Sharing A Bed - Part 1
Sep. 6th, 2021 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rix_scaeduMiss Hester Vanns was enjoying her evening. Seven years of following the drum after she'd missed evacuation from Luggonia with her family by a mere hairsbreadth had left her with a wide acquaintance among the Army's officers, but very sparse connections here in her homeland. Consequently, her day had looked up considerably when, on stopping for lunch and to rest her horse, she'd found three of her military friends already at The King's Stag in Marshlow breaking their own journey. Ross and Munro were heading home to the Northern Marches, sharing company and the expenses of a carriage until their routes diverged. Hogan, however, seemed to just be along for the ride - he was from the Western Isles and offered no reason for venturing into the Northern Marches except opportunity and wanderlust.
Hester, who had a better idea than many of the army duties these three had carried out in the past few years, took all their explanations with a large grain of salt. She suspect that knowing what they were doing wouldn't make her any happier and explained that she, herself, was going north to look at a piece of property. With a view to settling down.
She'd added, "After a mere week of living with my mother, brother, and sister-in-law I can tell you that if it was a permanent arrangement, there would be murder within a month."
The three older men had given her looks that she suspected had mirrored her own, and they'd agreed to travel together on the road north. For company. It wasn't until they'd the left The Stag that Hester realised that the others were travelling with two coaches, not one, the second carrying a servant for each of them and luggage. They, in their turn, were surprised that she was travelling on her own without any servant at all.
"This is not," said Ewan Ross sternly, "Luggonia or Lusitania. You can't go careening around the countryside alone without a chaperone, maid, or even a groom to give you consequence."
Hester gave him a completely different look from her earlier one and replied, "I've got a sword, a rifle, and two pistols to give me consequence. And the coin to pay my shot so I don't have to throw my consequence around."
"People will talk, and not in a good way," replied Ross.
"I'm sure they talked all the way through Luggonia, Lusitania, and Tolosateh but never within my hearing." She gave him a cheeky grin.
"It might make finding a suitable husband difficult," observed Ross.
"My mother, grandmothers, sisters and sister-in-law all assure me that I'm too old and too unconformable to try my chances on the Marriage Mart," Hester told him wryly. "They think I should go and live with Cousin Portia as her companion."
James Hogan said slowly, "I understood that you had accumulated a certain amount of prize money."
She gave him another cheeky grin. "I thought it best not to mention that. I even went and saw my banker before I arrived on the parental doorstep."
"Have you told them that you're on your way to look at real estate?" Hogan poured himself another glass of wine.
"No." Hester's reply was airy. "I told them that I had to go away on a matter of business, and that I intended to be back in a month or so. Then I made sure I had packed everything I owned, and stopped at the mantua maker's on my way out of town to pay my bill, and for her to store my clothes until I get back."
"That sounds...almost vindictive," commented Munro as he addressed the last of the ham on his plate.
"In five years they couldn't find the funds or organise the paperwork to get me back from Luggonia," pointed out Hester, "but they could have an extensive social life and three big weddings. Somehow I don't trust my family to have my best interests at heart."
"You've a point," agreed Munro. "Although if you'd come back here sooner, there's some fine work that wouldn't have been done."
"Thank you. I take that as a true compliment, given that you paid me for a lot of it." They'd all laughed at that and then agreed to travel together on their way north.
Which was how they came to be dining and then drinking together at The Wheatsheaf in Owsenham. Dinner was a pigeon pie, beef stew, and a pear tart with cream, all washed down by a good red wine. Whisky followed. Two glasses of whisky later, Hester realised that she had reached her limits and made her goodnights. As she was wearing her customary male attire of breeches, she used the jakes before requesting a jug of hot water be brought up to her room for her ablutions and that another come up in the morning.
Hester had only taken off her coat and boots when there was a knock on the door. "It's me, miss," the landlady's voice announced, "with the water you wanted."
Hester cautiously opened the door, verified that it was the landlady, and let her in.
"Hot water, as you asked, miss," the other woman said cheerfully as she put it on the stand behind the privacy screen, adding confidingly, "This is me done for the day. One of the advantages of having a grown son is that the husband and I can get to bed before midnight and still have someone up to deal with any business that might happen late. Breakfast will be in your parlor in the morning, although the time might depend on when your friends get themselves finished up down there."
"It might," agreed Hester, suddenly realising that she didn't know whether the other three would be up all night or following a routine closer to their behaviour on a military campaign. Deciding that it didn't matter, she bade the landlady good night, locked the door behind her, then performed her own routine of stripping off her clothes, folding or hanging them up, and ablutions. Finally, clad in a nightshirt, she snuffed out the candles, and went to bed.
