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Those are lovely names🥹 Arthur is actually a really nice name! I might put it in my list!😅
I have already a full A4 page with names, and me and my husband are just so lost! All the names we might consider are just great and all. So we made like a top three, but without saying which one is first or second or third because we don't even know🫣😭
So we actually really liked Christopher. It just stirred something in us. Then, since my husband is a huge LotR fan, we even considered Sam(wise) or Théoden. And one that I always loved was just Michéal. It's the Irish Gaelic way to say Michael. (Mee-hawl). Since we're, i thought it would be great to maybe have an Irish name.
There's also Alan. I think it's just a really good name, not just because of Alan Rickman, but it's simple and when I hear someone that is called Alan, I cannot help but think they are a kind person.
Quite a long message, I just liked to share it with people 😅🥹😊
Aww, I love all of those choices 🥹 Christopher feels so warm and classic, and Michéal is beautiful especially with the Irish connection. Samwise and Théoden are such sweet options too 😭 And I completely understand what you mean about Alan; it sounds simple, gentle, and kind.
Honestly, your top three all sound lovely, so I understand why choosing feels impossible 😅 Maybe the moment you look at your baby, you’ll just know which name belongs to him 🤍
It might sound crazy what I'm about to say😅 I'm literally 7 months pregnant, and I still don't know what to name it. It's a boy by the way🥹👶
So I asked a few friends and my family for some names so I could have like a list. And I was like, I'm gonna ask you too. So if you have any ideas, or something, I'd really love to hear it. I hope you're doing alright after the incident because of the AI accusations. It was really rude and you are really an amazing author! Please don't stop!🥰🥹😊
Hiii! First of all, congratulations! Seven months already—that’s so exciting 😭🤍 And thank you so much for your kind words. I’m doing okay, and your support genuinely means a lot to me.
I’m completely in love with the name Arthur. I’ve always thought it sounds so romantic and timeless. It’s often associated with meanings like “bear” or “noble/courageous man,” depending on the origin.
There’s also Liam, which means “strong-willed protector” or “guardian,” and Thomas, which means “twin.” Thomas has such a classic, gentle sound to me.
Do you have a favorite character whose name you might want to use? Maybe Frank—or Franklin, as I usually call him in my fanfics 😭 Franklin means “free man,” which is also lovely.
I’d be so curious to know what kind of names you prefer—more classic, romantic, modern, or unusual 🤍
Hi! I am reading your fanfiction so longghg, i want to know that there is any long story or any fic that have more than 2 chapters?, that will be appreciated thank you, luv!? (Sorry for my bad English)
Hi! And dont worry, your English is perfectly understandable 🤍
Yes, I do have some longer stories! For example, The Lord’s Inheritance has around nine chapters so far. You can check my masterlist for fics with more than one chapter I usually label them as a fic series there. You can also take a look at my AO3, since it’s easier to see which stories are multi-chaptered there.
Day 2 of Rickation 2026: High Tide, Low Spirits 🏖️
Author's Note: Back-to-back days with the Alexes, yay! I would just like to note that this is my first time writing him at length!
Character(s): Alex Hughes x Female Reader
Summary: Alex has moved back to England, back to a fresh start in a cottage along the southern coast. In a fit of loneliness, he constructs a dating profile---he never expected to click so well with you over the course of one date.
Warning(s) ‼️ & Tags: Mild Whump/Angst. Alex Hughes w/ Anxiety and Low-Self-Esteem. Romance. No Smut.
Word Count: 1.9k
Read on AO3 or below the break:
He was back in England—settling into his newly acquired cottage along the Jurassic Coast. His recent trip to Canada was always lingering in the back of his mind—just as a mouth sore is keen to remind you of its presence, even absent meal times. The small cottage was fine, he supposed. White trim, wooden fence, and a beach that seemed to travel for miles before meeting the water’s edge.
Except, now the tide was high—a mere twelve feet from the bottom step of his porch stairs, a fact that had greatly worried him his first week at the cottage. He was lucky to have avoided any storms up to this point—although he worried his anxiety would not be able to bear it when one finally did strike.
Alex Hughes sat at his kitchen table eyeing the rolling waves tumultuously attack the rocky shore, letting his equally tumultuous thoughts wash over him. Some lonely part of him grew too lonely, too despairing, in the dead of one night the previous week, that weak part of him constructing a dating profile on a site far too young for an old man like himself. And somehow, someway, Alex had received a message that pinged across his desktop the following morning, just as the guilt and self-doubt had begun to creep in over a breakfast of burnt toast and undercooked poached eggs.
The message that greeted him broke through the hazy cloud of depression and worry he had been living under, if for a moment. Your profile was horribly endearing to him—all of it—The picture of you—a young woman with a tuxedo kitten clutched to your chest, the brightest smile spread across your face, your interests listed as volunteering, hiking, traveling, writing, and window shopping. And the best part—at least for him—you mentioned you were looking for someone interesting, loyal, kind, and not wanting to conform to the pressures of modern dating.
“Saturday at the Marina? 6:00?” He hadn’t realized you only lived two towns over, only one Marina around for miles in the area.
He tried to reason himself out of it—he was too old, and you were too pretty—but Alex was in low spirits, and it wasn’t every day a sexy woman propositioned him first, even if it was over the Internet.
Saturday arrived sooner than Alex would have liked. He rocked on his heels on the wooden ramp up to the Marina restaurant, thick hands plunged deeply within his khaki pockets. He was far too new to this seaside living—for what did one wear to a date on the harbor? He hoped his tieless sky blue polo would meet your standard—whatever that might be.
He almost darted back to his car when he saw you—-black-and-white sunflower sundress with your hair curled, clipped in back, tall heels clacking along the pine slats of the ramp. Almost, but then his anxiety dissipated like the early morning fog, your smile comforting, entirely perfect.
“Hullo. You must be Alex.” He mechanically lifted his hand to shake—your narrow, spindly fingers warm against his flesh.
“Ehm—yes, I am.” His smile felt too stiff, mouth suddenly parched. “And you must be Y/N.” You giggled, and Alex hoped it wasn’t at something he had said—or hadn’t said.
“Yes, I am.” Alex released your hand, suddenly aware that he had continued to grasp your palm long after what would socially be considered appropriate.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, embarrassed.
“It’s ok.” There was your smile once more, terribly disarming. “Shall we,” you gestured up the gentle incline, up to the restaurant where the smell of greasy chips and fresh cod had piqued his interest.
“Certainly,” he spoke, baritone clipped. He wandered after you, caught up in the aroma of fresh food and your jasmine perfume.
The booth was tight, pressed far further into Alex’s gut than he would have liked, though he bore the discomfort stoically, awkwardly shifting his gaze back-and-forth from the ships sailing outside the window to your face, wondering if you were disappointed with him yet. Or perhaps, that would come later, along with the bill.
“So–” he paused in the middle of fidgeting in his seat, hazel eyes open with shock. Alex schooled his features, relaxing against the beat-up upholstery.
“So?”
“How long have you lived here?” It wasn’t meant to be a difficult question, he repeated this mantra inside his brain, idly wondering if his answer would be strange.
“Three weeks.”
“Three weeks? Damn, have you been to the Marina before, then?” He shook his head no, cheeks coloring slightly—though for what reason, he did not know. You nodded to yourself at his response. “I’ve been here for two years now, it’s lovely, isn’t it? Few tourists in this region—scenic—and the food is to die for!”
He inwardly cringed at your choice of words, forcing a smile at this surge of positivity. He had not met many locals. Perhaps he could convince you to remain friends with him, when this inevitably went south.
“Where were you before? Y’know, before you moved?” Well, that was a loaded question, as he thought back to his short time in Wawa, when he thought back to Vivienne, and Linda, and Maggie, and Claire, his dead son’s mother. Why was communicating so complex?
“I was in Canada, visiting for a month”---though it had felt much longer—”I decided to start new—sold my house in Manchester.” It wasn’t a complete lie—he had sold his flat from his jail cell and asked an old university friend to keep his essentials in storage. It was a phone call he had been quite happen to banish from his mind.
“What was Canada like? I’ve heard pleasant stories—always wanted to go there myself.” A teasing smirk crossed his lips, so soft and fast that if he had blinked, he would have missed it.
“Bloody cold.” You snorted, and he laughed, deep and booming, rich like the darkest of chocolates.
“Besides, ‘bloody cold,’ then?” He sighed, pleased he had been able to bring you joy, positively worried he would fuck everything up within the hour.
“It’s–it’s quite scenic. Thousands of rows of pine trees, huge mountains that disappear into the sky, small towns where everyone—where everyone knows everyone else.” He ended his words quietly, a slim waitress arriving with their plates, and he eyed his beer longingly. The melancholy that seemed to hover above him like an eternal rain cloud was beginning to return, he only hoped to keep his bitterness hidden from your sight.
“Oh, were you visiting family, then?” It was an innocent question, but one Alex loathed to answer.
“My son’s mother lives in Winnipeg—I flew to—I flew to Timmins and then drove the rest of the way.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize you had any children, your profile said—”
“---My son died, several years ago.” An uncomfortable silence fell over them, the fork and knife suddenly too heavy to fit in Alex’s hands. “I had an affair with his mother—and—and—and I was never able to meet him. Properly.” He replaced the silverware on his plate, the fish and chips looking deeply unappetizing, lying limp and dead-looking on his plate, just like—
“Gosh, I’m so sorry, Alex.” He was startled by your hand finding his from across the table, a warm balm to his injured soul. “I can’t imagine going through that.” He didn’t know what to say, only continued to stare at his hand entwined with your own.
“I suppose it’s only fair for you to ask me a few questions—that’s how these sorts of things work, eh?”
He didn’t know, but nodded anyway, since that seemed to be expected of him, the small, awkward beginning of a small etched near the corner of his lip. “Where were you before—before here?”
“America—Georgia, to be specific. I couldn’t stand the heat—too much for this Lincolnshire girl.” You laughed, Alex could not help but smile, his worry momentarily alleviated. Forgotten. “What do you do for a living?” His heart skipped a beat, beginning to drum concerningly fast against his rib cage. Fuck.
