it away, and couldn't quite bring himself to explain it either, and so it simply lived at the bottom of a trunk, waiting for exactly this, for someone else's hands to find it on an ordinary morning and turn an ordinary morning into something sour.

Outside, Ben shrieked with laughter, and Jack's voice rose after it, and Arthur said something that she couldn't make out, and the warmth in his voice reached her even across the distance.

How much of this camp's history did she not have? How many folded photographs were there, in how many trunks, that she would never think to ask about because she hadn't known they were ever there?

She heard Ben's triumphant shriek again and Arthur's laugh right behind it, and she had perhaps ten seconds before the tent flap opened and he ducked in to see how she was getting on. Elise looked down at the photograph one last time. Then, with shaking hands, she slid it back beneath the folded shirt, exactly where she'd found it, and closed the trunk.

Taglist: @photo1030

[secondarysweets]

Moving is hell

I’m so over packing and coordinating things. I don’t want to sound ungrateful because we’re so freaking privileged to buy a house in this economy but I’m tired and ready to be done and I want to be able to sit down and write again.

Also everything house related is a scam lol

[morganscampfire]

a dangerous habit (18+) pairing: low honor!arthur morgan x sheriff’s wife! reader rating: mature/explicit 18+ only • minors do not interact summary: your husband, the sheriff, spends every thursday away on business. arthur morgan has made a habit of filling the empty hours. warnings: no plot, just smut tbh. non-con/dub con elements (manipulation, power imbalance), knife play (cutting clothing whilst on body, brief skin contact), rough sex (p in v sex, hair pulling biting etc), name calling towards reader (slut), voyeuristic/exhibitionistic elements (fear of being caught), infidelity, adultery, low honor!arthur morgan (ig, he's a wanted man what can i say),possessive behavior, jealousy, emotional dependency, mature themes & language. semi proof read so spelling mistakes etc will be there lol. SMUT under the cut a/n: this is very different from what i've written before... i got some inspo from when arthur and hosea rob the house in ch2. i hope you all enjoy, lyrics are from lana ofc, images all credited at end. thank YOU all once again for reading & supporting! comments are always welcome.

the air in the house was thick with a tension that had became your oxygen. it was thursday, and the sheriff had left for a regionl meeting but he’d mentioned he might be back early. the risk was higher today. a shimmering thread of danger that made your heart hammer against your ribs.

you were in the bedroom, tidying the linens, when you heard the familiar, heavy thud of a boot on the porch. you didn't even have time to breathe before the bedroom door clicked shut and arthur morgan was there, leaning against the frame. he didn't say a word at first, he just watched you, his eyes dark and hungry.

"he's coming back early today, arthur," you whispered, though you were already walking toward "he could be here any minute."

arthur’s smirk was predatory. he reached out, grabbing your waist and pulling you flush against him his hand sliding down to squeeze your ass with a bruising force. "is that right? you're tellin' me we gotta be quiet, darlin'? that we gotta be careful?" he mocked you with his words.

he leaned in, his voice a gravelly whisper against your skin. "i think that makes it better. i think you like the thought of him walking through that front door while i'm buried deep inside you."

he didn't wait for an answer, he never did. he manuvered you toward the large, ornate mirror of the vanity, forcing you to face your own reflection. he wanted you to see yourself, the "pure" wife, the pillar of the community, as he began to dismantle you. he reached around, his rough fingers fumbling with the buttons of your dress, popping them open with an impatient aggression.

"look at you," he grunted, his hand sliding inside your chemise to cup your breast, kneading the soft flesh roughly. "trembling like a leaf. you're terrified he'll catch us, and it's making you soak through your drawers, ain't it?"

he turned and pushed you onto the vanity, scattering perfume bottles and jewelry boxes with a loud crash that made you jump. he forced your legs wide leaving you completely exposed. he didn't remove your undergarments. instead, he reached slowly for the heavy hunting knife strapped to his belt, the metallic blade leaving the leather sheath echoing like a gunshot in the quiet room.

you gasped, your eyes widening as you saw the cold, sharpened steel glinting in the light. you didn't pull away, you couldn't because the fear was inextricably tied to the arousal that had you dripping and desperate.

"you're so damn pretty when you're scared," arthur murmured, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.

he didn't use the knife to hurt you, he used it to dominate you. he pressed the flat, cold side of the blade against your inner thigh, the freezing metal contrasting sharply with your flushed, burning skin. he slid the steel upward, slowly, tracing the line of your leg until the tip of the knife rested right against the seam of your garmnets, pressing the delicate fabric deep into your wet folds.

"look at how you're shaking," he chuckled, the blade trembling slightly with your shudders. "you're terrified of a little piece of steel"

you let out a strangled moan, your hips arching off the vanity. the sensation was electric, the razor-thin line between pleasure and pain, the absolute knowledge that he held your vulnerability in his hand.

"hold still, darlin'," he commanded, his voice dropping an octave. he began to rip the fabric away, not with a quick cut, but with a slow, deliberate shredding. he used the knife to peel the lace back, you were sobbing now, a mixture of terror and overwhelming lust, your cunt clamping shut and then opening wide, craving the heat of him to replace the cold of the blade.

he leaned in close, his breath hot against your ear, "i could do whatever I wanted to you right now. i could carve my name into you so he knows exactly who you belong to."

the thought sent a surge of heat through you that nearly blinded you. you were completely exposed, the remnants of your underwear hanging in jagged strips, your most intimate parts glistening and open under the gaze of the blade.

finally, he pulled the knife away with a slow, sliding motion that left you shivering. he didn't put it away. he held it in one hand, using the handle to tilt your chin up whilst his other hand gripped your throat, just tight enough to make your pulse thump against his palm.

"now," he growled, his eyes dark with a predatory hunger. "now that you're properly opened up, let's see how much of me you can take."

he dropped the knife onto the vanity with a loud clatter that made you flinch, and in the same motion, he lunged forward, slamming his thick, pulsing cock into you with a violence that felt like it was splitting you in two. the transition from the cold, precise edge of the steel to the searing blunt force of his flesh was an explosion of sensation that left you screaming into the empty house.

he grabbed your hair, pulling your head back to expose your throat, and began to lick and bite your neck, leaving raw, red marks. his other hand slid down and played with you cruelly, teasing your clit with his rough thumb.

"you want it, don't you? you want the outlaw to ruin you while the lawman is on his way home," he teased, his voice dripping with a possessive dominance. you let out a sharp, loud cry, your fingers clawing at the wood of the vanity.

"shhh," he growled, though he didn't stop. he began to fuck you with a savage intensity, his hips slapping against yours with a wet sound that echoed in the quiet room. every thrust was deep, bottoming out against your cervix, claiming every inch of your interior.

he leaned forward, his chest pressing against yours, and whispered a lie into your ear, a trick to heighten the terror. "i think i heard a horse in the yard, darlin'. i think he's home."

the lie sent a jolt of pure adrenaline through you. your cunt clamped around him in a desperate, tight spasm. the thought of the sheriff, your husband walking in, being caught in this filth, spread eagle on the vanity with a criminal filling you, pushed you over the edge.

"arthur! please!" you sobbed, your voice a strained whisper.

"take it," he commanded, his pace accelerating into a blur of friction and heat. "take all of it, you little whore. let him find you like this."

he shifted his angle, lifting one of your legs higher to drive himself even deeper, hitting a spot that made your vision blur. he was relentless, his movements raw and devoid of any tenderness. he treated your body like a piece of land he was conquering, marking you with every guttural grunt and every bruising grip.

as the climax built, arthur’s movements became frantic, his breath coming in ragged gasps. he gripped your hips so hard his fingerprints would leave bruises for a week. with a final, powerful surge, he buried himself to the hilt and let out a low, animalistic roar, unloading hot ropes of cum deep inside you.

you shuddered violently, your own orgasm crashing over you in waves, your walls pulsing around his cock as he filled you to overflowing. he stayed buried inside you for a long minute, savoring the feeling of your internal tremors. when he finally pulled out, a thick mixture of the both of you leaked from your opening, dripping onto the vanity and staining the wood.

arthur stood up, adjusting his clothes with a cold, detached efficiency. he looked down at you, disheveled, leaking, and completely broken, and a dark, satisfied smile touched his lips.

"he ain't home yet," he whispered, leaning down to kiss your forehead with a patronising sweetness. "but you'll be thinking about me every time he touches you tonight, won't you?"

he stepped back toward the door, his boots heavy on the floorboards. just before he slipped out into the shadows of the hallway, he paused and looked back over his shoulder, his eyes glinting with a predatory hunger.

"clean yourself up, darlin'. make sure you look like the perfect little wife when he walks through that door. but remember..." he let out a low, gravelly chuckle. "i'll be back soon. and next time, maybe we won't be so careful."

the door clicked shut behind him, leaving you in a deafening silence. you were left shivering on the vanity with his seed still dripping down your thighs and the terrifying knowledge that you were already counting the seconds until he returned.

thank you so much for reading! i hope you enjoyed, it means so much to me. i hope everyone is staying hydrated in this heatwave! 🤎🤎

credits for images x, x & x (all pinterest)

[demiene]

𐔌 cw: religion mentions and not in a good light, purity themes and mild virginity loss, low honor arthur to high honor, children, minor pregnancy as in past, smut as always .ᐟ

good girls gather for morning prayer ahead of the dawn, just as the townsfolk only begin to stretch in their wooden creaking beds and rise to splash cold water upon their faces. it is the hour when the church bell rings out, piercing the quiet in the very same manner as the wheat golden sunbeams slicing through the vibrant stained glass windows. they part lips soft as petals to whisper their hymns and devotion, their quivering eyelashes sweeping low against sleep warmed cheeks.

while delicate fingers clutch the crosses dangling from their necks, seeking to feel grounded against the god's unspoken presence. good girls wear long, modest skirts and immaculate, crease free blouses tucked perfectly into their waistbands. they are ever mindful never to expose so much as an ankle, watching their every step when moving through the sanctuary like the morning mist that has yet to melt after the night’s bone chilling cold.

a good girl would know better than letting a ferocious hound inside. it is a hostile creature, its mouth drooling froth, so starkly different from the gentle dogs that wander the grounds searching for a small scrap and a soft pat. its blood should never paint the sanctuary's threshold with the deep cranberry red, no matter how severe the gash.

yet, you parted the heavy timber door wide and allowed him to step into the sacred quiet, growling low from his robust chest and limping with a staggering gait, the holstered revolver rustling too loudly in the serene space. you refused to look at the glinting metal, completely unbothered by how his warm blood stained the cuff of your tightly buttoned blouse, dampening the ivory fabric. gathering bandages and a needle, you mended his flesh as though stitching a delicate pattern across fabric held taut by an embroidery hoop.

looking directly into his turquoise irises, the eyes of a man, not a hound, which reflected an agony far deeper than any wound left by a passing bullet. it was a sorrow that squeezed his ribcage tightly enough to splinter bone, pausing only when the first web like fractures began to spread. a pain you recognized without a word, an echo of something you had once felt yourself, but had either locked away or forced to forget.

“do ya reckon there’s redemption fowah men who have lived a bad life, sweetheart?” his voice was pitched low, dragging as a guttural rasp until he cleared his throat to sound less like a broken man. his dense eyebrows creased in a heavy, brooding manner you had never been permitted to emulate, deepening the permanent lines etched into his weary forehead.

“we have all lived bad lives” you hummed, tone a melodious chime that rivaled any songbird. methodically, you bound his sun bronzed skin back together, stitching neatly until the wound was closed and edges neat, dainty fingertips grazing over sinewy muscle as you wrapped the linen bandages around the bicep, watching the ropey tension loosen it's hold.

good girls never allowed an outlaw to spread them wide and wanting across a timeworn bench. their modest navy blue skirts, tailored strictly to conceal, were never meant to be hiked up and bunched messily against their arching hips. nor were their split drawers ever meant to dangle uselessly from a single ankle, yet there they hung, surrendered simply because he demanded to see every hidden inch of your touch tender flesh.

with wooden cross clung flat against your warm sternum, pinned there by a sticky sweat that spread a glowing sheen, right between the bouncing swell of your breasts. they had sprung free from their confinement the moment he ruthlessly ripped your blouse open, sending the ivory buttons scattering across the floor. beneath your feet, the lost fasteners rolled through the shadows, catching the vibrant, jewel toned colors that the towering stained glass windows cast down onto the scuffed floorboards.

he watches with charcoal pupils blown wide at the way his blushing red cock stretches your virgin cunt open, parting for him without much resistance, glossy from slick and sloppy wet, snug walls so warm around his girthy length. his pudgy midriff rippled and went taut, loose trousers hung low, and his wrinkled striped shirt shifting just enough to lend a peek at the trail of dark, brownish hair clearing a path down past his navel.

he's panting, jaw muscle leaping once before chapped lips part to grit out a filthy moan, scarred hips angling to pummel into your soppy hole, slick webbing in strings that stretch when he slips in and out. nicked thumb and forefinger closing around your peaky nipple and squeezing until you yowl, but cling with sharp fingernails to his bulk bunched arm.

still, he's looking at you like committing something sacrilegious, even as his gaze switches from your spread, glazed folds to face scrunched in pure pleasure, learning his name from jagged rasp mid ramming thrust. moaning a saccharine “arthur!” loud enough for god to cover from, feeling like a bird with it's wings unfurling, even when he's spurting seed deep and tacky into your satiating cunt.

accepting every droplet with clamped pulses, you look gratified, and still his face twists like he's fucked you by force. stained something he had no right to even lay a hand upon, rough, calloused fingers loosening their desperate grip around your squishy hip, shaking with a deep tremor wracking his large hands. the hot sweat that drenched his nape already turning cold against his skin, caught as dewdrops.

arthur left without a syllable, no parting kiss, no fragmented apology, though he chewed on the inside of his cheek as if carrying a torrent of unspoken thoughts. you dragged your discarded drawers back up your legs slowly, not minding the way his spent seed ran a milky trail down the cream soft skin of your thighs.

your blouse buttons still lay scattered across the floorboards, baring mellow breasts and aching nipples immodestly to the sacred room, but you still held yourself with a dignity he completely lacked as his clumsy, heavy fingers fought with his trousers and gun belt. too pretty eyes for a man like him narrowing into tight slits, a hard squint fixed at the wreckage he was leaving behind.

his turbulent irises flitted from the pearlescent puddle glistening on the wooden bench to the vulnerable state you were in, skin bare and legs wobbling like a trapped fawn's. he wanted to wrap his coat around you, the way a decent man would. he wanted to scoop those ivory buttons one by one into his weathered palm and return them to you, but he was no decent man.

so he left like a coward, like a beaten mongrel with its tail tucked, neither looking nor feeling as any ordinary outlaw would have, sated and proud of his conquest. standing at the threshold, he paused to look back over his brawny shoulder, holding the heavy timber doors parted. you did not weep, nor did you hurl the bitter accusations he had actively braced himself to hear, stumbling over your feet to chase him. you only watched as he stood in a pool of his own blood, before he crossed the threshold and left you behind utterly alone.

arthur did not return for months, and you refused to seek him out, even when a persistent nausea began to color your mornings. when you finally visited the doctor for a checkup, you already knew what was coming by the way the old man pursed his lips tightly and adjusted his crooked spectacles with visible nervousness. recognizing by your lack of joyful tears that the life now stirring within your womb had not been planned. still, you did not search for arthur.

early spring slowly bled into late autumn, the leaves shedding their green for a burning orange, framing the freshly painted white church, a sanctuary from which you had been banished by judging glares and hushed, venomous whispers. now, the baby girl balanced on your hip looked exactly like him. her seafoam eyes were fringed by wispy, tawny eyelashes, long enough to brush her rounded cheekbones just as his once had, quivering restlessly whenever they met your gaze with that same restless, searching look.

she babbled softly, reaching for your collar with a tiny, curled fist and scrunching her eyebrows as if telling you something of monumental importance, perhaps offering her own thoughts on the pie crust you were currently mixing in a bowl. the knock at the door came strong and impatient. it wasn't the first, but you had missed all the previous ones, your ears only now straining toward the rattling sound.

even your daughter stopped her quiet cooing. peeking through the window beside you, past the sheer curtains and delicate lace embroidery, you caught sight of a silhouette on your porch, broader and far more massive than the neighbor women who usually visited your cottage to offer empty, hollow condolences.

the knocking ceased as you crossed the floorboards, ancient timber too warped to hide the sound, footsteps drawing to the entrance. and just as your fingers cracked the latch and pulled, the sudden guest cornered right into your space, your daughter's eyes looked right back at you from his worn, rugged face.

the west had taken its brutal toll to arthur, a truth visible to the naked eye. his beard grew longer than it had been on that day, when the scars on his chin were still clear, now shaped into an unruly, coarse thicket with russet hairs curling at the very edges. lavender hued bruises formed exhausted circles beneath his eyes, yet those gaze remained as captivating as ever, vivid in their color, two distinct shades sharing a single, heavy look.

his hair was wild, growing past his ears and scattering messily across a wrinkled forehead, as if the wind had played with it or he had been running for his life. his brawny chest heaved beneath a disheveled plaid collar, the fabric crumpled and his fur coat sleeve slipping off one broad shoulder. a bruised crimson flushed his face, not from the sun’s cruel glare, but from the biting cold and sheer haste, to reach this town, to reach your porch.

you watched as his scarred fingers trembled with a barely noticeable tremor when he finally lifted his hand. his gaze, wild as a prey animal that knows it is soon to be slaughtered, switched frantically between you and your sugary sweet baby girl, unsure of where to land. his lips, far paler than the peachy tint you remembered, were bitten raw from nerves, the uneven flesh parting around words that refused to slip out before closing once more.

slowly, his fingers outstretched further, until his calloused fingertips gently grazed your daughter’s chubby cheek. she did not weep, nor did she try to hide within the cotton ruffles at your chest. it was as if she knew. arthur needed no further confirmation, his lips pursed and crooked nose crinkled, fighting to hold back an emotion he could not yet release “i—i’m. . aah tried. . i—” he managed to rasp, even as his voice quavered into the cold air.

he tried to explain his absence, stumbling over the words, his movements heavy and hesitant. he was still reeling, unable to fully ground himself because the violence of what he had abandoned to get to you still rotted deep within his chest. still, you stepped forward, reaching out until your daughter was gently pressed between your chests, securely supported.

his large arm bent instinctively, scooping the little girl into his hold as well, broad, calloused palm flattening against your own, almost lacing his fingers through yours. you cupped his jaw, the angular curve fitting perfectly into your touch, a familiarity far greater than he had ever permitted you to take back then.

as you lured him inside, shushing him with a honeyed whisper “it’s alright. . i understand” arthur shook his head once in a dull, silent protest, but still followed you step by step into the house. he even bent his massive frame to try and tug his heavy boots off at the threshold, but you reached out once more, grasping his coat sleeve to guide him further into the cottage.

past the counter where the flour for the pie crust sat untouched, and into the dim space where the old wallpaper was flaking off the corners of the walls, which nonetheless managed to hold the welcoming aroma of butter and sweet jam. your daughter murmured a tiny, quiet coo, her grabby hands waving up as if calling to him, too, and he went without resistance.

even after you placed her into the crib, with the autumn wind rattling the loose windowpanes and the bedside candle threw a weak, shivering shadow across the quilt, he didn't leave. he sat heavily at the bed's edge, the old mattress sagging under his sheer weight, wooden frame groaning. he’d hung his heavy coat on your unstable hall tree, boots discarded at the bedroom doorway, driven by a protective urge not to track dirt across the room where his baby slept.

“she's yours” you whispered into the quiet, breaking the long silence after he had spent hours simply watching the baby sleep in her tiny crib. the girl looked so much like him it made him want to rip his own face off, not because he resented their bloodline, but because his mug was plastered on every goddamned bounty board and brick wall in the country.

it was obvious, painfully so, yet you offered the reassurance anyway, not to remind him of his burden, but to help him find an anchor. you stood by his side, slipping out of your day dress and into a soft chemise, fabric rustling with the same sound leaves do when kissing under summer breeze. it was well past midnight, and he’d shot down every gesture of comfort, turned away the tea, the coffee, the hot food.

you’d gone ahead and mixed the pie crust, while he had simply sat in the corner, watching your body move without uttering a single word, just as he was doing now. “aah know, god— aah know” he rasped, voice a low, guttural croak that filled the bedroom. you stepped up behind him, laying a tender hand upon his shoulder and using your thumb to soothe the tense line of his neck, sweeping up and down.

arthur let out a rough breath and caved, a subtle shift of his weight as his massive frame finally went lax, the rigid knots in his muscles unravelling one by one, much like a clew. moving in front of him, you gently pressed against his chest, forcing him back until his elbows dug into the sheets, and you slid your weight onto his taut lap. his throat arched as you bent your head, plump lips finding his to press a soft, lingering kiss against the corner of parting mouth.

he didn't fight it, but he didn't touch you either, his brow creasing when you tried to guide his hands to your waist, as if you were telling him you can touch me, here i am, earning a troubled scowl. his hooded, bloodshot gaze fell to your thighs as they parted, where your sheer chemise bunched up, accentuating bared skin and soft curves completely exposed under his gaze.

clearly mangling something deeply rooted, a man you still had to fully unravel, bound together as you two were by such a strange, unforgiving fate. finally, arthur's palms fell against your waist, clamped at the slope, hoisting you up and off his lap with a tight grip. you managed only a startled squeak before your spine molded against the blanket, head cushioned by the pillows.

he collapsed against you, face buried at your chest and his nose flattening deep against your collarbones, lingering there, so you let him stay. his large hands cupped the space beneath your ribs, mapping their outline perfectly, while your arms looped tightly around his sturdy back. staring blindly at the ceiling, you listened to the howling wind outside, wondering where this road would take you both.

main masterlist. quidelines.

[southernorchid]

Van Der Linde Girl

low honor!arthur morgan x oc (name and looks not specified)

cw: arthur's heavily possessive and a bit mean, mentions of prostitution, consumption of liquor, praise, unprotected p in v, fingering, dirty talk, biting, slapping, arthur's crazy for oc

wc: 2.9k

this was heavily inspired by gibson girl by ethel cain, so please take it with a grain of salt

The evening air was sharp against his skin, like thousands of needles piercing his flesh, injecting poison into his veins. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples, his hair damp from the humidity surrounding him. He pinched the bridge of his nose and made his way through the camp toward Dutch's tent. The plan had to work tonight. The tension in his muscles, coiled and ready to snap, made his vision blur with rage, always on edge. And the only thing that could make it bearable was her. More specifically, sex with her. The countless nights spent alone in his cot, fantasizing about her naked body, his hand around his throbbing shaft—her breasts, the valley between them, her ass, the curve of her spine as it arched under the force of his thrusts. He imagined taking her, showing her pleasure like Dutch never could. There was nobody else, and he was so selfish about it. No other woman could rile him like she did. She occupied his mind, lived there rent-free, and it was driving him mad. The fact that she was Dutch’s most prized possession only made it worse. He swore he could burn down an entire town if it meant she was his and not Dutch's.

His steps were heavy with the weight of his desires. He rolled his shoulders in frustration, shaking off the chill in his bones, then cleared his throat before calling Dutch's name.

"How 'bout we saddle up and grab us a drink, son?"

The plan was simple: get Dutch as drunk as possible, preferably until he passed out, then ride to her house and fuck her senseless. He knew it would be impossible to get to her with Dutch always nagging about money. Arthur never understood Dutch's obsession with cash, especially when the infamous leader was secretly running a side business with working girls in Saint Denis.

The hustle involved private sex workers. Dutch would find young women, desperate for money and preferably without family, and recruit them to work for him. By day, they appeared as ordinary women on the streets of Saint Denis, but when night fell, they spread their legs for rich men in the privacy of their own homes.

The woman who consumed Arthur's thoughts was part of that hustle, and for some strange reason, she was Dutch's favorite. He kept her for himself, the selfish bastard. The knowledge crawled under Arthur’s skin, gnawing at anything soft or good inside him. All that remained was poison, disguised as jealousy and the burning need to possess her.

So, the two older men mounted their horses and rode out of camp toward town. The ride felt interminable for Arthur, his thoughts sinking deeper into a sea of frustration. He couldn’t help but fantasize about devouring her, marking her body with bruises of pure want. Dutch's words about the next plan seemed to fall on deaf ears. All Arthur could do was give him a hard stare, indifferent to whether Dutch noticed. After all, soon enough, Dutch wouldn't remember a thing about tonight.

