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John Graves Simcoe was often proud of his ability to manipulate events to his favor. Alliances could be made or broken, men could live or die, all by his hand (it could become quite the power trip when he wasn’t careful).
Some days, however, he cursed it.
It had been perfect and so painfully easy: kill the rebel captain, nail his tongue to a paper with Hewlett’s name on it and he’d have free reign over Setauket and its residents and he’d never have to deal with the irritation that was Major Edmund Hewlett again… until Baker of all people intervened.
Sad thing was he didn’t even know it.
It had gone swimmingly in the beginning. He returned to Setauket with his rangers in tow, had met the Major’s eyes with a sinister sort of pleasure knowing what was coming for the man before him. Anna continued to sidestep his attention, but to his pleasant surprise, Oliver had welcomed him back with open arms. He had been gentlemanly and awkward and so achingly sweet that any thoughts of Anna evaporated from his mind.
With Oliver’s adoring doe eyes still freshly embedded in his mind, he whisked off to appeal to Hewlett for Baker’s transfer to the unit under his command, and with a little convincing from Oliver, it was done. It all fell into place so perfectly…
And then the rebels were late on the draw.
Two days passed and there was no sign of an ambush, hardly even the slightest disturbance from the enemy. For as pigheaded and battle eager as they seemed to be, they certainly liked to take their sweet time.
In the meantime, he had Oliver to distract him from his impatience with flowers and stolen kisses. But he just was also distracted by the painfully earnest affection that slipped past his lips.
At first it was nothing. Just simple compliments on Hewlett’s leadership and his kindness to Oliver during his recovery and his concern for his safety. Things that made Simcoe inexplicably mildly uneasy but were easily ignored or kissed away. But then there were completely earnest approvals of his own merit, his “newfound graciousness and forgiveness” that were harder to dismiss without revealing too much.
But it was a quiet moment of sincerity, as the night bled into the dawn of the next day that was his undoing.
“I fear for the Major,” Oliver had said to him. “He’s not a fighting man himself by any means, and with as relentless as the rebels appear to be an ambush or an assassination seems more and more likely as the days pass.” He turned to face Simcoe then and smiled. “How wonderful it is then, that he has you to defend him from such a thing.” He leaned in closer, cupping Simcoe’s face in his hands.
“How wonderful it is that I have you.”
For just a split second, Oliver’s eyes held all the wholeheartedly earnest warmth and radiance as the sun itself.
And It. Was. Blinding. In the face of it, Simcoe’s malicious pride curdled to guilt. It made him ill.
Oliver had kissed him then, and pulled him into a lingering embrace before getting up to collect his belongings. He headed back to Whitehall, blessedly unaware of Simcoe’s rattled stillness and erratically beating heart.
He wanted to scream, to kill something with his bare hands, to run off and set the entire rebel camp on fire for their incompetence, to claw his traitorous heart from his chest and lob it into the sea, anything to get rid of the awful sickly feeling that had settled in his bones. Why did he even care what Oliver thought of Hewlett or himself at all? It’s not like he would ever know that Simcoe was behind the ambush anyway!
Oh but he would, his awful mind supplied. These sorts of things did seem to get out one way or another in the form of gossipy rumors and conspiracies. It would make its way to Oliver and he would know it instantly to be the truth.
The worst part is he wouldn’t even be angry. He wouldn’t scream or cry or lunge at him. No. He would look at him with agony in his dark eyes, betrayal and heartache in every line of his face. And ever bound to duty as he was, he would take the rifle from his back and take aim with his ever so slightly trembling hands… and Simcoe would be forced to draw his pistol and- no. No this wouldn’t do at all.
By the dawn of the third day, he knew what had to happen, cursing his weakness to dark eyes and pleasant demeanors.
He made it through the day in a snappish, semi paranoid state and in the evening he prodded Akinbode awake, told him to fetch his weapons, and set off for the woods between Whitehall and the rebel camp, (in hindsight, he realized he probably could have just told him ahead of time to save them both the hassle, but he had been too irritated to care). They crouched together hidden amongst the trees and waited.
“So,” Akinbode whispered, not pulling his eyes from the trees. “What exactly is it we’re waiting for here?”
Simcoe sighed and grit his teeth. In his grand rush to pull the threads from his own scheme he hadn’t considered how to explain it to another person, particularly not his second.
”A rebel ambush.”
”This wouldn’t happen to be the same rebel ambush we, well you, put in motion would it?”
A pause.
“It might be.”
”Dare I ask what brought on this change of heart?” Akinbode turned slightly to face the captain.
He glanced at his second and gave a heavy sigh, electing to just bite the bullet and be done with it.
”You may, but I’m not sure how well I can answer.” It was vague, but Akinbode seemed semi satisfied with it.
“Mrs. Strong?”
”What?” Akinbode’s brow furrowed and he turned to look at Simcoe like he’d grown a tail. After a few embarrassingly long moments, understanding finally dawned on him. “Oh! No, she had nothing to do with it at all to be honest.”
Akinbode nodded and hummed thoughtfully for a moment before turning back to the trees. They were quiet for a moment, then Akinbode seemed to have seen another option.
