Green

[rix_scaedu]

I wrote this to my Trope Bingo prompt “Green”.  Naturally what my brain wanted to write was a follow on to Sharing a Bed instead of something about, oh, plants.  This means that it is set in a world just to one side of ours in the year 1816.  Dunedin is Edinburgh and Lundun is London.  The story came in at 5,807 words and I hope that you enjoy it.

When Mungo Munro was young, his family had kept an apartment in a building on a wynd on the north side of the Old Town, overlooking Gor Loch.  His grandfather had seen property as an investment and purchased a house for the family on Thistle Street, moving their Dunedin base of operations into the New Town.  This New House, as the Munros called it, was where he brought his bride when they and their friends arrived in the city after the journey north from Lundun.  The resident staff had been expecting him because he'd had the sense to write to let them know that he was coming, but his marriage en route had been completely unexpected, so the butler and housekeeper had been astonished to be introduced to a young woman in men's clothing who proved to be Mrs Mungo.  The necessity of identifying which Mrs Munro she was became clear when Mungo discovered that his closest family had come to Dunedin from Balloch to meet him.

None of the family were home when they arrived but there had barely been time for Mungo and Hester to organise themselves and sit down for a tray of tea when the Munro ladies returned from their outing.  The butler was saying something in the hall and then the door swept open and what seemed like a battalion of women swept in led by a fashionably dressed matron with grey hair who came to the height of Mungo's shoulder.  She was followed by a sandy haired lady, a red head, and a very dark brunette.  Mungo and Hester put down their teacups, stood and bowed.  The ladies curtseyed and then the newcomers swept around Mungo, embracing him, and kissing him on the cheek.  Hester had the new experience of seeing Colonel Mungo Munro becoming frazzled.

There was a great deal of exclaiming over his clothes, the state of his apparent health, and how long he'd been gone.  Mungo cast a beseeching look at Hester, but she just shrugged and smiled back at him.  Finally, he said loudly and firmly, "Mother, stop!"

His mother stopped mid-sentence and said, "Yes, dear. Was there something you wanted to say?"  Mungo started to make a gesture in Hester's direction, and his mother turned, then asked, "This must be a friend of yours, Mungo.  Won't you introduce us?"

"Mother," he took a deep breath, "this is my wife, Mrs Hester Munro, formerly Miss Hester Vanns.  I believe I mentioned her in some of my letters home."

Hester bowed in correct form.  For a young gentleman. "Ma'am."

His mother froze.  "Your wife."  She nodded her head in acknowledgment of Hester's greeting.  "Mungo, I think we need to talk in the library.  Alone.  Hester, Katharine, Margaret, and Ellen, if you'll all excuse us."  She led Mungo out of the room, with her arm firmly on his sleeve.

Everyone watched in silence and then Hester said, "I think we're going to need some more cups.  Now, which of you is which?"

In the library Isabel Campbell was fuming at her third son.  "Mungo, what were you thinking?  You have nieces and nephews her age!  She's in my drawing room in men's clothes!"

"I was thinking that because an idiot innkeeper put me in the wrong room in the middle of the night, I owe her the protection of my name.  And before you say anything, she offered to leave me at the altar if I was coming home to someone else."  He gave her a tired smile.  "Besides, it's not as if we're strangers, I've known her since she was sixteen."

"You've been involved with this girl since she was sixteen?"  His mother just looked at him.

"I have known her since she was sixteen.  We were introduced when I arrived in the Peninsula, and she was working as an irregular exploring officer.  Her family had left her behind when they evacuated, no room in the longboat is the story everyone tells, and she was turning her hand to what she could that paid and let her avoid needing anyone's personal protection." Mungo had started pacing, possibly to avoid looking his mother in the eye.  "Yes, she was too young to interest me then, but she was good at her work and worth her pay.  Our entire cadre used her to collect information at one time or another.  She's good with languages, honest, and more hurt and lonely than I had realised until these last few days - her family never gave her any help to get back to them.  I pray that you will be kind to her."  He gave himself a shake, "And now I sound maudlin.  She says that she has clothes being made by a modiste in Lundun and that she is looking forward to the respectable married life she expected to have before her Peninsula experiences."

