Chapter Text
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Autumn in Hawkesbury was a fair thing.
The harvest had been taken and stored away, and the mist on the ground lingered longer, hovering somewhere around the thick middles of the oak and chestnut trees that limned the old Harrington Hall. There was a sense of relief, that all would be well through winter, that a rest had been properly earned.
The gentleman Steven Harrington pulled the last thread through the lining of his overcoat, his stitches inelegant but passable enough for now. There was simply no money for a new coat for the season, although he feared his neighbours learning as much at market. There once had been money for the coat, and a woman to sew besides— but the mess that his father had left behind had seen the end of that. His parents had passed one after another in a sickness during their travels, while Steve had been drinking and sleeping around in Oxford under the guise of his education at All Soul’s College, back when his younger sister Maxine had been left at home with a nanny the way he had so often in his own childhood.
He’d been called home to plan the funerals, and found that his father’s gambling had been hidden well when he was alive to play the game of moving the same borrowed money back and forth. After the debts levied at his passing, Steve had managed to keep the home, but not the nanny. Nor the steward, nor the butler, nor the housekeeper and lady’s maid, the valets and the cook and the chefs, the footmen and the house maid, the kitchen maid, the laundry maid, the dairy maid, the groomsmen, the gardener…
He had been unable to complete his schooling, as well, but there was just enough left to see that Max might marry passably well, thanks only to Steve’s caution, and in the meantime he wound a scarf about his broad shoulders, letting it drop over the new stitching in his once-fine coat.
Steve saddled his old bay himself and led her from the warm, hay-scented barn over the cobblestoned courtyard, red with fallen leaves. They both ducked under the stone archway that went from the old barn to the cosy manse that he had inherited, and his well-trained old girl paused as Steve turned to latch the wooden gate behind them.
He mounted up and clicked his tongue, needing not to kick as she started up a trot into town, the only place they ever went the small street that carried cloth and sundries, the dry goods that they relied on and the gossip he did his best to avoid. Max, just shy of her ten-and-eighth birthday and recently debuted, would oft go into town with her other friends, the cluster of youth that crawled about Hawkesbury too exhausting for any one household to hold. She spent most days at the lady Byers’ property, one of the many heads there that Joyce was kind enough to tutor for less than she ought to take. It was important, though, that she be as educated as Steve could afford, that she have more of a chance at learning than he had wasted— that she read, and write, and learn to manage the estate should it come to her and her husband. He hoped it did. He wanted her to have enough left to marry for her choice, and not for lack of dowry. There had been money enough to see her to the duke’s autumn ball that would close the season, upon which she would hopefully find a match, and soon after he could find a bachelor’s apartment where he would live in a genteel sort of poverty and keep out of her way. Out of everyone’s way, to be sure— Steve had fallen out of the regular neighbourly balance of things between his years away at school and the protective wall he had drawn up around Max after their parents’ passing. The past years had made an island of him, and only the resilience and winning disposition of his young Max had won her a re-entry into her peer group. It was a relief to send her off to learn and play, a few pennies that they could naught afford in her pocket for hot chestnuts and bolts of ribbon.
He nodded at neighbours now, liking them well enough, despite his isolation amongst them: the Wheelers, the young Mr. Byers, the sheriff Hopper. All were hurrying home before the crisp air became a true chill, baskets and saddlebags packed with apples and turnips and bolts of hearty fabrics.
Steve dodged a caravan of unfamiliar horses and carriages, frowning to himself as he passed. They were far too fine to be from Hawkesbury, but perhaps some daughter of a local family was being courted, or there was some wealthy cousin atown. Avoidant of the town rumour mill as he was, too afraid of anyone seeing his own inevitable downfall spoken of within it, he would not know if there were some foreign visitor expected.
He dismounted in the small main street of town, breathing in the smells of the pub and the people as he tied his horse. He had come only to restock on tea and sugar, his own cow giving milk enough still, and he lingered at the thatched butchers’ and bakers’ windows before giving into the temptation of bringing home the pasties that Max loved. It would save them the wood to heat dinner, at least, and if he could not quite spare the penny for them, he could less afford the town to know that each penny was a struggle. He didn’t want the stain of his own failure on Max before she had a chance— and she would be fine. She would. It was his life’s only goal, now, no longer any wish that was simply for himself.