She woke feeling warm, comfortable and snuggly. The bolster against her back and the heavy drape of blankets and coverlet across her torso were contributing greatly to the comfortable warmth.
Then she remembered that there hadn't been a bolster in the bed when she'd gotten into it. The weight across her torso was an arm with its hand sitting on her chest under her left breast. Someone was breathing warm and rhythmic puffs of air against the back of her neck.
Hester wished that nightshirts didn't ride up the way they did, and carefully turned over. Mungo Munro didn't look bad while he was asleep, but without his wakeful animation, his face looked tired. He didn't smell bad either, even as he muttered something as he settled back down after her movements had disturbed him. Part of that settling down pulled her towards him as his arm tightened. Hester didn't think that was a good idea, so she said, quietly but firmly, "Munro, you need to wake up."
She seemed not to have made an impression, so she tried, "Colonel Munro, you need to wake up."
That seemed to produce some eye movement, but his lids stayed closed, so she tried for more snap, while still keeping the volume down because she didn't want to rouse the whole inn. "Mungo Munro, you need to wake up right now!"
That worked. His eyes opened with a surprised look, and she started asking, "What are-" when a scream rent the air from outside the room.
Hester, Munro, and Munro's batman who'd been sleeping on a truckle bed at the side of the room all sat and threw themselves out of bed. All three of them had had too much experience of events that had involved screams like that. Hester shoved her bare feet into her boots, pulled on and did up her greatcoat, and grabbed her sword. Munro and Stirling, the batman, were wearing banyans and their boots, and carrying loaded pistols when they met her at the door. Hester drew her sword.
Munro said, "Stirling, you get the door. Vanns, you go first - that sword'll do no good behind me - and I'll aim over your shoulder." They arranged themselves, Munro said, "Now," and the door opened.
A man's back was to her. His right arm was at an angle that suggested he was using a knife or pistol to threaten the lady clasped to his chest by his left arm. He spoke with a distinct burr to his voice, "Now all of you nice people let us pass and the lady here will come to no harm at my hands."
Ross and Hogan stood in the door to Ross' room, offset across the corridor from Hester's room. A woman was crying further up the hallway on Hester's left, and she could see that at least one person was further down the hall on her right, mostly obscured from her view by the door frame. Hester brought her blade up and lay the slashing edge against the man's neck and he instantly stilled.
"No harm at your hands is not a promise of no harm at all," observed Hester calmly. "I don't know what is going on here, but why don't you give your weapon to the nice man in the blue banyan," by which she meant Ross. "Then you can release the lady, and we can all go down to the taproom and discuss this calmly over breakfast. Otherwise, well, we both know that I don't have to take your head off to kill you with this thing."
"You don't know what you're interfering in," warned the man.
"I know that," agreed Hester. "But if this were official in any way, this is not how you'd be going about it. I suspect that you're getting good money for this because it's illegal and possibly dangerous. Is it good enough money that you'll die for it?"
"You wouldn't." The burred voiced man sounded certain.
"I would. I could give you names that could attest to that, but the dead aren't a talkative bunch. How much Francien and Occitan do you speak?" Hester paused and added, "Seven years gives witnesses time to accumulate."
The man swore. "What do you think you are? A soldier or summat?"
"Or something," agreed Hester. "Now, give your weapon to the man in the blue banyan and release the lady."
"Doing what she says is your best chance of walking away from this alive," chimed in Hogan from behind Ross. "None of us are inclined to be gentle with someone who goes around abducting ladies."
"Give me your pistol," said Ross calmly, holding out his empty left hand. "It's your best chance of living to see tomorrow."
"You'll shoot me if I don't." The man was beginning to sound defeated.
"Oh, I won't shoot you," replied Ross. "The man behind the lady with the sword will shoot you in the back of the head, while she cuts your throat. Your death won't be at my hands at all."
With a sigh, the man handed his pistol to Ross, and released his grip on a middle-aged woman in a dark green carriage dress. She stepped away from him, and then Hogan and Munro stepped forward to take the man in hand. After a certain amount of stepping back and forward required by the limited space and the number of people, Hester found herself standing beside the middle-aged woman and her still sobbing friend. Good manners, good social manners, required that the person with the lesser rank wait until the person of higher rank that they had not previously met acknowledged them. Realising that she was probably about to put her foot in it, Hester decided that in this case the less distressed person should offer help to the distressed, "Ladies, do you require further assistance? Do you wish to return to your rooms? Or would you rather seek breakfast down below? I am Miss Hester Vanns, most recently of the Continental Treaty Forces." She inclined her head to indicate a bow.