"I see."  His mother pursed her lips, then asked pointedly, "Does she bring anything to this marriage other than herself, Mungo?"

"She doesn't expect her father to dower her," he replied matter-of-factly, "because she assumes that he's split that money among her other four sisters."  His mother's expression tightened.  "However, she does have ten thousand pounds invested in funds from payments, prize money, and rewards she earned in the Peninsula and on the Continent.  She has one of the finest pieces of Spanish bloodstock you'll see in this country, and apparently she's very recently been bestowed with a piece of property that's been entailed."

His mother's face had relaxed but at that she asked sharply, "Entailed?  What is this property?"

"She says that she doesn't know," Mungo smiled, "but I'm sure she knows more than she's told me so far.  We're to see a man of business about the matter tomorrow.  Happier about the matter now?"

"I'll have to get to know her before I know whether I'm happy about this or not," replied his mother.  "I had thought that you might settle down with one of the Duncan girls, but obviously not.  Is there anything else I should know?"

"Don't try to be clever and try to have a conversation without her by not speaking in English," advised Mungo.  "She can speak, well just assume she can understand most of western Europe."

"It's beginning to sound like you think she's a paragon," remarked his mother, raising her eyebrows.

"Well, she takes me seriously, which is a thing I do appreciate," remarked Mungo.  "Shall we rejoin the others now?"

They walked back into the drawing room to hear Hester assuring her sisters-in-law, "No, really it isn't an honour they hand out to everyone - the only reason Mungo would have written you that is that everyone the Spanish King sent to speak with the Field Marshal was a member.  His Imperial and Christian Majesty chooses his personal representatives to foreign powers from among the Order of the Silver Fleece, and he made Mungo a member."  She let that sit for a moment, and went on, "Mind you, once you're inducted it seems to operate like a club for noblemen.  They exchange social invitations, discuss horses, play cards together, all that sort of thing."  She turned in her seat towards Mungo and his mother as they re-entered the room then stood and said, "Mungo, I was just explaining to your sisters about The Most Noble Order of the Silver Fleece.  Has the Spanish Minister in Lundun invited you to dine with him yet?  I know he's a member too."

"Is he likely to?"  Mungo considered and added, "I don't think I know him."

"Don Vicente, Marquess of Belmonte?  His wife, Dona Maria Francesca and her lady's maid taught me how to put my hair up properly our first winter in the Peninsula."  Hester's forehead creased as she thought.  "I was billeted in their house with Major Hogan and Brigadier Brownsmith's staff for our first winter in the Peninsula but I think you were working more towards Lusitania at that point.  Lieutenant Cleary and I found them to be very kind, and we were sent back to liaise with Don Vicente the following year when the army was west of the mountains for the winter."

"I don't believe I've ever met him," replied Mungo.  "I spent that second winter in Lisboa, and after that I didn't go back to Luggonia."

"You can probably expect an invitation then, when next you're in Lundun," replied Hester.

"Do you have a wide acquaintance in Lundun, then Hester?"  It was Robert's wife, the dark-haired Ellen who asked that.

Hester replied carefully, "What I have is a wide acquaintance among the regiments that made up the Peninsula Army and then the army Albion fielded in the Belgium campaign.  It would probably be fair to say that I have a county's worth of acquaintance, it's just rather more spread out these days."

Mungo's sister Katherine asked, "Did any of them attend the wedding?"

"I suspect," said David's red-haired wife, Margaret, "that the two of them won't want to repeat the story too many times today.  Should we wait for our men to get back before Mungo and Hester go into that?"

Conveniently, that was when Andrew Munro and his sons, Robert and David, arrived.  There were a lot of masculine exclamations, back slapping, and a father and son hug.  The preliminaries done with, Andrew said jovially, "And I suppose that prime piece of horseflesh in the stables is yours?"