“I’m–erhm—job-hunting, at the present. I work in security, but I’m—I’m willing to go anywhere that’ll have me, at this point.” He loathed the words leaving his throat, loathed the way he sounded awfully desperate. He wanted to sink below the floorboards, burrow in the sand so deep no one would be able to find him again.
“I wish you luck on your search, then,” you told him, evenly, and the touch at his wrist remained, to his utter shock. “I work in retail in the summer—when all the tourists are here, of course. Otherwise, I’m a writer—I’ve published several novels, hoping to finish the next this offseason.” It was strange looking at you then—for he could see the shadow of what Vivienne could have—would have—become—if it weren’t for him.
“Congratulations,” he muttered thickly, opting for a swallow of beer. His appetite still had not returned, he had been feigning at nibbling his chips for a while now. The room felt awfully hot—hot and crowded, a football game blaring across all the mounted television sets. Alex felt incredibly out of place.
“Hey—want to go for a walk?”
“A—a walk?” He thought he had heard you wrong over the incessant, droning din of the bar, surprised you had offered this as an option to him at all. The dark part of his head told him that this would be where you told him the night had been enjoyable, but there were ‘other fish in the sea’, and etc.---anything to deter him.
“Sure,” he found himself saying, his mouth like cotton. He mechanically reached for his wallet, brow raising when you handed over two twenty-pound notes to the thin waitress. “I can—”
You waved away his protests, leaning over to conspiratorily whisper into his ear, “You can pay for the ice cream at the end of the beach.” Alex found himself nodding, far too stunned to offer up an adequate reply.
The red June sun was setting beneath the horizon, the view from his second-hand car difficult to beat. You were curled against his side—how you ended up there, he had no idea—the taste of mint chocolate chip ice cream stuck to his tongue. He could die happily—your weight settled across his, his chin tucked over the crown of your head.
He wanted to kiss you—to hold your body tightly against his—anything in his power to convince you to stay with a lonely old man such as he. He hummed, throat comfortably vibrating along your head, longingly watching the last of the orange half-globe disappear, the sky thrown in chaotic half-light. The orange, red, and pink tendrils would soon swirl into inky blackness.
“Home?” You mumbled into his shoulder, and he felt his heart miss a beat.
“Pardon?” He managed, coughing, dislodging you from your cozy niche, pressed close into him.
“Shit—I didn’t mean to say that, it’s just—I already feel as if I’ve known you for years, and—and—I’ve never felt safer. That sort of just—just slipped out. We can just pretend I never—”
“Yes.” Alex held his breath, wondering if you had heard the softly murmured word. He was weak, and once his mind had quieted, he had enjoyed his night with you. He had never felt so content—each time you spoke, he hung on your every word—each time you smiled, his heart melted.
“Yes?” Now it was you who seemed confused, and he did not like the pain at his chest that bloomed at the sound.
“Yes.” Alex pulled out of the lot, shifted the car into gear and drove to the place that finally felt like home, with the woman who finally made safety, pure contentment, flood his senses.
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I got curious because my fanfics are constantly being compared to AI-generated writing, so I decided to actually ask AI to write a short Judge Turpin fic and see what the result looked like.
And honestly, when you take isolated lines from my stories and compare them to isolated lines from the AI version, I can understand why someone might notice a superficial similarity. It uses short sentences, dramatic pauses, repetition, contrasts, and lines that are clearly designed to sound impactful. Things like:
She did.
Not elegantly.
Not delicately.
Those are all techniques human writers use too, of course, which is exactly why treating them as proof of AI makes no sense.
But reading the story as a whole, the difference felt much more obvious to me. The AI fic was readable and had a few nice lines, but it was incredibly shallow. Everything happened in summary: he noticed her, remembered her eyes, attended a recital, they argued, winter became spring, and suddenly there was an emotional connection. It told me that tension and intimacy existed without actually developing either of them.
Maybe the lack of depth is partly my fault because I specifically asked for something short. There was not much space for character development, domestic detail, emotional consequences, or a relationship that grows naturally. Still, it felt less like a complete story and more like a dramatic trailer for one.
So yes, if you pull out a few sentences and examine them without context, you can find similarities between my writing and the AI’s writing. But when you actually read the full scenes, the difference is in the depth, specificity, characterization, and emotional development—not whether someone uses a short sentence or a dramatic pause.
I have no idea what’s going on. I left my phone alone for a few hours, and now there’s another AI accusation and someone else defending me in my AO3 comments? This is absolute madness. I’m genuinely considering blocking both of them 😭
Honestly, I’m not even sure why I still write. Maybe it’s because of all the lovely people who genuinely enjoy my work?
All I know is that dealing with AI accusations on AO3 was already exhausting, and now my fanfic posts are getting taken down too 🤣 At this point, maybe I should just surrender and let AI write everything for you guys. There would definitely be far fewer abandoned fics than there are on this profile 😭
But seriously, right now I feel like deleting everything and reclaiming my sanity. You have no idea how draining writing can be.
Another one got flagged. Honestly, it’s making me wonder whether posting fanfiction on Tumblr is even worth it. What am I supposed to do with this hidden chapter now? 😭
Another fic got taken down, so I’m going to try appealing it. But if my account gets banned, I just want to say goodbye to everyone and thank you for reading all my nonsense 😭
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Another one got flagged. Honestly, it’s making me wonder whether posting fanfiction on Tumblr is even worth it. What am I supposed to do with this hidden chapter now? 😭
Tumblr flagged my new Judge Turpin chapter for containing nudity???? There isn’t any nudity 😭 My Tumblr says the chapter has been hidden. Can you still access it?
Summary: During the journey to the country estate, Annabelle begins acting strangely quiet and uncomfortable.
Pairing: Judge Turpin × Fem! Reader
Warnings: menstruation, period blood, first-period panic, abdominal cramps, embarrassment, parental assistance with menstrual products, emotionally complicated father-daughter relationship.
First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth part here
Also read on Ao3
The city thinned gradually around them.
London gave way to damp roads, hedgerows, open fields, villages with church towers and muddy lanes, inns with low ceilings and sour ale, and miles upon miles of countryside that made Clara press her nose to the window despite herself.
Annabelle sat beside her, hands folded in her lap, posture careful, expression quiet.
Too quiet.
Turpin noticed.
He noticed everything, though he often pretended otherwise.
“She will recover,” he said at last.
Both girls looked at him.
Clara blinked. “Margery?”
He gave her a dark look for stating the obvious.
“Yes. Margery.”
Clara glanced at Annabelle.
Annabelle lowered her gaze.
“She was very upset,” she said softly.
“She is always upset.”
“Not like that.”
Turpin’s hazel eyes sharpened.
Annabelle looked down at her gloved hands.
“She thought you did not want her.”
The carriage wheels rattled over a rough patch of road.
Richard sat very still.
His first instinct was irritation.
His second, worse instinct was discomfort.
Children, in his experience, took simple matters and turned them into emotional catastrophes. He had not abandoned Margery. He had made a practical decision. Margery was unpredictable. Margery was noisy. Margery asked questions no civilized person should answer before noon. Margery required management.
And yet—
He remembered her face in the doorway.
Wet-cheeked. Furious. Heartbroken.
Papa, don’t leave me.
Turpin looked out the window.
“She will come with your mother,” he said.
Clara, unwisely, murmured, “That isn’t the same.”
His gaze cut to her.
Clara immediately studied the opposite seat cushion as though it contained scripture.
Annabelle said nothing more.
That, somehow, troubled him more.
The first day passed with little incident.
They stopped twice to change horses and once to take a cold luncheon in a private room at an inn whose floorboards creaked and whose landlord smiled too much. Turpin inspected the room before allowing the girls to sit. He inspected the food. He inspected the servants. He inspected the window latch.
Clara whispered to Annabelle, “He looks like he expects the soup to commit fraud.”
Turpin, without turning, said, “I heard that.”
Clara nearly dropped her spoon.
Annabelle hid a small smile behind her napkin.
That evening, they stayed at a coaching inn Turpin had used before. He took two adjoining rooms, placed the girls in one and himself in the other, then moved the chair against the inside of their door after checking the lock three times.
Clara watched him from the bed.
“Are you afraid someone will come in?”
“No.”
“Then why are you doing that?”
“Because someone may come in.”
“So you are afraid.”
Turpin turned.
Clara pulled the blanket to her chin.
“I am cautious,” he said.
Annabelle, already tucked into the other bed, whispered, “That means afraid with better posture.”
Clara made a strangled sound.
Turpin slowly turned his head toward Annabelle.
She froze.
For one dreadful second, neither daughter breathed.
Then Turpin’s mouth twitched.
Barely.
“Sleep,” he ordered.
They did.
Eventually.
The second day began colder.
A grey morning spread over the countryside, the air damp enough to cling to cloaks and gloves. Mist hung low over the fields, softening the hedgerows and blurring the line between road and sky. The horses moved steadily, hooves striking mud and stone in a rhythm that lulled Clara into a half-doze against the window.
Annabelle had been quiet all morning.
Not merely quiet in her usual way.
Strained.
She shifted often, though she tried to hide it. Her face seemed paler than usual beneath the brim of her bonnet, lips pressed together, one hand resting now and then against her lower belly.
Turpin saw it.
For an hour, he said nothing.
Then, after the third time she adjusted herself with visible discomfort, his brows drew together.
“Annabelle.”
She started. “Yes, Father?”
“Are you ill?”
“No.”
“You are pale.”
“I’m well.”
“You are lying poorly.”
Her cheeks colored faintly.
Clara opened one eye from the opposite seat.
“I think she feels sick,” she offered.
“I do not,” Annabelle said quickly.
Turpin’s gaze sharpened further.
“Do you require the carriage stopped?”
Annabelle stiffened.
“No.”
A pause.
Then, smaller: “Perhaps.”
The coachman was ordered to stop near a stand of trees off the roadside, where the hedge grew thick enough to offer some privacy from passing carts. The country road was empty for the moment, only damp fields rolling out on either side beneath the grey sky.
