COWPENS - the final battle | William Tavington

3 - Sunday's Dance

"William! You need to see this, come with me, it's outside! Come on, you wouldn't believe!", Cait pulled on William's arm and tried to make him follow her outside. 

The selling of her necklace provided her with enough money to buy a horse - including a saddle, reigns, a horse blanket... full equipment if you want to say so. But she had to lie about her little gift. First of all William and her weren't married at all, they weren't lovers either, probably not even friends. Just two people who ended up traveling through time together and now were stuck with each other in a place that didn't look like William reminded it from his last visit at all. 

If it was a wife buying a horse for her husband this might have been acceptable but in their case it was definitely too much. Too much for her to spend so much money on an expensive gift like this for a man she actually barely knew and too much for him to accept it. It most likely would've hurt his feelings too - a man can provide a living for himself after all. Now Cait thought it over for quite a while and discussed it with the Darcys, they agreed on not spilling the tea about Cait being the selfless donor of the horse - not because they knew that William and Cait weren't married at all (nobody knew!) but because they simply wanted to avoid him getting aggressive towards Cait and so she happily announced to William: "The Queen has gifted you a horse!"

William stood up as fast as possible, bumping his knee at the kitchen table. "What? Is she here? The Queen you say?" Oh how badly he wanted to visit her... but Buckingham Palace didn't show much interest in time travelers lately. Cait could've come up with anyone who gifted that horse to William but she decided to tell him that it was Queen Elizabeth herself who found it more than appropriate to send a horse as a gift to the man who served this country so well in a war that took place almost 250 years ago - which the British ended up loosing... 

But William bought it. He bought all of it, perhaps because he simply wanted to. He needed to. He clearly was seeking approval from someone... anyone... whoever that may be... He wanted someone to tell him that it was worth all the effort he put in over all those years. And finally his biggest dream had come true! 

"No, she - uhm... she sent a servant who delivered it? He's already gone... come see the horse?", she stuttered around and wondered if the story was still believable. No royal emblem on the horse blanket, no letter from the palace - but as told before, William wanted to believe it!

He moved outside with her and for the first time in months smiled. It looked beautiful, almost a little like Mersey, the horse he served with as a dragoon officer. "Oh my... she clearly has taste." When William first learned that a woman was ruling Britain again he didn't approve. Coming from a time where a row of Georges ruled Britannia he thought, like most men did back then, that women were better off bearing children than ruling a country. He then found out that the lovely old lady was rather popular and sitting on her throne for over half a century already and finally found the idea of matriarchy rather appealing. And when the ruler of your country gifts you a horse you wouldn't care much about their gender anyway, would you? You'd simply approve.

Cait loved seeing William interacting with the horse and for the first time since she knew this man finally had the feeling that he was able to feel more than disgust, anger, annoyance and discontent. She didn't need him to say thank you, she didn't need him to know that she bought the horse, she didn't need him to be over the moon. A simple "She clearly has taste." was enough for her to know that he loved it. 

And so he did.

From that day on William started leaving the house regularly. He went for morning rides, he fed the horse and cleaned the stable, he even showed Cait how to ride like men do as Cait only knew how to ride sidesaddle. He helped her mounting the horse and looked to the side when she pulled her skirts back down to cover her legs. He was such a gentleman! And he finally started talking to the neighbors.