"No, that belongs to my wife.  Father," Mungo walked over to where Hester was standing on the periphery of the group, "this is Hester.  Hester, this is my father, Andrew Munro, the Munro of Balloch."

"It's an honour, sir."  Hester bowed.

The old man with Mungo's profile, different eyes, and thirty more years on him looked her up and down and said bluntly in Scottish Gaelic, "Why did you marry a wench in men's clothes with no shape to her, lad?"

Hester shot back in the same language, "There's a long tale to our marriage, sir, but I will say that it's amazing what you can do with the right undergarments."

The entire room just looked at her.

"Well," replied Andrew finally in Gaelic, "you're not shy are you?  Where did you say you come from?"

Hester refrained from pointing out that she hadn't and replied, "I'll need to switch back to English, if you don't mind, because I don't have all the words for this."  Her father-in-law nodded and she went on in English, "My father is Mr Henry Vanns, the younger brother of Sir Charles Vanns of Ewhurst in Surrey.  I am twenty-three years of age and I have not lived with my parents since they were evacuated from Luggonia after the retreat from Madrid and I was not.  In answer to the question of why I was left behind, it was because there wasn't enough room on the boat and the sailors stopped letting anyone else on board when it was my turn to climb in."

It was Ellen who said, "And you parents just left you there?"

Hester flashed her a smile and replied, "They were already on board, there was about four or five inches of freeboard on the longboat so rocking it would have been bad.  Besides which, my parents had my four sisters with them, our governess, the four Lacey children and their governess and nursemaid.  The rest of our servants had either stayed behind or fallen behind....  I was sixteen and a bit, and up to that point I'd been doing what I was told and putting one foot in front of another."

"And what you are now, you started becoming then."  That was Robert.  "My youngest daughter is older than you were then, and I'd not like to see her in your position.  Your father would have had all your papers and money on him, wouldn't he?"

Hester nodded, "Yes."

The ladies looked appalled, and Katherine put her hand to her throat.

"What a minute," exclaimed David, the youngest of the men, "you're the one who gave Mungo the general's socks!"

"Ah, well, yes," confessed Hester.  "I had them and didn't need them myself, so I shared them out among friends who did need them.  Army supplies were a bit short at the time."

Isabel Munro suggested smoothly, "Perhaps we can all sit down and have some more tea, while Mungo and Hester tell us how they came to get married.  Particularly as neither of them seem to have had any idea of doing so before they actually did." She organised everyone into their seats, rang for more cups and refreshments, and them banished the servants from the room.

"Well," began Munro, "I did write to you about it, aaand sent the letter to Balloch."

"As you would if you did not know that we'd come down to Dunedin to meet you and do some business," agreed his father.  "Now, tell us all about it."

So, they did, taking it in turns to fill in particular parts of the story.  At the end they sat and waited for the collected Munros' response.

"Well, that was a full day and no doubt about," commented Andrew.  "Have you sent a notice to the papers yet?"

"We thought it would be best to time a public announcement for after our parents received our letters, sir," replied Hester.  "My father and mother live in Lundun, so we want them to have a day or two's notice before the announcement in The Times."

Mungo asked, "Which of the Dunedin papers would you recommend, Father?"

"Probably best to put the notice in both the Advertiser and the Weekly Journal," replied Andrew replied.

"The presence of a duke and two respectable dowager countesses is something you should draw attention to," said his mother.

Katherine glanced at the clock on the wall and said briskly, "I must be getting home to dress for dinner.   Would all of you care to dine with us tomorrow night? We haven’t seen Mungo in years, we see the rest of you so rarely, and of course I want everyone to meet Hester."

Hester looked at Mungo and he said, "We've business to see to tomorrow but I see no reason that we couldn't dine with you tomorrow night." 

Later, after they'd both used the dressing room, but before they'd gone downstairs to gather with the others before dinner, Hester asked Mungo, "Will Katharine and her husband mind if I come to dinner in these clothes?"  She was wearing her best coat and waistcoat, all in her usual grey and green tones, with a fresh cravat and the peridot headed stick pin.