Turpin stepped down first.
He surveyed the road.
The trees.
The ditch.
The coachman.
The distant field.
Then the coachman again.
“Turn your back,” he ordered.
The man blinked. “My lord?”
Turpin’s eyes narrowed.
The coachman turned at once.
Clara climbed down next, rubbing sleep from her face. Annabelle followed more slowly, holding her cloak close around herself.
“I only need a moment,” she murmured, mortified.
Turpin gestured toward the bushes with rigid discomfort.
“Do not go far.”
Annabelle flushed deeper. “I know, Father.”
“Not beyond the hawthorn.”
“I know.”
“And call if—”
“I know.”
She disappeared behind the line of bushes with as much dignity as a twelve-year-old girl could manage while her father stood ten paces away pretending not to know what urination was.
Clara remained near the carriage, kicking idly at a stone.
Turpin stood with his back half-turned, one hand resting on his cane, his gaze fixed on the road as if daring anyone to appear.
For several moments, there was only the wind.
Then Annabelle screamed.
Not a startled little cry.
A scream.
Raw.
Terrified.
Turpin moved before thought could form.
“Annabelle!”
He crashed through the bushes with the violence of a man expecting blood, knives, snakes, assault—some immediate enemy he could strike, condemn, destroy. Branches caught at his coat. Thorns scraped his glove. His cane was forgotten somewhere behind him in the mud.
He found her crouched near the base of a tree, skirts tangled, face white with horror.
Blood stained her drawers.
For one terrible second, Richard Turpin’s mind went empty.
Then filled with violence.
“Where are you hurt?” he demanded, baritone sharp enough to cut through the cold. “What happened?”
Annabelle looked up at him, eyes huge, tears spilling instantly.
“I don’t know!”
“Did you fall?”
“No!”
“Were you cut?”
“No—I don’t know—I didn’t—Father, I’m bleeding!”
His eyes dropped again.
Blood.
Not much, but enough.
Enough to strike terror into any father, even one who believed fear beneath him.
He turned sharply, scanning the ground.
No broken branch.
No sharp stone.
No attacker.
No wound he could see.
“Stand,” he ordered, though his voice had lost some of its certainty.
“I can’t!”
“Annabelle.”
“I can’t,” she sobbed. “Please don’t look.”
That stopped him more effectively than any command.
Please don’t look.
Turpin went rigid.
She was trembling violently, trying to pull her skirts around herself, trying to hide the stain, trying not to cry and failing.
And then understanding arrived.
Slowly.
Horribly.
Not injury.
Not ordinary blood.
His daughter.
His quiet little Annabelle, who had sat in his lap only days ago with shaving foam on her cheeks, who had held a razor tremblingly against his jaw because he had asked her to trust herself, who still apologized too quickly and smiled too shyly—
was becoming a woman.
Richard Turpin, judge of London, terror of the bench, lord of his household, felt true panic crawl coldly up his spine.
Not because he did not know what this was.
He knew.
He was not ignorant.
He had a wife. He had daughters. He understood enough of women’s bodies in the abstract, in the marital bed, in medical household instructions delivered at a safe distance by midwives and matrons and servants who knew better than to involve him directly.
But abstraction was not this.
Abstraction was not his daughter crouched in wet leaves, frightened half out of her senses, bleeding into her underclothes and looking at him as though he might know how to stop the world from changing.
He did not know.
Not properly.
No woman was there.
Not you.
Not Mrs. Ellery.
Not even some sensible maid who might take charge and remove him from the disaster with professional mercy.
Only Clara, who stood beyond the bushes calling, “Papa? What happened? Is Annie hurt?”
The coachman was nearby.
Too nearby.
Turpin’s head snapped toward the road.
The man had turned halfway at the sound of the scream.
Turpin’s voice thundered.
“Face the road!”
The coachman spun around as though struck.
Clara pushed through the bushes before he could stop her.
“Annie?”
Turpin turned instantly, blocking as much of Annabelle as he could with his own body.
“Stay there.”
Clara froze, eyes wide.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Annabelle sobbed harder.
Clara looked from her father’s grim face to Annabelle’s shaking shoulders and immediately paled.
“That is not nothing.”
Turpin closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, they were sharp again.
Command.
Structure.
Law.
If he did not know how to be tender, he knew how to take control.
“Clara,” he said.
His daughter straightened automatically.
“Yes, Papa?”
“Go to the carriage. Bring the small leather valise. The one your mother packed.”
Clara blinked. “The medicine one?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Now.”
She ran.
Turpin looked back down at Annabelle.
She was crying quietly now, one hand pressed to her mouth, humiliation and fear twisting together across her face.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
The apology struck him in the chest.
Again.
Again, that same tone.
As though some natural function had become a moral failure because it had inconvenienced him.
His jaw tightened.
“Do not apologize.”
She looked up, startled through tears.
He removed his coat.
Fast.
Sharp.
Then held it out—not looking directly at her lower half now, his gaze fixed firmly above her shoulder.
“Cover yourself.”
Annabelle took it with trembling hands and wrapped it around her waist, the heavy dark fabric swallowing her small frame.
Turpin turned his back.
The gesture was stiff. Almost angry.
But it gave her privacy.
Behind him, he heard her trying to fix her drawers, trying to gather her skirts, her breath broken and embarrassed.
“Father,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Am I dying?”
His heart gave one hard, ugly thud.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly, too harsh.
He softened it by force.
“No, Annabelle.”
“But there’s blood.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
Turpin stared at the grey road beyond the bushes.
He would rather have sentenced ten men to death than answer this.
Still, there was no one else.
He drew in a slow breath.
“It is not an injury.”
Silence.
A wet sniff.
“Then what is it?”
His mouth tightened.
“It is... part of becoming older.”
“That doesn’t explain anything.”
“No,” he admitted grimly. “It does not.”
Clara returned at a run, skirts lifted in both hands, bonnet slipping backward.
“I have it!”
Turpin turned and snatched the valise from her before she could come closer.
“Remain there.”
Clara peered around him anxiously. “Is she bleeding?”
Annabelle made a mortified sound.
Turpin’s face darkened. “Clara.”
“What? I heard her scream!”
“Lower your voice.”
Clara lowered it instantly. “Is she bleeding?”
Turpin looked at Annabelle, then at the valise, then at Clara.
In that moment he understood, with grim clarity, that both daughters were looking to him.
One frightened because she understood too little.
One frightened because she understood nothing.
And he, unfortunately, was the only adult woman available.
He opened the valise.
Inside were folded cloths, smelling faintly of lavender and starch. Medicine bottles. Salve. Pins. Bandage linen. A small packet of rags tied with ribbon. Your handwriting on a folded note tucked along one side.
His fingers paused over it.
He knew, suddenly and with great irritation, that you would have known exactly what to do.
Of course you would.
You would have crouched beside Annabelle. You would have spoken softly. You would have kissed her hair. You would have found a way to make blood feel less like catastrophe and more like a threshold.
Richard Turpin had no such gift.
He had folded cloth and authority.
So he used both.
He took the packet of rags and held it out without turning fully around.
“Annabelle.”
She looked at the cloths.
“What are those?”
“Clean linen.”
“For what?”
He exhaled through his nose.
Clara crept closer, eyes wide with morbid curiosity.
Turpin pointed at her without looking. “One step more and I shall tie you to the carriage wheel.”
Clara stopped.
Annabelle clutched his coat around herself. “Father, I don’t understand.”
Turpin rubbed one hand slowly over his face.
Then crouched.
Carefully.
At a distance.
He kept his gaze on her face only.
“Listen to me.”
Annabelle nodded, still crying.
“This happens to women.”
Her lips parted.
“Women?”
“Yes.”
“All women?”
“Most.”
She looked horrified. “Does Mama—?”
“Yes.”
Clara whispered from behind him, “Mama bleeds?”
Turpin’s eyes shut.
He had survived courtrooms, criminals, corrupt officials, plague rumors, childbirth, Margery’s bowels, and yet this—this was the moment that threatened to destroy him.
“Yes,” he said.
Clara looked appalled. “Every day?”
“No.”
“How often?”
“Clara.”
“What?”
“This is not a public inquiry.”
“But—”
“Silence.”
Clara fell silent, though her eyes remained enormous.
Annabelle stared at him, still trembling. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
The question landed quietly.
Turpin had no answer that did not implicate every adult in the household.
You had probably meant to tell her.
Perhaps soon.
Perhaps on the country trip, when the house was quieter, when you could take Annabelle walking beneath the trees and speak to her gently, privately, woman to girl. Perhaps you had thought there was more time.
Richard had assumed nothing of the sort was his concern.
That assumption now sat before him in a bloodstained petticoat, crying behind a bush.
His mouth hardened.
“Because adults are fools,” he said.
Annabelle blinked.
Clara blinked too.
Turpin held out the cloths again. “These will help. You fold them and place them in your drawers.”
Annabelle looked as if he had handed her a legal document in Latin.
“How?”
He stared at the cloths.
Then at her.
Then back at the cloths.
A new layer of panic settled over him.
He did not know how.
Not precisely.
Not in the practical arrangement of pins and fabric and female undergarments. He knew the concept. The existence. The household reality. Women bled. Cloths were used. Laundry maids managed what gentlemen pretended did not exist.
But his daughter needed instructions.
Now.
In the bushes.
Beside a road.
With Clara staring as though witnessing revelation and a coachman he wanted nowhere near any of it.
Turpin’s jaw worked once.
Then he made a decision.
“Clara.”
“Yes?”
“Come here.”
Clara obeyed with caution.
Turpin thrust the cloth bundle toward her.
“You will assist your sister.”
Clara recoiled. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know what to do!”
“Neither do I,” he snapped.
Clara stared at him.
Annabelle stared harder.
For one dreadful moment, the three of them remained frozen among the bushes beside the road: one daughter frightened, one daughter horrified, and Richard Turpin holding a bundle of menstrual cloths as though they were evidence in a trial no one had prepared him to conduct.
Then Annabelle began to cry.
Not loudly.
Not like Margery, who wept as though grief itself had been invented for theatrical use.
