"Colonel Tavington!" Cornwallis jolted an inattentive William out of his endless stare out into the distance of the clear skies that highlighted over the plantation vividly from the window pane in the study room.
"Do you not hear Lord Cornwallis, Colonel?" O'Hara chuckled acerbically, poofing up the side of his powdered wig.
Cornwallis' sallow yet minimally rotund cheeks flared in vexation at the absentminded colonel whose mind preyed with one single thing... Blythe and her eyes of topaz crystalline.
"I have ears as you could clearly see General, therefore I can hear." William retorted sardonically eyeing Cornwallis as he took a sip of his gold-tinged drink before proceeding .
"Colonel, we need you and your cavalry to be of a blockade in the coming ambush, and this time I do recommend you wait for my order."
William only nodded with no guarantee what so ever as O'Hara gaped at him intently with his fixed peridot eyes.
"I believe Colonel Tavington is still rather dismal over his delinquent's vanishment. What was her name Colonel? Lady Avery, am I right?"
William's eyes grew glacial as he ran a hand over the midline of his scarlet coat suavely yet innocuous in hiding the bitter rage he now felt. Whereas Cornwallis retreated to a nearby bookcase, yet O'Hara paced towards William in confrontation.
"Colonel Tavington, you have knowledge that I am not fond of you and your deviating tactics nor will I ever be." The powdered general blatantly stated.
"I am not very much surprised for your distaste for me General."
"Hear me now Colonel, get over that delinquent of yours she has gone. Move along." O'Hara hissed through clenched teeth, his lower jaw grew prominent. "If I had not known any better, you had fallen in love with that little brazen juvenile."
"You don't even know what love is..." Her words resonated. William guffawed for a moment before he retaliated.
"Maybe because you don't know love either."
Just then, Captain Wilkins barged in without and hesitation what so ever. His feathered helmet secured under his arm, a state of anguish painted upon his face as he slightly panted before continuing.
"Colonel, you are needed." James ordered as he wheezed in a waft of air. Yet, saving him from O'Hara's boiling wrath.
"Excuse me." William cunningly twitched his eyes and spread a sly smile as he left the general to seethe in his overflowing anger.
"Wilkins, might I ask what is going on?"
He inhaled sharply, still panting from his hesitant barge-in. "Have you by any change seen any sign of Bordon? Emsworth and I have searched about the entire day, yet he is not anywhere to be found."
William's eyebrows twitched closer in concern. "He must be somewhere, but I have not seen him for a few days after an incident."
"Sir, are you referring to Blythe?"
William's head arose, stunned. "Putting aside the well..." He slipped out.
James' slated eyes bulged out in realization with only two words in response. "The well!"
"Search near the well!" He added, ordering a few other soldiers in a prompt manner.
William could suddenly feel a sudden worry fill his eyes and an unfamiliar pang of worry for the fellow soldier formed within him as him along with Wilkins and the other few soldiers set foot onto the pebbled ground where the well stood before their very eyes. He could only still see the very image of Blythe's contemplative sadness,and before she could even make a single thought, an inebriated Captain Bordon had forced her into the well, taunting William to just leave her to die.
"The rope!" A fellow soldier shouted as a few more tugged at the seemingly overweighed twiny rope that was bound to break, until Emsworth intervened in time; pulling out a drenched, lifeless body that now hung by neck at the tearing rope. Before his eyes, William was faced with the dripping corpse of one of his very own... Consumed with a fatal, irreversible guilt that deluged his very core with regret...