rix_scaedu

So, I wrote 16,000 words to the “Share A Bed” prompt on my trope bingo card. That was…unexpected. To present it in more manageable pieces, I divided it into four parts and the links to the other parts are here: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; and Part 4.

For those who care about such things, this is a new world, just a little sideways from this one. It’s mid-July 1816. The Battle of Waterloo was thirteen months ago, and this is The Year Without A Summer.

The ceremony itself was brief. Major Hogan took an avuncular role and supported the bride, while Colonel Ross was best man. Munro supplied a signet ring to act as the wedding band, and Harry Prescott held the bride's document portfolio throughout the ceremony. The ceremony ended with Munro kissing Hester on the cheek and then on her bare hand, followed by a lot of handshaking and back slapping by their friends. Afterwards, the Douglases took the newlyweds back to the manse to get the copies of their marriage lines while everyone else went back to the inn. Hester found it all a little anticlimactic, but her name had changed, and that seemed an odd thing.

Hester Munro was a stranger for now, but that was who she’d become. She began to better understand why people made weddings into such big events when they could - it made the changes that happened to the principals' lives afterwards seem to be reasonable consequences of what had taken place.

When the document copies were in their possession, the Munros walked back to The Wheatsheaf together. "We need to buy you a trunk," said Munro conversationally, "and hire you a lady's maid. I know that you've been living out of a small valise and two saddlebags for years, you've told me that often enough, but you don't have to anymore. Besides, I have a coach at my disposal, so you don't have to carry everything around on His Excellency."

"I could use the trunk to store the valise for now," agreed Hester. "It would be nice to have someone to look after my clothes, too. I've never had a maid to myself before."

"A groom as well," went on Munro. "Someone who'll appreciate that horse of yours - you forgot to list him as one of your assets when we were talking earlier."

"Stud fees could be a source of income," Hester acknowledged. "I don't know what this property I've come into is like. I think 'so far west, it's almost north of the Western Isles' was mentioned. Mind you, on the continent they think that this is the largest of the Western Isles."

"I remember those discussions," Munro sighed. "If this property is that far west, it's probably in western Argyll. Are you sure it isn't on an island?"

"I don't know that it's not on an island," replied Hester. "Surely someone would have mentioned that?"

Munro asked, "What did they mention?"

"The entail," replied Hester. She looked at him shyly, "As we're married, I hope you don't mind helping me with that." She added fiercely, "I really don't want the property to go to my father or my brother."

"I think we can arrange something." Munro looked at her for a moment, "As you said, we are married. Would you mind being a respectable married lady in skirts and petticoats?"

"I would like to be a respectable married lady in skirts and petticoats," confessed Hester. "Except when I'm riding His Excellency. But I like pretty clothes, and I want to dance at balls, and visit, and not be awkward because I'm not what people expect...one way or another." Her voice faded off and then she said, "It's not that I'm ungrateful but I would like to at least try a life more like the one I expected to have when I was younger."

"As the wife of a half pay colonel with an independence, a property of her own, and a hopeful family?" He took one of her hands, without making her drop her portfolio, and tucked it into his elbow.

"I assumed that if we had a property, then it would be my husband's," said Hester. "My father doesn't have a property, so where would I get one? Besides, you're travelling around with Ross and Hogan, and you expect me to believe that the three of you are completely inactive?" She turned a direct gaze on him, "Or is that not a conversation we should be having in public?"

He patted her hand. "Mrs Munro, you are a suspicious woman."

"Colonel Munro, I've known you for nearly a third of my life and something like a sixth of yours. Are you telling me that I don't have reason to be suspicious?" Hester squeezed his arm. "Neither of us are idiots, and I trust you, it's just that I strongly suspect that there are things you can't tell me."

"There are probably always going to be things about my work in the Army that I can't tell you," admitted Munro, "but I will tell you about matters that I believe may affect your safety or that of our wider household."

"Fair enough," acknowledged Hester. "Our wider household sounds quite grand, doesn't it?"