Annabelle cried quietly, shamefully, with one hand pressed to her mouth and her shoulders shaking beneath the heavy weight of his coat. That was worse. Far worse. The silence of it scraped at something in Turpin’s chest that had no business being tender.
His expression hardened at once.
Not at her.
At the situation.
At himself.
At every adult woman in the world who had contrived to be absent precisely when he required one.
“Stop that,” he said.
Annabelle tried.
The attempt only made the tears spill faster.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.
Turpin’s jaw clenched.
“I told you not to apologize.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I can’t.”
Her voice broke so miserably on the last word that Clara’s face crumpled in sympathy. She stepped forward instinctively, still clutching the valise.
Turpin took the cloths back from her at once.
“Enough,” he said, baritone low and absolute. “I will do it.”
Both girls froze.
Annabelle’s eyes widened through tears. “What?”
“I said I will help you.”
Clara looked at him as if he had announced he intended to perform surgery with a dinner knife.
“You?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Turpin’s hazel eyes snapped to her.
Clara’s mouth shut.
He turned back to Annabelle, lowering his voice by force. “You will stop crying. You will stand still. And you will listen to me.”
Annabelle clutched his coat tighter around her waist, trembling. “I don’t want you to see me.”
His brow furrowed. “See you?”
Her cheeks flamed scarlet. “Naked.”
The word came out tiny.
Mortified.
Clara looked immediately at the ground.
Turpin went still.
For one moment, the old severity rose automatically in him—sharp, impatient, offended by delicacy at the exact moment usefulness was required. Then he looked at Annabelle’s face. Not at the blood. Not at the ruined drawers. Her face.
She was terrified.
Not merely of the blood now.
Of him.
Of his judgment.
Of becoming something he might find shameful.
Something in him shifted.
Slowly, stiffly, Turpin crouched before her, the bundle of folded cloths resting in one hand. His hooked nose cast a severe shadow over his mouth, and his hazel eyes were still stern, but his voice, when it came, was quieter.
“I have seen you naked many times,” he said.
Annabelle looked stricken.
“When you were a child,” he added sharply, as though the distinction offended him by needing to be spoken. “You were bathed in this house. Dressed. Carried. Fed. Screamed at physicians. Spat milk onto my waistcoat. Tried to swallow a button. You were not born fully laced into a gown, Annabelle.”
Clara made a small, strangled sound that might have been a laugh.
Turpin’s eyes cut to her.
She became solemn instantly.
Annabelle’s lips trembled. “That was different.”
“Yes,” he said. “It was.”
The answer seemed to surprise her.
Turpin looked at her steadily.
“You are older now. I know that. I am not blind.” His voice roughened slightly. “But you are still my daughter.”
Annabelle’s breath caught.
“You are safe with me,” he continued, each word stern enough to be law because softness alone still sat strangely in his mouth. “Do you understand?”
Annabelle did not answer at once.
She looked at Clara first.
Clara’s face was pale, worried, and deeply uncomfortable, but she nodded quickly.
Then Annabelle looked back at her father.
At his severe face.
At the coat he had given her without looking.
At the way he had put himself between her and the road.
At the way he had shouted the coachman into obedience before anyone could stare.
Slowly, still crying, she nodded.
“Yes, Father.”
“Good.”
Turpin exhaled once through his nose.
A man approaching the gallows could not have looked more grim.
“Clara,” he said.
“Yes, Papa?”
“You will stand there.”
Clara straightened. “Here?”
“There. Facing the road.”
“But—”
“Facing the road.”
She turned at once.
“And if the coachman turns his head,” Turpin added, voice dropping into lethal calm, “you will inform me.”
Clara glanced toward the carriage, where the poor coachman stood rigid with his back turned so completely that he seemed to be trying to disappear into the horses.
“Yes, Papa.”
Turpin turned back to Annabelle.
“Now.”
Annabelle swallowed hard.
With shaking hands, she loosened the coat around her waist just enough to move. Turpin kept his eyes carefully on her face and then, when that became too difficult for her, on the nearest tree trunk.
It was absurd.
He, Richard Turpin, judge of London, feared by thieves and liars and half the magistracy, was now standing in a damp roadside copse, arranging his gaze upon bark to preserve the dignity of his eldest daughter.
The world, he thought bitterly, had become unreasonable.
“Lower them enough,” he said stiffly.
Annabelle’s face burned.
“Father…”
“Enough to put the cloth where it must go. No further.”
She obeyed with visible misery, fumbling beneath his coat and her skirts.
Turpin unfolded one of the linen cloths.
It was longer than he expected.
He stared at it.
Then folded it.
Too thick.
He frowned and unfolded it again.
Clara, still facing the road, whispered, “Do you know what you are doing?”
“No,” Turpin said flatly.
Annabelle made a tiny distressed sound.
His gaze sharpened at once.
“But I am capable of folding cloth,” he added. “It cannot be beyond reason.”
He adjusted it again, more carefully this time, making a narrow pad of the linen. There were small tapes sewn at the ends—thank God, some evidence of household intelligence. He examined them with grave concentration, as though determining the mechanism of a trap.
Then he looked at Annabelle’s drawers.
Then back at the cloth.
His mouth tightened.
“Your mother,” he said darkly, “will explain this better.”
Annabelle gave a watery little laugh despite herself.
The sound loosened something in him.
He held the folded cloth out to her. “Place it along the inside.”
She hesitated.
“My hands are shaking.”
“I can see that.”
“I’ll do it wrong.”
“Then I will correct it.”
Her eyes lifted to his, still wet.
He held her gaze.
“I said I would help you. Not abandon you behind a bush like a parcel.”
Annabelle swallowed.
Then carefully, awkwardly, she tried to arrange the linen inside her drawers. The first attempt slipped. She gasped in frustration, tears welling again.
Turpin reached forward at once.
“Still.”
She froze.
His hands were large and gloved, clumsy in a matter so intimate, but precise by nature. He did not look at more than he needed to. He kept his attention fixed on the fabric, the waistband, the ties. Efficient. Controlled. No mockery. No disgust.
Only focus.
He adjusted the cloth into place, lining the drawers properly with the folded linen and fastening the tapes as best he could to keep it secure. The task required more gentleness than he liked and less certainty than he possessed, but eventually the cloth sat where it ought.
“There,” he said.
Annabelle remained rigid.
“Is it… right?”
“It will serve until we reach the inn.”
Her lower lip trembled again. “What if it happens more?”
“It will.”
She looked horrified.
Turpin immediately regretted his honesty.
But lying would not help her.
“It will happen for several days,” he said, trying to make his baritone less like a sentence and more like instruction. “Then it will stop.”
“For several days?”
“Yes.”
Annabelle stared at him, stricken. “Every month?”
He paused.
Then, grimly, “Yes.”
Clara turned around so fast her shawl slipped from one shoulder.
“Every month?”
Turpin closed his eyes.
“Clara.”
“Every month?” she repeated, now pale with betrayal. “Forever?”
“Not forever.”
“How long?”
He opened his eyes and gave her a look so heavy with exhaustion it might have aged the trees.
“Long enough.”
Clara looked as though womanhood had personally offended her.
Annabelle, meanwhile, had begun crying again.
Turpin saw it and stiffened.
“Enough.”
“I can’t stop.”
“Yes, you can.”
“It hurts.”
That silenced him.
His gaze sharpened instantly. “Where?”
Annabelle pressed one hand below her belly, just above where the coat wrapped around her. “Here. It feels… twisted.”
Turpin’s first thought was injury again.
Then the fragments of household knowledge arranged themselves in his mind with reluctant usefulness.
“Cramps,” he said.
Annabelle sniffed. “What?”
“Cramps.” He said it more firmly this time, because naming a thing made it less lawless. “Pain in the lower abdomen. Women get them with bleeding.”
Clara’s expression twisted in horror. “There is pain too?”
Turpin gave her a sharp look. “You are not helping.”
“I am learning terrible things.”
“You are learning them noisily.”
Clara pressed her lips together.
Annabelle leaned slightly against the tree, one hand still over her abdomen.
Turpin’s eyes moved over her face, taking in the pallor, the damp lashes, the way she tried to stand straight despite obvious discomfort.
His jaw flexed.
He hated this.
Not the blood.
Not the cloth.
Not even the humiliation of ignorance, though that was considerable.
He hated that he could not order it away.
He crouched near the leather valise and opened it wider, rummaging through the contents with brisk, severe impatience. Bottles clinked together. Folded linen shifted. Pins, salves, a packet of peppermint, a little jar of smelling salts, a vial of laudanum he immediately rejected with a scowl.
“No,” he muttered. “Not for this.”
Clara crept closer. “What are you looking for?”
“Something useful.”
“Does Mama have something?”
“Your mother has everything, apparently, except the courtesy to be present when required.”
Annabelle gave another tiny, wet laugh.
Turpin glanced up.
The sound pleased him.
Only slightly.
He returned to the valise and found at last a small wrapped packet tucked beneath the bandages. Inside were dried herbs, labeled in your handwriting.
For monthly pains.
Turpin stared at the words.
Then looked toward the sky as though you had somehow anticipated humiliating him from miles away.
“Of course,” he muttered.
He held up the packet. “This.”
“What is it?” Clara asked.
“Something your mother packed.”
Annabelle looked hopeful. “Will it stop hurting?”
“It may ease it.”
“How?”
“Tea, likely.”
Clara glanced around at the trees. “We don’t have tea.”
Turpin gave her a look.
“I am aware, Clara.”
He folded the packet closed and placed it carefully back into the valise, separate from the rest.
“We will stop at the next inn. You will have hot water, this infusion, and a private room to clean yourself properly.”
Annabelle nodded weakly.
Turpin found another clean cloth and tucked it into a side pocket of the valise.
“You will keep this with you in the carriage.”
Her cheeks flushed again. “Must I?”
“Yes.”
“What if Clara sees?”
“I already saw,” Clara said, then immediately winced. “Sorry.”
Turpin turned his head slowly toward her.
Clara lifted both hands. “I am being quiet now.”
