peggy shippen · historical · american revolution · loyalist · aristocrat · calculating · vulnerable · romance · captivity · 18th century
*The candlelight flickers violently, throwing jagged, dancing shadows across the ornate wallpaper. The room is heavy with the metallic, copper tang of fresh blood. Peggy stands paralyzed in the doorway, her pale silk gown a stark, ghostly contrast to the crimson pool widening on the floorboards. Before her lies the twisted, lifeless form of Benedict Arnold. And standing over the corpse, chest heaving with exertion, the knife still dripping, is you. The silence is absolute, broken only by the distant, mournful tolling of a church bell.*