They both dismounted, hitched their horses, and strode into the saloon, heading straight for the bar.

"Two glasses of whiskey, sir," Dutch barked at the bartender, slamming two dollar bills onto the counter. The bartender nodded, grabbed a bottle of whiskey, and poured two glasses.

Arthur watched Dutch down his shot, then raised his glass with a mutter, "To this night," before swallowing the thick liquid that burned its way down his throat.

A few more drinks and countless stories later, Dutch’s legs grew unsteady. After another two glasses and a heartfelt speech about how much he appreciated Arthur, his head dropped onto the counter, magnetized by exhaustion. Arthur patted his back, slipped a five-dollar bill to the bartender, exchanged goodbyes, and made his way out of the saloon.

The tension in his legs, fueled by the alcohol, only intensified. He could feel an indescribable warmth spreading through his flesh. A shiver of excitement ran down his spine, and his fingertips tingled with anticipation.

At half-past one, he knocked on her door. No answer. A minute later, he grabbed a cigarette from his pack, lit it, and took a drag. Then he knocked again, this time with more force. The door creaked open, revealing her face, peeking through the narrow gap.

"You open that door for just anyone?" he rasped, the cigarette swaying between his lips. "At this hour?" He raised a brow.

Without a word, she stepped back, revealing the interior of her apartment. Arthur took one last drag of his cigarette before flicking it to the ground and stepping inside.

"What do you want?" she asked, her voice thick with sleep.

Arthur moved around her kitchen, inspecting the utensils, the counter, the sink, before pulling out a chair from the table. He lowered himself into it, crossing one leg over the other. She stood there in her nightgown, watching him, before clearing her throat to repeat her question.

"What do you wan—"

"Heard ya the first time."

She stood, dumbfounded, scanning him from head to toe.

"C'mere." He motioned with a hand, and she hesitantly took a step closer.

Arthur uncrossed his legs, his hand resting on her hip, pulling her closer. She gasped meekly, shifting on the wooden floor.

"Ever get that feeling like you're after something real bad, but deep down you know it ain't never gonna be yours?"

She stayed silent, the rhythmic thud of her heartbeat the only sound in the room. After a moment, she nodded.

"Hmm. Ever got it?"

She shook her head.

"Thought so. The difference between you and me is, I ain't waitin' around for nothin'. When I want it, I take it."

Her face scrunched in confusion, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

"That's why I'm here tonight. Dutch has somethin’ in his hands, and I aim to make it mine."

His thumb traced a slow, repetitive pattern on her hip, his eyes peeking up at her from beneath the brim of his hat like a predator in the shadows. She bit her lip, a heat blooming deep in her stomach, and she exhaled a slow breath.

Her hands found their way to his broad shoulders, the muscles rippling under his shirt as he drew her close. His arms circled her waist, pulling her between his spread legs. His nose brushed the curve under her breast, his lips pressing lightly against her skin through the thin fabric of her nightgown.

She tilted her head back, her eyes closing to absorb the feeling of his presence consuming her. The scent of gunpowder, sweat, and musk, tinged with a hint of vanilla, enveloped her, shutting down her rational thoughts.

When she opened her eyes again, she met his gaze—dark, hungry. She felt a surge of arousal between her thighs, and she rubbed her legs together. There was something so erotic in his eyes—the way he looked at her, the way his hands explored her hips and thighs, the fact that she was betraying Dutch and letting his trusted son make her feel this way. But it wasn’t like Dutch and she had a real relationship. He owned her body, not her soul. It was Arthur who owned her soul, pure and only his to do as he pleased. And he was about to claim it.

One of his hands slid beneath the hem of her skirt, his fingers grazing her knee, then moving upwards to the waistband of her bloomers. Her fingers curled around the fabric of his shirt, and he leaned in to kiss her stomach, his other hand pulling her bloomers down her legs.

Her eyes locked with his, the pupils dilated, as she pulled off his worn hat, revealing his crown of brown hair. He inhaled her scent deeply, then stood, grabbing both of her ass cheeks in his hands. She yelped, her hands tangling in his hair, pulling him into a fierce kiss. He wrapped her thighs around his waist.

It took him no more than a few steps before he laid her on her bed. Careful not to crush her, he laid her down on her bed, then pulled away from her momentarily to pull the shirt restricting him from further action over his head and he tossed it over his shoulder somewhere on the wooden floor. With a sharp pull of his teeth, he took off his leather gloves and dropped them on the pile at his feet.

She watched him with lust in her eyes, mentally stripping him entirely, piece by piece until there was nothing left. Her thighs rubbed together at the outline of his cock in his pants and he unzipped them dismissively with practiced ease to free himself from the unbearable restraint. Noticing her hungry gaze, he gave himself a few strokes which made her bite her lip and pull the nightgown over her head, too. He crawled between the sprawl of her legs, his breathing hard, his chest heaving and eyes churning with undeniable arousal.

"I want to claim you." The tone of his voice sent goosebumps and electrifying shocks down her spinal cord, the hair on her arms and back of her neck rising as he traced the back of his finger along her jaw towards the shell of her ear.

A shudder of breath came past her lips. His hands explored her pale skin, beautiful and neat unlike his—endless scars scattered across his torso, healed yet ugly and a constant reminder of the life he's living. His stomach was flush against her own, his pulsating cock pressed against her skin. She mewled at the marvel of the moment, gently slipping her hand between their bodies to seize his length, her fingers curling around it.

"Woman, you ain’t got the slightest idea what you’re stirrin’ up in me."

She gave him a few languid strokes with a flick of her wrist, her thumb coming to press at his slit on top and he shuddered above her, lips teasingly nipping at the skin on her neck, leaving a glistening trail in its wake. He thrust his hips into her palm, desperately seeking the friction he needed to ease the tension he had been suppressing all this time.

He felt as though he could shatter into a million pieces right now, and she would be there to gather them, to piece him back together. All his, not Dutch's. The primal urge to take charge, to claim control, settled deeply in his bones. The simple fact that she was now under his control, doing things to him he had only imagined in the solitude of his cot, was enough to shatter his patience in an instant.

He lowered himself to her face, capturing her lips. His tongue invaded her mouth and she gasped into the kiss, feeling his dick twitch in her grasp as she ran the pad of her thumb along one of his veins. She spread her legs around his torso, locking her ankles at his lower back.

"I want you to fuck me, Arthur," she cooed against his lips, her nails scraping at his back with each buck of his hips into her hand.

He groaned in response, pulling at her bottom lip with his teeth before lowering his head to the underside of her jaw, kissing his way down her collar bone until he reached her breast. His mouth closed around her nipple then suckled and her eyes fluttered shut. Her hand released his weeping cock and glided upwards his stomach, softly ghosting over the density of his muscles before landing upon his hair and her fingers swept back the moist strands hanging down his forehead.

With a soft pop he drew himself back from her, catching a glimpse of her gaze and locking his eyes on hers. Something dark churned behind his eyes and she shivered underneath him.

Giving himself a few strokes at hand, he aligned himself with her entrance, hissed under his breath when his tip pushed inside and slipped in easily. She choked on her breath, scratching her nails down his back.

He set a slow, torturing pace, his thrusts tantalizing, hard yet slow. She squirmed under his frame and gasped a plea. His lips captured hers, tongue protruding inside of her mouth in a rough manner, the kiss aggressive, filled with passion and deep rooted lust. Her walls fluttered around him with each thrust of his cock, his hips flushed against hers with every glide of his length inside of her.

She gasped again and his lips were on hers, panting hard against her mouth. His hand palmed her ass cheek, pulling her hips closer to his to close the already narrow gap between them and to angle her to his liking. The tip of his dick hit that sweet spot inside of her, the action making her moan in surprise. He chuckled with satisfaction as he fucked her weak body into her sheets. She cried out his name again and again.

"Good girl," he drawled as he bit down on her collar bone sending her over the edge with a hard moan. He groaned against her skin as he came, too, filling her up with his spend.

She squirmed slightly, feeling his cum seep out of her pussy and trickle down on the sheets. He panted against her chest, his breathing slowly coming down to a haste. And after a couple of minutes his digits dug into the flesh of her waist, and he rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him in the motion.

She yelped in surprise, and in the brief moment of impact, braced herself against his chest. His calloused hands slid over her hips, gliding toward her waist before continuing upward to cup her breasts. A low groan escaped his lips as he kneaded the soft weight resting in his palms.

She bent down slowly, her hair framing her face as she landed a soft peck upon his lips before raising her hips and grabbing him at his base. He was quick to move one of his hands between their bodies, his fingers spreading her folds apart and circling her entrance. She gasped against his mouth, letting his tongue dive into her mouth with vigor. Her toes curled when his finger entered her, thick, long and hefty, and he marveled in her pants, possessiveness gnawing at his features.

She ground her hips into him, thighs trembling with anticipation. Her lips traveled along his jaw, stopping at his ear and biting at his earlobe while exhaling sharply. His hot breath fanned over her ear, the man whispering sweet nothings that echoed inside her skull.

"C'mon, baby," he mewled. "Give it to me good."

She sighed in response, releasing the skin on his ear from between her teeth and tilting her head to look down between their bodies. He leaned his forehead against hers, watching her align his cock with her entrance before painfully slowly sinking down on him. He watched the head of his length catch at the rim of her cunt before it disappeared entirely and she moaned into his ear.

Everyone seeks it, even Dutch. But in her mind, only Arthur could have it. There was no one else she wanted more. His strong arms, his eyes, his face, his broad shoulders and wide back, the way his muscles rippled beneath his shirt, the way his riding pants and chaps hugged his thick thighs and long legs, the way he handled a gun, and the cigarette that always dangled from his lips, swaying with every word he spoke.

"If it feels good, then it can't be bad," he whispered to himself.

Oh, boy does it feel good. The tension, the unspoken lust for each other, his cock filling her up, his digits dimpling her skin right above her hips. And she feels so immoral in his lap. Going behind Dutch's back. Fucking someone he trusts.

Her eyes closed as she kissed him again, lowering herself on top of his thighs until he was buried to the hilt. Her heartbeat picked up on speed, her breathing increasing and she took a deep breath, then rolled her hips on him and he moaned.

His jaw went slack from the sheer amount of pleasure, his breath catching in his throat as she continued to roll her hips on him. And he tried his utmost hardest not to flip her around and fuck her senseless. His arms twitching from the effort of holding back, his hips bucking up involuntarily.

The coil in the pit of her stomach spiraled, and she breathed out a sharp breath when the head of his cock nudged that deeply sensitive spot inside of her. His fingers angled her on top of him, the renewed spark circling in her guts as he kept hitting that spot repetitively, bringing her closer to the finishing line. Her toes curled again, her back arched into him. His voice distantly breathed a praise into her ear and she managed to choke out a quiet moan before the coil snapped and she awkwardly settled on top of his chest.

It took a few more thrusts inside of her until he filled her up with his spend, the notion making her whimper in overstimulation. His hands came to hold her sides, one of them traveling further down to her ass and gripping the flesh tightly before delivering a sharp slap to her skin. She cried out in pain, curling on top of him.

"I own you."

an: hi guys, this is my first post on this account :p if this oneshot feels familiar, its because im reposting it from on of my other accounts that i had to delete some time ago<3 anyways, i hope you enjoyed!

[dolliecowboys]

★ 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐡 note ➴ old low honor arthur draft i tidied up a little bit. cw hurt / comfort, dom / sub dynamics, piv sex, codependency, maybe mildly toxic undertones but he means well ! smut under the cut

“you're still awake?”

arthur states the obvious. the cut of the crescent moon looms over camp like an open sore, bleeding warbled pools of opal ichor to damp dirt. heavy footfalls send all the fuzzed critters in the forest scuttling in his ill-omened wake. sidestepping away from the iron pressed path of horseshoes in the winding trail, arthur approaches the hissing, honey split of the fire bearing all the indelible stains of a man who knows he's done wrong. gone for too long of a grievous stretch, his bullets and blades embedded in the hollowed, rotted husks of corpses, pockets heavy and saddlebags stuffed full.

a smothering of treacle-sticky shame deluges over him when you startle. soft earth squelches beneath his boots. the tinny tinkering of spurs jostling together seems to stir you from your tremulous state, desolation slashed across your timid face like a birthmark. damning, too, teeth marks indented in your tender bottom lip, dimples burrowed deep into your wobbly chin. he often tells himself his barbarism never touches you. silver-capped toes twinkle in the diffused amber glow when he sits on the opposite log, silent. you look small. arthur takes up all the air.

“i can't sleep without you,” you splutter, strained and pinched, your sluggish gaze flittering over the gore glued to the worn fringe of his chaps, the scarlet stippling. frustrated fists scrub at the wet hollows of your eyes, poppy-red and salt-swollen. you choke back on a stunted sob like a rough whiskey shot, it goes down sour and sharp. your gait is pure gelatin. just a lamb-legged thing, shuffling unevenly by the swarm of sparks and toasted timbre, all the way to him. past pine needles and knurled branches, shivering in spite of the growling heat, your confession a cracked cry. “you scared me.”

a grimace quickly sears its sizzling stamp to his face, tugging at his thick brows and pulling at the corners of his chapped lips. a good, god-fearing boy he is not. these days, the only thing that seems to rattle arthur any are the tears trespassing across your cheeks.

“i didn't mean to.” he grits plainly, smoothing a hard palm over his thickly stubbled face in ire, though it slips out crueler than he intends. cuts clean into your worries with the callous blade of a cleaver, and splits your stupidly sweet affections over the iron spike. you crumple. drowsy footsteps come to a stiffened stop, dolor swelling star-crested droplets to your lash lines, your twitchy fingers fumbling at your sides. he dares not let you sit with it. grumbling under his cool breath, the nothings crystallising to misted clouds in moist air, guilt glowers in his gut and hardens his gallbladder to lead.

he catches the curve of your waist in two tight hands before you have the chance to bolt. you bleat, blinking winsome while he wrangles you to straddle against the muscled bulk of his lap. his second skin of petrichor and copper is potent. smells like a fresh kill, clashes bittersweet with the soot and salt on yours. but he's warm. blood-hot and humanly so, not like the burnt brassy flickers you flocked to before.

“i didn't mean to. really.” he states once more, honest as the day is long, softening his syllables and swallowing all the bile and blood which always worms its way into his tone. his rough lilt rumbles like a brush of velvet, his heavy-lidded eyes soft as cerulean silk. you tremble, a shuddering, shaky chest rubbing into his, both from the frost-tipped chill swathing the flooded heartlands and the curse he has so unkindly bestowed upon you; to love a butcher. dainty arms loop around the nape of his neck, and he knows home is where the heart is, your cardiac chambers thrumming steadily through the beaten leather of his coat.

with a feathery touch, arthur strokes the pad of his thumb across the moon-kissed slant of your mandible, up to the pillowy flesh of your sore lip. parts the bruised petals with a tentative push and slips it inside, glitter-dotted drool pooling around the wide base of his knuckle when you hollow the satiny lining of your cheeks and suck lightly. he pumps his digit back and forth inside your plushy mouth, pressing the callus firm to your tongue. teeth graze his tough skin. a little glimmer of defiance, gone as quick as gun smoke. he knows it's not hardwired in your anatomy to bite. unlike him.

sugar was not something arthur had a taste for. too cloy. no good for gunslingers, no use, but then there was you — your soft underbelly, blunt teeth and fluffed lashes. honest kisses over his whiskery cheeks, the weight of a slow breathing body in his bed, smaller interwoven fingers in his at peach-dusted gloamings, neat stitches in the rumpled linens of his shirts. arthur doesn't know much about love. can't make sense of it. he certainly knows why fellers call it a sickness, though. the coagulated film of perspiration on clammy hands, a cotton stuffed skull, and cardolium unfurling in his burly chest like a rancorous cancer when you cry. crying for him, you sweet girl.

blood thunders in his temples. your pupils are blown wide and wanting, dusky, coal-black and lax below the slow sweep of your eyelids, your whisper-soft suckling. if you were anyone else, not his, a misstep might make him maul you to vermillion ribbons. bay bitterly, sink those curved claws of his into the warm fat and exsanguinate you for sport. he'd shove you into the dirt and rip your skirts open at the seams if you weren't so good at rousing the gentleness in him. it does not come naturally. he had to learn how to be soft. how to be mild and muted, force a triggering reflex that was never there in the first place.

doggish as he be, dripping in his grime-dappled degeneracy, he's a sorry, love drunk bastard. he pulls his tacky thumb from your mouth, a slippery pop, spit string snapping over your chin like spider silk. his darling, honey-glazed with melancholy but needily nuzzling the heat of your cunt over his hardened bulge, thin linens draped loosely over your legs. with all the starvation driven impulse of a ravenous mutt, arthur skims his gunpowdered fingertips and blood-washed palms across the tops of your clenched thighs, past the embroidered petals on cotton. he can't help but think he's wrecked you just as fragile as the threaded flowers, daisy dew on your cheeks, your wispy, waterlogged lashes tinkering slow at him.

he lifts the muddied, rain-damp hem of your pastel skirts to settle around your hips, gooseflesh spotting your sensitive skin in the frosty zephyr, mellow breaths stretching thin when dulled metals and cracked leather click together. your bashful palms work the dirty denim of his pants wide open, gun belt clattering against bark and forgotten, just a dulled glitter in the low fuse of the spluttering fire. a low susurrus of gruff praises spill freely from arthur's throat then, his leaky tip blushing cherry and dribbling hot through your slick slit, soiling your silken delicates. twitching over his tense thighs, you breathe a pretty hiccup, his swollen cock catching on the cleft of your dewy cunt.

“i'm sorry,” he rasps hoarsely, canting his wide hips hard into your sappy heat, slow and strong thrusts against the curves of your ass, throbs running along the vein webbed length pulsing inside you. “i missed you somethin' fierce, darlin'.” a coarse moan catches in arthur's chest. he's nothing but utterly gentle and startlingly tender in the splay of his broad grip encircling your little waist, your tight hole struggling and fluttering at the thick intrusion. matching his pace, small, syrupy sounds spill out from your pounded pussy while you scrub sloppy ruts over his pelvis, your lower halves locked together and sticky, his fat cockhead grazing the pudgy give of your cervix.

fucking you open for him, your translucent slick trickling over his furred, heavy balls, plapping into your glossy folds. you scramble at the broad bulk of his back, bulging muscles rolling beneath your weak grip, dragging your nails across his sweat-soaked shirt and mewling a broken melody. it spikes the lining of his eardrums like a stalking wolf. he near salivates at the pitch of your stifled squeaks, speeding his pummelling thrusts, thickened pearls of precum smearing over the plug of your womb.

your fire shined face pants his name softly. parted lips, sweet as the spring bloom of a buttercup, your sopping pussy a snug snare bouncing on his rigid cock, puffy clit chafing circles over his dark drenched curls. the friction of his toughened jeans bands angry, ballet-pink lines to the backs of your trembly thighs. warm sweat dewy on his wrinkled forehead, his sun weathered cheeks flushed a ruddy hue, arthur huffs ragged, raspy groans, your stuffed walls squeezing his girth. his sharp-fanged maw scrapes over the junction of your jaw. all tongue and teeth, sloppily mouthing scratchy smacks, sinking hard into the slope of your neck, his canines at prickling tender skin.

sugary sweet tension in your tummy snapping, you bonelessly slump over like a bitten bunny, breathlessly babbling through his hilt-deep jackhammering, milking every ridge and vein of his strained cock. spurred on by your tearful keens, the tight coil of your cunt and your steady gush of warm, shimmery slick, arthur follows not far behind, his ‘i love you’s on your feverish skin a drawling slur. his pulsing tip jerks and spasms at your achey insides, shooting sticky, thick pulses, heavy hips grinding your raw cunt over his spent length. your plush cheek slots into the wide crook of his shoulder, his ravaging slams slowing down to lazy, languid pistons. adoring touches caress the meat of your sides, his blunt digits leaving behind lilac and lavender kisses, while he gently fucks his spilled spend back where it belongs.

“don't go.” comes your pitchy plea. puffing a slew of strained, wet whimpers, your forearms finding solace flattening against arthur's back, fingers curling into his sweated traps. sniffling, you beg him to stay, a sting similar to pressing on a bruise. he draws some sick satisfaction out it. feels good to be wanted. tightened sinews shift in his stocky arms as they shift to cup your thighs, curling your pliant body into a possessive, tender carry to his tent. and when dawn sings out her lullabied, sun-shined song to the hushed overlook, you're both stripped bare. your shiny syrup still staining his streaked shaft, your dozy breaths brushing over his bicep, his corded chest moulded to your spine just like the morning dew.

[kay-sea-under-the-moonlight]

unexpected - chapter two

Pairing: Arthur MorganxFem!Reader Summary: after monthsof a friends with benefits type relationship with the chief enforcer of the Van Der Linde gang, you find yourself in a situation you never saw coming. You're pregnant. Desperately trying to make sense of the situation, and your complicated feelings with Arthur, you tumble through emotions and the start of a new life Warnings: MINORS DNI!!! 18+, a bit of angst, bit of fluff, HH!Arthur, loverboy Arthur, smut in later chapters, p in v, unprotected sex (wrap it up!), creampie, pregnancy Words: 1.9k NOTE: this will be a short multi-chapter fic. I'm talking three or four chapters (unless things deviate from my plans) chapter one

Embarrassed, you push further into the woods. Hoping to reach the clearing you'd come across by chance months ago. It was secluded and quiet. Exactly what you needed.

The clearing wasn't big. Matter of fact it was more like a small meadow. The floor packed with dense yellow-green grass, dotted with tufts of flowers that gave off a comforting aroma. You head straight for the fallen log at the far west side and settle down. The long dead wood, slightly eroded with time and the beaks of hungry birds, was still damp from the lingering mist of morning dew. It was cooler here thanks to the dense canopy of tree leaves overhead.

You inhale big gulps of the fresh air. Hoping it'll help clear the stale taste of bile permeating your mouth. You hear the crunch of leaves and your head jerks to the other side of the clearing, jumping a little at the sudden image of Arthur trudging through the brush. You don't know whether to laugh or scream. Arthur could definitely tell you were at a breaking point, and approached slowly. Like approaching a spooked animal. Which in some ways you were.

He stopped a few feet away, his voice low, "Y/N…"

You exhale, closing your eyes and let out an exasperated sigh, "God Arthur… you scared me." You let a small laugh escape, briefly forgetting the current circumstance and remembering all those times this exact thing happened before things changed so suddenly.

Arthur's shoulders relax at the sound of your laugh. It was a familiar sound, something he'd hear usually right before you'd kiss him or pull him into bed. For half a second it felt like old times. Like nothing changed. Then reality came crashing back down. He gingerly stepped closer and slowly sank down on the log next to you. The scent of him—smoke, leather, and musk—wafted around you as he sat. It was comforting… alluring.

Arthur carefully reached out and pressed the back of his hand to your forehead. You press your eyes firmly shut at the touch and smile.

"Oh, I wish I were just that kind of sick…" you voice soft, lilting on the cool air. His thumb brushed lightly over your temple. He checked for a fever he knew was not there. Just the lingering chill of sweat and nausea. He let his hand fall to your cheek, and cupped it. His rough-worked, calloused palm against soft skin. For once his eyes did not possess a single hint of his typical brooding. They were clear… glassy even.

Your eyes start to fill again, and you bite back the growing welt in your throat.

"I'm pregnant Arthur." There is was. Laid bare out into the ether.

Arthur did not flinch. He did not blink too much, or stiffen like a man caught off guard. He just… breathed. His thumb swept under your eye, catching a tear as it fell.

"I know," he said, hushed and gentle. He leaned in and placed a kiss on your lips. You welcomed it. You kissed him back. Tears erupting from your eyes as weeks of pent up nerves released.

You kiss him again, carefully, before pulling back.

"I know I should’ve come to you about this. Probably as soon as I realized but, I couldn’t make sense of it."

Despite your earlier conversation with Hosea, all your worries came flooding in again.

"I understand if this isn’t what you want. I know you’ll be here for us, but I don’t want you to feel trapped or anything." Tears are flowing like waterfalls from your eyes as your hormones take over and force you to imagine the worst case scenario. You can’t help but let your head fall into your hands as you continue to blubber nonsense. In one swift motion, Arthur closes the space between you, enveloping you in his arms and pulling you hard against his chest. Your tears seep into his shirt, leaving damp spots in the white fabric.