Steve tucked his precious goods into his own saddlebags, mouth watering at the scent of mince. He ate less than he ought at his size, and with the expenditure of his energy to keep his land running more or less smoothly. He had maintained his muscle, at least, from the work— hiding the lean slant to his torso now that had never been there upon his ill-spent youth of indulgence. He raised his hat to the widow Hagan as she passed, ducking his head to avoid her hopeful eye contact.
He had no intention of marrying. Not of passing his lack of fortune onto another, not of subjecting Max to the drain on her dowry that another mouth would make. Nor did he intend to marry for another’s money, though it might solve every problem real and imagined: he had little enough to offer beside a home that belonged more to his fathers’ lenders than the family proper. The Harrington name would disappear into Max’s future marriage, and he felt no loss at its fading.
The Harrington land, though, he loved. The once-grand home, its humble animals. The leaf pile that greeted him now beside the mulch for the garden, the way the cow called to his horse and the way she called back. He was about to swing down and unlatch the gate when he noticed the cluster of carriages that he had passed earlier in his formal entry, the stone drive that he rarely kept cleared for visitors.
“Hullo,” he called, and wished for a weapon, making at least his posture intimidating as he approached unarmed. “Who calls?”
“Good afternoon, sir.” The foremost rider turned to him: Steve noted that they wore the uniform of the duke, who lived half the county away. They did look hard-ridden, as well— as though they had been across all of Roanham in search of something. “We are making request upon all the gentlemen of your village at a tip that our master may be sheltering here. Have you seen him, perchance?”
“You lost the duke?” Steve repeated, unable to hide the humour in his voice. “Isn’t his lord Munson a little long in the tooth to be slipping away from his retinue?”
“We speak of the viscount, not the duke,” the man answered, his face souring. Their party were causing a chaos upon the land: Steve’s horse, unused to so many others, stamped her foot, and from the barn his cow called again. “The honourable Edward Munson. We are aware that the stories of him have spread even to this insignificant county— do not feign ignorance. He is not here?”
“He is certainly not here.” Steve had indeed managed to hear some tale of Edward Munson— he was a faerie-story to Max and her friends, the land’s eldest son and worst keeper, a brigand of ill repute. Steve did have to admit surprise that his latest escapade had perhaps landed him so close to home, but the man’s poor reputation was larger than life and any misadventure attributed to him could not be a surprise. The rake refused to marry or find satisfaction in his elite circles, instead flitting from club to courtesan, named in every blind item in the scandalous stories that the town’s mothers passed around and that the town’s fathers would read in secret. It all had Steve’s past beat handily, and he was not so fool as to be entirely ignorant of the gossip, but the idea that Munson the younger could be in Hawkesbury— indeed, at Harrington Hall— was laughable.
“Very well,” the man said, and Steve kept his shoulders straight against the disappointed glares of the other men as they turned their horses’ heads and began to make their way to the next farm, some minutes down the road. He was already annoyed at the disruption to his evening— imagining the pasties going cold in his saddlebag by his thigh. “If you do see him, we are rewarding any information that might ascertain us to his course.”
“You have a bounty on the man?” Steve did laugh at last, unafraid to make an enemy. “I cannot see why he’d want to slip the lot of you. Get off my land, gentlemen.”
“The viscount has responsibilities to attend to, and is requested by the duke,” the man sniffed, frowning. “But I can see that no gentleman of any breeding would wish to tarry here. Good day.”
“Good day,” Steve agreed, and waited until the last of the caravan had left his property before he huffed out an incredulous breath and dismounted.
Edward Munson, on his land. Not only was the idea a wild jest, but the very presence of the men and their horses had disturbed his animals. Even now he could hear his cow and the pony that Max had outgrown but that he was too soft-hearted to sell, lowing and whickering and moving about in the stables.