“You are attempting quiet. It is not the same thing.”
She lowered her hands.
Annabelle looked down, shame still clinging to her like cold.
Turpin saw it.
His expression grew stern again, but the anger was pointed elsewhere.
“Look at me.”
Annabelle obeyed with difficulty.
He stood before her, tall and severe, his coat still wrapped around her waist, his shirt sleeves faintly snagged from the thorns, his silver-dark hair unsettled by the wind. His hooked nose and heavy brow made him look forbidding even now.
But his voice was lower.
More controlled.
“This is natural.”
Annabelle’s eyes filled again.
“It does not feel natural.”
“Many natural things are unpleasant.”
Clara whispered, “Childbirth?”
Turpin did not even look at her. “Silence.”
Annabelle rubbed at her cheek.
“It is not an illness,” he said. “Not a punishment. Not shameful. It happens because your body is changing.”
“I don’t want it to change.”
“No.”
The answer was blunt.
But not unkind.
“No one asked you,” he added. “Bodies rarely request permission.”
Annabelle looked at him, uncertain.
Turpin looked briefly away, toward the wet hedgerow and the grey strip of road beyond it.
“When your mother arrives in a few days,” he said, voice stiffening around the mention of tenderness, “she will teach you better. Properly. She will know what to say and what to do with… all of this.”
He glanced grimly at the valise.
“But until then, you will manage.”
Annabelle swallowed. “Will you tell her?”
“Yes.”
Her face tightened with embarrassment.
Turpin’s eyes narrowed.
“Not to shame you. To ensure you are cared for.”
She lowered her gaze.
“She will be kind?”
His face shifted faintly.
“She is your mother.”
That seemed answer enough.
Annabelle nodded.
Clara, who had been quiet for nearly twenty seconds and therefore had reached the end of her endurance, asked softly, “Will it happen to me too?”
Turpin closed the valise.
The question hung in the cold air.
Annabelle looked at her sister with sudden sympathy.
Clara looked smaller than before.
Less clever.
Less sharp.
For once, she was simply a child peering toward a future that had become unexpectedly frightening.
Turpin’s first instinct was to dismiss the question.
To say, Not now.
To end the matter.
But he had already seen what silence caused.
So he answered.
“Yes.”
Clara’s face fell.
“In a few years,” he said.
“A few?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“I am not an oracle.”
Clara frowned anxiously. “But it will happen?”
“Most likely.”
“Will I scream?”
“That depends entirely on whether you inherit your mother’s composure or Margery’s lungs.”
Annabelle laughed once, small and surprised.
Clara tried not to smile and failed.
Turpin’s mouth did not move, but something in his eyes eased.
Barely.
Then Annabelle winced again, pressing her hand to her lower abdomen.
The humor vanished from him at once.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes,” she said automatically.
Turpin gave her a dark look.
She amended, “A little.”
He stepped closer and adjusted his coat more securely around her waist so the stain would not show. His hands moved with awkward care, tugging the dark fabric into place.
“You will go straight to the carriage,” he said. “You will sit beside Clara. You will not apologize. You will not cry unless you must. If the pain worsens, you will tell me.”
Annabelle nodded.
His gaze sharpened. “You will tell me.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And if you feel faint?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“If the cloth shifts?”
Her blush returned violently.
“I’ll tell you.”
“If there is more blood than before?”
“Father…”
“You will tell me.”
She swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He picked up the valise, then turned toward the road.
“Clara.”
“Yes?”
“You will assist your sister into the carriage.”
Clara nodded immediately. “I will.”
“And you will not ask her fourteen questions.”
Clara opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Then nodded again.
“I will ask only two.”
“None.”
“One?”
“Clara.”
“Yes, Papa.”
Annabelle took a tentative step.
Then another.
Her face tightened with discomfort, but she kept moving. Clara slipped an arm around her without being asked. For all her curiosity, there was no mockery in her now. She held Annabelle carefully, almost proudly, guiding her back through the bushes toward the road.
Turpin followed behind them, carrying the valise in one hand and his cane in the other after retrieving it from the mud with visible disgust.
The coachman remained facing the road.
Rigid.
Wise man.
Turpin’s baritone cut across the damp air.
“You.”
The coachman flinched. “My lord?”
“You saw nothing.”
“No, my lord.”
“You heard nothing.”
“No, my lord.”
“You will remember nothing.”
“No, my lord.”
Turpin’s hazel eyes narrowed.
“If I discover otherwise, I will have you questioned before a magistrate with less patience than I possess.”
The coachman visibly paled at the impossible suggestion that any magistrate might possess less patience.
“Yes, my lord.”
Clara helped Annabelle climb into the carriage. Annabelle settled gingerly onto the seat, his coat still around her waist, her face pale and tear-streaked but calmer than before.
Turpin stood outside the carriage for a moment, looking at his eldest daughter.
She looked back.
Something passed between them.
Not ease.
Not quite.
But trust, renewed under strange and bloodstained circumstances.
Annabelle’s voice came small from inside the carriage.
“Thank you, Father.”
Turpin’s expression tightened.
He gave one curt nod.
Then climbed in opposite them, closing the door with sharp finality.
The carriage lurched forward.
For several minutes, none of them spoke.
Annabelle leaned against the corner, one hand resting over her abdomen. Clara sat beside her, unusually still. Turpin sat rigidly opposite them, the leather valise placed beside his boot like a military supply chest.
After a while, Clara whispered, “Does it still hurt?”
Annabelle nodded.
Turpin’s eyes lifted.
Clara noticed and whispered even softer, “I’m not asking fourteen questions.”
Annabelle gave a faint smile.
Turpin looked out the window.
The countryside rolled past, grey and damp and indifferent.
Annabelle pressed her hand harder against her stomach.
At first she did it quietly.
A small motion beneath the dark folds of her cloak, fingers curling inward as though she could hold the pain still by force. Her face turned slightly toward the carriage window, trying to hide the grimace that tightened her mouth. The grey countryside blurred past beyond the glass—bare hedgerows, wet fields, distant sheep like scraps of dirty wool beneath the low sky.
But Richard Turpin saw.
Of course he saw.
He sat opposite his daughters with one gloved hand resting atop his cane, shoulders stiff beneath his dark coat, hooked nose severe in profile whenever the carriage jolted and shifted the light across his face. His hazel eyes had been turned toward the window, but his attention had never truly left Annabelle.
She shifted again.
A sharper wince crossed her face this time.
Clara noticed too.
“Annabelle?” she whispered.
“I’m fine,” Annabelle said at once.
The lie came too quickly.
Turpin’s gaze cut toward her.
“No, you are not.”
Annabelle’s cheeks flushed faintly. “It is only hurting again.”
“Only,” he repeated, voice low and displeased, as though pain itself had behaved disrespectfully.
She lowered her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
His jaw tightened.
That apology again.
Always that apology.
Turpin’s fingers flexed once over the silver head of his cane. The carriage rocked over a rut in the road, and Annabelle drew in a small breath through her teeth, one hand pressing firmly to her lower belly. She tried to sit straighter afterward, tried to compose herself, but the effort only made her look younger.
Too young.
Too pale.
Too much like the little girl he remembered before he had learned to expect her quietness.
For one brief, unwanted moment, Richard saw her not as she sat before him now—bonnet ribbons tied neatly beneath her chin, gloves folded in her lap, blood and embarrassment tucked beneath the heavy protection of his coat—but as she had been years ago.
A baby.
A solemn, watchful little thing with dark eyes too large for her face, fists curled beneath her chin, sleeping with her mouth slightly open against his waistcoat.
He had not held her often then.
Not as you had.
You had carried Annabelle constantly when she was small, pressed to your breast, tucked into the crook of your arm, swaddled and kissed and whispered to as though infants understood devotion. Turpin had considered it excessive. Indulgent. Women’s softness poured recklessly into a child too young to appreciate it.
And yet there had been nights.
Rare ones.
Nights when business had kept him late and he had returned to find you exhausted in the chair by the fire, Annabelle crying in the cradle, red-faced and furious with the world. He remembered lifting her once with all the awkward irritation of a man handling something breakable and unreasonable.
She had stopped crying almost immediately.
Not because he soothed her.
He had done nothing soothing.
He had merely held her against his chest, one large hand spread across her tiny back, and stared down at her with stern confusion while she blinked up at him in the firelight.
“What?” he had muttered at the infant.
Annabelle had sighed.
Then fallen asleep.
He remembered the absurd weight of that trust.
A baby’s head beneath his chin. Warm breath through cotton. One little hand tangled in the edge of his shirt as though she had decided, without evidence, that he was safe.
The memory struck him now with such force that his expression hardened instinctively against it.
Annabelle winced again.
That settled it.
Turpin looked at Clara.
“Move.”
Clara blinked. “What?”
“Move.”
She sat up straighter at once, alarmed. “Where?”
“To this side.”
He tapped the empty space beside him with the head of his cane.
Clara looked between him and Annabelle, then understood.
“Oh.”
She rose awkwardly as the carriage rattled beneath her feet, one hand gripping the strap near the door for balance. Turpin reached out and caught her elbow before she could stumble, steadying her with a firm, almost impatient grip.
“Careful,” he muttered.
“I am being careful.”
“You are lurching.”
“The carriage is lurching.”
“Then outwit it.”
Clara made the mistake of glancing at him.
His face was completely serious.
She decided not to answer.
With some difficulty, she switched places, squeezing onto the opposite bench beside him. Turpin shifted just enough to allow her room, though his posture remained rigid and displeased, as if the inconvenience were the carriage’s personal fault.
Annabelle watched in confusion.
“Father?”
Turpin pointed to the seat Clara had abandoned.
“Come here.”
Annabelle’s eyes widened slightly. “Why?”
“Because I told you to.”
She hesitated.
Not out of defiance.
Out of uncertainty.
Turpin saw that too, and his voice lowered, though it remained edged with command.
“You are in pain. Come here.”
Annabelle obeyed.
She moved carefully across the narrow carriage space, one hand still clutching his coat around her waist, the other pressed against her stomach. When the wheels struck another uneven patch of road, she swayed.