"Shhh…" he murmurs into your hair, and carefully plants a few kisses on the top of your head. You'll always be amazed at how a man like him, so large and intimidating, can be so gentle.

Then, when it felt right, he whispered, "I ain't trapped." His words are like a shock to your system.

He tilts your head up gently, ignoring the tears streaks on your cheeks. He stared directly into your eyes, the same ones that stared into his during quiet nights by the campfire, or when you'd laugh at one of his rarely sincere jokes.

"I want this," he said firmly, "I want ya. I want…"

He paused, clearly finding the nerve. It was never easy for Arthur to be so candid about feelings he often reserved for the privacy of his journal.

"I wanna be there for you, and our baby. Always."

Your tears shift from ones of stress to ones of relief.

"Oh Arthur," you mumble out, "I want you too. So badly. I was so scared you'd just do what you had to. That… you wouldn't love me as I love you."

Arthur's eyes darted about you face. His eyebrows knit as he processed your confession, his eyes showing uncertainty. Then, his expression softened as if he we reconciling a million different thoughts in his head and his face switched to one of determination. He reached out, slowly, and cupped both sides of your face with his large hands and kissed you. Harder this time. A real, desperate kiss. Passionate and full of the things he's always struggled to say aloud.

When he finally pulled back and inch or two for air, forehead resting against yours, he whispered, "I love ya too."

Hearing him confess his feelings made you giggle. It was a small sound at first, like a silly school girl, then it morphed into proper laughs of joy. Arthur's mouth lit into a smile. A real, full smile that reached his eyes, crinkling the corners of his eyes making him look years younger. An action you'd only seen maybe once before in all the few years you'd known him. You did only what felt natural.

You kissed him again—hard and breathless, and he kissed you back with everything in his being. One of his hands slid into your hair while the other clung to your waist like it was his only anchor to this world. The kisses turned messy. Hungry even. They were full of weeks of pent-up longing mixed with relief and happiness so fierce it almost hurt to try to contain it all.

Arthur's hands wandered about your back, sides, and hips. Exploring the familiar territory as if it were brand new. And in some ways it was. Your fingers reach for his shirt buttons, motions ravenous as desire erupted in an instant.

Arthur did not stop you. When your fingers fumbled with the first few buttons, he broke your kisses to help. Lips still hovering enough for you to feel his breath—hot and uneven.

Each undone button revealed more of his broad chest, scarred from past brawls and dusted with chestnut hair. The same chest you traced nonsense on a hundred times before in the dark.

But this wasn't a sneaky, hurried affair like before. This was much different.

It felt like claiming each other for the first time as something official… proper lovers. Parents-to-be. A tiny family forming beneath that green canopy. Arthur kicked off his boots and stood just long enough to shrug from his shirt, trousers, and union suit. Shivers rippled through your body seeing Arthur bare and in this new light. It made you burn with an unquenchable fire and you rushed to free yourself from your dress and underthings. And Arthur just watched…

The fabric slipped from your shoulders like water. The summer air kissing your skin, but it was nothing compared to the heat in his gaze. It wasn't hunger alone. It was like seeing you for the first time… the soft swell at your belly. A quiet miracle shrouded beneath pale fabric. He closed any distance fast. Not rushing but needed to envelope himself in this moment completely. He kissed you deep again while a hand traced from your collarbone, to shoulder… then lower… mapping every curve.

His touch was like lightning over your skin. Your breath hitched as he nestled between your legs, his face at yours, kissing relentlessly.

"Please Arthur," you begged, core aching. Needing to feel him. But he faltered. Not from lack of want, but his eyes flashed a brief moment of concern. You recognized the question he was silently asking.

"It's okay Arthur. You won't hurt us," you reassured. That was all he needed, kissing the corner of your mouth, then trailing to your jaw, then to that sweet spot beneath your ear. The one that always made you shiver. Between pecks about your body, he settled himself further between your legs, and with careful motions, entered you slowly. Inch by inch. You both let out sighs upon finally reuniting after what felt like ages apart, the world around you just tumbling away.

He moved carefully at first, not taking any second for granted. This wasn't just sex anymore. This was love. Each shallow roll of his hips sent waves through you. Intimacy, layered with tenderness and deep connection. His pace was deliberate, his head nestled into your shoulder, breathing in the soft rosy scent of you hair, losing his mind in the velvety warmth of you. You threw yours arms around his shoulders, holding him close, holding on for dear life.

His hands gripped at your flesh, grunting as his pace increased. One hand stuck at your hip, keeping himself steady and aloft enough to not crush you. The other dusted your side, feeling up to knead at your breast. A finger flicking around the nipple, making you shudder at the sensation. He lapped at that spot near your ear, before easing down. Kissing your neck, then chest, then even further to take the other nipple in his mouth. Sucking gently, adding to the growing fuzz flooding your brain.

It did not take long for that buzz to shift into that insatiable pressure building in your core. Your release finally hitting in a burst that made you see stars. With a few more rolls of his hips, Arthur moaned in a few short bursts—quiet, restrained, and whiny. Those delicious vocalizations that only ease themselves out when he was close. He reached his high with a final guttural groan. The sound was like music to your ears.

Warmth spread as he finished inside you. Staying firmly within you for a few moments, he relished in the feeling before moving to nestle into your side. The fingers of one hand absently tangling in your hair, while the other hesitantly reached out to hover over your stomach. It slowly eased down, resting against the faint curve.

A quiet wonder passed over his face. Pure awe danced in his eyes as he stared at that small swell where life had begun. Slowly, he turned his head and pressed a kiss to the nape of your neck— a quiet gesture full of everything left unsaid. His hand remained firm on your belly… holding the future beneath his palm.

A/N: I'm hoping I can wrap this up into a trilogy of chapters. I have a penchant for writing long chapters so we'll see...

tag list: @shehrazadekey @to-forget-you-must-try

[kay-sea-under-the-moonlight]

unexpected - chapter one

Pairing: Arthur MorganxFem!Reader Summary: after months of a friends with benefits type relationship with the chief enforcer of the Van Der Linde gang, you find yourself in a situation you never saw coming. You're pregnant. Desperately trying to make sense of the situation, and your complicated feelings with Arthur, you tumble through emotions and the start of a new life Warnings: MINORS DNI!!! 18+, a bit of angst, bit of fluff, HH!Arthur, loverboy Arthur, smut in later chapters, p in v, unprotected sex (wrap it up!), pregnancy... Words: 2.3k NOTE: this will be a short multi-chapter fic. I'm talking three or four chapters (unless things deviate from my plans)

It all snuck up on you. The soft, but undeniable swell of your lower stomach. The mood swings, paired with sensitive breasts, and of course the rolling wave of nausea that often left you doubled over, hurling bile into bushes.

You were pregnant.

The careless trysts with Arthur Morgan finally produced a consequence. Not that it wasn't fun. The sneaking around, endless times canoodling, and sharing a cot more nights than not. It started as something fun. Something to pass the time and ease the stress of outlaw life. Maybe it started to evolve into something different, but neither of you gave it much mind. But now you're avoiding Arthur at all costs as your situation becomes more clear.

The heavy heat of Lemoyne did not help much either. You stood at the creek, settling empty buckets near the bustling water, preparing for the never-ending day of chores. The sweat seeped into every crevice and it was either shed a few layers and make your condition a little more obvious, or just grin a bear it. You settled on the latter.

All the layers did not fool Arthur though. He was a fool but not that big of a fool. He's known your body and behavior better than anyone else, and could tell something was going on. His own guilt kept him from saying anything sooner. Yet his eyes could not help but wander as you worked across camp. The ever so slight growth at the waistline…

You could feel his eyes at your back, but again, you did your best to leave it be. Somehow you knew he knew, but just could not find it in you to address it.

Absorbed in filling buckets with water, you don't immediately notice the approaching footsteps thudding against the packed dirt behind you. You turn your head slightly, just enough to see Arthur's large frame in the corner of your eye. He did not speak at first, the shimmering summer heat acting as a barrier between you. After a beat he cleared his throat, a low and rough sound, and crouched down beside you. The heat continued to permeate the space between the two of you.

"You been feelin' alright?" he asked gruffly. His tone not accusatory or harsh, but careful.

You keep your eyes from from him and grab the empty bucket, dipping it into the cool water and letting it fill.

"I'm just fine. You?" Your first impulse is to be nonchalant. To dance around the situation at hand. You focus intently on how the water ripples around the bucket, swirling in until it had its fill. You jerk the bucket up and set it aside. You reach out to grab the next one but Arthur beats you to it.

"Lemme," he mutters, dipping the steel into the water. His movement was slow, methodical. You toss your hands into your lap in frustration. After filling the bucket he turns, his soft blue eyes bore into you in that way that conveyed he was thinking a million things, but also trying to stifle it all away. All you can do is shake your head.

"I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't do that. I can fetch water perfectly fine."

Your words aren't laced with anger or malice. Just annoyance. You're already bending over backwards to keep this situation quiet, and it would only make people more suspicious if Arthur started doing all your work for you. You grab the handle of a bucket in each hand and take off, leaving Arthur to crouch alone at the water side.

You make it to Pearson's wagon halfway across camp. Setting the buckets down and taking a deep breath before heaving one up and tossing its contents into the washing barrel.

Or maybe you were angry with him? Maybe you weren't. You couldn't exactly figure it out. Not right now at least. Feelings were all over the place, wrapped up in a reckless assortment of nerves and fear. You are so absorbed in your own thoughts but they aren't loud enough to tune our Dutch's booming voice.

"Morgan! Riders comin' in!"

You turn to look towards the path into camp and catch the sight of Arthur heading over to the gang's leader, his hands anchored to his gun belt as he walks. That familiar saunter… You shake any unsavory thoughts from your mind and resolve to do your best to not give it much thought. You grab the other bucket, dumping the rest of the water and filling the basin to the brim.

Onto your next task—mending. You settle into a worn leather stool near Tilly and Mary-Beth's tent, hoping the distance from Arthur will help your focus.

The needle in your fingertips moved, slipping and sliding through the fabric with steady adept movements. The practice holds your attention for mere seconds…

Your mind is insistent on flickering through a plethora of thoughts. Yes, this outcome isn't ideal, but you can't be mad about it. It was a risk you and Arthur were taking and just so happened to draw the short straw. It's not like you didn't like Arthur, or he didn't like you—otherwise you wouldn't have been doing what you were doing… and all the many times you did it. But two questions kept sweeping through your mind every time you saw him, especially now as your morning sickness persisted and stomach continued to swell: do I more than just like him? Does he more than just like me?

The stitches you tangled through the worn fabric felt more like the memories of being tangled up with him. His calloused hands reaching for you in the moonlight, the quiet mornings intertwined in his cot, how he'd brush a strand of hair from your face when he thought you were asleep… oh, how your heart ached. And for the second time that morning, you neglected to notice the figure walking up from behind.

Hosea approached with that slow, measured walk of a man who knew he was entering into something that wouldn't be easy. You glanced at him at first, then looked beyond him to see where Arthur was. He was still clear across camp, engaged in discussion with Dutch, Bill, and Javier. He was far enough away.

You could feel in your bones the reason why Hosea was approaching , and why he was doing it now. He'd spent decades reading people—really reading them. Not just their words, but the lines on their faces, the tension running through their shoulders. He took the seat beside you, a twist of pain striking his features as he crouched into the seat. His old age and growing illness doing a number on him. He did not say anything at first. He just sat in the quiet, letting the birdsong, faint voices, and rub of your thread running through rough fabric fill the silence.

The sun hit the noon-way mark, leaving little to no shadows, and baking you all in torturous heat.

Hosea started, voice low and kind, "You alright today? I've noticed you've been quieter than usual." There was nothing accusatory or pushy in his tone, just the effort of providing you an opening if you'd take it.

That's exactly why you always liked Hosea. Always kind, and understanding. Knowing when an issue was present, and when to strike up a conversation to try to make it better.

Without missing a stitch you answered, "Just fine, I suppose. Busy. But then again that's normally how it is, isn't it?"

Hosea nodded a little, the flat brim of his hat bobbing up and down, concealing and revealing those soft, knowing eyes that saw right through your empty words. He didn't say anything, not yet. He only reached over and gently plucked the shirt from your hands.

"Here," he said, "I'll finish this one."

You started to protest—it's your chore—but Hosea gave that look. The one he'd given countless times before when he was putting his foot down.

Then came the question. If you weren't to take his opening, he'd be a little more direct.

"You've been feeling poorly?"

You sigh as the question falls from his lips, and fiddle with your hands in your lap, scared to meet his eyes.

"A little, I guess. Must've eaten something bad…" your voice is quiet, scared of anyone hearing. Still dodging speaking the truth.

Of course Hosea did not buy the excuse in the slightest. He's too smart for that. You both knew that. He's been around long enough to see things for what they were, and knew situations like these shouldn't be danced around.

He set the shirt aside and fully turned your way, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. Just like a man getting onto his daughter.

"Y/N," he said gently, "are you carryin'?" not an ounce of judgment laced his voice.

Immediately, tears sting at your eyes, and you try to keep it back. Hearing someone notice and question it outright, snaps something. Makes the situation much more real. You muster the tiniest of nods.

"That's one way to put it," you whisper.

Hosea just leans back, rubbing his palms on his knees. He didn't look surprised, or upset in any way. Without a word, he reaches out and places a hand on your knee. Not willing to do anything more to garner attention. Just a simple act that anchored you with a quiet reassurance.

"How far along?" he asks softly, his voice as steady as can be.

The camp continued to bustle around us: Dutch bursting into laughter at something silly Bill said, Tilly and Karen rounding a corner complaining about the workload… but here? It felt like you and Hosea had fell into your own little pocket of the world. A hint of relief flooded your system for the first time in a week—the first time since you figured out you were pregnant.

A tear escapes but you quickly wipe it away, "Can't be more than nine or ten weeks."

Hosea's expression shifts from a flash of sympathy to one of calculation. He exhaled through his nose and patted your knee.

"You tell Arthur?" he asks.

You freeze. Of course you never had to say who the father was. Yes, you'd tried to keep things under wraps but with a camp like this, people notice.

You turn to properly look at him, "I don't have to. He knows. I know he knows even without me saying anything. We just… haven't talked about it." You fidget with your apron, the cloth tangling in your fingers. "I know we need to, I just—"

Your eyes unintentionally drift back to Arthur, "I guess— I guess I'm scared. Talking about it, even now, makes it so real. It makes any feelings I think I may have… real."

Hosea followed my gaze to Arthur, who was standing a few feet from Dutch, listening intently as Javier reported on recent sheriff movements. Arthur looked tense, wound tight. Hosea saw it too. The way Arthur's eyes kept glancing toward you when he thought no one would notice.

The aged outlaw turned back to you with soft eyes and that quiet wisdom only a long life of joy and loss could provide.

"Ah," he said, voice warm. "You're scared not just cause of the baby… but because of him." He didn't venture more than that. He just let silence settle between us again.

"Arthur ain't stupid," he adds.

Hosea's bluntness makes you chuckle, but the smile quickly fades.

"I know. He's very smart, and kind. He's—I don't even know." You let the silence settle this time. Hosea just waits.

"I know he'll do right by me, by us, but I don't want him to just do what's right. What if that's not what he wants?"

Hosea didn't interrupt. He didn't offer answers. He just sat there, letting you release your fears into the open air. Slowly he began to nod.

"Arthur's a man who shows more of what he feels than what he tells." he said carefully. "He ain't poetic, at least not outwardly poetic," the old man smiled to himself at that. "But… if he weren't wanting more, then he wouldn't be looking at you the way I've seen him look.

"I've known Arthur since he was waist high and wild as all be," Hosea continued, "And I have never seen him focus on anyone quite like this—not even Mary."

You settle with his words, and mull them over in your mind. The breeze kicks up carrying the scent of wildflowers and whisks away a little of the heat that had been plaguing you all. You reach to take Hosea's hand. A quiet thank you.

You look back at Arthur and take a deep breath. Javier and Bill have wandered off to their respective duties. Arthur stands talking with Dutch, his hands resting on his gun belt as they always do. Dutch eventually heads off, but Arthur stays for a moment. He notices the breeze, rubbing his brow, and processing all the information he's been given.

A queasy feeling erupts from deep within and the urge to vomit hits like a freight train.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Hosea." You choke out, holding a hand to your mouth. "You'll have to excuse me!" You hop up and make a bee-line for the far edge of camp. Bending over the bushes and emptying the contents of your stomach as the morning sickness takes hold yet again.

a/n: I am stepping back into fanfiction. this is something I have been working on to try to push myself out of writers block. I will try to get more chapters out soon! And the smut will come next, I promise!

[secondarysweets]

Chapter Twenty-Six

This chapter contains a brief depiction of suicide.

The wagon lurched to a stop, and Elise shivered as the drizzling rain continued to soak through her clothes. For days, the constant jostling had been the only certainty—that they were moving, putting distance between themselves and Saint Denis, between themselves and Martin bleeding in the garden. Now, in the sudden stillness, reality crashed over her like a wave.

"This is as far as I go, miss," the farmer said, his voice gruff but not unkind. He'd asked no questions when she'd paid him handsomely to take them north by the back roads, avoiding the main thoroughfares where lawmen might be watching. He'd seen the desperation in her eyes, the way she clutched Benjamin to her chest, the pallor of Emma's face. Whatever story he'd constructed in his mind, he'd kept it to himself.

Elise climbed down from the wagon bed, her legs nearly buckling beneath her. Three days of sitting on rough wooden planks, of sleeping in fitful bursts, had left her body feeling like it belonged to someone else. Her dress was stiff with dried mud and rain. The hem was black with filth, the fabric clinging to her legs in cold, damp folds.

Emma descended next, moving carefully pushing past exhaustion into a strange, brittle alertness. She turned immediately to help with Benjamin, reaching up to take him from Elise's arms. The boy was mercifully asleep, his dark hair plastered to his forehead with sweat despite the chill. He'd been so good, so quiet during the journey. Too quiet, perhaps. Even at not quite a year old, did he sense the fear that radiated from his mother like heat from a stove?

"Thank you," Elise managed, pressing bills the farmer's weathered palm. More than they'd agreed upon. "For your discretion."

The farmer nodded, pocketing the money without counting it. "You ladies take care now. And the little one." He glanced at Benjamin, something softening in his lined face. Then he clicked his tongue at his horses, and the wagon rolled away, leaving them standing in the mud outside Flatneck Station.

The rain had finally stopped, but the world was still soaked with it. The sky hung low and gray, threatening to open up again at any moment. Puddles reflected the dull light like tarnished mirrors. The station itself was a modest structure, wooden planks weathered to silver-gray, a peaked roof, a single window glowing with lamplight against the gathering dusk.

Elise stood frozen, watching the wagon disappear around the bend. The sound of the wheels faded, replaced by the drip of water from the eaves, the distant call of a bird, the whisper of wind through wet grass. They were alone. Truly alone, for the first time since they'd fled the mansion.

"Elise." Emma's voice was soft, careful. "We should go inside."

Elise turned to look at her sister. Emma's face was drawn, shadows pooled beneath her eyes like bruises. Her traveling dress, a deep green that had been crisp and proper when they'd left, was as ruined as Elise's, the fabric water-stained and mud-splattered. But Emma's eyes were steady, holding Elise's gaze with a determination that made Elise's throat tighten.

"Yes," Elise said. "Yes, of course."

They walked toward the station, their boots squelching in the mud. Benjamin stirred in Emma's arms, making a small sound of protest, and Emma murmured to him, soothing. Elise felt the weight of her father's pistol in the pocket of her coat—she'd sewn the pocket deeper, reinforced it, so the gun wouldn't fall out or print too obviously against the fabric. The metal was cold even through the layers of cloth. She'd been aware of it every moment of the journey, her hand straying to it again and again, checking that it was still there, that it was loaded, that she could reach it if—

If what? If Martin had somehow followed them? If the law had caught up to them already? If the O'Driscolls materialized out of the gathering darkness?

The thoughts were intrusive, relentless. They'd plagued her for days, cycling through her mind in an endless loop of catastrophe and violence. She couldn't stop them. Couldn't slow them. They came like a flood, drowning out reason.

The station door was heavy, swollen with moisture. Elise had to put her shoulder against it to push it open. The hinges shrieked, and she flinched at the sound, her hand flying to the gun in her pocket.

Inside, the station was small and spare. Wooden benches lined the walls. A pot-bellied stove squatted in one corner, radiating blessed warmth. A counter divided the space, and behind it stood a man in his middle years, wearing a vest and shirtsleeves, a green eyeshade pushed back on his forehead. He looked up at their entrance, his expression shifting from mild curiosity to concern as he took in their bedraggled state.

"Good Lord," he said. "You ladies look like you've been through hell and back."

Elise opened her mouth, but no words came. What could she say? How could she explain? Her mind raced through possibilities, discarding each one. The truth was impossible. A lie might trap them later. She stood there, mute and dripping, feeling Emma's eyes on her.

"We need passage to Blackwater," Emma said, stepping forward when Elise couldn't. Her voice was steady, cultured, the voice of a Brooks daughter, trained from birth to navigate social situations with grace. "The next available train, please."

The agent's face fell. "I'm sorry, miss. There's no train until tomorrow morning. First one comes through at eight."

Elise felt sick. Tomorrow morning. Hours and hours away. A whole night exposed, vulnerable, trapped in this tiny station in the middle of nowhere. Her hand tightened on the gun in her pocket, her knuckles going white.

"Tomorrow?" she heard herself say, and her voice sounded strange, high and thin. "There's nothing tonight? Nothing at all?"

"No, ma'am. I'm sorry. The evening train already came through two hours ago." The agent was watching her now with growing concern. "Are you... is everything all right?"

"We have nowhere to go," Elise said, and she hated the desperation in her voice, hated the way it cracked. "We have nowhere to go until morning. We can't—" She stopped, swallowing hard.

Benjamin whimpered, sensing the tension, and Emma bounced him gently, making soft shushing sounds. The agent's eyes went to the child, and something in his expression shifted.

"How long have you been traveling?" he asked quietly.

"Three days," Emma said. "By wagon. The roads were... difficult. I'm traveling back to my—" She hesitated for just a moment. "To my husband, but the weather has made it difficult."

That was an understatement. The back roads had been nearly impassable in places, churned to soup by the rain. Twice they'd had to get out and push when the wheels bogged down. Elise's hands were blistered, her shoulders aching from the effort.

The agent was quiet for a moment, studying them. Elise could see him taking in the details, the quality of their dresses beneath the mud, the way Emma held herself, the expensive leather of Elise's boots. Women of means, fallen on hard times.

Elise held her breath, waiting for him to ask questions they couldn't answer, to turn them away, to—

"I can't let you stay here officially," he said slowly. "Station policy. But..." He glanced toward the door, then back at them. "I suppose I could lock up for the night and forget to check if anyone was inside. The stove's got enough wood to last till morning. There's a pump out back if you need water."

Relief flooded through Elise so suddenly that her knees went weak. "Thank you," she breathed. "Thank you so much."

"There's benches," the agent continued, gesturing around the small space. "Not comfortable, but better than sleeping rough. I'll be back at six to open up." He paused, his eyes kind. "Whatever you're running from, I hope you make it to where you're going."

He didn't wait for a response. He gathered his coat and hat, extinguished the lamp behind the counter, and moved toward the door. "I'll lock it from the outside," he said. "For security. You'll be safe enough in here."

Safe. The word echoed in Elise's mind as the door closed behind him, as she heard the key turn in the lock, the bolt slide home. Safe. Locked in. Trapped.

Her breath came faster.

"Elise." Emma's hand on her arm, warm and solid. "It's all right. We're all right."

Elise nodded, not trusting her voice. She moved to one of the benches and sat down heavily, her legs finally giving out. The wood was hard beneath her, unforgiving, but after three days in the wagon, it felt almost luxurious to be still, to be out of the rain, to be warm.

Emma settled on the bench across from her, arranging Benjamin in her lap. The boy was waking now, blinking in the dim light from the stove. He whined until Elise reached across the space between the benches to hold him.

Something that had opened up inside her the moment she'd pulled the trigger, the moment Martin's blood had sprayed across the marble garden tiles. She'd crossed a line. She'd become someone new. Someone capable of violence. Someone dangerous.

Someone like the O'Driscolls who had taken her.