"Katharine knows that you have a limited wardrobe for now," replied Mungo slowly, aware that the question was leading to something but uncertain as to what.

"Hector might be uncomfortable," pointed out Hester, "and I don't want things to be awkward with your family.  Should I ask your mothers and sisters-in-laws if there are any old clothes stored here that might be suitable?  I have borrowed things to wear when I've been billeted with noble families."

"We could ask my mother what she thinks best," replied Mungo.  "They may not keep old clothes here because none of the family lives here All the time.  They - we all just visit when we have reason to be in Dunedin.  If you do need to borrow something, does it need to be green?"

Hester looked at him and said, "No.  Why do you ask?"

"It's just that ever since I've known you, you've only worn a combination of grey and green.  I assumed it was because green is your favourite colour."

Hester shook her head, a grin on her face and laugh lines around her eyes.  "No, green isn't my favourite colour.  I wear grey with green accents because it fades nicely into the countryside, and that gives me a better chance of observing without being seen.  I get my good clothes in the same colours because eventually they become the clothes I ride around the countryside in."

Mungo looked around the guest room they were occupying.  "So, I needn't have asked for the Green Room to make you happy?"

"Did you, really?  For me?" Hester was looking at him with an intense, rapt, surprised expression that made her look like she'd just received a gift.  "Thank you."

"Yes.  Well.  Perhaps we should go down now," he said offering her his arm.  "We can hope that my father has a decent sherry in his decanters."

"If he doesn't I'm sure that he'll have a good whisky on hand," replied Hester as she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow.  "Think of me when you drink it, I suspect that it won't be served to the ladies after we withdraw.  Speaking of which, I really should taste your brother's product.  Family feeling and all that."

"If you want to try his whisky, I'm sure David will have some around," replied Mungo as he opened the door.  "I don't remember him as a man who'd force it on you to get an opinion, but it's been a year or two, you mind?"

"I do," agreed Hester.  "My grandmothers were shocked that I wasn't still sixteen...."

Mungo patted her hand.  "Let's go and investigate the sherry and whisky situation, shall we?"

Later, they were all assembled in the drawing room and waiting for dinner to be announced, Hester raised the subject of clothes to dine with Katharine in.  In reply, Isabel Munro said, "Well," and stopped.  She started again, "I really don't know what to advise you. Back in Balloch we've chests of things waiting to be remade or altered that you could go through to find something suitable, but we don't keep those things here.  Katharine already knows you have a limited wardrobe, and I wouldn't call Hector overly prudish or priggish."

"It's not as if what you're wearing is overly improper either," added Ellen.  "From the back you could simply be a young man who eschews a fashionable fit to his clothes, particularly if you were wearing a hat to cover your hair."

"Thank you, ma'am," replied Hester giving her a small bow.  "That's exactly the impression I want to give - one that doesn't make people look at me twice.  A useful thing behind enemy lines, I've found."

"If you're in the way of wearing these clothes to such events," put in Robert who'd come over to stand beside his wife, "wear them, and if you wear them with confidence then the potential outlandishness will be much reduced.  I don't believe there will be anyone other than family there tomorrow night, so there won't be anyone there to spread gossip and innuendo."

"I will change my linen and wear a different waistcoat," Hester assured him.

"How many waistcoats do you own?"  That was Ellen again.  "Robert will not let me count his, and neither will our Andrew and David.  James and Alexander are still at an age where they'll take what they're given."

"Four at the moment," admitted Hester.  "Two for best, and two for every day.  Mungo says I must have a trunk for my possessions and I'm looking forward to having gowns.  Enough gowns and things to fill a trunk!  Not bonnets so much - I rather like my Cordovan hat."  The other ladies laughed and then it was time to go into dinner.

The discussion at dinner was a general one, catching Mungo up on local events and explaining to Hester who the characters and personalities were.  She was able to offer a few observations when the families of army officers were involved and of one such gentleman said, "Never sit down to cards with Douglas Campbell if you can't afford to lose the money in your pockets.  He doesn't cheat but he knows when to fold and when to bid, and he actually does it.  I've never heard of him losing across the night.  I hear they made him play naked in the officers' mess once to prove a point."