Turpin’s arm came around her immediately.
Hard.
Secure.
He caught her against him before she could fall, his gloved hand bracing between her shoulder blades.
Annabelle froze.
So did he.
For one peculiar second, neither of them moved.
Then Turpin cleared his throat sharply, as though the moment had offended him.
“Sit.”
She did.
Not beside him.
Not quite.
He guided her down until she was half-turned across the bench, her body angled carefully along the seat, her shoulders lowered with stiff reluctance toward his lap.
Annabelle realized what he intended and flushed scarlet.
“Father, I can sit properly.”
“You cannot.”
“I can.”
“You look as though you are being stabbed by an invisible knife.”
Clara, beside him, whispered, “That is what it feels like?”
Annabelle gave a miserable little nod.
Clara paled again.
Turpin shot her a look. “Do not faint from information.”
“I am not fainting.”
“You look undecided.”
Clara sat back at once.
Annabelle tried once more to straighten. “Father, truly, I do not need—”
Turpin’s hand settled firmly on her shoulder.
“Lie down.”
The baritone was quiet.
Not gentle.
Never quite gentle.
But final.
Annabelle’s resistance gave way beneath it.
Slowly, awkwardly, she lowered herself until her head rested across his thigh.
For a moment, she lay very still.
Humiliated, perhaps.
Or frightened of displeasing him by needing comfort.
Turpin looked down at her with a severe expression that did not match the careful way he drew his coat more securely over her body, arranging the fabric so it covered her waist and knees. His gloved fingers moved with sharp precision, tucking one edge beneath her arm, pulling another away from where it pressed too tightly against her stomach.
“There,” he said gruffly.
Annabelle stared toward the opposite seat, cheeks still flushed. “I’m too old for this.”
“Yes.”
Her mouth trembled faintly.
He looked down at her.
“You are also in pain.”
She swallowed.
The carriage rocked.
Her hand curled again over her belly, and this time, because she was lying across him, he felt the small tremor pass through her body.
Turpin’s face changed.
Only slightly.
His free hand hovered for half a second, uncertain in a way that would have horrified anyone who knew him from court. Richard Turpin never hovered. He struck, signed, ordered, condemned. His hands knew how to control. They did not know how to soothe.
But memory moved before pride could stop it.
That infant weight against his chest.
That tiny fist in his shirt.
That sigh when she had trusted him without question.
His hand came down over Annabelle’s hair.
Stiffly at first.
Then slower.
He smoothed the loose strands back from her temple, careful not to disturb the bonnet that had already slipped crookedly against her curls.
Annabelle’s eyes widened.
Clara stared openly.
Turpin noticed both reactions and scowled.
“What.”
Clara looked quickly out the window. “Nothing.”
Annabelle said nothing at all.
That was worse somehow.
Turpin kept his hand where it was, broad palm resting lightly against the side of her head.
“You will rest,” he said.
Annabelle’s voice came small. “Yes, Father.”
“And you will stop apologizing for blood.”
Her eyes flicked upward.
His hazel gaze remained fixed ahead, sternly avoiding sentiment.
“It is inconvenient,” he continued. “Messy. Poorly designed. But not criminal.”
Despite herself, Clara let out a tiny sound.
Turpin’s eyes shifted toward her.
She swallowed it at once.
Annabelle’s mouth twitched weakly.
“Poorly designed?” she whispered.
“Abominably.”
A small laugh escaped her.
It was not much.
Barely more than breath.
But Turpin felt it against his leg and glanced down despite himself.
Annabelle was smiling faintly, though her face remained pale.
The sight did something unpleasant behind his ribs.
He looked away at once.
“Do not encourage me to discuss anatomy further,” he muttered. “I have already exceeded the dignity of the day.”
Clara pressed her lips together very hard.
Annabelle closed her eyes.
For a while, the carriage moved in silence.
The wheels rattled steadily over the wet road. Rain began again in a fine mist, tapping lightly against the windows. Clara sat very upright beside her father, trying not to look too often at Annabelle curled with her head in his lap.
But she did look.
More than once.
Not mockingly.
With curiosity.
With something softer.
She had seen her father punish servants with a glance. She had seen him make grown men stammer. She had seen him lecture Margery until even Margery briefly considered silence as a moral option.
She had rarely seen him like this.
Rigid as stone, displeased with the universe, one hand resting protectively over his eldest daughter’s hair while she lay across him in pain.
Annabelle shifted after several minutes.
Turpin’s hand tightened at once.
“What?”
“It hurts,” she murmured.
“Worse?”
“A little.”
He looked toward the window, judging the road, the speed, the miserable grey distance ahead.
Then he leaned forward and struck the carriage roof sharply with the handle of his cane.
Clara jumped.
The carriage slowed almost at once.
The small panel near the front opened.
“My lord?” came the coachman’s cautious voice.
“The next inn,” Turpin said, baritone cutting through the damp air. “How far?”
“Perhaps four miles, my lord.”
“Make it two.”
A pause.
“My lord?”
Turpin’s eyes narrowed.
“Drive faster.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The panel shut quickly.
The carriage lurched forward with renewed purpose.
Annabelle opened her eyes. “Please don’t trouble him because of me.”
Turpin looked down at her.
His expression was almost frightening in its severity.
“You are my daughter.”
She went quiet.
The words were not tender in tone.
They were colder than that.
Harder.
Like law.
Like ownership.
Like protection rendered absolute because he had decided it must be so.
“You are not trouble,” he said.
Annabelle’s eyes shone suddenly.
He frowned.
“Do not cry.”
“I’m not.”
“You are considering it.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, Father,” she whispered, a tiny, watery smile appearing despite the pain. “I really can’t.”
Turpin stared down at her.
Then, after a long moment, he sighed through his nose and resumed smoothing her hair.
“Then do it quietly.”
Clara made a strangled sound and turned it into a cough.
Annabelle did cry then.
Softly.
Not from fear now, or humiliation, but from some tangled mixture of pain, relief, embarrassment, and the unbearable strangeness of being held by a father who did not know how to be soft but had made room for her anyway.
Turpin pretended not to notice the tears sliding toward his trousers.
But his thumb moved once, rough and awkward, wiping the wetness from the corner of her eye.
“Your mother will fuss,” he said after a time.
Annabelle sniffed. “When she hears?”
“Yes.”
“She will be upset she wasn’t here.”
“She will blame me.”
Clara looked over. “Why?”
“Because your mother enjoys ambitious accusations.”
Turpin’s mouth tightened. “She does it with skill.”
“She will not blame you,” Annabelle said. “You helped me.”
That made him still.
Only for a second.
Then he looked out the window again.
“I was inadequate.”
Annabelle opened her eyes fully now.
The admission shocked her more than anything else that had happened.
Richard Turpin did not call himself inadequate.
Not ever.
He called other men incompetent, dishonest, foolish, soft-headed, morally bankrupt, and occasionally better suited to livestock than employment. He did not place failure upon himself.
But there it was.
Flat.
Unornamented.
Almost resentful.
Annabelle turned her face slightly against his thigh, looking up at him from beneath damp lashes.
“You weren’t,” she said.
He did not look down.
“I did not know how to fasten the cloth.”
“You learned.”
“I should have known.”
“Why?”
His hazel eyes shifted then.
She held them bravely, though her cheeks were still blotched from crying.
“You are not a woman,” she said quietly. “You are Father.”
Clara blinked.
Turpin stared.
Annabelle seemed to realize only after speaking that the sentence sounded rather obvious. Her blush returned at once.
“I only mean…” She swallowed. “You did not leave me.”
The carriage noise filled the silence afterward.
Rain tapped at the glass.
Turpin’s hand stopped moving over her hair.
For a moment, his face became utterly unreadable.
Then, slowly, his palm settled more firmly against the crown of her head.
“No,” he said.
Low.
Baritone roughened by something he would never name.
I just wanted to say that your writing is simply fantastic! Your Mycroft fics are my absolute favorite thing, please never stop writing!
Aww, thank you so much! That genuinely means a lot to me. I’m so happy you enjoy my Mycroft fics—they’re some of my favorite things to write, and messages like this make me want to keep going forever. 🤍
I couldn't help but notice that I never saw a photo or a movie where Alan is wearing shorts (except for Dark Harbor)?🩳😭😅
I'm not some creep or something, just noticed. Like there's some photos of him where he's on vacation with his wife Rima, and he is with trousers, and it was in summer. He must have been melting in the sun😭🫣
Hey! I’ve noticed that too 😭 He really did seem to prefer trousers, even in warm weather.
My personal impression is that Alan may not have felt especially comfortable showing his body, though of course we can’t really know for sure. I’m almost certain I once read that, during the office sex scene in Nobel Son, he specifically asked to keep his shirt on. I also keep seeing people on TikTok claim that he wrote in his diary about feeling very fat in Snape’s robes, but I’ve never seen a reliable source for that quote, so I’d take it with a grain of salt.
Still, it would explain why shorts seemed to be such a rare sight.
Edit: And let’s not forget his nude scene in Gambit! You can tell he seems a little self-conscious—he subtly tries to cover himself by crossing his arms and everything.
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You know that one trend that, Man I'm so depressed, I don't think there's anything that's gonna cheer me up- Hamburger.
I had that thing the whole day in my head. Just with Colonel Brandon. I'm obsessed with him, I just watched sense and Sensibility for the 26th🫣🫣
I wondered if you could write for him again? Perhaps a with smut because we all know that Colonel Brandon is very gentle with his wife, yes, the reader would be his wife, smut because they're trying for a child of course. And then like later when she is pregnant, he takes care of her and all like the perfect husband he is because I love him. Exactly. Well a fic that goes in this direction, if you have another thing in mind, I'm still up for it because I just love him. Very much. ❤️😅😩
Don't stop writing or I'll get depression and I'll have to pay a psychiatrist even though I have no moneyyyy! Love your writing!💅🥰🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹
Title: The Duties of a Husband
Summary: Christopher Brandon is a patient man. A disciplined man. A gentleman who treats even desire with solemn tenderness. Unfortunately for his composure, his wife enjoys provoking him.