No. No, that wasn't the same. She'd been protecting her son, protecting Emma. She'd had no choice. Martin would have had her committed, would have taken Benjamin away, would have—

But the thoughts spiraled anyway, pulling her down into dark water.

Night fell completely, the world beyond the station's single window going black. Emma managed to coax Benjamin into eating some of the bread and cheese they'd brought, though Elise couldn't stomach anything. Her throat felt closed, her stomach a tight knot. She sipped water from the tin cup Emma brought her from the pump outside, forcing it down.

Elise made a nest of their coats on one of the benches, settling Benjamin down to sleep. The boy fought it at first, fussy and overtired, but eventually exhaustion won. His eyes drifted closed, his breathing evening out into the soft rhythm of sleep.

"You should rest too," Elise said to Emma. "You've barely slept."

"Neither have you," Emma countered, but there was no heat in it. She looked exhausted, her face pale in the orange glow from the stove.

"I'll keep watch," Elise said. "Just for a while. Then I'll wake you."

It was a lie, and perhaps Emma knew it, but she was too tired to argue. She curled up on the bench next to Benjamin, using her bundled shawl as a pillow, and within minutes her breathing had deepened into sleep.

Elise sat alone in the darkness, listening to them breathe.

The station creaked and settled around her. Water dripped from the eaves outside, a steady percussion. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called, the sound mournful and strange. The stove ticked as the metal expanded and contracted with the heat.

Every sound was a threat.

Elise's hand found the gun in her pocket, drawing it out. The metal was cold, the weight of it familiar now. She'd practiced with it during the journey, when the farmer had stopped to rest the horses. Emma had watched, worried, as Elise loaded and unloaded the cylinder, checked the action, aimed at trees and fence posts. She needed to know it would work. Needed to know she could use it again if she had to.

She'd fired one shot in the garden. Five bullets left. Five chances to protect her son, her sister, herself.

She checked the cylinder now, in the dim light from the stove, counting the bullets with her fingertips. One, two, three, four, five. All there. All ready.

She closed the cylinder with a soft click that seemed too loud in the quiet station.

Her hands were shaking. No—not shaking. Trembling. A fine, constant tremor that made the gun waver in her grip. She tightened her fingers, trying to still them, but it didn't help. The trembling came from somewhere deeper, somewhere she couldn't control.

She thought of Martin's face when she'd pulled the trigger. The shock in his eyes. The way he'd crumpled, clutching his leg, blood welling between his fingers. She'd aimed for his leg deliberately—she'd wanted to stop him, not kill him. But in that moment, with the gun in her hand and her finger on the trigger, she'd understood how easy it would be. How simple. Just raise the barrel a few inches. Aim for the chest instead of the leg. Pull the trigger again.

She could have killed him.

Part of her had wanted to.

The realization sat in her stomach like a stone. She'd wanted Martin Fontenot dead. Wanted him erased from the world, unable to hurt her or Emma or Benjamin or Margaret ever again. The desire had been pure and simple and terrifying in its intensity.

What did that make her?

The O'Driscolls had wanted to hurt her, and they had. They'd taken pleasure in it, in her fear and pain. Was she like them now? Was violence a contagion, passed from perpetrator to victim, transforming everyone it touched?

Arthur had killed the O'Driscolls who'd taken her. She'd heard the gunshots, even locked in that filthy closet. She'd heard men screaming, heard bodies fall. Arthur had killed them, and she'd been grateful. She'd never asked him if he'd enjoyed it, if he'd felt that same dark satisfaction she'd felt when Martin went down.

The thought of Arthur made her chest ache. He was waiting for her at the camp outside Blackwater. He'd be worried by now. She'd been gone longer than she'd planned, longer than she'd promised. Did he think she'd changed her mind? Did he think she'd decided to stay in Saint Denis after all, to accept a life of privilege and comfort?

No. Arthur knew her better than that. He had to.

But doubt crept in anyway, insidious and cold. What if he'd given up on her? What if he'd decided she was more trouble than she was worth? What if—

A sound outside. Footsteps, maybe, or just the wind rattling something loose.

Elise was on her feet instantly, the gun raised, her heart hammering against her ribs. She moved to the window, pressing herself against the wall beside it, and peered out into the darkness.

Nothing. Just shadows and the faint gleam of puddles reflecting starlight.

She waited, barely breathing, straining to hear. The footsteps—if they'd been footsteps—didn't come again. Just the wind. Just the night.

She lowered the gun slowly, her arms aching from the tension. False alarm. Nothing there.

But she couldn't make herself sit down again. She stood by the window, watching the darkness, the gun held ready. Minutes passed. Five. Ten. Twenty.

Nothing moved outside.

Finally, she forced herself back to the bench, but she didn't relax. Couldn't relax. She sat on the edge of the seat, her spine rigid, the gun resting on her thigh. Her finger lay alongside the trigger guard, not on the trigger itself—she remembered that much from Arthur's lessons—but ready to move in an instant.

The hours crawled past.

Emma and Benjamin slept on, oblivious. Elise envied them that oblivion, that ability to surrender to exhaustion and trust that someone else would keep watch. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt that kind of trust. Even with Arthur, even in the camp surrounded by the gang, she'd never fully let her guard down. There was always a part of her that stayed alert, waiting for the next disaster.

Safety was an illusion, that anyone could be taken at any moment, that the world was full of men who would hurt her given the chance.

Martin had confirmed the lesson. Her own family had proven that the danger didn't just come from strangers in the wilderness. It came from drawing rooms and dinner parties, from men in expensive suits who smiled while they plotted to lock you away.

She ran her thumb over the grip, feeling the checkered pattern pressed into the wood. Her father's gun. Richard Brooks had kept it in his safe, probably never fired it, probably bought it because a man of his station was supposed to own such things. He'd never imagined his daughter would would use it in his stead.

What would he think of her now?

Another sound. Closer this time. Definitely footsteps, crunching on gravel.

Elise was at the window again, the gun raised. Her hands were steady now, the trembling gone, replaced by a cold clarity. If someone tried to come through that door, she would shoot them. She wouldn't hesitate. She couldn't afford to hesitate.

The footsteps passed by the station, fading into the distance. A traveler, maybe. Someone walking the road in the darkness. Nothing to do with her. But her heart didn't slow. Her breathing stayed shallow and quick. The adrenaline sang in her veins, making her feel simultaneously exhausted and painfully alert.

She stayed by the window, watching, until the sky began to lighten in the east. Gray dawn, creeping across the horizon like a stain. The shapes outside resolved themselves into familiar objects: the platform, the water tower, the rails stretching away into the distance.

Morning. They'd made it through the night.

Behind her, Emma stirred, making a soft sound of confusion. "Elise?"

"I'm here," Elise said, her voice hoarse from disuse. "It's almost time."

She looked down at the gun in her hand. Her fingers were locked around the grip, white-knuckled, aching. She'd held it all night, she realized. All night, without ever setting it down. The metal had warmed to her body temperature, becoming an extension of her hand.

Slowly, carefully, she uncurled her fingers. The gun stayed in her palm, balanced there. She looked at it for a long moment—this thing that had become so central to her survival, this tool of violence that she'd never imagined holding.

Then she slipped it back into her pocket, feeling its weight settle against her hip.

The train would come soon. They would board it, ride it to Blackwater, make their way back to the camp. Back to Arthur. Back to the only place that felt anything like home.

But first, she had to make it through these last few hours. Had to stay alert, stay ready, stay alive. She could do it a little longer.

Outside, the world continued its slow emergence from darkness. Birds began to sing. The sky brightened from gray to pale gold. Somewhere in the distance, a train whistle sounded, lonely and clear.

Elise stood by the window and waited, the gun heavy in her pocket, her eyes on the horizon

Arthur Morgan had been standing in a smoke-choked saloon outside Strawberry, watching a man named Calloway line up a shot he had no business making, and thinking about how Elise's hair had looked in the lamplight the last time he'd seen her.

The thought came unbidden, intrusive, pulling his attention away from the table just as Calloway's cue struck home. The seven ball dropped into the corner pocket with a decisive crack, and Arthur realized too late that he'd missed his chance to distract the man with a well-timed cough or a shift of his weight that would've made the floorboards creak.

"Goddamn it," Hosea muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Arthur to hear. He was leaning against the bar, nursing a whiskey, playing the role of disinterested observer. But Arthur could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers tightened on the glass.

They were down forty dollars now. Forty dollars because Arthur couldn't keep his mind on the game.

Calloway straightened, a satisfied smirk on his weathered face. "Your shot, friend," he said to Hosea, gesturing at the table with his cue.

Hosea pushed off from the bar, moving stiffly towards the billiards table. It was a performance Arthur had seen a hundred times, the slightly unsteady gait, the squint as Hosea studied the table, the way he fumbled with the chalk as if he wasn't quite sure how to use it.

"Now let me see here," Hosea said, his words just slightly slurred. "I'm supposed to hit the white one, right?"

A few of the men watching chuckled. Calloway's smirk widened. He thought he had them. Thought he was taking money from a drunk old man and his dim-witted friend.

He had no idea Hosea could run a table in his sleep. But the hustle only worked if Arthur played his part. He was supposed to be the muscle, the intimidating presence that kept things from getting too friendly, that made their marks feel just uncomfortable enough to want to win quickly and get away from him. He was supposed to watch for trouble, read the room, know when to step in and when to fade back.

Instead, he was thinking about Elise and Ben in that cold marble mansion. He'd sent a letter to the Brooks mansion. No response.

He thought about riding to Saint Denis himself and checking on her but he didn't want to seem overly presumptuous. He didn't want to push her if she didn't wish to return and as the days became weeks and the weeks became months, he knew that he had his answer.

But it was eating him alive.

"Tacitus." Hosea's voice, sharp now, cutting through the fog. "You paying attention?"

Arthur blinked, focusing on the table. Hosea had missed his shot—deliberately, Arthur knew, setting up for the next phase of the con. But Calloway was looking at Arthur now with narrowed eyes, and Arthur realized he'd been staring into space, his expression probably broadcasting every thought in his head.

"Yeah," Arthur said, his voice coming out rougher than he'd intended. "I'm watching."

"Good," Hosea said. "Then maybe you could watch the door. Thought I saw someone looking in."

It was a lie, a way to get Arthur out of the room before he ruined everything. Arthur knew it, and from the look in Hosea's eyes, Hosea knew he knew it. But Arthur went anyway, pushing through the crowd toward the door, needing the air, needing the space.

Outside, the night was cold and clear. Stars scattered across the sky like thrown dice. Arthur leaned against the hitching post, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with hands that weren't quite steady.

He'd been doing this for days now, pool halls and saloons, watching Hosea work his magic while Arthur stood around like a cigar store Indian, useless and distracted. They should've made good money, Hosea's skills hadn't diminished with age, and there were always marks willing to underestimate an old man with a cue.

But Arthur kept screwing it up. Missing cues, failing to read the room, letting his attention wander at critical moments. Yesterday he'd nearly started a fight with a man who'd made a crude joke about women. It had made him think of Elise, of what she'd endured, and before he knew it he'd had the man by the collar, slamming him against the wall.

Hosea had smoothed it over, bought a round for the house, made excuses about Arthur's temper. But the damage was done. They'd had to leave that town, find a new mark in a new place. And now Arthur was doing it again. Letting his mind drift. Letting his worry show on his face.

The door opened behind him, and Hosea emerged, his expression thunderous.

"We're done," Hosea said flatly. "Calloway's getting suspicious. Thinks we're running some kind of game on him." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Which we are, of course, but he's not supposed to figure that out."

"Sorry," Arthur said, not looking at him.

"Sorry." Hosea repeated the word like it tasted bad. "Sorry doesn't get our money back. Sorry doesn't keep us from getting run out of another town."

Arthur took a long drag on his cigarette, watching the ember glow in the darkness. "I know."

Hosea moved to stand beside him, his voice dropping. "You're not sorry about a damn thing except feeling sorry for yourself."

The words stung, sharp and unexpected. Arthur's jaw tightened. "That ain't fair."

"Hosea turned to face him fully now. "You've been walking around like a ghost for weeks. Can't focus, can't work, can't do anything but brood. And I've been patient, Arthur. God knows I've been patient. But my patience has limits."

"I'm trying—"

"You're not trying," Hosea cut him off. "You're going through the motions." He paused, studying Arthur's face in the dim light spilling from the saloon windows. "Miss Brooks in your head. Every minute of every day. And until you do something about it, you're no good to me or anyone else."

Arthur flicked the cigarette away, watching it arc through the darkness. "What am I supposed to do, Hosea? She's in Saint Denis. With her family. Maybe she decided—" He couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't give voice to the fear that had been gnawing at him.

"Decided what? To stay?" Hosea shook his head. "You don't believe that."

"She promised she'd come back, but—"

"But nothing." Hosea's voice was firm now, almost angry. "You know that woman, Arthur. You think she'd just abandon you? Without a word?"

"Then where is she?" The question came out raw, desperate. "It's been months, Hosea. And I can't—" He stopped, swallowing hard. "I can't just sit around waiting. But I can't storm into that mansion either. So what the hell am I supposed to do?"

Hosea was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was gentler, but no less direct. "You're supposed to man up and go get her."

Arthur stared at him. "I can't do that."

"You find a way. Go to Saint Denis and plead your case to her" Hosea stepped closer, his eyes intense.

"It ain't that simple."

"It is that simple. You think I got my Bessie to marry me by staying at a distance?"

He'd been paralyzed by fear—fear that Elise had changed her mind, fear that he wasn't enough for her, fear that if he pushed too hard he'd make things worse. So he'd done nothing. Just waited and worried and made himself useless.

"She don't want me to plead my case, my letter went unanswered. That's one hell of a statement if you ask me." Arthur snapped.

"Then go find out." Hosea's voice was hard now, brooking no argument. "Go to Saint Denis. Get into that house however you have to. Talk to her. And if she tells you she wants to stay, if she looks you in the eye and says she's done with this life, then you walk away. But until you hear that from her own mouth, you don't give up. You understand me?"

Arthur left Strawberry angry, at Hosea for calling him out, at himself for needing to be called out, at the whole damn situation. He rode hard for the first hour, pushing his horse faster than he should have, taking his frustration out on the animal until guilt made him slow down.

He should head straight for Saint Denis. Should ride through the night, get there as fast as possible, do what Hosea said and find a way into that house.

But he couldn't make himself do it. Not yet.

Instead, he found himself taking the long way back to camp, following familiar trails through the wilderness, stopping to make camp when it got too dark to ride safely. He told himself he needed to think, to plan, to figure out his approach.

The truth was he was afraid.

Afraid of what he might find. Afraid that Elise had decided the outlaw life wasn't for her after all, that the mansion and the money and the respectability were too much to give up. Afraid that she'd look at him and see what he saw when he looked in the mirror—a killer, a thief, a man with no future to offer.

The thought made his chest ache, made him want to put his fist through something. But he couldn't shake it.

He reached camp late the next evening, riding long after the sun had sunk toward the horizon. But it all felt wrong. Empty.

Arthur dismounted, tying his horse to the hitching post. His eyes went immediately to the spot where Elise's tent was erected. He was an idiot and a fool setting it up for her when they moved closer to Blackwater. It was stupid and he knew it.

He'd spent so many nights sitting outside that tent, keeping watch, telling her stories to chase away her nightmares. He'd fallen in love with her in those quiet hours, though he hadn't known it at the time. Hadn't realized that when she left for Saint Denis, she took his heart with her.

Arthur ducked into his tent, needing the privacy, needing to be away from the sympathetic looks and the careful questions. But even here, there were reminders. The book she'd given him for his birthday, the one with the pressed flowers. The sketch he'd done of her holding Ben, tucked into his journal. The faint scent of her perfume that still clung to the blanket she'd borrowed one cold night.

He sat on his cot, his head in his hands, and tried to think.

He should go to Saint Denis. Should leave right now, ride through the night, do what Hosea said. But the fear was still there, paralyzing him.

What if she didn't want to see him? What if she'd moved on, decided he was a mistake, a moment of madness brought on by trauma and desperation?

What if she looked at him with those bright hazel eyes and told him she didn't love him?

He didn't think he could survive that. Not again.

Outside, he could hear Dutch's voice, loud and animated. Arthur emerged from his tent to see Dutch and Micah standing by the main fire, heads bent together over something. Plans, probably. Dutch was always planning these days, always scheming. And Micah was always there, whispering in his ear, feeding his ego.

That's what they were planning now. Arthur had heard bits and pieces—a big score, enough money to get them out of the country, start fresh somewhere. Dutch was obsessed with it, had been for weeks.

Arthur didn't care. Didn't care about the money or the plans or any of it.

"Arthur!" Dutch called out, spotting him. "Come here, I want to show you something."

Arthur walked over reluctantly. Dutch had a map spread out on a crate, marked with notes in his distinctive handwriting. Micah stood beside him, a smirk on his face that made Arthur want to hit him.

"Look at this," Dutch said, gesturing at the map. "The ferry comes in here, at this dock. Security is light in the mornings, just a few guards. We go in fast, take the lockboxes, and we're gone before they know what hit them."

"Uh-huh," Arthur said, not really listening.

Dutch looked up, his expression sharpening. "You don't seem very enthusiastic."

"I got other things on my mind."

"Other things." Dutch's voice took on an edge. "More important than the future of this gang?"

Arthur met his eyes. "'Course not"

The silence that followed was tense. Micah's smirk widened. Dutch's jaw tightened.

"I see," Dutch said finally. "Well, I certainly wouldn't want to keep you from your important thoughts."

Arthur walked away before he said something he'd regret. He could feel Micah's eyes on his back, could imagine the poison the bastard would whisper in Dutch's ear the moment he was out of earshot. He didn't care. Let them talk.

He went to his tent and lay down fully clothed, staring at the canvas above him. Sleep felt impossible, but exhaustion pulled at him anyway, dragging him down into restless darkness.

The nightmare came fast and vicious.

He was back in that cabin, the one where the O'Driscolls had kept her. The air was thick with the smell of blood and rot. He kicked in the door, gun drawn, ready to kill every last one of them—but the room was empty. Silent.

Then he saw her.

Elise hung from the rafters, her body limp, her face turned away from him. The rope creaked softly as she swayed. Arthur's legs wouldn't move. He tried to run to her, tried to reach her, but his boots were rooted to the floorboards.

"No," he said, his voice breaking. "No, no, no—"

He finally forced himself forward, stumbling, catching her body as it fell. But when he turned her face toward him, her eyes were open and empty, staring at nothing. Her wrists were raw and bloody where she'd been bound. There were bruises on her throat, her arms, everywhere.

"I'm sorry," he choked out, cradling her against his chest. "I'm sorry, I tried—I tried to get here—"

But he'd been too late. He was always too late. She'd given up waiting for him. She'd chosen this rather than endure another moment of what they'd done to her.

"I tried—" Arthur said, but his voice was drowned out by the sound of Benjamin crying somewhere in the distance, a sound that grew fainter and fainter until it disappeared entirely into silence.

Arthur woke with a gasp, his shirt soaked through with sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs. The tent was dark except for the faint glow of moonlight filtering through the canvas. He sat up, dragging a hand over his face, trying to slow his breathing.

He couldn't do this anymore. Couldn't lie here another night wondering if she was safe, if she was coming back, if she even wanted to. Hosea was right. He needed to stop waiting and do something.

Arthur stood and started throwing things into his satchel—ammunition, provisions, and a change of clothes. His hands moved with purpose now, the decision made. He'd ride through the night, be in Saint Denis by morning. Whatever he found there, at least he'd know.

He slung the satchel over his shoulder and pushed through the tent flap into the cool night air.

And stopped.

There was a light in Elise's tent.

A lamp, glowing soft and golden through the canvas. Arthur's chest tightened with a surge of anger so sudden it nearly choked him. That goddamn new girl Jenny, going through Elise's things like she had any right—

He crossed the distance in long strides, his jaw clenched, ready to drag her out by her hair if he had to. He yanked the tent flap aside.

"What the hell do you think you're—"

The words died in his throat.

Elise stood in the center of the tent, her hair loose and tangled, her dress wrinkled and stained with mud and travel. Emma was beside her, holding Ben against her shoulder, the baby's face slack with sleep. They both turned at his entrance, startled.

For a moment, Arthur couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. He just stood there, staring, his mind struggling to reconcile what he was seeing with what he'd expected.

"Arthur," Elise whispered.

And then she was moving, closing the space between them in two quick steps, and she threw herself into his arms with such force it nearly knocked him backward. He caught her instinctively, his arms coming up around her.

"You're here," he said, his voice rough. "You're—"

She pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyes bright with tears, and then she kissed him. Hard and desperate, her hands snaking around his neck, and Arthur kissed her back with everything he had, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other pressed against her spine. He couldn't get close enough, couldn't hold her tight enough.

When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Arthur pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes closed.

"I thought—" he started, but couldn't finish. Didn't know how to put into words the fear that had been eating him alive for weeks.

"I know," Elise said softly. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Behind them, Emma cleared her throat gently. "I'll just... give you two a moment."

She moved toward the tent flap, adjusting Ben carefully in her arms. The baby stirred slightly, making a small sound of protest at being moved.

"Wait," Arthur said, his voice coming out hoarse.

Emma paused, turning back. Arthur looked at Ben, his small face just visible over Emma's shoulder, the tiny thumb in his mouth.

He reached out, his hands steady despite everything. "Can I—"

"Of course," Emma said, a small smile touching her lips.

She transferred Ben carefully into Arthur's arms. The baby fussed immediately, his face scrunching up, a whimper building in his throat. He'd been jostled from sleep, confused and disoriented, and for a moment Arthur thought he might start crying in earnest.

But then Benjamin's eyes opened, unfocused at first, blinking in the lamplight. His gaze found Arthur's face.

And he lit up.

It was instantaneous, the transformation from fussy confusion to pure joy. Benjamin's whole face broke into a toothy smile, his eyes going wide and bright, and he let out a squeal of delight that made Arthur's throat tighten. The baby's little legs kicked excitedly, his arms flailing, his entire body wriggling with happiness at the sight of him.

"Hey there, little man," Arthur said softly, his voice breaking slightly. "You remember me?"

Benjamin squealed again, louder this time, reaching up with both hands toward Arthur's face. His tiny fingers grabbed at Arthur's beard, pulling with surprising strength, and Arthur laughed for the first time in weeks.

"I'll just..." Emma gestured toward the tent flap. "I'll be outside."

She slipped out quietly, leaving them alone.

Arthur looked down at Ben, who was still grinning up at him like Arthur was the best thing he'd ever seen, and then at Elise, who was watching them both with tears streaming down her face.

"He missed you," she said, her voice thick. "Every day. He'd look for you."

Arthur couldn't speak. He just pulled her close with one arm, Ben secure against his chest with the other, and held them both while the baby babbled happily between them, grabbing at anything he could reach.

They stood like that for a long time, the three of them wrapped together in the lamplight. Benjamin eventually settled, content to be held between them, his small hand fisted in Arthur's shirt. Arthur's other arm was tight around Elise's waist, his face buried in her hair, breathing in the scent of her—rain and road dust and something underneath that was just her, the smell he'd been trying to remember for weeks and failing.

He felt something break loose in his chest, something that had been wound tight since the moment she'd left for Saint Denis. His shoulders shook once, then again, and then he was crying—silent, wrenching tears that he couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. He didn't make a sound, but Elise felt it, felt the way his body trembled against hers, and she held him tighter.

"I'm here," she whispered against his chest. "I'm here, Arthur. We're here."

He nodded, unable to speak, his hand coming up to cradle the back of her head. Benjamin made a soft cooing sound, and Arthur felt the baby's tiny fingers pat his chest, as if trying to comfort him.

When he finally found his voice, it came out rough and broken. "What happened? In Saint Denis, what—"

"Not now," Elise said gently, pulling back just enough to look up at him. Her face was pale, exhausted, shadows under her eyes that hadn't been there before. "Let me get Emma settled first... it's been a very long journey."

Arthur studied her face, seeing the weight of whatever she'd been through in the tightness around her mouth, the way her eyes wouldn't quite hold his. He wanted to press, wanted to know everything, but he could see how close she was to breaking.

"All right," he said quietly. "All right. Let me help get Emma settled."

Elise's shoulders sagged with relief. "Thank you."

Arthur reluctantly released her, though his hand lingered on her waist for a moment longer than necessary. "You get yourself sorted. I'll take care of Emma."