"Darmody of the 10th said that he must have the luck from the sidhe, and demanded that Campbell give up his lucky token," related Munro.  "Campbell denied having a lucky token, and the evening having been very congenial, stripped off to prove it.  They played cards till dawn, Campbell wound up fifteen guineas up, Darmody wound up fifteen down, and the rest of us were thoroughly entertained."

"And I have never been so glad not to have been a member of the officers' mess," added Hester.  "Mind you, it's a better solution than setting up a duel and then trying to sneak off and fight at dawn without the disciplinary officers finding out.  His Grace has decided views on his officers duelling when they're supposed to be fighting a war."

Robert Munro smiled.  "His Grace being the Duke of Wellington?"

"Well, yes.  Mind you, back then he would have been Lord Wellington," replied Hester.   "That was one elevation I felt no guilt about congratulating someone on.  Most of the time when someone gets a title it's because a close relative died, and you can't congratulate them on that."

"I was thinking," remarked Isobel, "that we should have a ball to celebrate your wedding.  The question is, where should it be?  Balloch is where our most of our family is, but yours is down in the south of the country.  Here in Dunedin is a possibility - would your family travel?  Or in Lundun, but that would leave all the Munro and Campbell cousins back home.  When Robert, being the eldest, and Ellen were married we had parties everywhere.  When their eldest, Andrew the Younger, gets married well probably do the same, but...."

"Mungo's the third son," Hester said helpfully, "an accomplished man in his own right, and you want to show him off but not be inappropriately enthusiastic."

"Yes," nodded Isabel.  "That's it exactly."

Hester asked thoughtfully, "Well, what is the aim?  You want to reintroduce him to everyone after he's been away, but you don't need to find him a wife, so you don't need to invite unattached ladies for the sake of having unattached ladies present.  They can be invited for their own selves." She looked across the table and asked, "Mungo, do you want to go into politics?  If you do, who should your mother invite to a welcome home party for you?"

"I haven't made any decisions about my future path yet," admitted Mungo.  "I've got some loose ends to tidy up with the regiment, and we need to know more about this property you've come into first."

"Where is this property?"  Andrew and Robert were both looking interested, but it was Andrew who had asked the question.

Hester replied, "West of the Isle of Arran and north of the Western Isles is all the details I've been given.  I expect we'll find out more tomorrow when Mungo and I call on the man of business I've been directed to.  Who are the major families in the area?"

"We've no many close or direct connections down there," replied Andrew thoughtfully.  "Balloch is further north.  The Duke of Hamilton and Brandon is also Earl of Arran, so he has holdings on the Isle.  The land west and north of the Isle is mainly looks to the Duke of Argyll, but the Duchess of Osney has been picking up what she can in the area, or so I hear.  Mind you, she's been picking up what she can all across the Highlands.  That family has always been acquisitive.  Just look at how they got to be dukes," he added.

"And how was that?" asked Hester, bright and wide-eyed.

Andrew was about to speak but Mungo exclaimed, "God, is that how you do it?"

Hester looked at him.  "How I do what?"

"Find out all about the locals wherever we sent you," clarified Mungo.  "That expression, and my father was about to tell you everything."  He laughed, "And you did it to every new officer who came out to join us, didn't you?"

"Ask questions?  Be interested in them?  Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you meet people?" Hester tilted her head and looked at him with wide-eyed interest.

"And now you're doing it on purpose," pointed out Mungo.

"Yes," she nodded.  "Of course, I am.  If the Duchess of Osney is going to be one of our neighbours and there are things about her family that would be useful to know, then yes, I am interested."  Hester turned back to her father-in-law.  "I take it, sir, that the Osney in question is not the island in the river at Oxford."