"Miss...Vanns? The lady who been held captive looked her up and down. "You have not yet put away your sword." Her accent placed her in the gentility, possibly higher.
"It occurs to me, ma'am, that the man who grabbed you probably isn't working alone. I suspect that we are not yet done with the morning's excitement. So, back to your room or downstairs." Hester waited for the older woman's reply.
The crying woman, whose sobs were easing and wore a puce carriage dress, put one hand on her friend's arm and said, "Kitty, if there are more of them, perhaps we should go back to your room and lock the door?"
"Lydia, that one knew where to find me," replied the woman in green. "I think I want to go downstairs and question him."
Hester offered, "Perhaps I should go first? Just in case."
The older woman in green nodded. "That might be wise. If you would, please, Miss Vanns." She indicated that Hester should go in front of them, and so she did.
Hester took care not to clatter down the steps to the ground floor. Under the circumstances she saw no need to let anyone know they were coming, and she wanted to hear what she could of what was going on in the taproom before they arrived. A lot of what she heard was the man with the burr in his voice complaining loudly about the tightness of his bonds and the uncomfortableness of his seat. She held up her left hand and the scabbard it was holding to get the two older ladies to stop. She turned and spoke quietly to them. "Go back and wait out of sight on the landing. He's being a bit too noisy - as if he's trying to tell someone what's going on. I'm going to check the back of the building in case he's got friends there. The last thing we want is to get you caught between two groups of enemies."
Hester went quietly down the stairs and turned towards the kitchens instead of the taproom. Behind her she could hear the murmurs of Munro and Ross, and the much louder words of their prisoner. In front of her, well she would have expected the kitchen to be much louder at this time of day, preparing to provide guests with hot water and breakfast. She couldn't hear the sounds of work or conversation, so she when she looked around the door frame, she wasn't surprised to see a man on her left pointing two pistols at the staff huddled opposite him on her right. Arms at her sides, she stepped forward a little and said cheerfully, "Ah, I see you're all busy then."
The man with the pistols gestured with the one nearest Hester and said, "In you come then, and be quiet about it." He sounded like someone who'd learned to speak almost like a gentleman, but not quite.
Hester replied, "No!" and stepped backwards back into the hall and out of his sight.
He swore, dashed into the doorway and, keeping his left pistol pointing into the kitchen, pointed his pistol at Hester and fired. Hester, however, was still moving, and he missed, hitting the wall behind her on the other side of the hall from the door. She brought her sword up, aiming the tip at his right arm pit, and said, "I suggest that you surrender."
"Bugger off." He threw the pistol in his right at her, and as she dodged, he stepped back and brought the left hand one around to bear on her. Hester threw her scabbard in his face and dodged, while he fired in reaction to the incoming object.
"You're attracting more attention," she advised him. "You should surrender now and get it over with."
He threw the second pistol at her while drawing his sword with his right hand. "I don't think so." He slashed out at her, and she blocked the longer, heavier weapon, then retreated half a step to keep herself out of his best attacking range.
They repeated the sequence, Hester using the confinement of the hall and her ability to retreat to keep herself out of trouble while also attacking just enough to stop him simply backing off and retreating through the kitchen. The balancing act was made harder by his extra reach on top of the advantages he had with the longer and heavier sabre against her sword bayonet, but she managed to lead him down the hall towards the taproom, making sure she kept his attention as they went past the stairs. It wasn't easy, and Hester knew that his advantages could easily end her in bloody brutality, but it seemed to her that her opponent hadn't as much recent experience with a sword as she did. She made him keep moving, because if he had time to think, then she was in trouble. If she could get him into the taproom, well then he would be the one in trouble.
She yielded her way backwards into the taproom and worked just that little bit harder to maintain his attention on her and only her. One more step back, and she grabbed a chair to throw at him with her left hand. As his attention was split between her two actions, Ross stepped up, pointed his pistol at the man's head, cocked it, and said, "Have done, sir, or I will shoot you."
He swung his head around, and Hester prepared to block him if he went back on the attack, the wooden chair back still in her left hand. The man looked down the barrel of Ross' pistol, flicked his eyes around the room, then looked back at Ross. "Very well, sir."
"You will surrender your sword," Ross told him firmly. He spoke to his batman, "Grant, take this man's weapon."
Grant, an older man with short hair and in a brown dressing gown, stepped forward offering his hand and said, "If you would be so kind, sir."
"Of course." The man took two steps towards Grant, Ross' pistol still pointing at him, and reversed his sword to hand it to Grant hilt first. Suddenly, and he was quick, he took the next two steps quickly, punched Grant in the face with his left hand, then grabbed at him with his left hand.
That was when Hester hit him in the back with the chair.
