Diana Gabaldon · @Writer_DG
12th Sep 2013 from TwitLonger
#DailyLines #MOBY #WRITTENInMYOwnHEARTSBlood #Book8 #OutMARCH25th #youngsoldiers #youngMENforthatmatter
William passed the end of the company, circled to the rear and rode up the other side of the column, looking back over his shoulder at the rank of puzzled faces staring at him, some affronted, some amused. No…no…no…maybe? Would he even recognize the fellow? he wondered. He’d been very drunk. Still, he thought Harkness would recognize _him_…
They were all staring at him by this time, but none with an aspect either of alarm or violence. Their captain reined up a little and called to him.
“Ho, Ellesmere! Lost something, have you?”
He squinted against the sun, and made out the vivid face of Ban Tarleton, red-cheeked and grinning under his flamboyant plumed helmet. He jerked his chin up in invitation, and William wheeled his horse and fell in beside him.
“Not lost, exactly,” he said. “Just looking for a dragoon I met in Philadelphia—named Harkness; you know him?”
Ban pulled a face.
“Yes. He’s with the 16th. Randy bugger, always after women,”
“And you aren’t?” Ban wasn’t a close friend, but William had been out on the ran-dan with him once or twice in London. He didn’t drink much, but he didn’t need to; he was the sort of man who always seemed a little intoxicated.
Tarleton laughed, face flushed with the heat and red-lipped as a girl.
“Yes. But Harkness doesn’t care about anything _but_ women. Known him have three at once, in a brothel.”
William considered that one for a moment.
“All right. I can see a use for two, maybe…but what’s the third one for?”
Ban, who was maybe four years older than William, gave him the sort of pitying look reserved for virgins and confirmed bachelors, then ducked back, laughing, when William punched him in the arm.