She was still smiling over that when they walked into The Wheatsheaf to be met by the landlady. "Ma'am, I need to apologise," the woman said to Hester. "That fool boy of mine never thought to ask whether you minded sharing rooms. Even two friends might not want to share a room, and... I'm just glad, ma'am, that your gentleman is a proper gentleman when all's said and done. I'm so sorry for all the trouble my son's caused you both."

Hester didn't know what to say. Blithely reassuring the woman that her son's actions had caused no inconvenience or damage was clearly not appropriate. Likewise claiming any severe or long-lasting injury to her reputation or person was equally inappropriate because marriage to Munro was objectively a good match. She turned to Munro for inspiration, and it was he who replied to the landlady, "We know it was no fault of you or your husband, madam, but your son should count himself lucky to have avoided a horsewhipping, or worse. If he had put another man into the lady's room, someone might have been run through or shot - either by the lady at the time or by one of her friends in the morning. None of the resulting fuss would have reflected well on this inn."

"Oh, and don't I know it, sir." The woman curtsied. "Thank you for being so forbearing sir. Will there be anything else, sir? Your friends are in the taproom."

Munro passed her a silver coin. "If you could see your way to arranging a bath and bath water in our room this evening, I'm sure Mrs Munro would like to bathe after her exertions this morning. Also, would it be possible to arrange a bed for my servant elsewhere in the inn?"

The landlady looked at the coin. "The bath water, certainly, sir. I think I can find a bed for your man, if he doesn't mind sharing a room with my idiot son."

"That sounds reasonable," replied Munro and he ushered Hester towards the taproom.

The taproom was fuller than Hester had expected. Stirling, Grant, and Hogan's man, O'Shaughnessy, were eating at a table near the fireplace with an older man Hester thought was probably the duke's valet. The dowagers stood in the middle of the room conversing with a young man in a many-caped greatcoat who seemed to be a recent arrival. Captains Luton and Prescott stood to one side of them, and a table stacked with small packages suggested that the ladies had shopped on their way back to the inn. Across the fireplace from the eating servants, the duke and Lord Edmund stood conversing with Sir Henry with the ladies between them and the younger men. There were other, more roughly dressed, men in the room: two at a table near the hallway that led to the stairs and kitchen; two more in the corner table under the windows on Hester's right; and three more in the fourth corner of the room, next to a window and near the end of the bar.

As Hester and Munro walked in, the newcomer speaking to the ladies was saying, "Naturally, Grandmama, I came as soon as I heard about your difficulties with your coach." Hester saw the duke stiffen and half turn, while the captains both dropped a hand into one of their pockets. A man at each of the tables on Hester's right began to stand.

Harry Prescott asked, "So, Lord Nethervale, just how did you hear about your grandmother's coach accident?"

At the same moment Ross and Hogan breezed into the room from the hallway that led to the stairs. Hogan, the two men on Hester's right directly in his sight, called out cheerfully, "Macwhirter and MacMahon! What are you two rogues doing here?"

While Lord Nethervale seemed to have trouble finding the right words, there was quiet swearing in two Gaelic languages from Hester's right, the two captains produced pocket pistols, O'Shaunessy put down his utensils and turned to face the room, and Hogan put a hand into one of the large pockets in his extravagant, and slightly old-fashioned coat. Ross, having flicked his eyes around the room, turned his attention to the two men at the table immediately to his left. Munro sighed and Hester wished that being wise after the fact wasn't so annoying - she'd not thought to carry a loaded pistol to her own wedding.

Harry Prescott continued on. "I know that no messengers have been sent to anyone about the coach's damage. The only people who could have told you that your grandmother is here are the people who left in a hurry this morning after the failed abduction attempt." He brought his pistol up to bear on Lord Nethervale's face. "Please don't let your men do anything foolish, I am a very good shot." Hester found nothing unusual about the tone in Prescott's voice or the expression on his face, but the expression on the older Prescott's face said that he had never seen his son like this before.

James Luton half turned so he could watch the table of men near the bar and said, "Sir Henry, as magistrate you may wish arrest Lord Nethervale for, oh, criminal damage, attempted murder and attempted abduction before he starts boring us all with his reasons."

"Excellent idea," said Ross. "After having to suffer through all those maudlin self-justifications from Stone and Haberfield, I've no desire for more of the same either."