Pairing: Colonel Brandon × Fem! Reader
Warnings: Smut
Author's Notes: It wasn’t exactly what you asked for, but I hope you like it!
Also read on Ao3
The rain had begun before dinner.
It came softly at first, a whisper against the tall windows of Delaford, silvering the glass and blurring the dark gardens beyond. By the time the servants had cleared away the last of the supper things and the house had settled into its evening quiet, the rain had deepened into a steady, secretive rhythm — the sort that seemed made for closed doors, low candlelight, and the private world that existed only between husband and wife.
You stood near the hearth in your bedchamber, combing the pins from your hair one by one.
Behind you, Colonel Brandon watched in silence.
He had been quiet all evening, though not cold. Never cold. That was not Christopher’s way. His silences had texture — thought, restraint, tenderness carefully held in the palm of discipline. You had learned to read them since becoming his wife. The slight furrow between his brows when he was concerned. The way his eyes softened when they lingered on you. The manner in which his hand would hover at the small of your back in company, never possessive enough to offend propriety, but present enough to remind you that he was there.
Always there.
Tonight, however, there had been something else in him.
A waiting.
A heaviness.
You saw it now in the mirror as you withdrew the final pin from your hair and let it fall over your shoulders.
His eyes lifted at once.
It was not the gaze of a young man overcome by impulse. Christopher Brandon was not ruled by appetite. He was older, steadier, a man who had known disappointment, duty, grief, and the long discipline of wanting what he believed he could not have. Desire in him did not flare carelessly. It burned low and deep, like banked coals beneath ash.
But when it showed, it was all the more dangerous for its restraint.
You turned slightly, catching his gaze in the looking glass.
“My dear husband is very solemn tonight.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Am I?”
“Terribly.”
“I had not meant to appear so.”
“You rarely mean to appear anything,” you said, setting the pins upon the dressing table. “That is part of your charm.”
He lowered his eyes briefly, almost bashful despite everything — despite the wedding ring on his hand, despite the fact that you shared his name, his home, his bed. It never ceased to move you, that quiet modesty in him. He could command men, endure pain, carry sorrow without complaint, and yet a tender word from you could still undo him.
You crossed the room slowly.
He remained near the bed, coat already removed, waistcoat loosened, his shirtsleeves rolled to his forearms and the collar open at his throat. The candlelight softened the noble lines of his face, silvering the dark strands of his hair, making him look both severe and impossibly gentle.
When you reached him, you lifted your hands to the front of his shirt.
“You have been thinking,” you said.
His breath moved beneath your fingers. “That is hardly unusual.”
“No. But tonight you were thinking of me.”
His gaze returned to yours.
For a moment he said nothing.
Then, quietly, “Yes.”
The single word warmed you more than the fire.
You began to undo the buttons of his shirt, slowly, not from necessity but because you liked the way he watched your hands. You liked the stillness that came over him, as though every part of him had been ordered to patience except his eyes.
“And what thoughts occupied you so seriously?” you asked.
His hand came to your waist. Not pulling. Merely resting there, large and warm, his thumb moving once over the fabric of your nightgown.
“You know very well.”
“Perhaps I wish to hear you say it.”
That made his mouth tighten, not in displeasure, but in an effort to master himself. You had discovered, over the months of your marriage, that Christopher Brandon was not a man easily persuaded into vulgarity. His tenderness had depth, his passion had force, but he approached even desire as though it were something sacred — not to be thrown carelessly about, not to be cheapened.
Still, there were moments when you could coax the truth from him.
Moments when the husband overcame the gentleman.
His fingers tightened slightly at your waist.
“I was thinking,” he said, voice lower now, “of how much I want you.”
Your hands stilled.
The rain tapped steadily at the windows.
“And?” you whispered.
His eyes darkened.
“And of how dearly I hope,” he continued, with a gravity that made your heart ache, “that I may give you a child.”
The words settled between you with a tenderness almost too large to bear.
It was not the first time such a hope had been spoken aloud. Since your marriage, the possibility had hovered over you both — in glances, in the quiet calculations of dates, in the way his hand sometimes rested over your lower belly after loving you, as if he could will life into being by devotion alone.
But each time he said it plainly, it changed the air.
A child.
His child.
The thought filled you with a strange, aching warmth. Not because it was expected of you. Not because society would smile upon it. But because you had seen Christopher with those who needed gentleness. You had seen the patient sorrow in him, the old wound of having once loved and lost, the tenderness he tried to hide because tenderness had cost him so much. You knew what kind of father he would be.
Not loud. Not careless. Never cruel.
A steady hand. A quiet voice. A man who would stand between his child and the world without ever asking to be praised for it.
You reached up and touched his face.
“You will,” you said.
His expression shifted.
“My love—”
“You will,” you repeated softly. “And when you do, you shall be unbearable.”
That startled a laugh from him, low and brief. “Unbearable?”
“Entirely. Watching over me, worrying over every little thing, refusing to let me cross a room without offering your arm.”
His thumb brushed your cheek. “You make it sound as though you would object.”
“I did not say that.”
“No,” he murmured. “You did not.”
His gaze lowered to your mouth.
That was all the warning you had before he kissed you.
Christopher’s kisses were rarely hurried at first. He kissed as he did everything else — with purpose, with care, with a restraint that made the eventual loss of it all the more exquisite. His mouth moved over yours slowly, deeply, as though he meant to remember the shape of every sigh. His hand slid from your waist to your back, drawing you nearer until there was no polite distance left between you.
You melted against him.
The world narrowed to the warmth of his chest, the scent of rain and candle smoke, the quiet strength of his arms. His mouth left yours only to press against your cheek, your jaw, the sensitive place beneath your ear that made your fingers clutch at his shirt.
“Christopher,” you breathed.
He paused at the sound of his name.
You felt it — the effort in him. The discipline. The man who still, even now, wished to be certain he was not taking more than you freely gave.
So you gave him certainty.
You drew back just enough to look at him, then took his hand and placed it over your heart.
“I am yours,” you said.
His eyes closed for half a second.
When they opened again, something in him had changed.
Not vanished. Never that. Christopher did not become another man in passion. He became himself without armor.
He kissed you again, harder this time, with a hunger that made your knees weaken. His hands moved with reverence and need together, as though he could not decide whether to worship you or gather you entirely into himself. Your nightgown slipped from one shoulder beneath his touch. His mouth followed the exposed skin, warm and lingering, and you felt his breath catch when your fingers moved into his hair.
The bed was only a few steps away. Neither of you remembered taking them, nor exactly when the last barriers of linen between you had been pushed aside.
You were beneath him, surrounded by linen and candlelight, with the rain keeping its quiet vigil beyond the windows. Christopher leaned over you, one forearm braced beside your head, his face shadowed and beautiful with restraint.
“You must tell me,” he said, voice roughened, “if I am too much.”
Your hands slid over his shoulders.
“You are not enough yet.”
His brows lifted faintly.
For one breath, he looked almost shocked.
Then he gave a soft, helpless sound — half laugh, half groan — and lowered his mouth to yours again.
There was no more room for teasing after that. Not at first.
There was only the slow unraveling of him, and of you beneath him.
Christopher loved like a man making a vow again and again. Every touch seemed to say what his voice could not: that he cherished you, that he desired you, that he still scarcely believed he had been granted such happiness. Even when passion sharpened, his tenderness remained. He watched your face as though it were the only truth in the world. He listened for every breath, every tremor, every small sign that told him where pleasure became too much or not enough.
And when he finally joined himself to you, he went still.
His forehead lowered to yours.
The intimacy of it stole your breath.
Not merely the joining of bodies, but the look in his eyes — that solemn, aching devotion. As though this was not only pleasure, not only marriage, but hope itself. As though somewhere in the dark, quiet future, a child might begin from this very tenderness.
You wrapped your arms around his shoulders.
For a time, he moved slowly, almost reverently. The rhythm was deep and measured, his breath warming your mouth, his eyes closing only when feeling threatened to overcome him. You could feel the restraint in every line of his body. He was holding back for you, as he always did. Giving you gentleness when you knew there was hunger beneath it.
So, naturally, you decided to provoke him.
When his breath grew uneven and he paused, resting his forehead against you for one long moment, you slid your hands firmly over his shoulders and smiled.
“Colonel,” you whispered, “are you tired already?”
Christopher went utterly still.
His eyes opened.
For a heartbeat, the only sound was the rain.
Then he answered you without words.
His next movement was sudden enough to steal the air from your lungs.
You gasped, fingers tightening on his shoulders, and his mouth curved against yours — not smug, exactly, but close enough to make heat rush through you.
“Tired?” he murmured.
You tried to answer. Failed.
His lips brushed your cheek, deceptively tender, while his body set a deeper, more demanding rhythm that made your teasing dissolve into broken breaths.
“I assure you,” he said, voice low and controlled only by effort, “I am quite capable of fulfilling my duties as a husband.”
A laugh escaped you, breathless and helpless. “Duties?”
His hand slid beneath your back, holding you closer.
“Most solemnly.”
The words would have sounded absurd from any other man. From him, spoken in that low, grave voice while his body pressed yours into the linen, they made you laugh and shiver at once.
“You are impossible,” you breathed.
“I have been called worse.”
“By whom?”
His mouth brushed your temple. “No one whose opinion I valued.”
You would have answered him, would have teased him further if only to see that dangerous softness return to his eyes, but Christopher chose that moment to shift his weight and take hold of your hips.
The change was subtle at first. A firmer grip. A deeper angle. The careful tenderness remained, but something more deliberate entered him, something that made your breath catch before he had even moved again.
He held you as though you were precious.
He loved you like a man who had been starving.
His eyes lowered to where your bodies met, and for a moment he simply watched. The sight seemed to undo him by degrees. His lips parted. A faint crease formed between his brows, not of pain, but of concentration so intense it bordered on reverence. Candlelight caught on the sheen beginning to gather at his throat, along the open vee of his shirt, across the strength of his chest where the fabric clung damply to him.
Then he moved.
Neither fast nor slow.