He found Emma standing just outside the tent, her arms wrapped around herself against the night chill. She looked as exhausted as Elise, her traveling dress mud-stained and wrinkled, her hair coming loose from its pins.

"Come on," Arthur said, gesturing for her to follow. "You can take my tent tonight."

"Oh, I couldn't—"

"You can and you will," Arthur said firmly. "No one'll bother you there. I'll make sure of it."

He led her across the camp to his tent, aware of a few curious glances from the men still awake around the dying campfire. He ignored them, holding the canvas flap open for Emma.

"It ain't much," he said as she stepped inside. "But it's dry and the bedroll's clean."

Emma looked around the sparse interior—the cot with its wool blankets, the small trunk where he kept his things, the lantern hanging from the center pole. "It's perfect. Thank you."

He moved around the tent's perimeter, lowering each canvas side panel and securing them carefully. The tent transformed into a private sanctuary, the heavy canvas blocking out the camp and the curious eyes beyond it.

"There," he said, checking the last tie. "No one can see in now. You'll have your privacy."

Emma's eyes were bright with gratitude and exhaustion. "Thank you, Mr. Morgan. My sister is lucky to have you."

Arthur felt heat rise in his face. He cleared his throat. "Get some rest, Miss Brooks. We'll sort things out in the morning."

"Goodnight."

He stepped out into the night, securing the tent flap behind him, and made his way back to Elise's tent. The camp was quiet now, most of the men having turned in for the night. A few still sat around the fire, but they knew better than to bother him.

Inside the tent, Elise had lit another lamp and was kneeling beside a basin of water, trying to wash the worst of the road grime from her face and hands. Her hair hung in damp, tangled waves down her back—she'd clearly tried to wash it as best she could with the limited water. Benjamin lay on a blanket nearby, still awake but drowsy, his eyes half-closed.

"Emma settled?" Elise asked, not looking up.

"Yeah. She's got privacy and a warm place to sleep." Arthur crouched down beside Ben, running a gentle finger along the baby's cheek. "How about this little man? He ready for bed?"

"He should be exhausted, but he keeps fighting sleep," Elise said, a note of fond exasperation in her voice. "He's been like this the whole journey. Too stubborn to admit he's tired."

"Wonder where he gets that from," Arthur said with a slight smile. He scooped Benjamin up carefully, settling the baby against his chest. "Come on, Benny. Let's get you to sleep."

Ben's head rested against his shoulder, the baby's breath warm against his neck.

Elise went back to working the tangles from her hair with her fingers, wincing occasionally when she hit a particularly stubborn knot. Arthur watched her for a moment, then turned his attention to the baby in his arms.

Ben was fighting sleep hard, his little body tensing every time his eyes started to close, jerking himself back awake with a whimper of protest. Arthur began to hum, low and soft, then let the words come, the old cowboy song that every man in camp knew.

"As I walked out in the streets of Laredo

As I walked out in Laredo one day

I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen

Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay..."

His voice was rough, unpracticed, but steady. Ben's body began to relax against him, the tension leaving his small limbs. Arthur kept swaying, kept singing, the words coming easier now.

"I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy

These words he did say as I boldly walked by

Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story

I'm shot in the breast and I know I must die..."

Ben's eyes drifted closed, opened again, closed. His breathing deepened, evened out. Arthur felt the exact moment the baby surrendered to sleep, his whole body going soft and heavy.

He finished the verse quietly, then stood still for a long moment, just holding the sleeping child. Elise had stopped brushing her hair and was watching them, her expression unreadable in the lamplight.

Arthur moved carefully to the small wooden cradle. He lowered Ben into it with the utmost care, holding his breath until the boy was settled and still sleeping soundly.

When he straightened, Elise was standing, her hair still damp but brushed smooth, hanging loose around her shoulders. She'd changed into a clean nightgown, simple white cotton.

He turned down the lamp until it was just a dim glow, enough to see by but no more. Arthur sat on the edge of the cot and pulled off his boots, then his gun belt, setting it within easy reach out of habit. Elise was already sliding under the blankets, and when he lay down beside her, she immediately pressed herself against him, her head on his chest, her arm across his waist.

Arthur could feel every point where their bodies touched: her cheek against his chest, her hand splayed over his heart, her leg tangled with his. She was warm and solid and real, and he'd spent so many nights imagining this, fearing he'd never have it, that the reality of it made his chest ache.

"You're warm," she murmured. "I forgot how warm you are. I feel like I haven’t been warm in days."

"You're safe now," he said, pressing a kiss to her hair. "Both of you. All of you."

She tilted her face up to look at him, and even in the dim light, he could see the exhaustion etched into her, the things she hadn't told him yet sitting heavy behind her eyes. He didn't push. Not tonight.

"Lisey," His voice came out quieter than he intended. "I've been thinkin'. About what you said, before you left."

She turned in his arms to look up at him.

"About Ben needin' a father." He swallowed. "I been turnin' it over and over since you left, and I didn't have to think hard, not really. I already knew the answer before the words even left your mouth.” 

"Oh?"

"I love you. And I love that boy like he's mine, because far as I'm concerned, he is. I don't care what blood says." His throat tightened. "I want to be his pa. I hope that is something you want as well."

Elise's eyes were wet, but she didn't speak, so he kept going. "And the rest of it. The gang, this life. I’ve been part of it so long I didn't know how to picture anything else. But I'm gettin' old, Elise. I’m growing weary of this life." He brushed a strand of hair back from her face. "I want a future. With you. With Ben. Somewhere quiet, somewhere safe, where the worst thing that happens in a day is the roof needin' fixin' or the windows don’t hang right."

For a moment, she just looked at him, and then the corner of her mouth curved, soft and trembling. "Arthur Morgan. Is that a proposal?"

He didn't smile back. He held her gaze, steady. "Yeah," he said. "It is."

Her breath caught. "You're serious?"

"Dead serious." He reached up, brushing his thumb along her jaw. "I ain't got an engagement ring. I ain't got much of anything, truth be told. But I got this—" he pressed his hand flat over his heart, then moved it to cover hers, "—and it's yours. Has been for a while now, I think."

A tear slipped down her cheek, and she laughed, a wet, startled sound, before she kissed him, quick and fierce. "Yes," she said against his mouth. "Yes, Arthur. Of course, yes."

The kiss deepened before Arthur could draw another breath.

Elise’s fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer, and her mouth opened under his with a hunger that sent heat straight through him. His hand slid into her damp hair, cradling the back of her head, and she made a sound against his lips—a soft, desperate thing that vibrated through his chest.

“Arthur,” she breathed, pulling back just far enough to look at him. Her eyes were dark in the low light, her lips parted and slick. “I want—”

She didn’t finish with words. Her hand left his chest and drifted lower, fingers tracing down his stomach through the thin cotton of his union suit. His muscles jumped under her touch. When her palm pressed flat against the evidence of his arousal, still trapped beneath a layer of fabric, his hips twitched involuntarily.

“Lisey.” Her name came out rougher than he meant it to.

“I want you,” she said, and this time it wasn’t a whisper. It was clear and certain. Her hand moved, shaping him through the fabric, and Arthur’s eyes nearly rolled back. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”

She was looking at him with such trust, such open wanting, and every part of him screamed to give in. To roll her beneath him and lose himself in her warmth. He’d imagined it—God, he’d imagined it more times than he could count, late at night in his cot at camp, or alone under the stars.

But this wasn’t right. His hand caught hers, stilling it against him. “Lisey, wait.”

She went still immediately, her brow creasing. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’s wrong.” He brought her hand up to his chest, pressing it there so she could feel the frantic hammer of his heart. “Feel that? That’s what you do to me. That’s how much I want you.”

“Then what—”

“I ain’t done much right in my life.” The words tumbled out before he could stop them, rough and honest. He kept his eyes on hers, even though every instinct told him to look away. “I’ve made a mess of near everything I touched. The things I’ve done, the people I’ve hurt—I got a long list of wrongs, Elise. A real long list.”

Her expression softened. “Arthur—”

“Let me finish.” His thumb traced circles on the back of her hand. “I got one chance to do this right. One. For once in my miserable life, I want to do things proper.”

Her eyes glistened, and she bit her lower lip. The gesture made him want to kiss her again, but he held himself still.

“When we get married,” he continued, his voice dropping even lower. “I’m gonna have you, not some cot in a tent, in a real bed.” He dropped his face to the crook between her neck and her shoulder and laid a series of kisses across the exposed skin. “I’m going to take my sweet time with you, maybe all night. Gonna learn every inch of your body.”

His mouth traced a slow path down her throat while his hand explored the shape of her. The nightgown was thin enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin through it, the way her body responded to his touch, the slight arch of her back, the way her breathing quickened when his palm settled just below her breast.

She reached for him again, but he caught her wrist gently.

“Uh-uh,” he said. “You had your turn. Now it’s mine.”

Her eyes widened, and then she smiled, slow and a little wicked. “So that’s how it is.”

“That’s how it is.”

She settled back against his chest with a contented sigh, her body fitting against his like she’d been made to lie there. Arthur held her close, one hand tangled in her hair, the other splayed across her back.

Arthur leaned over and turned the lamp down, letting the dark settle warm and close around them. He drew the blanket up over her shoulder, then pressed a kiss to her temple.

"Get some sleep, Mrs. Morgan."

Elise let out a soft, surprised laugh, swatting lightly at his chest. "Not yet, I'm not."

"Details." He tucked her closer against him, his chin resting on top of her head. "Figured I'd get a head start. Practice usin' it."

"You're impossible." But she was smiling, he could hear it in her voice, and she tucked her cold feet against his calf, making him jump.

"Elise—"

"Hush. You're warm. It's your own fault for being so comfortable."

He grunted, but didn't pull away, just shifted to wrap his arm more securely around her, his hand splayed against the small of her back. 

"Mrs. Morgan," Arthur said again, quieter this time, just to feel the words in his mouth.

"Stop that." But her arm tightened around him, and he felt her smile against his chest. "Or it won’t be special when we get married." 

He pressed another kiss to her hair, feeling the last of the day's tension finally drain out of both of them. "Go to sleep, Lisey."

"Mm. Already there."

Taglist: @photo1030

[xozoldyck]

Arthur Morgan x Fem!Reader: NSFW headcanons

“You’re alright, girl~” GULP! Truth be told, this is why I always choose to have a female horse in RDR2. End of story, teehee!

Here’s some freaky deaky Arthur Morgan NSFW headcanons. Brew yourself a nice tea and enjoy pookies 🙈​ (requests are open!)

Warnings: NSFW content (18+)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Without fail, this man is naturally dominant. Your pleasure is 100% his top priority, and he will be going extreme lengths just for you to roll his name off your tongue in the most velvety, erotic way.

His go-to positions are missionary, mating press, lotus, etc., etc.

Anything that allows him to watch himself disappear inside you with the tuck of his chin, but also have full access to your breasts and contorting face (his perfect trifecta)

Arthur’s large frame will encompass your body, almost trapping you beneath him. The weight of his chest presses you into whatever surface he’s fucking you on.

Loves to kiss you while rocking his hips. This man can practically taste your moans. Your mouths keep open against each other, allowing him to swipe his tongue against your bottom lip.  

Is the epitome of talking you through it: “You’re alright, girl.” “Shhh, just like that~.” “Keep breathing for me.”

He doesn’t necessarily expect a verbal response in return from you, not that you could muster one up anyway, but a simple shake of your head, or a desperate moan, is the only answer he needs to keep going.

Prefers to roll his hips against your sex rather than harshly drive himself into you, he finds it more intimate that way. To stay as close to you as possible at all times. Chests up against each other, your hearts beating frantically in sync.

Will always have you away from camp (secluded from potential curious eyes), either in a rented room or somewhere deep in the woods. The trauma he experienced from Sean and Karen was enough for him to vow against public sexual ordeals. And more importantly, he would not want to share your pleasure with anyone else. You are his, and he is yours.

Enjoys sex in the bath. This way, both of you are physically relaxed and clean. Not to mention the gleam the hot water leaves across your body, sending the blood pumping fervently into his groin.

Occasionally, women offering “deluxe” bathtime services will briefly interrupt your session. Arthur takes charge to kindly dismiss them, his dick still kissing your walls, and your head gently bobbing against the crook of his neck.

Arthur isn’t overly vocal outside his guidance, but he keeps his lips so close to your ear you can hear his every breath. Some sharp, some more drawn out, but all relish that same pleasure he gets from just touching you alone. The way you tighten around him, however, earns you a very satisfying groan from him. It’s deep and guttural to the point you can feel his chest vibrate against yours.

Arthur’s very secure in his own masculinity. He won’t back down if you ask him to do something for you or if you request a change of pace. Immediately, if you suggest something to do on his end, he will do it, and he will do it well.

He will cum inside you. The thought of you filled with something that originated from him is enough to get him going for round two. Even after his own release, he’ll still grind his hips against yours, almost playing with the mess that the two of you created. When he finally does pull out, the sight of his seed slowly dripping out of you empties his mind completely. Instinctively, he’ll put a finger to your opening, pushing anything that dripped out right back in.  

Is the absolute KING of aftercare. After fucking you senseless, he’ll keep you warm in his own embrace. He wants you to feel seen and valued, appreciated for offering him something so intimate. He kisses your lips gently, tracing his nose against your neck, and stays with you for as long as you need. A glass of water is already at your side, and a washcloth has already run across your body.

He waits for you to fall asleep before he allows himself to. It’s his final reassurance that you trust him enough in this vulnerable state, your bodies gently pressed together. xx

[essiewrites]

Arthur taking reader’s virginity?? 🧐

⭑I͙ 𝒎𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 ; 💭

hmm.. i could see a young fawn turned doe, around the same age as tilly or so, taking an interest in him— and it’s hard for her not to. hot summers and hormones don’t help her when he’s working on the camp’s needed chores. chopping wood and hauling his hunts to pearson’s block did nothing but wonders for arthur’s muscles, tucked tightly in his rolled up sleeves. she’s inexperienced, but knowledgeable of the words in mary-beth’s books and quiet night conversations about the subject through passing school-girl giggles. she’s curious, and wants to know what it’s like, looking and leaning towards arthur as a safe choice to teach her. how long he’d be able to resist that temptation .. time would eventually tell. but i think he could be convinced, depending on however old she may be.

🗒️ ; 𝒎𝒚 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 I͙⭑ NSFW | MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

cherry-popping. talking reader through it. coaxing.

you were right to confide in arthur, gentle and sweet arthur. deviant, but kind in his gestures. his lips were warm and surprisingly soft with how often he smoked, how many splits the sun gave them. rich enough in kisses that proved he wanted to be in this bed just as badly as you did. he was slow, sure to be calm in pushing it in. it’d been years since arthur sank himself into a woman, and even longer so in being her first. he paced himself, breathing hefty enough to feel the tight pressure of your pussy cling to his thick cock, but steady enough not to lose his control. he was a man, not a boy. you didn’t want the boyish options at hand; you wanted him. he who could wield the axe so lightly uses the same frame to fuck himself deeper into your virgin hole; one never used before.

“ya alright, sweetheart .ᐣ ” he asks, broad shoulders beaming with a sweat glow from the nearby oil lamp. arthur’s efforts were showing; laying you on your back so it would hurt less, renting a room to allow you as long as it may need, gentle confirmations to keep going. “mhmm.” you nod in approval; tears peaking at the corners of your eyes, ready to take all he has to offer.

“you hafta breathe, darling.” arthur cood, keeping his eyes locked with yours, sweet missionary forcing you underneath him to listen. the pain peaked as he pushed, your back tightened at the prodding intrusion. “breathe, breathe.” arthur reminded you, ever-so-slightly pulling just to push again. his hips moved agonizingly slow, but he planned for this— he’d take as long as it needed to see this through.

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© ESSIEWRITES '26. please do not reupload, plagiarize or post any of my works on other platforms. likes, reblogs, and comments are welcomed and appreciated. ★ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

[essiewrites]

hmmmmm Arthur Morgan x reader where she's a little shy and he's awkward but they're so smitten with each other and he lowkey gives the best head oat?

⭑I͙ 𝒎𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 ; 💭

i think arthur would be an absolute E A T E R I͙ for his woman 🤭. he may not have the most confidence in the subject to begin with, but after having enough through age and experience .. he knows that when it’s shared with him, it’s HIS. he’ll keep himself together and busy until he can’t. if he goes too long without it, he’ll start to think of it in soft, innocent ways that turn corrupted; like having to wipe the sweet, summer juice of a freshly-bitten and ripe peach from his lips, or seeing pure, white fresh linen on the lines from being washed— waiting to be ruined again. arthur’s lust-filled thoughts would eventually ground his boots to find wherever she is, pushing up her skirt or pulling down her jeans and tasting her for himself; hand over her mouth to keep her quiet 😮‍💨. WHAT A MAN.

🗒️ ; 𝒎𝒚 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 I͙⭑ NSFW | MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

bashfulness. spitting. pussy-eating. tongue-fucking.

it has been days since arthur’s return and it was very apparent that something was on his mind. he must’ve spent hours in his saddle thinking to himself— the long and lonely roads forcing him to handle the lurking, subconscious thoughts that he had often guarded himself away from. it was evident in the way that he couldn’t stop from staring into your eyes ever since his recent reunion— tilting and shifting wherever need-be to catch a glimpse of the gaze you tried so hard to shy away from his. it was easy to be intimidated by his look. his features were scarred and sun-kissed, but still kind, experienced, aged. yet, it wasn’t that that made you a mushy, puddled mess for him, nor the huskiness in his voice that he used to soothe you; instead, there was a small secret between the two of you. the very thing that made your insides feel flipped outward and seen under a spotlight with him— it was that he now knew. he knew what you looked like under low light, what you felt like when he was inside of you, and what you tasted like on the tip of his tongue.

it was only once, but once was surely enough. whiskey shots and warm weather tended to attract the two of you together, instances that practically pushed people to peel off their clothes for a cool sense of relief— with sweat stammering down each other’s skin, it was something so hard to ignore for wandering eyes.

but arthur didn’t need the help from any liquid courage tonight. what he desired to do was fueled not by a burning, bitter taste that ripped throughout his throat— no, what he wanted to do was driven by pure determination. arthur’s focus has recently become blurred, interfered with from such a pretty face. one he can no longer never-mind or whisk away from his thoughts, one that settles into his late-night illusions when he’s trying to sleep. one that would break him if he let it, needing to see it shine in the sweat of sticky hair stuck to it but too pleased to care in fixing it. it was that exact image that made him wordlessly beg for your eyes to look at his— he wanted to remember what they looked like in all states, but especially this oh-so, innocent one before he took it from you.

he was sure to go slow, enjoying the intimacy of the moment, not knowing of when he’ll get the chance to do so again. regardless, that didn’t change the fact that he could see right through you. arthur saw you for what you were, meek and shy and quiet as a mouse— to them, but something told him to tug on the string that you dangled before him, and he became desperate to find out what the reward was in it if he did. “such a pretty girl.” he kissed along your thigh, his beard stubble tickling your skin. his eyes looked for yours to confide in continuing. a small shake of your head and teeth-tucked smile was all he needed.

“sweeter than honey.” he said sitting up to his elbows, he split your legs in a quick spread— a feeling that forced an internal embarrassment, a natural need in covering yourself with your fingers. arthur fought you effortlessly, locking your legs back in restraint the moment he felt your muscles tense in reaction. he raised his eyebrows, telling you not to struggle. “no use in doin’ all that, now.” he said sternly, but calmly. “let me see.” your hands retracted and legs fell to his fold, abiding to his authority— something that swelled his cock more than it already was, leaking clear cum into the mattress. “and good f’me, too.” arthur praised, groaning at the gift before him. “wanna hear you.” he said, slipping into the alternative shift you’ve already seen with him once— arthur liked to keep a a few sides of himself private, too.

strong hands pushed into the backs of your hamstrings, folding you up on your back; your thighs in the air and off the bed. to steady you, arthur dug his hands into what flesh he could find, setting you in a stationary place. he was on his knees now, dragging you by your spine to level out with his mouth. it wasn’t you who moved, but it was him moving you. he made sure that you couldn’t slide or squirm, so when he shoved his scarred nose into your split pussy, he was positive in the work of his set up. inhaling your scent, he surprised you at how forward he was being— earning him his first prize of the night; a genuine, shocked squeal that had slipped from your lips. “can’t stop thinkin’ about it.” arthur said into you, almost talking to himself. his nose flared in the small shuffle of breath he took, spitting into your hole with little-to-no work.

he splayed his tongue out flat, as flat as he could; widening his palate to keep in in place. arthur began to slide and shift your lower body up and down and against his wet muscle. his tongue was open and large; sure to cover your clit with every thrust he picked up your weightless-to-him body and drug it over the bunch of nerves. the vulgar act alone made you scream out from the start. the sight was too hot to handle, arthur’s broad shoulders and frame fucking you with his tongue right from the beginning; deepening it with nodding licks and nipping lips on to yours— sucking your sweet spot shamelessly. he’d only just begun, pulling involuntarily shouts from your lungs, pressuring the need to use your hand to silence yourself. a second time, you’d covered something arthur did not want to be. he stopped just long enough to shove your wrist to the bed, he said he wanted to hear you.

it felt as if all of everyone was going to if he kept going at the pace he was, grinding the roughness of his tastebuds against the delicacy of your soft spot. you started to think that was his goal. balanced, deep breaths brought you back down in efforts for this to last. small mutterings fought against arthur and his will— and you stood a honest chance until he centered your hips, strong-arming you to stay still long enough to stick it in.

SEND IN YOUR THOUGHTS HERE ✉️ ➠ 🌟 RELATED RECOMMENDATIONS: ➠ 🌟 🌟 DIVIDER CREDITS ➠ 🌟

© ESSIEWRITES '26. please do not reupload, plagiarize or post any of my works on other platforms. likes, reblogs, and comments are welcomed and appreciated. ★ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

[liquidcantrip]

Warning: Some suggestive descriptions towards the end. Nothing very graphic.

Arthur Morgan would never admit it to anyone, but he loves being kissed by you. It makes him feel all warm and fluttery inside, and it melts his tough outlaw heart into a puddle every time he feels your lips on him.

In the mornings, when you two are tangled up in bed, a few tender pecks to his cheek and his forehead are the perfect way to begin his mornings. He'll kiss you right back, mumbling a "mornin'" before pulling you to his chest for just a few more minutes of cuddling. You see him helping around with the camp chores, even assisting with some tasks Miss Grimshaw had asked you to do. That warrants a kiss to his cheek in thanks, freezing him in place with the dusting of a blush across his cheeks.

Before he sets off for a heist with the gang, you express your worry for his safety and longing for his safe return by taking his face in your hands and kissing him long and slow. A wish that time would stop moving to keep yourselves from parting ways. He cares little about the rest of the gang watching their tender moments, comments at the ready once they start their journey. In fact, it both excites and touches him to see you care so much about him (even if he believes a man like him doesn't deserve it). He seals a promise to come back to you, come hell or high water, by kissing your forehead before he gets on his horse and rides away.

His second favourite type of kiss from you is when he returns to camp after days or weeks apart. He sees you perk up in joy and relief at the sight of him and abandon whatever you were doing to run up to him. He welcomes you as you fling your arms around him, kissing him as he practically lifts you off the ground. A kiss to his lips isn't enough to celebrate his return to you. You shower his face in sweet kisses, earning an embarrassed yet endeared chuckle from the cowboy. Though instinct may urge Arthur not to show affection this publicly, he lets you love him because god damn did he miss you. (And plus, here's another chance to show off to the rest of the men at camp that he was the luckiest bastard alive.)

When you kiss him during private intimate moments, where no one can trouble ya'll, Arthur gets a little emotional. At your and his most vulnerable, he savours every press of your lips to his, each time a vow to cherish and protect what you share. This is the one moment where you both can be greedy with your kisses. As passion and heat overtake you both, your bodies joined under the sheets; Arthur lets himself float on the waters that are you.

And after it all, you two share one more kiss. It's fleeting and marked by a whisper of, "I love you." It gets him every time, and while a part of him protests that the last thing he deserves is your love, it all fizzles out with just one more kiss from you.

And he lets it happen every time.

୨୧┈┈┈┈୨୧

A/N: The sudden, aggressive motivation to write has led me to write more fluff for my manz. Watch it vanish again within a day or two. Kissing the hell out of him would cure me; I'm sure of it. I do plan to write for other characters in RDR2 eventually. Especially the best boy, Charles Smith <3

[secondarysweets]

Chapter Twenty-Five

A knock awoke Elise at two in the morning.