He released Grant, turned and lunged at her, then she blocked. Then she attacked, using every useful dirty trick she knew. This time she wasn't trying to lure him anywhere and she accepted that he wasn't going to quietly surrender, no matter what his situation. She suspected that he was used to being the most ruthless person in the room. He was trying to overbear her with his heavier weapon, but he was offsetting his own advantages with bad technique and a lack of experience. Hester grabbed another chair with her left hand and used it as a shield and distraction, which was how she managed to take first blood on his left side.
He flinched, and she attacked again. He scrambled to back his way to the outside door, and asked, as he parried, blocked, and tried to smash his sword down on her, "Who the hell taught you to fight?"
"Some friends, and a lot of Brumairean soldiers who tried to kill me over the past few years." She attacked again. "You could surrender."
He blocked. She attacked again, and he back pedalled. He was just out the door when he made his mistake - the sword caught in the wood of the chair, she pushed the sword and the hand that held it to one side, and then she brought her sword down on his forearm.
The hand remained on the sword hilt, held there by the knucklebow, and Hester's opponent stared for a half a moment at the profusely bleeding remnant of his forearm, then turned and fled across the courtyard towards the gate. Hester dropped the chair et al and started after him. The man was within yards of getting away, when two familiar male figures of her own age strolled through the gate, wearing riding clothes. Without even wondering why they were there, Hester shouted, "Prescott! Luton! Stop him!"
The tall, lanky one made a seeming casual motion, and punched the fleeing man in the stomach. His stockier companion grabbed the man by his right arm as he began to straighten, looked down at where the hand should be, and said, "I don't know what's going on here, but let's get that bleeding stopped."
The lanky one grabbed the man's other arm and, looking over at Hester, said cheerfully, "Vanns! Fancy seeing you here! I thought that was His Excellency I saw in the stable. Business as usual, then?"
Hester managed a genuine smile. "Apparently it's a very small world. Preston, Luton, thank you for that. If this was business as usual, I would have managed breakfast first. Can we get this one back inside so we can get his bleeding stopped and get some answers?"
Liberal internal and external applications of brandy, and the sacrifice of an old, clean sheet got the bleeding stopped while the local surgeon and the magistrate were sent for. Hester retrieved her scabbard and wiped down her sword with a remnant of sheet while her friends, Captains Harry Prescott and James Luton took turns explaining how they'd wound up in Owsenham at an hour when they'd have preferred to be in bed.
"M'father's a bit annoyed with me," admitted Harry. "I think he thought I would to be sore and sorry for myself after getting up early enough to leave the house at first light. Don't think her realizes how much of my last few summers have been rouse at two and march at dawn."
"He seems to think that you need saving from yourself," pointed out James. "I'm not sure what he thought you'd be like after the last few years campaigning. Speaking of which, our fathers should be here any moment. What are Ross, Munro, and Hogan doing here?" He motioned with his chin at the group of older men clustered around the prisoners.
"I ran into them at an inn yesterday," replied Hester. "They're travelling north on their business, I'm travelling north on my own business at about the same speed, so we decided to travel together. Which reminds me, I need to have a conversation with Munro. If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I'm going to organise some hot water and go clean up in my room. I suspect that my day is going to be spent largely talking to officials, and I'm really not dressed for that."
Hester went and found the landlady who was busy directing the serving staff and examining the bullet holes in her walls. "Excuse me, ma'am," Hester interrupted politely.
"Yes, miss?" The harassed woman turned around with a professional smile on her face. "I'm sorry about this morning, miss. This is a respectable house and we've never had anything like this happen before."
"I'm sure you haven't," Hester gave her an equally professional smile back. "Are you and your staff alright? Was anyone harmed?"
"A few bruises, miss. Thank you for asking. When he shot at you, I thought he'd killed you for sure." The woman put her hand over her heart.
Hester leaned closer and answered her with a confidential, "I've had a little experience dodging being shot at, and a lot of luck. Could I please have a can of hot water brought up to my room? I suspect I'll be speaking to the magistrate when he arrives, and this is not the impression I want to be making." She indicated herself with a sweep of her hand.
"I'll get Mary on that right away, miss." The landlady gave her a kind smile this time. "And you might want to give her what you're wearing to bring down here to the laundry, miss. So we can get at the blood before it sets."
"Blood?" Hester looked down at herself and remembered what had happened when she'd ended the fight. "Oh, of course there's blood."
"We should have breakfast ready by the time you come down again, miss," added the landlady comfortingly. "I'm sure that well all feel better with a bit to eat."
"Yes, thank you, I'm sure you're right," murmured Hester, realising that yes, she was feeling drained and hungry. "I'll go up to my room and wait on that hot water."