Worse than either.
Measured. Deep. Mercilessly controlled.
He drew out halfway, enough to make you feel the loss, enough to make your body tighten around the absence of him, and then he drove back into you with a force that sent a broken sound from your mouth.
“Christopher—”
His fingers flexed on your hips.
Again.
Out, just enough.
Back in, hard enough to make the bed shift beneath you.
The rhythm was not hurried. He was not chasing his own end like a careless boy. No, this was something far more devastating. He took his time with you. He watched what each thrust did to you, watched your mouth fall open, watched your hands clutch at the sheets, watched your composure come apart beneath him piece by piece.
And you watched him in return.
You could not help it.
A man had no right to look so handsome in such a moment.
The thought came to you with almost offended clarity through the haze of pleasure. He should have looked disheveled, perhaps even foolish. Marriage, surely, was meant to make a husband familiar. Human. Less untouchable.
Instead, Christopher Brandon looked like some solemn, ruined saint of devotion and desire.
His dark hair had fallen loose over his forehead, damp with sweat. His shirt hung open, sleeves rolled and wrinkled from your hands. His breath came heavier now, restrained sounds caught low in his throat each time he sank back into you. The noble severity of his face had not vanished, but it had changed. Softened. Darkened. Desire had sharpened his features and undone them at once.
You stared at him through half-lidded eyes, caught between moans, helplessly fascinated.
He noticed, of course.
Christopher always noticed.
His gaze lifted from the place where he entered you to your face.
“What is it?” he asked, voice rough.
You swallowed, though your throat had gone dry. “Nothing.”
His hips moved again, and the answer left you in a gasp.
“Not nothing,” he murmured.
You should not have said it.
You knew you should not have said it.
But pleasure had made you honest and bold and quite without sense.
“Do all husbands look like this in the marriage bed?”
He stilled.
Not completely. Not enough to grant mercy. He remained seated deep inside you, his hands still at your hips, his body hot and trembling faintly with the effort of restraint. But his eyes fixed on yours with sudden, dangerous attention.
For one heartbeat, the rain seemed to grow louder.
“What did you say?” he asked softly.
The softness should have warned you.
Instead, you smiled, breathless and wicked. “I only wondered whether all husbands look so handsome while fulfilling their duties.”
His expression changed.
Only slightly.
A gentleman would have laughed.
A lesser man might have preened.
Christopher Brandon lowered himself over you until his mouth hovered near yours, his hair brushing your forehead, his breath warm against your lips.
“I shall make certain,” he said, each word quiet and perfectly clear, “that you never find out.”
Heat rushed through you so sharply that you could not answer.
He kissed you then, but it was not the slow, reverent kiss from before. It was deeper, hungrier, edged with a possessiveness that made your body tighten around him. His hand slid from your hip to your thigh, lifting it higher against his side, opening you further beneath him.
When he moved again, the angle changed.
You cried out against his mouth.
“There,” he breathed, as though he had found something he had been patiently searching for. “There, my love?”
You nodded helplessly.
He did it again.
Your head sank back into the pillow.
“Oh—Christopher.”
The sound of his name seemed to pass through him like fire. His control slipped for a moment, just enough for his breath to break, just enough for his grip to tighten as he thrust into you again with that same deep, devastating precision.
“My sweet wife,” he murmured.
There was tenderness in it.
There was possession, too.
Not the ugly sort. Not the grasping claim of a man who thought love meant ownership. Christopher’s possession was different. It was devotion made desperate. A vow spoken with hands and mouth and body. The fierce astonishment of a man who had once believed himself condemned to loneliness and now found you beneath him, warm and willing, whispering his name as though it belonged in your mouth.
You reached up and pushed the damp hair from his forehead.
The gesture undid something in him.
His eyes closed briefly, and his face turned into your palm.
For one suspended second, he was unbearably gentle again.
Then your body clenched around him, and his composure cracked.
A low sound left him, rougher than any you had heard from him before. His hand caught your wrist and pressed your palm to the mattress beside your head, not hard enough to hurt, only enough to hold. His other hand stayed at your hip, guiding you into each thrust, keeping you exactly where he wanted you.
The bed creaked softly beneath you.
The rain covered the rest.
You were glad for it.
Glad for the rain, glad for the closed doors, glad for the great quiet house that knew better than to intrude upon this intimate undoing of composure. You had thought, once, that a man like Christopher would be silent in bed. Controlled. Almost austere in his pleasure.
You had been wrong.
He was quiet, yes, but not silent.
He breathed your name like a prayer. He murmured praise against your skin, low and broken and almost reluctant, as though the words escaped him despite his best efforts.
“So beautiful.”
Another thrust.
“So warm.”
Another.
“So entirely mine.”
Your fingers curled around his wrist.
“Yes,” you gasped. “Yours.”
His eyes opened.
The effect was immediate.
He looked at you as though you had given him something sacred, something dangerous.
“Again,” he said.
You could barely hear yourself over your own breathing. “Yours.”
His restraint frayed further.
The rhythm deepened. Still not frantic, not careless, but harder now. More insistent. He pulled out halfway and drove back into you again and again, each thrust striking that place inside you that made the world flash white at the edges.
You could feel sweat on his skin when your hands slid beneath his open shirt. Feel the heat of him, the controlled strength, the tremor in his muscles each time he forced himself not to lose all gentleness.
“Do not hold back,” you whispered.
His laugh was strained, nearly pained. “You do not know what you ask.”
“I do.”
“No.” His mouth found your jaw, your throat. “You think you do.”
“Then show me.”
He lifted his head.
For a moment, he looked at you as he might have looked across a battlefield: assessing danger, consequence, the point of no return.
Then his mouth curved faintly.
“You are becoming very bold, Mrs. Brandon.”
“You encouraged me.”
“I fear I have created my own undoing.”
You tightened your legs around him. “Then be undone.”
That did it.
Whatever remained of his careful distance vanished.
He kissed you hard, almost desperately, and the next thrust stole every clever word from your tongue. He held your hips firmly now, using that steady strength of his to draw you back to meet him, making you take each deep stroke until you were no longer laughing, no longer teasing, no longer capable of anything but sound.
He watched you fall apart.
That was perhaps the most intimate cruelty of all.
He watched with those dark, devoted eyes while pleasure built in you beyond bearing. Watched as you tried to turn your face aside and caught your chin with gentle fingers.
“No,” he murmured. “Stay with me.”
“I can’t—”
“You can.” His voice shook, but his gaze did not. “Look at me.”
You did.
And that was your undoing.
The sight of him above you — damp hair across his forehead, mouth parted, eyes dark with love and hunger, body moving into yours with solemn, ruthless devotion — pushed you over the edge. Pleasure broke through you with such force that you clutched at him blindly, crying out his name as your body tightened around him again and again.
Christopher’s face changed.
For the first time that night, he looked truly lost.
His rhythm faltered. His jaw clenched. A hoarse sound escaped him as he buried his face against your neck, still moving, still holding you close as your pleasure took him with it.
“My love,” he breathed. “My love, I—”
He did not finish.
He could not.
His body went taut above yours, his arms gathering you so tightly that you felt surrounded by him completely. His final thrusts were deep, unsteady, stripped of all performance and all restraint. He came with your name against your skin, his voice low and broken, his whole body shuddering as though the feeling had gone through him soul-deep.
Afterward, he did not move away.
For a long while, neither of you did.
The rain continued against the windows, soft and steady, as though nothing in the world had changed.
But everything in you felt altered.
Christopher’s weight rested carefully over you, not enough to crush, only enough to comfort. His face remained hidden against your neck. His breathing was uneven, warm and damp along your skin. One of his hands moved from your hip to your waist, then lower, settling with aching tenderness over your belly.
The gesture made your throat tighten.
You placed your hand over his.
He lifted his head slowly.
The passion had not left his face entirely. It lingered in the flush of his skin, the softness of his mouth, the dark disorder of his hair. But his eyes had returned to that familiar tenderness, made deeper now by vulnerability.
“Are you well?” he asked.
You laughed softly, still breathless. “You ask that as though you did not just try to prove a point.”
A faint, mortified warmth touched his cheeks. “I may have been… provoked.”
“You threatened to make certain I never discover whether other husbands look handsome in bed.”
His gaze lowered, almost shy now that the words were spoken plainly.
“I meant it,” he said.
The sincerity of it made you smile.
You touched his face. “I know.”
His thumb moved slowly over your belly, thoughtful and tender.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
Then he bent and kissed you there, just below your navel, with such quiet reverence that your heart clenched painfully in your chest.
“Christopher,” you whispered.
He rested his cheek against you, eyes closed.
“If it should happen,” he said softly, “if we are blessed so…”
Your fingers moved into his hair.
He swallowed.
“I would spend my life deserving it.”
The words pierced you more deeply than any declaration of passion could have done.
You tugged gently until he came back up to you. He followed at once, settling beside you and drawing you into the curve of his body. You tucked yourself against his chest, listening to the slow return of his heartbeat beneath your ear.
“You already do,” you said.
His arms tightened around you.
Outside, the rain fell over Delaford.
Inside, Christopher Brandon held you as though you were his home, his hope, and every tender future he had once thought lost to him.
I found this on Pinterest and now I can’t stop imagining Turpin having a huge, ridiculously dramatic portrait of one of his ancestors hanging somewhere in the house 😭 Like, of course his family would have terrifying military portraits watching everyone from the walls.
_________
Margery, four years old and entirely unimpressed, stood beneath the portrait with her hands on her hips.
“Papa?”
Turpin glanced up from his papers. “What is it?”
“Who’s the grumpy man?”
Turpin followed her pointing finger toward the portrait.
“That,” he said solemnly, “was your great-great-grandfather.”
Margery squinted at the painting.
“Why does he look angry?”
“He was a very important man.”
“He looks like he needs a nap.”
Turpin’s mouth tightened.
Margery tilted her head. “Did he ever smile?”
“Rarely.”
“Oh.” She considered this for a moment. “So he was like you.”
Turpin slowly lowered his papers.
Margery grinned and ran away before he could answer.
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