Elise surfaced from sleep quickly, the way she always did now, alert to any sound that might be Ben before she was fully conscious. But the knock was at her own door, not from the floor above, and it was Marie's voice that came through it, quiet and careful.

"Miss Elise."

She was already sitting up. "What is it, Marie?"

There was a pause that told her everything. "It's your father, ma'am. You should come."

She dressed in the dark, her fingers fumbling the buttons of her dressing gown. The house around her was eerily still. She did not light the lamp. She found her way to the door by memory and opened it to Marie, whose face in the dim corridor was stricken with anticipatory grief.

"How long does he have left?" Elise asked.

"Not long, I think."

They went up the stairs together without speaking further. The landing at the top was lit, and Elise could see that lights were burning already under the door at the end of the hall. Her father's door was ajar. The minister's voice came through it, low and even, the cadence of a long memorized prayer.

Dorothy was in the hallway. She had dressed properly, fully, her hair arranged with precision, and she turned when she heard them on the stairs. She looked weary and far older than she had earlier in the day.

"Mon cœur," she cried, as though she was still a girl. She reached out and touched Elise's face briefly with one hand, just the back of her fingers against her cheek, and then turned back toward the room.

Emma was already there. She appeared at the doorway, her hair loose, and took Elise's hand without saying anything.

Margaret stood at the window on the far wall with her arms folded across her chest and her back to the room, looking out at nothing. She turned when Elise entered and her face was very pale and frightened. Martin stood beside her with one hand at her shoulder, looking bored.

Richie was slumped in the chair in the corner. He was home from military school and was clearly drunk. His elbows were on his knees and his eyes were trained on the floor.

The minister stood beside the bed with his prayer book open, his voice measured and unhurried.

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

Richard was in bed. His breathing was shallow and labored. The lamp burned low on the nightstand. His hands were folded on top of the coverlet, and every movement seemed arduous.

She came to stand with the rest of them and listened to the minister finish his passage, and then the unfamiliar man looked up and asked, gently, whether the family would like a moment to say their goodbyes privately, and Dorothy nodded, and the minister stepped out.

Dorothy went first. She sat on the edge of the bed beside her husband and took his hands in hers, and what passed between them was not for anyone else in the room. The rest of them stood or sat or looked at the floor or the window, and Richie unclenched his hands between his knees and clenched them again.

Then Emma. She bent and kissed her father's forehead and said something close to his ear that made him make a sound, a small chuckle, and she straightened, and her mouth was pressed together very hard, and she took her place beside Elise and put her hand back in hers.

Martin guided Margaret forward. She sat beside the bed as her mother had and spoke to her father quietly for a moment. Whatever she said, he answered, and she pressed his hand between both of hers and bent her head over it. When she stood again, her composure was intact, but only just, and Martin put his arm around her shoulders, and she allowed it.

Richie had to be looked at twice before he understood. Martin pulled him out of his chair and he raised his head from his hands and got to his feet with some difficulty and crossed to the bed and crouched beside it so that he and his father were level. Richard's hand moved to rest on top of Richie's bowed head, heavy and deliberate. Richie's shoulders shook once. He straightened, turned his face away from the room, and went back to the corner chair without looking at anyone.

Then her mother's eyes found hers.

Elise crossed to the bed and sat in the chair that had been pulled close for the purpose. Her father turned his head toward her. His eyes were fully clear, despite the copious amount of laudanum and morphine he had been consuming in the last weeks; they found her face with the same directness they always had.

"I've been waiting for you," he said. His voice was thin, but it was his.

She took his hand. His fingers moved over hers. "I'm here, Daddy."

He was quiet for a moment. His breathing rasped and steadied and rasped again.

"I was wrong," he said. "I want you to hear me say that."

"Daddy—"

"Let me." He moved his hand in hers, the small imperative of it. "For so long I looked at you, and I saw a girl who needed to be protected from herself, from the world, from everything." His eyes moved to the ceiling for a moment and came back to her. "I was wrong. You have done wonderfully on your own."

She could not speak.

"What you are," he said, with careful deliberateness, "is a survivor. Every piece of grit and courage I ever hoped to find in my children — you have it. Every bit." His chest rose and fell. "You always had it. I simply could not see it through my own foolishness."

"Daddy—"

"Benjamin." His eyes went toward the door, as though he could see up through the floors to where the boy was sleeping. "You take care of that boy. You raise him right. And you tell him—" He stopped. Swallowed. "You tell him his grandfather was proud to have him. With you as a mother, he has a bright future ahead of him."

"I'll tell him." Her voice had broken somewhere in the middle of that and she did not try to recover it. "I'll tell him everything."

"And you." His hand tightened on hers, or tried to. "I am proud of you. I am proud to call you my daughter. Whatever I may have failed to say before — I am saying it now. I need you to be brave one more time and let me be at peace."

"I will."

"Good." He settled back against the pillow. The effort had cost him, and he closed his eyes for a moment, his breathing going long and slow. "Good."

She sat with him until his hand went slack in hers, and then she sat a little longer, and then she stood and let Emma take her place and moved to stand by the window beside Margaret, and outside, in the darkness below, the garden was invisible and the city was quiet, and the false spring had finally gone out and left only the cold.

The minister came back. He read the commendation, and the family stood together, and it was done.

Richard Brooks died at twenty past four in the morning, in his own bed, with all his children in attendance. His wife held his hand at the end. He did not appear to be afraid.

In the days that followed, Elise started to notice something strange occurring in the house. Faces that she had known for most of her life started disappearing, and new ones took their place just as quickly. Marie was gone only three days after her father died.

There was no announcement, no consultation. Elise woke one morning to find a woman she had never seen before standing in Marie's place in her room, dressed in a housemaid's black with a cap Elise did not recognize. She was young, perhaps nineteen, and she poured Elise's coffee with a nervous hand.

Elise sat with the cup between her hands and eyed the young woman suspiciously.

Martin came in to breakfast late, unhurried, kissing Margaret's cheek and pulling out his chair, settling at the head of the table, much to Elise’s shock and horror. He took toast from the rack. He unfolded his newspaper with a precise shake of the wrists.

"Where is Marie?" Elise asked.

Martin looked up from the paper with an expression of mild, affable concern. "Who?"

"Marie. Where is she?"

"I let her go." He returned his attention to the paper. "Several of the staff, actually. Things will be run more economically now, I'm afraid. Your father left behind some debts and I mean to correct them by applying some austerity measures for the time being.”

Emma narrowed her eyes, “That is my mother’s job.”

Martin waved his hand dismissively, “Your mother needs time to rest and recover, not a household to manage. She doesn’t need to worry about such trivial matters."

Dorothy sat across from Elise with her cup raised, her eyes fixed on the tablecloth.

"Marie has been with this family since I was a little girl," Elise pressed.

"Yes." Martin turned a page. "Which is precisely why I had to let her go. She was far too expensive to be kept around. Staff needs to be managed properly, not kept out of sentiment."

He said it pleasantly, the way he said everything. His voice never rose, never sharpened. He simply shrugged, signalling to everyone that the discussion was over.

A few days after that, Nannette followed.

Elise came up to the nursery for Ben's mid-morning feeding to find a woman she did not know sitting in the rocking chair, holding Ben at arm's length and scolding the boy. Ben was not crying; instead, he looked dreadfully scared.

She crossed the room and snatched the boy out of the stranger’s arms.

"Good morning, Miss Brooks," the woman said. "I'm Bridget. Mr. Fontenot hired me to look after your boy."

"What happened to Nannette?"

Bridget smoothed her skirts. "I couldn't say, ma'am. I was hired after she was let go."

Ben pressed his face to Elise's shoulder, and his body unclenched all at once. He put his thumb in his mouth and shut his eyes, melting into her body.

“You are not to raise your voice to my son again, am I clear?” Elise snapped.

Bridget squared her shoulder. “I mean no offense, ma’am, but I only take orders from Mr. Fontenot, and he instructed me to keep the boy on a strict program.”

“Neither you nor Mr. Fontenot has a say in how my son is raised, is that clear?”

Bridget said nothing, simply watching as Elise stormed out of the room with Ben gathered in her arms.

Elise charged down the stairs and found Martin in the study that had been her father's study for thirty years. He was behind the desk. Her father's papers had been moved or reorganized; she could not tell which, only that the desk looked different. Martin looked up when she came in, unsurprised.

"Elise. Come in, close the door."

She did not close the door. "What are you doing?"

"I beg your pardon?"

She kept her voice controlled. "I do not want that woman around my son. She is too harsh and refuses to listen to me. Nannette was wonderful with the children. Why was she replaced?"

Martin set his pen down with patient finality. "Bridget is a trained nursemaid with excellent references. She'll get to know Benjamin in time. Children are adaptable. Besides, your mother suggested to me that Nannette was too lenient with him. We can’t have a house full of spoiled boys now, can we?"

"That is not your decision to make! Raise Louis and Marcel however you and Margaret see fit, but leave my son out of it."

"Elise." Martin folded his hands on the desk. His expression was kind and completely immovable. "I understand this is a difficult period. The loss of your father, the disruption to the household. It is natural that you feel unsettled. But I have to think about what's best for the family as a whole, and right now that means getting things on a proper footing. Your mother is exhausted. She cannot be expected to oversee—"

"Stop using my mother as an excuse for your coup d'état of this household!"

"I see," He cleared his throat. "In the past few years, your father, God rest his soul, let a lot of things in this household slip through the cracks. He may have dominated in business, but he had too tender a heart when it came to family matters.” Martin paused and narrowed his eyes, “Rest assured, Elise, I do not carry such an affliction. I mean to right this ship through any means necessary, and I simply do not care to hear your opinions about it.”

Martin picked up his pen again, a clear sign of dismissal.

"Bridget will oversee Benjamin’s care from now on. I will make sure she adheres to the official schedule that you had set with Nannette, and no additional visits. Am I clear?"

Elise's jaw clenched, but she had no leverage or recourse, so she simply nodded and turned on her heel and marched back up the stairs.

She was no longer permitted to leave the house with Ben without telling Bridget, who told Martin. She discovered this not from any announcement but from the consequence: she tried, once, to take Ben for an afternoon walk along the garden avenue, just the two of them, and she was already at the gate when Bridget appeared on the front steps calling after her, and behind Bridget was one of the new footmen, and the footman said nothing but stood there looking intimidating, and Elise understood, she was no longer free.

Emma was similarly constrained, though more subtly. She was still permitted her social calls, her visits to friends, the ordinary movements of a young woman in society. But Martin began accompanying her to certain engagements, or sending Margaret, and the calls she was allowed to make alone grew shorter and less frequent. As each day crawled by she felt more and more as if the walls were closing in on her and that perhaps this had all been a mistake.

Relief came one morning when a letter arrived for her, tucked among the household correspondence that the new footman left in a small silver tray on the hall table each morning. Elise almost missed it. She had come downstairs early, before the others, and she saw her own name written in a familiar hand. She snatched it before anyone else could see and stashed it in her dressing gown pocket.

She waited until she was back in her room, until the house was fully awake and the sounds of breakfast had begun below, until she was certain no one would come. Then she sat at the writing desk and opened it.

Miss E.B. —

I am not much for writing letters, as you well know, so I will keep this short. Our tenancy at the old place has ended, and our family has moved on to a new residence. We are residing in an old saw mill, eight miles east of Blackwater. There is a small burnt-out farm halfway between here and the town. I thought you should know, should you wish to return.

I am going to say something, and I ask you to take it in the spirit it is meant, which is plain and honest and nothing else.

I miss you. I miss him. I think about the two of you damn near every moment and that is the truth of it. Not every hour — every moment. I have been thinking about what we spoke of before you left, and I want you to know that you and the boy are always on my mind, even when those thoughts become too painful to bear.

I wish desperately to see you again, but if you do not wish to return, I understand that, too.

Sincerely,

All my best,

Love,

— A.M.

She reread the letter several times. Then she folded it along its original crease and held it in her lap, willing herself not to cry at the thought of Arthur sitting alone writing such a melancholic letter. She put the letter in the inner pocket of her dressing case, beneath her handkerchiefs, where it would not be found. She put the letter in the inner pocket of her dressing case, beneath her handkerchiefs, where it would not be found.

She did not write back. Not yet. Not when Martin was looking for her to slip up and reveal herself.

Later that evening, she had been sulking around the house, looking for vulnerabilities in Martin’s lock down, when she heard raised voices coming from her father’s office. She paused outside the door, which had been left ajar.

"—my father's business," Richie shouted. His voice was less drunk than usual but still had that fraying quality. "I'm the heir. Not your employee, the actual heir, and I'm not going to stand here and—"

Martin's voice was quiet and warm. "Sit down."

There was a pause and finally she heard the scrap of a chair being dragged across the hardwood floor.

"Your father wanted you protected," Martin's tone was sickly pleasant and amenable. "That was always his first concern and I intend to honor it. You have not yet reached your majority. The probate cannot be finalized until you have. That is a legal matter, not a personal one."

"In the meantime—"

"In the meantime, the business needs managing, and I am the only person in a position to do it. You know this." Then Martin's voice shifted. "But you're right that this affects you. You should not be inconvenienced while we wait for the legalities to sort themselves out. I want to increase your allowance. Substantially. And I've been thinking about your education. I always felt like military school was quite harsh. You’re a young man, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to sow your wild oats. If you don’t wish to return, I certainly won’t force you."

She could almost hear the wheels turning in Richie’s young head.

"How substantially?" Richie asked.

“I see that your father was giving you one hundred fifty a week, what if we say two hundred for now and then two fifty after I get all of these accounts sorted?”

"Take some time," Martin said. "There's no rush on any of this. Your family needs you here, and here you should be."

Elise moved away from the door as she heard Richie get up and presumably shake hands with Martin. She quickly made her way to the library and shut the door carefully behind her.

What Martin had given Richie was not money.The path Richie had already been on — the gambling, the drinking, the slow erosion of everything their father had hoped for him — that path had simply been made more comfortable. A higher allowance and no reason to return to school were not rewards. Richie was purposeless and grieving and grateful for anyone who did not look at him with obvious disappointment, would swim in the direction the current ran.

He would be no trouble to Martin for quite some time. She wanted to say something to her brother, but he had barely said ten words to her since that fateful day with the O’Driscolls. Richie was young and drunk by noon most days and so hollowed out by his father's death and his own guilt that he was looking for a reason not to fight.

And she had troubles of her own.

The preparations for the funeral occupied most of her spare time. There were calls to receive and return. There were letters of condolence to be acknowledged, each requiring its own careful reply, and Elise sat at the writing desk in her mother's sitting room and composed them in her mother's name, one after another, until the phrases lost their meaning entirely. In this time of sorrow. His many kindnesses. He will be deeply missed. Margaret handled the household staff. Emma took charge of arranging the music and readings while Dorothy managed the flowers and the arrangement of the church. Elise found herself grateful for the work. It kept her hands busy but her mind free to plan out her escape.

She thought about Arthur's letter constantly. She had not written back. She could not write back, not yet, not while the new servants hovered over her constantly. She had taken to keeping her writing desk locked with the only key strung around her neck.

The biggest problem facing her was Ben. She could not simply leave unnoticed with an infant in tow. She could not send for anyone who might be watched arriving. She could not put him in a hired carriage in the middle of the night and trust that nothing would go wrong, that no one would see, that Martin would not have some quiet recourse she hadn't yet anticipated.

So she did her best to appear compliant. She helped her mother receive callers. She sat in the parlor with her hands folded and said the appropriate things. She ate her meals without argument and did not challenge Martin's decisions at the table. She listened. She watched Richie disappear most afternoons with his new allowance and come back in the very early hours of the morning.

She was still watching, still measuring, when the front door opened one evening and Martin came in with his hand at the back of a man she had never seen before.

She understood it from the particular cast of Martin's smile, which was warmer than his business smile and more deliberate than his social smile. She understood it from the way Dorothy appeared from the drawing room in the dress she wore when she wanted to make a good impression. She understood it from the way Margaret, coming down the stairs behind her, put a hand briefly on the banister as though steadying herself.

"Elise," Martin said, with that tone he used when he meant to be gracious, "come and meet Mr. Beacham."

Mr. Beacham was perhaps sixty and was impeccably dressed. His hair was silver at the temples and white at the crown, carefully pomaded.

Martin made the introductions with the practiced warmth of a host in his element. "My sister-in-law, Miss Elise Brooks.”

Beacham turned to Elise with a cordial expression and offered his hand. "Miss Brooks. I've heard a great deal about you."

"How kind," Elise replied.

Martin had placed Mr. Beacham directly across from Elise, and he was better company than most of the men Martin had brought home. He did not work too hard at charm. He asked Elise questions that were courteous rather than calculated, and when she answered he actively listened to the answers rather than waiting for them to end. He had opinions about the shipping routes along the Lemoyne coast and expressed them without requiring agreement. He had recently been to Paris and spoke of it without ostentation.

Dorothy kept the conversation moving with the ease of long practice. She asked Mr. Beacham about the bank. She asked after mutual acquaintances. She steered the supper with a light, invisible hand and she did it so well that a person not paying close attention might not have noticed the steering at all.

Elise paid close attention.

Margaret’s boys were brought down after dessert, paraded around the room like a miniature sideshow. Louis came first, in his good clothes, and made the small bow. Marcel followed in the nurse's arms, largely indifferent to the proceedings, one fist wrapped around a powder blue wool blanket.

Beacham was polite to Louis and clearly charmed by young Marcel. He asked Louis a question about his lessons, which Louis answered with careful accuracy, and the table applauded the response with the warmth the occasion seemed to demand.

Then Mr. Beacham turned to Margaret, who sat with her hands folded and her back straight while she watched the boys with an intense gaze, as if willing them to behave. “Mrs. Fonterot, you’ve been blessed. You would have made King Henry VIII a very happy husband indeed.”

Margaret’s lips curled into a polite smile but Elise could see the unease in her eyes. Martin laughed heartily while the nurse ushered the two boys back up the stairs. She could feel Mr. Beacham’s gaze linger on her for a period that exceeded appropriate.

After supper, Emma disappeared upstairs with unusual speed. Dorothy walked Mr. Beacham to the drawing room with warm attention, the two of them falling into easy conversation about some charitable board they apparently shared an acquaintance through.

Martin touched Elise's elbow. "A word," he said. Her heart sank but she followed him into her father’s study. The room still smelled faintly of his pipe tobacco and it made her throat constrict painfully. Martin sat down all too comfortably in her father’s all too recently vacant chair. He gestured to the chair opposite. She did not sit.

"Elise." His voice was patient. "Please don’t be difficult."

So she sat.

Martin settled back in the chair with ease -and folded his hands on the desk. He had the look he wore when he was about to deliver news he had already decided was good, the look that preceded conclusions.

"Mr. Beacham is an exceptional man," he began. "You'll have gathered that this evening. He's been with the Lemoyne National Bank for thirty-two years. His wife passed away four years ago, no children from the marriage. He is, financially speaking, one of the most stable men in this city. His connections are impeccable."

Elise’s jaw clenched.

"He has expressed a genuine interest," Martin continued, "in providing you with a comfortable life. He wishes to have a son to pass his wealth onto." He paused to let that word do its work. "He is prepared to overlook certain aspects of your circumstances as you have already proven yourself capable of conceiving a healthy boy."

"How generous."

Martin's lips turned downwards but he continued. "I've spoken at some length with him over the past week." He unfolded his hands and placed them flat on the desk. "We've agreed on a quiet ceremony. Two few weeks after your father is buried. Nothing ostentatious, nothing that would require a great deal of preparation. Something private, that suits the circumstances."

"And Benjamin," Martin continued, "would be placed with Mr. Beacham's sister, Miss Constance Beacham, who keeps a house on Baronne Street. She is unmarried, capable, and has expressed willingness to take on the responsibility. You would be able to visit, of course. At appropriate intervals."

"Well, it sounds like you’ve got it all planned out already." Elise seethed between gritted teeth.

"We've arranged it. On your behalf."

"Without asking me."

"I did not want to bother you with the details."

Elise took a calming breath. "No," she declared.

Martin sat up straight and squared his shoulders as if he had been anticipating her argument.

"I thought you might say that," he retorted.

Something in his voice had changed. The congeniality had receded.

"Before you make up your mind, I want to show you something." He opened the upper drawer of the desk and withdrew a folded document and laid it on the surface between them. He did not push it toward her. He simply placed it there, so that she could see it.

She reached across and picked it up. It was a single sheet of heavy paper. Official letterhead, the name of the doctor embossed at the top, their family doctor, the man who had been attending the Brooks household since before Elise was born. The language was clinical and formal and she had reread it multiple times before comprehending what it said.

Irrational behavior. Instability of temperament. Inability to make sound judgments regarding herself or her child. The undersigned is of the professional opinion that the patient presents symptoms consistent with—

She set it back down.

"Dr. Arceneaux signed it," Martin told her. "He was kind enough to cooperate when I explained the situation. Lannahechee State Hospital by all accounts is a vile place to be. You’d be subjected to ice baths, electro shock therapy, and forced feeding if needs be." He paused. "Having a person with such a wild temperament would be untenable."

Elise stared at him in disbelief.

"And poor Benjamin," Martin continued, "would require alternative arrangements on short notice. I've made inquiries. The Foundlings' Home on Laurie Street has space available." A twisted smile crossed his lips,"It is not, I'll admit, the most selective institution. Most of the children end up on a factory floor or on a chain gang before they reach adulthood."

"You would not dare," Elise managed despite her racing heart.

"I would prefer not to," Martin shrugged. "That is entirely true. I take no pleasure in this, Elise. I want to be clear about that."

"Don’t you dare pretend like this is any sort of choice for me."

"I have tried, for several weeks now, to provide you with a reasonable path forward. Reasonable men, reasonable marriages, every consideration made for your circumstances. You have refused every one of them." His voice remained even. "I have a responsibility to this family. To your mother, to this household, to your brother and sisters. Your father's business is in my hands, and the debts he accrued in the last years of his illness are not insignificant. I have managed things carefully. I don’t intend on having his fortune squandered on whores and bastards."

He lazily straightened the papers on the desk.

"Mr. Beacham is a solution," he said. "A good one. He is prepared to be generous. He has no interest in making your life difficult." He set the pen back down. "The alternative is not something I would prefer. But I will pursue it if necessary."

"I suppose when you put it that way it doesn’t seem so bad." she lied.

Martin’s eyes lit up. “I’m glad you’re starting to see reason, Elise. Your sister and I only want what is best for you.”

Elise nodded. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head off to bed.”

Martin stood politely and his sharp eyes watched her as she tried her best not to flee from the study.

She held her breath as she dashed up the three flights of stairs into her son’s room. Bridget tried to scold her but she ignored the woman as she reached into Ben’s cradle to pick him up and hold him close to her.

Elise couldn’t honestly say how much time had passed while she rocked her boy to her chest but eventually Bridget grew annoyed.

“It’s late, ma’am. They boy needs his sleep.” She reached for Ben but Elise snatched him back.

“Shut up.” Elise snapped. “I don’t ever want to hear your suggestions again. I’ll put my son to bed when I am good and ready!”

Bridget flinched, stunned by the harsh tone in Elise’s voice. Bridget did not push the matter further.

Elise sat in the rocking chair with Ben in her arms and listened to the woman move about the room behind her, setting things to rights. The fire had burned low. The house below was quiet. Outside the window, the magnolia in the garden was a black silhouette against a black sky, and the city beyond offered up its usual dim glow.

She had held Ben long enough that he had gone limp in her arms, his breath slow and even against her collarbone. She did not put him down.

Her thoughts raced and she tried to form a plan on how she could possibly get out of this predicament. She watched the minutes on the clock tick by and she waited— for what, exactly? For someone to come. For someone to open the door and take her by the hand and lead her out of this house. For Arthur to materialize in the garden with his horse and his hat and his particular brand of wordless steadiness and make every decision irrelevant.

She pressed her face briefly to the top of Ben's head.

He was not coming. Her father was dead and Arthur was far, far away. Far enough that even if she managed to get a letter to him it would already be too late. She could not send for him, and she could not wait, and no one else was going to come. Not her father. Not Emma, who was clever and brave but entirely powerless against Martin's legal authority. Not Richie, who was drinking himself through his inheritance.

There was no one.