"You'd be right in that," confirmed Andrew.  "The title comes from an island in the mouth of a river on the eastern coast and in was first a barony. The family's been building itself up ever since with canny marriages, some good and brave deeds, and some judicious spending of coin.  The current duchess' grandfather flat out bought their elevation to a dukedom, her father married a woman who was a rich man's only child, and the current duchess in her own right, has been buying up land for years.  Particularly in the Highlands.  The she turns out most of the tenants and brings in sheep farmers."

Robert went on, "No-one disagrees that the estates must be made capable of supporting themselves; the old management systems left the original landowners swimming in debt, which is why they had to sell, but Her Grace is notably harsh in the way she goes about the business."

Hester looked around the table.  "How so?  If we assume that this land I've received is big enough to have tenants, and it may not be, what is she doing that should be avoided?"

The other couples at the table exchanged glances.  Mungo looked concerned, the look he got when he was identifying a problem.  Finally, David said, "She has them burnt out.  If you're evicting tenants it's usual to pull down the roof timbers of the dwelling unless you're moving another tenant in.  Prevents squatters.  She has the places burnt as well.  Happens so fast sometimes that the family has no time to rescue their possessions.  There have been stories that sometimes the family hasn't been out of the house before the fire's been set."

"Most of the time it's just a story," put in Andrew.

Robert added, "But there's been twice that it definitely wasn't just a story.  A local magistrate up in the Outer Isles or the fringes of Argyllshire hasn't the reach to arrest a great lord or the force to hold them if they can lay hands on them."

"So, she's an example of what not to do," noted Hester.

"Her methods are not approved of by any of us who live in the Highlands," agreed Robert, "even if we understand the problems of introducing modern land management practices."

At that point, Isobel asked David a question about his grain supply and the subject of the table conversation changed.  Later, the ladies withdrew from the drawing room while the men had a glass of whisky.

"Don't want to take too long over our after-dinner drinks," said his father drily to Mungo.  "I want to get to know this girl of yours too.  Do you think she'll do?"

Mungo considered for a moment.  "I think she will," he answered.  "She's been trusted with matters I can't discuss.  Some have been things I've entrusted her with, some are matters that have been decided at a much higher level than me.  She's loyal - she's still hurt that her parents chose not to help her return home to them, but she's never said that she thought they made the wrong decision in choosing her sisters' futures over her."  He fiddled a little with his glass, blushed slightly, and added, "I have reason these last few days, to believe that she trusts me more than I deserve."

David commented, "Margaret believes that Hester thinks we don't value you highly enough."  He grinned and asked, "Are you as great a man as she thinks?"

Mungo leaned back in his chair and considered his whisky.  "Hester is used to a world where colonels are of some importance.  I am touched by her opinion that marriage to me can only add to her consequence."  He drank half the whisky in his glass.  "I, on the other hand, am surprised that I have achieved a young and pretty wife."  He drank the rest of his whisky.  "I know how it happened, but I don't understand it.  Just as I can't understand how I missed, until I married her, that she is pretty."

Robert gave him a look.  "You didn't notice that she was pretty.  I wouldn't have called her pretty myself this afternoon, but this evening with that different thing she with her hair, yes I'd call her pretty too.  Are you telling me that you've known her for seven years and never noticed what she looks like?"

"I know what she looks like," Mungo waved a hand as David topped up his glass.  "I just underestimated the effect of choices she made about her appearance and dress."

"She is getting more clothes, isn't she?"  Andrew took the whisky and poured himself less than his younger son had poured Mungo.

"Oh, yes.  She says she's got gowns on order in Lundun but there are things she need now.  Sleep attire and such."

"If our wives have anything to do with it," remarked Andrew, "she'll be fully outfitted before she leaves Dunedin."

When the gentlemen rejoined the ladies, Hester was saying, "I've done mending and sewed shirts, but I haven't done any embroidery for the last seven years so I think I should start again with a sampler.  Where would you go for materials?"

"Romanes' or Mercer's for silks," replied Isobel decisively.  "Thread or fabric.  They'll probably have some suitable linen or wool on hand for you to stitch on, depending on which you prefer.  I've never had to buy needles in Dunedin, so we should ask the housekeeper where she recommends.  Do you have sewing scissors?"