"You can't arrest me!" burst out Lord Nethervale. "I'm a peer of the realm!"

"Actually," cut in the duke, "we can't be arrested in connection with civil matters. We are subject to arrest for criminal matters, and all three of the charges Captain Prescott listed are most definitely crimes. You do have the right to be tried by the House of Lords instead of the Assizes, of course, but do you want to be tried by a body that contains so many who know and respect your grandmother and Lady Allanford?"

Lord Nethervale drew himself up, "And who are you, sir? The local magistrate?"

"No, that would be Sir Henry Luton," the duke indicated that gentleman. "I'm Teviotdale and Hithe."

"Duke." The younger man bowed.

"I suggest you bend your mind to engaging a very good barrister," replied the duke. "Rest assured that the trial will mean that your personal affairs will be torn apart in public."

The Dowager Lady Netherdale seemed to collapse in on herself and grasped her friend's forearm for support. "Oh, this can't end well, can it? Not for you, Richard, and not for the family. I know your mother doesn't like me, but endangering my servants and abduction?"

He snarled back at her, "The estate needs your jointure back. There's not enough money for anything, and all because my grandfather left you a ridiculous annual income. Getting that money back is the only way to bring us around."

"Did your mother tell you that, or was it someone else?" Lady Netherdale seemed to rally a little. "My jointure wasn't set by your grandfather's will, it’s in our marriage contract, and it was funded by my father's settlements on me. I can assure you that when I die, the money does not go to the estate."

Sir Henry spoke up, "I think it might be best if Lord Netherdale comes with me." He cast an eye over the other men in the room. "At this point I think it best that the rest of you come along for questioning as well - you may have valuable information to explain this morning's events and I think that your co-operation is worth a decent meal. Colonel Ross, Major Hogan, Captains Prescott and Luton, if you could assist me in moving these men, I would be grateful. Ladies, if you will excuse us?" He nodded his head to the dowagers, then to Hester, before organising his column of prisoners. Munro and Hester joined the duke and Lord Edmund near the fireplace and watched Netherdale and his men file out under guard.

Lady Allanford took her friend upstairs to their room to rest before lunch, saying that she would send their maids down for the parcels. The duke waited until they could no longer hear the ladies on the stairs and said quietly, "And now we shall have to wait to see what happens with Netherdale. He's not married, so there are no children to worry about. There's a younger brother in the navy and I've heard no ill of him, but their mother was one of the Widnes Mottrams and that family's always had an odd streak in it. Perfectly charming, most of them. Occasionally obsessive and/or brilliant. One or two very nasty pieces of work in the family tree."

It was Hester who asked, "Is it likely he's one of the ones who should be confined?"

"Can't say," replied the duke. "I worry that his mother might have intentionally set him off on this. Possibly we'll find that she should be confined."

"It is possible," agreed Munro. "It would be interesting to know exactly what he told those men he hired."

Hester said confidently, "I'm sure Major Hogan will find out. MacMahon and Macwhirter were his men from when they were all part of the rear guard in Luggonia, until they were finally repatriated from the Peninsula with their original regiments - Limerick Fusiliers and Highland 12th Foot, if I remember rightly. They were both with him in the Belgian campaign last year, wearing engineer blue when I saw them, but none of us had time to do more than say hello in passing."

Lord Edmund asked, "If they're Hogan's men, then what are they doing working for Netherdale?"

"His men," replied Munro, "but paid by the army and thus by the crown. The crown doesn't need so large an army, hence mass discharges. For Hogan to employ them, he would need something for them to do and at the moment he's between ventures himself. They're working for Netherdale because he has work they'll do that he'll pay them for."

"Not enough work to go around, or so I hear. Between the weather and so many being put out of the army." put in Hester. "Mutterings all along the road from Dover to Lundun, then from Lundun to here. It's cold and wet the length of the country since Easter, so living rough is a poor option."

"No doubt Sir Henry will be having more of these fellows up before him," observed Lord Edmund.

"It must be difficult being a magistrate in hard times," commented Hester. "What do you do when you know that the crime was the only way for someone to put food on the table to feed themselves and their children?"

"That is what the parish poor houses are for," replied Lord Edmund.