She was going to have to do this herself.. She was going to have to be the architect of her own freedom. She was going to have to be brave one more time.

She held Ben a little longer in the dying light, and then she stood and laid him down in his cradle carefully. “I love you, Ben.”

She did not light the lamp as she crept down the stairs. She knew the house well enough to move through it in darkness. She knew where everything was by heart. She went down in her stocking feet with one hand trailing the banister. The house slept around her.

The study door gave to her without protest.

She stepped inside and pulled it shut behind her and stood still for a moment, adjusting. The room was not entirely dark; the streetlamp through the front shutters laid thin bars of pale light across the carpet.

The painting had hung there for as long as she could remember — a landscape of the river at dusk that she had always found slightly dull. She lifted it from the hook and leaned it against the baseboard.

The safe was a small square thing, recessed in the plaster, with a combination dial.

She tried her father's birthday first. The lock did not yield. She tried her mother's birthday. She tried the year he had founded the company. Then and she tried the year his own father had died, and felt the last tumbler give.

The door swung open.

There was money. A good deal of it — more than she expected, bound in paper, stacked neatly in their emergency bundles. There were documents she did not take the time to examine. There was a folded deed. And at the back, in its worn leather case, was the pistol.

She lifted it carefully. Arthur had taught her how to use one even before they became romantically involved. He had insisted that she needed to learn how to protect herself and after everything she had endured, she didn’t disagree. She could still hear him. Break it open. Check the cylinder before you do anything else. Never point it at something you're ain’t prepared to kill.

She opened the cylinder. Her fingers were steadier than she expected. She found the ammunition at the back of the safe — small brass cartridges in a cardboard box — and loaded five rounds, leaving the chamber beneath the hammer empty the way he had shown her, and clicked the cylinder closed and stood for a moment with the pistol in her hand and the thin lines of lamplight crossing the carpet.

Then she put it in the pocket of her dressing gown, where it hung heavy and real against her thigh, and she stuffed a handful of bills in the other pocket, and she closed the safe and spun the dial and hung the painting back on its hook and crossed to the door and listened to make sure the house was still asleep.

She went back up the stairs the way she had come down them, in her stocking feet, one hand trailing the banister, and she moved through the dark hall to her room and lit the lamp and began to pack.

She took only what was necessary. A change of clothes for herself, another for Ben, the small amount of coin she kept in the drawer of her writing desk. Her dressing case. She took Arthur's letter from beneath the handkerchiefs and held it for a moment, and then she looked around the room for something to burn it in and found nothing adequate, so she folded it small and put it inside her corset, pressed against her ribs, where it would travel with her. If Martin found it, he would have every piece of what he needed. She would not leave him that.

She had fastened the bag and straightened and was reaching for her coat when she heard the soft knock at her door.

She went still.

"It's me." Emma's voice, barely a breath through the wood.

Elise crossed to the door and opened it. Emma stood in the corridor in her nightgown with her hair braided over one shoulder. She took one look at the bag in Elise's hand and said nothing for a moment. Then she turned and disappeared back into her room and came back with a coat over her arm and her own small bag already buckled.

"No," Elise said at once, very quietly.

"Yes."

"Emma." She stepped back to let her sister in and pulled the door shut behind them both, her voice low and fierce. "You cannot come. If Martin wakes and finds you gone with me, he will pursue us both. If you stay, he has no reason to involve the law. You haven't done anything."

"Not yet." Emma set her bag down on the floor beside Elise's. "He's been corresponding with a Mr. Arsenault in Baton Rouge. He left his letters open on the breakfast table twice this week, I think on purpose. So I would see them."

"The thought made me sick. I’d much rather be with you and your outlaw.”

Elise stared at her. “Please Lisey.”

"Take the bags," she said. "Down the back stairs, through the kitchen, out the servants' door. I'll bring Ben." Emma nodded once. She picked up both bags without another word and slipped out into the corridor.

The nursery was dark except for the coals in the grate. Bridget was asleep in her chair in the corner with her chin on her chest, and Elise gave her not a single glance. She went to the cradle and lifted Ben with both hands, slow and careful, and he stirred and made a small sound and she pressed him close against her and murmured to him, very low, until he settled again.

She carried him down the back stairs with one arm around him and one hand steadying herself against the wall. She could feel his heartbeat against hers. The kitchen was cold and dark and smelled of yesterday's bread, and the servants' door was unlatched. She had known it would be. Emma had been thorough.

She pushed through it and stepped out into the narrow side yard, and Emma was there, both bags in hand, her breath showing in the cold, and her face in the darkness was frightened and determined and alive with something that Elise recognized as the same feeling she had herself.

"Good," Elise said. "Let's go."

They had made it as far as the garden gate.

Light flooded the path from the back of the house, and Martin's voice came across the yard, measured and carrying, without a trace of sleep in it.

"I'd ask you to stop there."

She did not stop immediately. She had the gate handle in her free hand and she got it open before she turned, keeping Ben against her shoulder, keeping herself between him and the light. Martin stood on the rear steps in his dressing gown with a lamp held high. Behind him the door was open. Beside him stood one of the new footmen, the tall one, expressionless.

"You have been spying on us," Elise snarled.

"Of course I have," Martin agreed. He descended the steps at an unhurried pace, the lamp casting his shadow long across the dead grass. "You've made this very difficult, Elise. I had hoped you would not."

"Then you misjudged me."

"Evidently." He stopped some feet away, close enough that the lamplight caught them both. His eyes went from her to Emma, and something crossed his face that might have been surprise, quickly smoothed. "Emma. I would not have expected this from you."

"Then you misjudged me as well," Emma said.

A sound from the doorway. Margaret appeared at the top of the steps, her dressing gown gathered around her, her hair loose over her shoulders. She looked down at the scene in the yard with wide eyes and she looked, for one unguarded moment, terribly young.

"Martin." Her voice was careful. "Martin, let them go."

His head turned toward her. His expression did not change.

"They're unhappy here," Margaret said. She came down a step. Her hands were tight on her own elbows. "It’s not worth all of this strife, just let them go.”

"Margaret." His voice could have frozen water.

"Let them go." Something had shifted in her face. She came down another step, and another, onto the path, crossing the yard toward him, and she put her hand on his arm. "Please. They're my sisters. Let them take the boy and go."

For a moment nothing moved. The lamp flame wavered in the cold air. Then Martin's gaze came back to Elise, unhurried, and he reached out and took hold of Emma's arm just above the elbow, and Emma went rigid.

"You're going to put the boy down," he told Elise, "and go back inside, and we will discuss the terms of your cooperation in the morning. If you refuse, I will have you committed by the end of the day. I made that promise and I do not make promises I don't intend to keep."

"Let go of my sister," Elise said.

"Put the boy down."

She shifted Ben to her left arm. Her right hand went into the pocket of her gown and closed around the grip of the pistol and she drew it and raised it and leveled it at Martin's chest.

The footman took a step forward.

"Don't you dare," she ordered, and the footman stopped dead in his tracks. Martin was looking at the pistol. His expression had changed for the first time since he had come into the yard. His eyes were fearful

"This is not something you want to do," he challenged.

"Let go of Emma."

"Elise." He spread his free hand in a gesture of reasonableness. "You are not going to shoot—"

She lowered the barrel and shot him dead in the thigh.

The crack of it split the night open. Martin went down hard, one knee hitting the path, his lamp falling with him and extinguishing as it struck the ground. The footman lurched back. Margaret screamed, a short, terrible sound, and her hands flew to her face.

Emma wrenched her arm free.

Martin was on one knee in the dark with his hand pressed to his leg. His breath came in short bursts. He was not crying out — he was too proud or too stunned for that — but his face in the thin moonlight was contorted and ash-pale, and the dark stain was spreading slowly across the fabric.

"Don't follow us," she warned.

She dared one last glance at Margaret who had not moved from her place in the doorframe. Then Elise strode through the gate with a wailing Ben clutched against her chest. Emma came through behind her with the bags and Elise heard the latch click shut, and then they were in the street, and the night was very cold and very dark, and the city stretched out before them in every direction.

Taglist: @photo1030

[morganscampfire]

𝒃𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓 (+𝟏𝟖)

arthur morgan x f!reader smut

summary: arthur's back from hunting, your doing laundry by the river. 𓍼 ོ☁︎ cw: smut, p in v sex, slightly dom/rough!arthur, unprotected sex, finishing inside.

the dusk had settled thick and heavy over the river, the last light bleeding through the trees. you were bent over the water, the chemise damp and clinging to every curve, the thin fabric nearly transparent in the dying light. you had come to wash, but then you felt him behind you.

arthur's boots made no sound on the mossy bank. he moved like the hunter he was, silent and patient. his hands found your waist first, fingers spreading wide over the damp cloth, pressing you hips back against him. you felt the hard length of him through his trousers.

"you keep bending over like that," he murmured, his mouth brushing your ear, "and i'll have to do something about it."

you tried to turn, but his hands held you in place. one slid down your thigh, bunching the chemise upward, baring your skin to the cool evening air. he pushed the fabric higher, exposing the curve of your ass, the soft skin of youe inner thighs. the chemise stayed on, twisted and gathered around you waist like a makeshift harness.

"i was just washing," you breathed, voice cracking

"were you now." he knelt behind her, his hands spreading your cheeks apart, and your felt his breath hot against your wet cunt. his tongue dragged through your folds, slow and deliberate, collecting the slick that had been building since he first touched you. you gasped, your knuckles whitening on the stone you'd been leaning on. one of his hands left your hip and grabbed the bunched fabric at your waist, tugging it higher, pulling the chemise taut against her stomach and ribs. The tension made you arch, and he used it, yanking the cloth again, hard, so it strained across your chest, nipples rubbing against the damp linen.

he ate you with a calm, devastating focus: lapping at the clit, dipping into your hole, circling back up. you bucked against his mouth, and he chuckled against you, the vibration making your knees buckle. one arm hooked around your thigh, holding you open, while his fingers replaced his tongue, two of them sliding inside you with ease.

"you're so wet already," he muttered against your skin. "'this from washing, or from knowing i was watching?"

you couldn't answer. he curled his fingers, pressing deep. he worked you like that. fingers fucking you slowly, his mouth teasing you clit, until you wete trembling, your legs barely supporting. he pulled back just as you neared the edge, leaving you shaking and empty.

"not yet."

he stood, his hands sliding up your sides, gripping the chemise at your ribs. he tugged it higher, baring your cunt completely from behind. his cock nudged at your entrance, thick and hot, and he held there, just the tip, until you whimpered.

"please."

"please what?"

you pushed back, but he grabbed your hip, stopping you.

"please fuck me," you gasped.

he didn't make you wait longer. he thrust in, one smooth, hard push that buried him to the root. you screamed, the stretch almost too much, and he stayed there, letting you adjust, his teeth grazing your shoulder through the damp linen.

"that's it," he growled. "take it."

he set a punishing rhythm from the start, pulling out almost entirely and slamming back in, each stroke driven, brutal, his balls slapping against yoir clit. you braced yourself against the rock, nails scraping stone, your moans turning into ragged sobs with every thrust. he grabbed a fistful of hair, tangling it around his hand, yanking your head back so her spine bowed.

"you're going to come for me," he ordered, his voice harsh in your ear. "now."

his other hand slid around her belly, fingers finding your clit, circling hard and fast in time with his thrusts. he was still gripping your hair, pulling it tight, the chemise bunched and twisted around your torso like a second skin. the orgasm hit like a shockwave, violent and consuming, your body clenching around his cock. he didn't stop. he fucked you through it, driving deeper, his own groans turning into a low, guttural roar.

he came with a final, savage thrust, his cum flooding you in hot, thick spurts, filling you so full she felt it dripping down her thigh before he even pulled out. he stayed inside for a long moment, breathing hard, his forehead against the back of you neck. rhe grip he had on your loosened, and the chemise sagged, no longer taut.

he withdrew, slowly, and you felt the emptiness like a loss.

you leaned against the rock, legs trembling, your body slick with sweat and his seed. the chemise hung off in a crumpled mess, soaked and twisted, barely covering anything. he looked at you, then at the basket where the wash lay forgotten, damp and crumpled. he picked it up, slinging it over one bare shoulder, and turned back to you.

"you comin'? or do i have to carry you too?"

you laughed, weak and breathless, and tried to stand. he watched you struggle for a moment, then walked back, scooped you up with one arm under her knees and the other around her back, carrying both her and the basket.

"you'll drop me," you said.

"no, i won't." he started up the narrow, winding path, the basket bumping against his shoulder. the hill was steep, rocky, but he didn't slow down. halfway up, he looked down at you, a glint in his dark eyes.

"next time, bring less washing. 've got better things to do with you."

you buried her face in his neck, your body still humming, his cum still leaking from you. the campfire's glow was just visible over the ridge, warm and waiting.

thank you for reading! hope you enjoy. means the absolute world to me that you've read it! 💞

[secondarysweets]

Chapter Twenty-Four

The cigarette had burned down to almost nothing. He'd been standing long enough that the cold had worked through the soles of his boots and settled into his feet. The sky was clear, black from edge to edge, the stars hard and distant. He tipped his head back and looked at them and felt the particular smallness that came from that kind of looking, vast and indifferent and offering nothing back. He took a final drag and dropped the cigarette and ground it out under his boot.

Behind him, the camp was lively. He could hear it even from out here, even with the distance he'd put between himself and the firelight. Miss Grimshaw's voice carried across the field, snapping at one of the girls. The low, continuous register of Abigail and John at it again, the words indistinct but the shape perfectly familiar— grievance meeting grievance, neither of them listening. And underneath it all, Dutch's laugh. The one he used when he was charming someone.

The fire threw its usual orange over the wagons and the frozen laundry. Mary-Beth had retreated to her tent. Charles stood at the perimeter, arms crossed, keeping his own counsel.

Abigail's voice rose one register. Arthur turned away from his solitude and headed back towards the heart of camp.

Dutch was sitting with Micah and Molly, a few cups of whiskey between them, the conversation folded down low in the way that meant it wasn't for general hearing. He looked up when Arthur approached, and his face brightened.

"Going somewhere?"

"Gonna make some money. There's a board in Strawberry, should be decent work this time of year. Wanted men don't travel as fast in the cold." He kept his voice practical. "Camp could use the income."

Dutch's eyes lit up in the way they always did when money was mentioned. "That's the spirit, son. That's exactly the spirit." He leaned forward and slapped Arthur's forearm. "We could certainly use the funds."

Micah said nothing. He watched Arthur over the rim of his cup with those quick pale eyes. Arthur held his gaze long enough to make the point.

"I'll be back when I'm back."

"Take whatever time you need." Dutch waved a generous hand.

He rode out before John and Abigail had finished whatever round they were on. The cold wind hit him and he pulled his collar up and put his heels to Boudica and let the camp fall behind him.

The board in Strawberry had four men on it. He took the papers for two of them, folded them into his coat, and was back in the saddle before the sheriff had finished explaining the particulars.

The first man was found inside two days, hiding in a farmhouse west of Flatneck with some apparent hope that no one would come looking this far north in January. Arthur had been coming this far north in January since before the man was wanted. He brought him in face down and collected three hundred and fifty dollars and didn't feel much about any of it.

The second man proved more interesting.

His name on the paper was Dale Pruett, and his crimes amounted to a bank job gone sideways in Valentine and a prior history that the bounty notice summarized as extensive, leaving it at that. Arthur found him in a sheep camp in the Cumberland Forest, which spoke poorly of how far Pruett's fortunes had fallen. He hadn't run hard enough or far enough, and he knew it when he heard Boudica come through the trees and came up out of his bedroll with a shotgun he didn't manage to aim.

They stood with their guns on each other for a moment in the cold grey morning.

"You know who I am?" Arthur said.

"I got a fair idea."

"Then put that down."

Pruett's eyes moved. Arthur watched the man weigh his odds and waited for him to arrive at the correct answer. He lowered the shotgun.

"Now look," Pruett said, as Arthur crossed toward him through the frozen mud. "I got something. Something worth more than my head."

"Don't care."

"Just hear me out —"

"They all got something. I don't want it."

"It's a map." He said it fast, before Arthur reached him. "A treasure map! People have been looking for it for years; I know exactly where it is. I'll trade you. Map for my freedom, you ride away and —"

Arthur took him by the collar, turned him, and put the cuffs on him. Pruett kept talking through all of it. The map was in his boot, he said. His left one, the inner sole. He'd verified the information himself, he said. He'd had it off a man who had done the original survey work out that way and knew where the cache was.

"Now why the hell wouldn't he take the treasure for himself if that were true?"

Pruett opened his mouth and then closed it again. Arthur crouched and retrieved the map from the boot without ceremony.

Pruett twisted to look at him. "That ain't — that was supposed to be the trade."

"I'm sure you'll get a fair hearing in Strawberry." Arthur stood and unfolded the paper. It was old, the folds soft from handling, the ink gone pale brown in spots. Rough sketches of New Hanover country, landmarks hastily marked by hand.

Arthur studied it for a moment. Then he folded it back along its original lines and put it in his coat pocket.

"That ain't fair," Pruett whined, from the ground.

"No," Arthur agreed. "It ain't."

He delivered Pruett to the Strawberry jail before the end of the afternoon, collected the bounty money, and stood in the street with two hundred dollars in his coat and no particular reason to head back to camp. The camp would be the same as he'd left it. Miss Grimshaw and Abigail and John and Micah's pale eyes catching the firelight.

The dark tent where Elise and Benny had slept only days ago.

He stood there while a wagon went past and two women with a child between them crossed from the dressmaker's toward the dress maker. The child was maybe two, old enough to walk but holding the nearer woman's hand anyway, swinging between them a little with each step. He swallowed hard and looked away.

He went to the general store and bought some provisions and a tin of tobacco. Then he stood at the edge of town and took the map out again and looked at it in the last light of the afternoon.

Reed Cottage. He knew the rough country, had ridden through the area enough times to have a vague idea of the terrain.

He swung up into the saddle.

"Come on, girl," he said, and Boudica turned south without complaint.

It was not much of a cottage. It had been, once — the bones of it were still there, two walls of decent stonework and the suggestion of a hearth, the rest collapsed inward and reclaimed with considerable thoroughness by the surrounding forest. Someone had made the stone walls with care, maybe fifty years ago.

Arthur tied Boudica to a pine well back from the ruin and went in on foot with the map in his coat. The cache was where Pruett had said it would be, which Arthur found vaguely annoying in retrospect; the man had been telling the truth the whole time and had gotten cuffed for it anyway. The hearthstone was loose, the cavity beneath it dry and undisturbed.

Inside, he found a fold of oilcloth, and inside that, a tin box, and inside the tin box, gold coins, a silver pocket watch of some age and obvious quality, and a pair of pearl-handled Remingtons that someone had wrapped in cloth and packed with evident care. Finally, a large cache of Confederate dollars, which he haphazardly stuffed in his coat pocket, as they were only good for kindling.

Arthur crouched in the ruins and looked at it all for a while.

It was a good find. A very good find, the kind of thing that would have produced a certain feeling of satisfaction in him, once. He had always liked finding things that didn't want to be found.

But now he felt nothing.

He wrapped the guns back in their cloth and packed everything into his saddlebag carefully. The coins he counted. The watch he wound and held to his ear and listened to tick for a moment before he put it away.

He stood up and stared out at the cold sky above him.

He considered heading back. Riding into camp with the saddlebags heavy and the bounty money already folded in his coat, setting it all on Dutch's table, watching the older man's face light up with pride. He thought about the dark tent where Elise and Benny had slept. Where Persephone was still staked, patient and unbothered because he'd promised Elise he'd look after her.

The tent would be empty. The cradle would be empty. The cot would be cold.

He made camp instead.

He'd been gone for a week. That was nothing. Men went months without seeing the people they loved, and those men survived it.

Arthur pulled out the journal and the loose sheet of paper he'd been carrying. The one he'd folded in the back specifically for writing to her. He uncapped his pen and sat with it for a while, but the paper stayed blank.

He knew what he wanted to say. That was not the problem. The problem was that putting it in a letter made it real. Made it something he'd have to send, something she'd have to read, something that would sit between them like evidence of what he was. A man who couldn't say what he meant when it mattered. A man who left.

He capped the pen. Shoved the paper back in his satchel.

The journal was easier. He opened it to a blank page and started to sketch.

Her face came easily, he had spent so much time memorizing it. The line of her jaw. The way she held her head slightly tilted when she was thinking. He worked in the firelight, cross-hatching the shadow under her chin, but something wasn't right. The proportions were off, or the expression was wrong, or he couldn't capture whatever it was that made the drawing look like her and not just any woman's face.

He tried again on the next page. Got closer. Tried a third time and gave up.

He turned the page and tried Ben instead. The boy was even harder, too small for Arthur to get the proportions right, his features not yet settled into anything Arthur's hand could pin down. He sketched the shape of Ben's head, too large, and tried to fix it by making the body bigger, which made the whole thing look wrong.

He started over. Drew what he remembered instead of what was accurate. Ben tucked against Elise's shoulder, his face turned toward Arthur, one fist tangled in her hair.

It still wasn't right. None of it was right.

He slammed the journal closed and sat staring at the fire.

Ten days. He'd been out ten days now, and he had money in his coat and treasure in his saddlebags and no desire to take any of it back to camp. Out here, he could tell himself she was still there. That the tent wasn't empty. That when he rode back in, she'd look up from whatever she was doing and smile at him, and Ben would reach for him with both arms.

Out here, he didn't have to know for certain that she wasn't coming back.

On the twelfth day, he tried the letter again.

Elise,

I don't know how to write this. I've started it four times now and it don't

He crossed that out.

I've been thinking about what you said. About Ben needing a father, not just someone who's around. About wanting a real life for him. I want that too. I want

He stopped. The page sat there, mostly blank, mocking him.

The trouble was that he didn't know what he wanted, or rather he knew but didn't know how to get there, or he knew how to get there but couldn't make himself believe he was the kind of man who could pull it off. The thoughts circled each other without landing anywhere useful.

He crumpled the paper. Started over with a fresh sheet.

Elise,

I ain't good at this. Writing, I mean, but also the rest of it. Figuring out what to say when it matters. You asked me to think and I have been, but thinking ain't getting me anywhere except

He set the pen down. Outside the tent, Boudica stamped once and settled. An owl called from somewhere in the trees, low and questioning. Arthur looked at the half-finished letter for a long moment. Then he folded it and put it in his satchel with all the other orphaned letters.

She'd said a few weeks. A few weeks in that house, with her family, with proper beds and gas lamps and all the things he couldn't give her. A few weeks for her to remember what her life had been before she'd ended up in an outlaw camp with a man who had nothing to offer but the clothes on his back and a rap sheet no amount of bribes or good deeds could ever erase.

She'd see it. Of course she would. She was smart enough to see it.

He reached for the wedding bands that had taken up residence in his pocket. He turned them over in his palm. Two plain gold circles, catching the dim firelight.

He should have pawned them. Get a few dollars, add it to the pile. Instead, he kept carrying them, a weight in his pocket that meant nothing except that he was fool enough to hope.

The next morning, he packed up camp and turned Boudica west.

He'd been gone long enough that Dutch would be wondering. Long enough that he would be sending John or Javier or Charles after him. Long enough that he couldn't avoid it anymore.

Long enough to know, when he rode back into camp and saw the empty tent and Persephone standing patient at her stake, that he'd been right all along.

She wasn't coming back.

The nursery was on the third floor, a floor below and at the opposite end of the house from Elise's room.

Dorothy announced this arrangement at breakfast the morning after her arrival, her tone suggesting the matter had already been decided. "Nannette has prepared it beautifully," she said, buttering her toast with precision. "Everything Benjamin could possibly need."

Elise set her fork down carefully. "I'm nursing him."

"Of course you are…” Dorothy gave a brief look of disgust. “In that case, Marie will bring him to you when he's hungry."

"He wakes every few hours."

"Nannette can bottle feed him during the night." Dorothy's smile was unpleasant. "The nursery is the proper place for an infant. You need your rest."

Elise opened her mouth to argue, but Margaret spoke first. "It's better this way, Elise. You'll wear yourself out otherwise." She said flippantly as though the matter had been predetermined.

Ben, who had been occupied with demolishing a piece of soft bread in his high chair, chose this moment to shriek his displeasure at something. The sound echoed off the dining room's high ceilings. Dorothy's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

"It will be more pleasant for your father." Elise could hardly argue with that so she instead went back to picking at her breakfast.