”Might this concern the… “new recruit” you mentioned?”
Simcoe startled a bit at that. He hadn’t expected his second to come so close to the truth so suddenly. He carefully shot another glance to Akinbode, but it was clear he already had his answer.
”So… who is this magical recruit?”
Simcoe shuffled and glanced at him nervously. Another silence stretched between them. Finally:
”Baker. Ensign Oliver Baker is his name.”
Akinbode turned to look at his captain once more who stared resolutely ahead, working his jaw and tapping his finger frantically against his knee. He hummed again and turned back again.
About half past midnight, there was movement in the trees to their left. Simcoe pinned a piercing gaze on the approaching party of rebels, nearly vibrating with excitement as the pieces of his plot slotted into place again. The two rangers let them draw nearer for a moment more before they struck.
Two of the rebel soldiers were dead before they could even turn around. Simcoe and Akinbode were outnumbered, but it made hardly a difference. When Akinbode moved to cut down the last rebel, Simcoe stopped him, instead knocking the rebel to the ground and pinning him with the butt of his rifle. The soldier looked up at him in terror when it became clear any attempt at escape was futile. The captain grinned down at him.
“Well I don’t believe it, Tarleton’s little plot really did work. I would have thought you smarter than that at least.” The soldier’s eyes got impossibly wider at the mention of the ruthless officer.
“Bu-… but Hewlett-“ the captain cut him off with a sharp laugh.
“You REALLY believed that Hewlett was capable of such a thing? The man is no frontiersman, he’d never have made it to the camp. Hewlett is a man of honor. Tarleton and myself however, are not… but I’m sure he’d enjoy a challenge upon his arrival. Tell you what, you run back to your master and see if you can be clear of this place by the time Tarleton arrives at dawn.” He pressed down a little harder on the rifle, “and I would be insistent if I were you, you won’t make it past me alive if I catch you a second time.”
Simcoe pulled back and removed the rifle. The man floundered for a moment in his terror before stumbling to his feet and back through the trees. With a smirk, Simcoe lifted the rifle and shot out into the trees, not anywhere close enough to hit the fleeing rebel, but enough to hasten him along.
Of course Tarleton wasn’t coming, he had no idea where he was to be honest, but the rebels didn’t need to know that. The threat of the supposed danger would be enough to send the camp into chaos, and any word of Hewlett’s fabricated atrocity would be swept away in its wake.
With any luck it would also be enough to throw a wrench into the continental intelligence circles for a time, as they’d have to scramble to check their sources and re-establish their camp, (which would take quite a while, seeing as there was hardly enough intelligence in this particular camp to sniff out a trap without having to have it spelled out for them). It felt a little low to shovel the blame on yet another fellow officer, but then again there would be absolutely no chance of them catching Tarleton.
Satisfaction crackled in his chest as he turned back to Akinbode. The ranger was once again fixing him with a questioning look.
“So. Do you think it’ll work a second time?” He flashed a grin. Akinbode looked thoughtfully at him for a moment.
“Well… yes I don’t see why it wouldn’t,” he shot Simcoe a grin. “Now about that Baker-“ Simcoe looked almost panicked.
“Oh god not yet you haven’t even met him-“
Akinbode tried to stifle his laughter at the captain’s anxious indignation with limited success. The exasperated look Simcoe shot him did very little to help this fight.
“To Whitehall then?”
—
The servant that answered the door had startled at the sight of them, but had brought them into the foyer and rushed up the stairs to relay news of the ambush to Hewlett.
“Wait here a moment,” Simcoe passed the bloody coat off to Akimbode and set off towards the parlor. There was someone he was eager to see.
Oliver lay asleep on the settee, his coat draped across the back and his hat and wig hanging off the corner. It was comical just how far his feet hung off the side, the arm almost came under his knees. Simcoe smiled and kneeled at his shoulder. He reached out and dragged the back of his knuckles against this cheek, one of the only parts of his hands that was mostly clear of dried gore.
“Psst…Oliver. Oliver, dear, wake up.” He stirred drowsily for a moment, then jerked forwards in a panic when he registered the blood that speckled the captain’s face and hands. Simcoe stopped him with an arm against his chest. “It’s alright! It’s alright, there was an attempt on the Major’s life, as you had feared there would be,” Oliver’s eyes went wide with horror, but Simcoe cut him off before he could speak.
“But! I took care of it. They never made it to Whitehall.” Just as you said I would. Oliver sighed and fell back, relieved that he hadn’t managed to sleep through an assassination. Simcoe smiled and leaned forward to kiss him then. “I just wanted to save you from a rude awakening.”
Oliver’s face split into a toothy grin, the warmth of sunlight in his eyes again, and this time Simcoe was able to meet them with a smile of his own. He opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by the sound of heavy footfalls upstairs. Simcoe kissed his nose once more and rushed back to the foyer to take the coat back from Akimbode just as Hewlett came rushing into view.
And if Akinbode happened to notice the way the captain’s eyes lingered on the ensign that rushed out to take orders from Hewlett and the pleased glances the ensign shot back, he knew better than to ask. He just pretended not to notice the pleading look the captain shot him when he turned to see Akinbode’s knowing expression.