"Yes," Hester smiled.  "A lovely little pair from Toledo.  When we speak to Mrs Gowanlock about needles, I only need embroidery needles - I have the others I need already."

"I'm sure you'll be doing some of your own mending," commented Ellen, "but remember that it's your maid's job to take care of your clothes.  You don't want her to think that you don't trust her to do her job."

"When we hire me a maid, I'll keep that in mind.  Mungo," Hester flashed him a smile as he collected a cup of tea from his mother, "asked Mrs Gowanlock to organise some suitable candidates for me to interview.  By the time we leave the poor woman will be wishing me to perdition, along with all my questions and requests.  I'm sure she has enough to do already without my nonsense."

Mungo took the seat beside Hester's.  "I asked the head groom organise a groom for you as well."  Mungo sipped his tea.  "He was surprised to hear that a southern lady like you would be happy with a servant who only speaks Gaelic."

"Did you tell him as well that I'd be happy with a former trooper?  One who's been properly discharged, of course," added Hester.

"He gave me to understand that he would not consider a man who hadn't been properly discharged worthy of our employment," replied Munro.

"So, possibly a former Scots Grey then, or a man from the Selkirkshire Horse," commented Hester.  "Mind you, there are a lot of old faces I'd be happy to see, and a few I wouldn't let near His Excellency."

"Which is why MacBain is choosing the men for you to choose from," pointed out Munro, and the conversation moved on Robert and Ellen's chances of becoming grandparents shortly.

Later that night, Munro and Hester had repaired to their green guestroom.  Teeth and things having been cleaned, night attire donned, and servants retired for the night, the couple were sitting along the side of their bed facing each other and Mungo had one of Hester's feet in his lap, rubbing and kneading it as they talked.

"So, we'll see this man of business in the morning," said Hester, "and then we'll decide what to do next."  She sighed, "Please keep doing that, it feels soooo good."

"Are your feet sore?"  Mungo was kneading a knuckle into her instep.

"No, but you, sir, are a very talented man."  Hester sighed again.

"It's kind of you to say so, ma'am."  Mungo gave her a slow smile and asked, "So, what clothes do you want to buy, now that you're going to have a trunk.  You do realise that you don't have to wait until we go back to Lundun to get new clothes, don't you?  I know you have some being made down there, but you are allowed to have at least as many clothes as any of my sisters-in-law and my mother, and they're travelling with at least two trunks each."

"I've already said I'd like a banyan, yours are rather magnificent," replied Hester, "but I'd rather like a night-rail to wear to bed instead of a night shirt, and a night rail would mean that I'd need a dressing gown."  She purred as Mungo did something particularly pleasant to her foot.

"It's the other foot's turn now."  Mungo put the foot he'd been rubbing on the bed and picked the other one up off the floor.  "So, am I right in thinking that a night-rail might be...less substantial than a night shirt?"  He proceeded to work on her instep and the ball of her foot.

"I don't know that it's necessarily lighter," replied Hester, "but I was thinking longer, with folds and, perhaps, lace inserts.  Something less masculine than a night shirt."

Mungo dug his knuckle into her foot, and she sighed happily.  "I have no objection to you wearing less masculine clothing," he said with a straight face.  "None at all.  In fact, I look forward to seeing you in gowns.  Mind you, I want to be there the first time that my father sees you in a gown.  No shape!"  He snorted in amusement.  "At least he doesn't think that you're a green Sassenach girl he can talk rings around while he smiles at you, and you don't understand a word."

Hester snorted with laughter.  "I think we can assume I haven't been green and naïve in years," she said.  "I'm merely less experienced in polite civilian society."

As he rubbed circles on her instep with his thumb, Mungo said thoughtfully, "The next few months are going to be interesting, aren't they?"

This is now followed by Hester and Mungo 3.

Comments

[lilfluff]

Now that I'm signed in again here...

I really want to see where this goes. Both the family stuff (on both sides) as well as what's going on with the bit of land.

[rix_scaedu]

Thank you!