That night, Marie came for Ben at eight o'clock. He went without fuss, drowsy from his bath and unaware of what was coming. Elise stood in the doorway of her room and watched them disappear up the stairs, Marie's soft voice carrying back down the hall, and felt for the first time detached.

She lasted an hour before she went up after them.

The nursery door was ajar. Inside, a lamp burned low on the dresser, casting warm light over walls papered in pale blue, over the white iron crib where Ben should have been sleeping but wasn't. He was in Nannette’s arms instead, red-faced and furious, his cries hoarse from sustained effort.

The relief on her face was immediate. "Miss Elise, thank God. He won't settle. I've tried everything—"

Elise crossed the room and took him. He latched onto her immediately, his small fists knotting in her nightdress, his face buried against her shoulder. The crying stopped. His breathing was ragged and wet, his body still trembling with the aftermath of his distress.

"He just wants his Mama," Elise murmured.

The nursery was beautiful. Everything was new and expensive and arranged with care—the crib, the rocking chair by the window, the shelf of toys Ben had never seen and wouldn't want. None of it was his. None of it smelled right or sounded right or felt right.

She sat down in the rocking chair and rocked the boy back and forth, soothing his distress. She hummed softly and occasionally ran her fingers through his inky black hair until finally he relaxed enough to allow his eyelids to flutter closed.

Marie hovered near the dresser. "Mrs. Brooks said—"

"I don’t care."

"She'll be upset if she finds you here."

"Then she shouldn't have put him so far away from me."

Nannette fidgeted nervously. She dimmed the lamp a little and withdrew to the corner, close enough to be useful if needed, far enough to give them privacy.

Elise went up every night after that. Sometimes Ben was already screaming. Sometimes he was lying in the crib with his eyes open, waiting, his face solemn in the lamplight. He never settled for Nannette or Marie. He would tolerate being held, being walked, being sung to, but he wouldn't sleep. Not until Elise came.

Dorothy said nothing about it directly. Instead, she began making pointed comments at breakfast about Elise looking tired, about the importance of rest, about how Margaret had managed perfectly well with a nursemaid. Elise ate her eggs in silence, simply enduring the criticisms. Richard was weaker each day. The conversations grew shorter, his attention drifting more frequently. But he was still himself in the moments that mattered. He asked about Ben—whether he was eating well, whether he seemed happy, and whether Elise needed anything. She told him yes to all of it and didn't mention the tension brewing between the other occupants of the house.

One evening, Martin came home with a guest.

Elise was coming down the stairs when they entered, Martin's voice carrying across the entrance hall with the cheerful tone he reserved only for business associates. "You'll have to forgive the informality, but Mrs. Brooks insists we make it a family supper when I bring anyone around."

The man with him was a touch younger than Martin, perhaps thirty, well-dressed in the Saint Denis fashion. He had the smooth, untroubled face of someone who had never done anything more strenuous than sign his name.

"Elise." Martin's smile widened when he saw her. "Perfect timing. May I introduce Charles Duplantier. Charles, my sister-in-law, Miss Elise Brooks."

She came down the rest of the stairs and offered her hand. Duplantier took it with practiced courtesy and politely commented on the fetching color of her gown. His eyes did a brief, assessing sweep, the kind men did when they were measuring a woman against some private standard.

"Charles works with the Maritime Exchange," Martin continued. "We've been discussing some very promising shipping contracts."

"How interesting," Elise said, because it seemed to be expected.

They all went in to supper together. Mr. Duplantier was seated across from Elise, which put him directly in her line of sight for the entire meal. He was pleasant enough. He asked her polite questions about her interests, her time away from the city, and her plans now that she was home. She gave polite answers that contained almost nothing of substance.

Margaret watched the exchange with extreme satisfaction. Emma, seated beside Elise, kicked her under the table anytime Mr. Duplaintier would look her way.

The next evening, Martin brought home two more guests. One was a banker, the other owned a dry goods concern in the French Quarter. Both were unmarried. Both were seated near Elise at dinner. Both made a point of engaging her in conversation while Martin steered the discussion toward topics that showed them in the best light.

Dorothy presided over it all with grace and poise, ensuring the wine was poured at the right moments and the conversation never flagged. She complimented the banker on his recent appointment to some financial board. She asked the dry goods man about his mother, who apparently belonged to the same charitable organization as herself.

Elise sat through it and ate her fish and answered questions when they were directed at her. Afterward, when everyone had withdrawn to the drawing room, she excused herself to check on Ben.

"So soon?" Dorothy's voice was light but pointed. "Mr. Archambault was just about to tell us about his recent trip to Paris."

"I'm sure it's fascinating," Elise said. "But Ben will be wanting me."

She scampered upstairs before her mother could object.

Ben was already crying when she reached the third floor. She could hear him from the landing, that particular escalating wail that meant he'd been at it for a while. Nannette met her at the nursery door, her face drawn.

"I'm sorry, Miss Elise. I tried—"

"It's alright."

She took him, and he grabbed fistfuls of her hair and cried into her neck, his whole body shaking with it. She sat in the rocking chair and got him settled, and gradually the crying subsided into hiccups and then into the quiet, intent focus of nursing.

"I know," she murmured. "I know, ma chérie"

He pulled back to look at her, his eyes searching her face in the lamplight. His expression was grave and puzzled, as though he couldn't quite work out what was wrong but knew something was. His eyes flicked around the room in clear confusion, as they had every night before.

Her throat closed. She smoothed his hair back from his forehead and tucked a tuft behind his ear. "Not right now, my sweet. But soon. We'll go back to him soon, I promise."

Ben studied her for another moment. Then he turned his face back to her chest and resettled, his thumb finding its way to his mouth once he was satisfied. But he didn't relax the way he usually did. His body stayed tense against hers, his breathing quick and shallow.

She rocked him slowly, one hand moving in circles on his back, and stared out the dark window at the garden below.

By the end of the first week, Martin had brought home six different men.

Elise sat through dinners with a cotton merchant, a lawyer, two gentlemen whose profession remained vague but whose family connections were emphasized repeatedly, an architect, and someone's nephew who worked in his uncle's import business. They were all unmarried. They were all close to her age or slightly older. They all made a point of sitting near her and engaging her in conversation while Martin and Dorothy facilitated with the smooth coordination of practiced hosts.

Emma grew increasingly disgusted. "It's obscene," she hissed one evening as they were going up to dress for dinner. "They're parading them through like livestock at auction."

"Don't be dramatic," Margaret said from behind them on the stairs. "Martin is simply being hospitable to his business associates."

"His unmarried business associates, who all happen to need a wife."

"You're imagining things."

Emma stopped on the landing and turned to face her older sister. "Tell me, Margaret, when was the last time Martin brought home a married man for dinner?"

Margaret's expression didn't change. "He's trying to help Elise reestablish herself in society. It's a kindness, given her circumstances."

"Her circumstances," Emma repeated, her voice flat. "You mean her son."

"I mean her situation." Margaret looked past Emma to Elise. "She needs to be practical about her future. We all do."

She continued up the stairs, her skirts rustling with each step. Emma watched her go, then turned back to Elise with fury in her eyes. "You see what they're doing, don't you? Martin wants you married off before Daddy dies so there's no question about—"

"Emma." Elise kept her voice low. "Not here."

"Then where? When? You keep going to these dinners and smiling at these men and acting like—"

"I'm focused on Daddy."

"I know you are. But they're not." Emma's hand found hers and squeezed hard. "Please tell me you see what's happening."

Elise looked down at their joined hands. Of course, she saw it. She wasn't blind. She'd watched Martin steer every conversation, watched Dorothy play the gracious hostess, watched Margaret observe it all with cool approval. She'd felt the weight of all those assessing gazes, heard the careful questions designed to determine her suitability, her temperament, her willingness to be managed.

She'd also spent an hour that afternoon sitting beside her father's bed while he dozed fitfully, his breathing labored, his hand thin and cold in hers.

"I see it," Elise said quietly. "But I'm not going to fight them about it right now."

Emma's grip tightened. "Lisey—"

"Not while Daddy's dying." She pulled her hand free gently. "I have to go dress for dinner."

She left Emma standing on the landing and went to her room. Through the window, she could see the last of the daylight fading over the garden. Another dinner. Another carefully selected gentleman. Another evening of polite questions and measuring glances while her father lay three doors down, too weak now to leave his bed.

She would endure it. She had endured worse.

The warm spell came unexpectedly, a false spring that turned the air soft and pulled the frost from the ground overnight. Elise woke to sunlight streaming through her window and the sound of birds in the garden below, insistent and optimistic.

By afternoon, the temperature had climbed high enough that she opened her window. The air that came in smelled like wet earth and something green trying to break through.

She was coming down the stairs with Ben on her hip when she heard children's voices from the garden. Through the tall windows at the back of the house, she could see them—Louis and Marcel, coats discarded on the grass, running in circles while Nannette watched from a bench near the fountain.

Ben heard them too. His head turned toward the sound, his eyes wide and curious.

"You want to go outside?" Elise shifted him higher on her hip. "Let's go see your cousins."

She fetched his coat from the nursery and carried him out through the kitchen door. The garden was warmer than she'd expected, the sun bright on the brick paths and winter-bare rosebushes. Louis spotted them first and came running over, his face flushed from exertion.

"Auntie! Who is this?"

"This is your cousin, Benjamin." She set Ben down on the grass. He sat immediately, his hands going to the ground, pulling at the dead grass.

Marcel toddled over more cautiously, a red ball clutched to his chest. He was eighteen months and sturdy, with Margaret's coloring and Martin's stolid expression. He stood a few feet away and stared at Ben with the grave suspicion of a child who didn't quite remember meeting someone before.

"Can he play?" Louis asked.

"He's a bit small for playing yet. But he'll watch."

Louis seemed satisfied with this. He dropped down onto the grass beside Ben and presented him with a stick he'd been carrying. "Here. You can have this."

Ben took the stick in both hands and immediately put the end in his mouth.

"No, no—" Louis retrieved it gently. "You don't eat it. Look." He dragged the stick through the dead leaves, making a line. "See?"

Ben watched with rapt attention. Then he leaned forward and grabbed another handful of leaves instead.

Marcel had been observing all of this from his safe distance. Now he took a few steps closer and held out the ball. "Ball," he announced.

Ben looked at it. Looked at Marcel. Reached for it.

Marcel let him take it, then immediately sat down on the grass beside him. The ball was too big for Ben's hands. He got his arms around it and pulled it close, his expression one of pure concentration.

"Throw it!" Louis encouraged. "Like this." He mimed an underhand throw.

Ben did not throw it. He turned it slowly in his hands, examining the stitching, the faded red leather. Then he tried to bite it.

"No bite!" Marcel exclaimed.

"He'll learn," Louis said. He was nearly four and therefore an authority on such matters. He took the ball back and rolled it gently across the grass toward Ben. "See? You push it."

The ball bumped into Ben's knee. He startled, then laughed—a bright, delighted sound that made both older boys grin.

"Do it again!" Louis rolled the ball once more.

This time, Ben was ready. He reached for it as it came close, got one hand on it, and pushed. The ball moved perhaps six inches. Marcel clapped.

They settled into a rhythm after that. Louis and Marcel rolling the ball back and forth with Ben in the middle, Ben grabbing at it when it came near, occasionally succeeding in changing its direction. Nannette smiled from her bench and said nothing, content to let them play.

Elise sat down on the grass a little distance away and watched. The sun was warm on her face. Ben's coat had already come unbuttoned, and his cheeks were pink from the exertion of sitting upright and reaching for the ball over and over.

Louis got it into his head that Ben should try walking. "Come on," he said, holding out both hands. "Stand up."

Ben looked at him skeptically.

"He can't walk yet," Elise said.

"Marcel could walk when he was little."

"Ben's littler."

Louis considered this. Then he moved behind Ben and put his hands under his arms, trying to lift him to his feet. Ben's legs folded immediately, and he sat back down hard. He didn't cry, just looked confused about what had just happened.

"See?" Elise said gently. "He's not ready."

"When will he be ready?"

"A few more months, maybe."

"That's a long time."

"It'll go faster than you think."

Marcel had retrieved the ball and was now holding it out to Ben again with careful deliberation. "Ball," he said again, as though the repetition might teach Ben the word.

Ben took it. This time he didn't try to bite it. He held it in both hands and looked at Elise, his expression serious, as though presenting her with something of great importance.

"Very good," she told him.

The kitchen door opened. Elise looked up, expecting one of the maids, and saw Margaret instead.

She came down the path with her shoulders set and her mouth tight. Nannette stood up from the bench. Margaret walked straight past her and bent to scoop Marcel up from the grass.

"Come along, darling. Time to go inside."

Marcel squirmed in protest. "Play!"

"We'll play inside." She set him on her hip and reached for Louis' hand. "You too."

"But Mama—"

"Now, Louis."

Louis looked at Ben, at the ball still clutched in his small hands, then up at his mother. He took her hand without further argument.

Elise stood slowly. "They were just playing."

Margaret turned to face her. Her expression was composed, but her eyes were hard. "I'd prefer Benjamin not play with my sons."

Elise felt her face go hot.

"They're cousins."

"Even so."

"Even so?" Elise heard her own voice rise. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

Margaret's jaw tightened. They both knew what she meant. They both knew, and Elise was forcing her to say it anyway, to put words to the thing that had been sitting unspoken between them since she'd arrived.

"I mean," Margaret said carefully, "that my children have a certain standard to maintain. Association with—" She stopped herself.

"With what?" Elise stepped closer. "Say it."

"Elise." Margaret's voice was low and sharp. "Don't make this more difficult than it needs to be."

"I'm not making anything difficult. I brought my son outside to play with his cousins on a warm afternoon. You're the one who—"

"Girls." Dorothy's voice cut across the garden from the kitchen door. She stood at the top of the steps, one hand on the doorframe, her face rigid with disapproval. "Your father's room is directly above us. I will not have him disturbed by this scene."

Both of them fell silent. Marcel had started to whimper against Margaret's shoulder. Louis stood very still, his eyes moving between his mother and Elise.

Dorothy descended the steps with measured grace. "Margaret, take the boys inside. Elise, I suggest you do the same."

"Mother—" Elise started.

"Now." Dorothy's tone allowed no argument. "Both of you."

Margaret turned without another word and carried Marcel toward the house, Louis trailing behind her with his hand still in hers. At the door, Louis looked back once at Ben, his face uncertain. Then Margaret pulled him inside, and the door closed behind them.

Elise stood in the middle of the garden with her fists clenched and her face burning. Dorothy remained at the bottom of the steps, watching her with an expression that gave nothing away.

"Are you finished?" she asked.

Elise bent and picked up Ben. He still had the ball clutched against his chest. He looked at her face, at Dorothy, then back at her, his expression puzzled.

She walked past her mother without speaking, through the kitchen, down the hall, and up the stairs to her room. She closed the door behind them and locked it and stood there breathing hard.

Ben shifted in her arms and made a small questioning sound.

"It's alright," she told him. Her voice came out unsteady. "It's alright."

But it wasn't alright. She sat down on the edge of the bed with him in her lap and felt the anger drain out of her all at once, leaving nothing but the sick hollow knowledge that it would never be alright here. Not for him. Not ever.

The knock came five minutes later, soft and tentative.

"Lisey?" Emma's voice was muffled through the door. "Can I come in?"

Elise looked at the door and said nothing. Ben had settled against her shoulder, his breathing evening out, the ball still clutched in one small fist.

"I heard shouting," Emma said. "What happened?"

Elise stood and crossed to the door. She unlocked it but didn't open it. Emma did that herself, slipping inside and closing it quietly behind her.

Her face went tight when she saw Elise. "What did she do?"

"She took Louis and Marcel inside." Elise's voice came out choked. "Said she didn't want them playing with Ben."

Emma's mouth opened, then slammed closed. "She what?"

"You heard me."

"I—" Emma crossed to her and put a hand on her arm. "Lisey, I'm so sorry. She had no right—"

"She had every right. They're her children." Elise turned away and moved to the window, looking down at the empty garden."I just don't understand why she hates me so much."

"She doesn't hate you."

"Then what would you call it?" Elise shifted Ben higher on her shoulder. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks an awful lot like—"

The door opened without warning.

Margaret stood in the doorway, her face composed again, her hands clasped at her waist. She glanced at Emma first, then turned her attention toward Elise.

"I'd like to speak with Elise," she snapped. "Alone."

Emma straightened. "I don't think—"

"Emma." Margaret's tone was quiet but unyielding. "Please."

Emma looked at Elise. Elise nodded once. Emma hesitated, then moved toward the door, brushing past Margaret without a word. The door closed behind her with a soft click.

The silence stretched. Margaret stayed near the door. Elise stayed at the window.

"You think I'm cruel," Margaret said finally.

"Why have you been so difficult since I returned?"

"Because you refuse to see what you're doing to this family!" Margaret took a step forward, her composure cracking at the edges. "Do you have any idea what it's been like? Martin and I have been working hard to find you a suitable match. Someone respectable. Someone who might overlook your circumstances and give you a decent future. And you sit through dinner and act like you're doing us a favor by showing up."

Elise felt her latent anger building in her chest. "I never asked you to find me a husband."

"You don't have to ask! It's what needs to happen. You have a son with no father, no prospects, no—" Margaret's voice rose. "You're spitting in the face of everything this family has built. Do you understand that? Every arrangement we've made, every connection we've cultivated, it's all at risk because you—" She stopped herself.

"Because I what?" Elise's hands tightened on Ben. "Say it."

"Because you ran away when there was a perfectly good alternative!" The words came out sharp and vicious. Margaret's face was flushed now, her breathing quick. "And now you have a bastard child, and you parade him around like there's nothing wrong with it, like it doesn't endanger all of us. Like you're too good for the perfectly acceptable men Martin brings home who might actually give you a life that doesn't involve—"

She turned and set Ben down in the middle of the bed, her hands unsteady. "I'm not marrying any of them."

Margaret stared at her. "What?"

"I said I'm not marrying them." Elise's voice was steady now, cold. "Not the cotton merchant, not the banker, not the architect, not any of Martin's business associates. I'm not interested."

"Not interested." Margaret's laugh was brittle. "You think you have the luxury of not being interested? You think you get to choose?"

"Yes."

"Why?" Margaret took another step forward. "Why do you think you're better than everyone else? A good match, a respectable marriage, financial security, why is that beneath you?"

The answer came out before Elise could stop it. "Because I don't care about any of that anymore. Not now that I have a man who actually loves me."

Margaret's hand came up fast and caught Elise across the face with a crack that seemed to fill the whole room. The force of it turned Elise's head to the side, the sharp sting blooming immediately into heat that spread across her cheekbone and jaw.

Elise stumbled sideways, her hand going to her cheek. She could feel the outline of Margaret's fingers already raised on her skin.

Margaret stood frozen, her hand still suspended in the air where it had landed. She stared at it like it belonged to someone else, her face gone white with shock. Her mouth opened but nothing came out.

Ben started crying from the bed, a shocked wail that cut through everything else. Emma's voice came from behind the door, muffled and urgent, but neither of them moved.

Margaret lowered her hand slowly. It was shaking. She looked at Elise, then at her own trembling fingers. Her jaw tightened. Whatever shock she'd felt at striking her sister hardened into something else.

"You have a man who loves you," she repeated, her voice low and sharp. "Do you hear yourself? You sound like a fool. Like some common girl with no sense and no future, throwing away every opportunity because you think love matters."

Elise's hand stayed pressed to her cheek. "It does matter."

"It doesn't!" Margaret's voice rose. "It doesn't matter at all. What matters is security. Respectability. A name for your son that doesn't make people whisper when you walk into a room. That's what Martin and I have been trying to give you, and you sit there like a spoiled child refusing her medicine."

"I never asked for—"

"You shouldn't have to ask!" Margaret took a step closer. "You should be grateful. You should be on your knees thanking us for finding men willing to even look your way despite—" She stopped herself, breathing hard.

"Despite what?" Elise's voice was quiet.

"Despite everything!" Margaret's composure was cracking at the edges now, her voice going tight. "Do you know what it took to get Charles Duplantier to that dinner table? What Martin had to promise his father about future shipping contracts? The banker—the banker, Elise—required three separate assurances that your dowry was intact and that you were of sound mind. Sound mind! As if you'd been in an asylum instead of—"

She pressed her lips together, her hands clenching into fists at her sides.

"We have been working ourselves to the bone trying to salvage your reputation. Trying to find you a husband who won't treat you like damaged goods even though that's exactly what the whole city thinks you are. And you sit through those dinners with that blank expression, answering their questions like you're doing them a favor, like you're not the one who needs saving."

"I don't need saving."

"Yes, you do!" The words came out harsh. "You absolutely do, but you're too stubborn or too stupid to see it. You think your bounty hunter is going to give you what you need? You think he's going to give that child a future? He's going to get himself hanged, Elise. And then where will you be?"

Elise flinched.

Margaret saw it and pressed forward. "You'll be right back here. Right back in this house, with a child and no husband and no prospects, and by then it will be too late. The men Martin is bringing home now won't want you in a year. They won't want you in six months. This is your chance, your one chance, and you're throwing it away for—for what? For some fantasy about love?"

Her voice cracked on the last word. She stopped, her chest heaving, her face flushed.

The silence stretched between them.

"Why?" Margaret said, quieter now, and something desperate had crept into her tone. "Why do you get to be happy?"

The anger was draining from her voice, replaced by something rawer. "After everything that happened to you. After all of it. You still get to stand there and tell me you have someone who loves you?" Her hands came up to her face, pressing against her temples. "I did everything right. I married the right man, the man Mama and Daddy chose. I gave him two sons. I run his household, I host his dinners, I smile at his associates, I never complain, I never make a scene. I'm the perfect wife."

She pressed both hands to her face. Her shoulders shook.

"And he can barely stand to be in the same room with me."

The door opened. Emma slipped inside, her eyes wide.

"He has a mistress," Margaret continued, her voice muffled behind her hands. "A pretty little thing in the Quarter. Twenty-two years old. He keeps her in an apartment he pays for with my dowry money. My money. The money Daddy gave him when we married. And I have to beg him for spending money like I'm a child while he—"

Her voice broke entirely. She lowered her hands and looked at Elise with raw, devastated eyes. "I have to beg. And he looks at me like I'm an inconvenience. Like I'm something he has to tolerate. And you—you get to have someone who loves you."

The anger drained out of Elise all at once. She crossed to the bed and picked up Ben, settling him against her shoulder and soothing his cries with one hand while her cheek still throbbed. Emma moved first, crossing to Margaret and taking her by the shoulders.

"Maggie," she said softly.

Margaret pulled away. "Stop."

"Maggie, please—"

"I'm fine." But she wasn't fine. Her face was blotchy, her carefully arranged hair coming loose at the temples. She looked young suddenly, younger than Elise had seen her look in years. "I'm perfectly fine."

Elise stepped forward. "Margaret—"

"Don't touch me." Margaret's voice was sharp again, but the edge was gone. "Just don't."

She started for the door. Emma caught her arm.

"Let me go," Margaret said.

"No." Emma's grip tightened. "Not like this."

For a moment it seemed like Margaret would pull free anyway. Then her knees buckled and Emma caught her, lowering them both to the floor in a tangle of skirts and petticoats. Margaret pressed her face to Emma's shoulder and wept, great heaving sobs that shook her whole frame.

Elise sank down beside them. Ben had stopped crying, his face buried against her neck, his body tense with confusion. She reached out with her free hand and touched Margaret's shoulder.

Margaret flinched but didn't pull away.

They sat there on the floor of Elise's room while the afternoon light slanted through the window and the sounds of the house continued below them. Emma stroked Margaret's hair with one hand and held Elise's hand with the other. Margaret cried until there was nothing left, until her breathing evened out and the sobs subsided into occasional hitches.

Finally, she lifted her head. Her face was wrecked, her eyes swollen and red. She looked at Elise and something passed between them, not forgiveness exactly, but an understanding.

"I'm sorry," Margaret whispered. "I'm so sorry."

Elise squeezed her shoulder. Her own throat was tight. "I know."

They stayed there a little longer, the three of them folded together on the floor, holding each other the way they had when they were children and the world was smaller and simpler. Ben shifted against Elise's shoulder and made a soft questioning sound. She kissed the top of his head and said nothing.

Outside, the false spring continued, warm and temporary and already fading.

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