Hester countered, "And what if there is no food for the poor houses to feed their inmates with?"

Munro put a restraining hand on Hester's arm and said, "Miss - Mrs Munro had occasion to see the results of enemy foraging expeditions behind their lines in the Peninsula. She once left General Cassagne a note asking for the direction of his ham supplier."

Lord Edmund looked at her in surprise, "You stole ham from a general?"

"He was one of the enemy," pointed out Hester. "And he stole it first. Besides, the ham wasn't all I took. Various of our staff officers were very happy to read over his correspondence for him."

"I'm sure they were," put in the duke with a chuckle. "Did you just pick up all his papers?"

"Everything that was in his portfolio - I was in a bit of a hurry," admitted Hester. "I rather hoped that the missing ham, drink, and clean socks would distract his attention from the absence of the papers for a while."

"I said everything of importance I had to say about the matter at the time," said Munro. "Stealing ham was not what she was supposed to be about," he told the other two men.

"I was supposed to lure him into sending out a patrol and he was a hard man to lure. I had to escalate/" retorted Hester. “You keep bringing it up so I think you just like to imagine how angry the man got as he discovered one thing gone after another...."

The duke, still apparently amused, asked, "What else did you take from what I take to have been General Cassagne's personal quarters?"

"Aside from his papers, an almost complete ham, two bottles of wine, a bottle of brandy, and all his clean socks?" Hester shrugged, "Just a satchel for the wine. I could only carry so much."

Munro gave her a hard look.

Hester added unrepentedly, "I was told to be annoying."

"You weren’t asked to go into the enemy camp." Munro gave her another hard look.

Hester gave him a look back. "Not by you and not then." She flashed a smile at him.

Munro took a firm hold of Hester's upper arm. "Excuse us please, gentlemen." He gave them a courtesy nod. "My wife and I need to have a discussion, in private. Hester, come with me please. Now."

Hester looked at him, surprised. "Of course." She turned back to the other two men and bowed, "Gentlemen."

Munro walked her out of the taproom, up the stairs and into their room, where Stirling was organising clothing. Munro spoke first, "Stirling, out. Take whatever needs doing and go do it somewhere else. Mrs Munro and I need to have a private conversation."

"Very good, sir." Stirling picked up several garments and what looked like a sewing kit, before walking out the door. Munro closed and locked the door behind the batman, put the key in his coat pocket, and walked back to Hester.

She put up a hand to stop him from getting too close as reached her and said, "I understand that you're angry, but I don't understand why you're angry now about something that happened five years ago or why you're angry about it."

Munro replied through a clenched jaw. "You were eighteen and a young lady. I instructed you, against my better judgement, to annoy the enemy and draw out a scouting party. I told you not to risk capture. I gave you a list of things I did not want you to do. You did several of those things. At the time I thought it was youthful overenthusiasm for the job, which was annoying but understandable. Now I find out that someone else gave you other instructions for that mission. What I want to know is who countermanded my instructions and," he'd circled around her now and was speaking quietly in her right ear, "how often did it happen?"

"Nairn, mainly. Sometimes my instructions came directly from the person who gave him his orders." She turned her head to look him in the eye. "I took on that work when there was no-one else to do it and I kept doing it without a uniform to protect me. I have always appreciated that all of you thought I was worthy of respect, and I did my best to earn and keep it."

He out a hand on either side of the back of her head and kissed her hard on the mouth. When he'd finished, he said, "If Nairn or anyone else comes to you about that sort of work again, refer them to me."

Hester put the fingertips of one hand up to her mouth. "Yes, Mungo. But if they come to you, I want you to come to me. I can't watch your back if I don't know what's going on."

"Watch my back?" He looked sceptical.

"Someone has to make sure that no-one's going through your papers in your office while you're out doing things, Mungo Munro." She leaned in and carefully kissed him back. "I think that's my job now."

"Do you?" He kissed her again. "Do you want to put down those papers?"

"If we're going to discuss marital...responsibilities, that could be a very good idea." Hester broke away for a moment to stow the portfolio in a saddlebag, and to drop her gloves and hat on top of her small pile of luggage. "Now, what else do we need to discuss?" She smiled as she put her arms around him.