He sighed and led his own horse back through the gate, kicking backwards to shut it as she clopped behind him over the stone. He could feel the tension of that unexpected encounter leaving his shoulders— indeed, the tension of going into town at all. It was with a relief that matched his horse’s when he unlatched her bridle and pushed her gently into her stall, assuring that she had water but seeing that her haybox was empty before he swung it closed. He went to the cow next, stroking her nose and noting her wild eyes. Her hay was largely gone as well, and he went to check the pony’s stall next, bending down to run fingers through its dark mane. “Are you well, girl?” he asked, voice low. “Sweet thing. I’ll feed you all alike, worry not.”
The feed was kept in a corner of the barn, the stock near enough for winter if he traded carefully to keep it in supply— cautious always that he must appear generous in his estimation of the goods he took in, to appear both neighbourly and in good financial condition alike. For a moment he let himself daydream about the bounty upon their viscount, the way it would feel to be flush with fresh coin— the dresses for Max’s upcoming season, custom made. The heavyweight of a new coat that the moths had not been at, or a chest of cedar to prevent them entirely. Perhaps something so decadent as a new set of books to read with Max, leather-scented and handset.
It was a sweet daydream, certainly, and he would blame it later for his distraction as he lifted the pitchfork to gather a pile of hay. What happened instead happened quickly, so quickly that he could only later pull apart the moments in his mind:
He struck something within the hay. That something leapt out. There was a flash— a weapon, noted by the sleeping piece of Steve’s startled mind. He was stepping back, and back, his shoulders pressed to the wall as the knife pressed to his chin.
And then, clarity. A sense of stillness in time, a moment that froze into ice: a man, before him, his knife at Steve’s throat, his hair escaping from a tie into chaos, dark waves stuck with hay that framed a bright, intelligent face, a face made for expression and a mouth made for laughter— for more, the way it was so plush and soft, a charming fullness at odds with the delicate bones that made up the rest of his face, his pulsing throat, his slight shoulders and smaller frame: a man who Steve stared at a second too long, even as he pulled the knife handily from him, aimed it anew.
The blade pressed against the man’s fine collarbone, and Steve watched the bones there shift as he swallowed, the bob of motion making a drop of red blood swell into showing.
“You’ve cut me,” the man said, marvelling. His voice was like rich music: a drawl far too casual for the circumstance.
“You were the one who brought a knife to this meeting,” Steve pointed out, and pulled it away. He hesitated, then offered it back to the other man. Now that they had stilled, he didn’t seem a threat: his clothes were too fine for him to be a thief, worn too casually and tailored too fine to think the clothing itself was stolen.
The other man laughed. Steve had been right. He was made to laugh often: his face lit up, the gesture so pleasing that Steve smiled, too.
“So I did,” he agreed, and sheathed it. “My apologies— or perhaps, my thanks, for your hospitality.”
“I have not hosted you,” Steve demurred, and raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps it is my livestock you ought to thank.”
“Your livestock are middling hosts,” the man countered. He had not stepped away from Steve, and still stood too close to be proprietous. “They have not fed me, given me drink, nor indeed have they taken my coat.”
“Perhaps it is because they nor I have invited you here.” Steve considered. He was not so foolish as to be ignorant as to the man’s identity, nor indeed to the responsibility he did bear to host him— in direct contradiction, of course, to the temptation he had so recently indulged considering, in betraying his presence here. “Very well,” he hedged, still uncertain as to which way his judgement would fall. “Help me to feed the girls, and I shall show you to the inside of my home. It is not so grand as the hay pile, but I pray you will be comfortable all the same.”
The man narrowed his eyes, but stood aside so that Steve could reach the pitchfork, although he made no move to help as Steve hefted the heavyweight of alfalfa atop each animal’s feed bin. “May I know the name of my host? Or will you give me the name of these animals?”
Steve had been about to, and he hid his grin at having his wit matched. For all that he did not seek out much in the manner of conversation, the unlikely nature of his visitor was a shock of unexpected pleasure. “And are they not Harringtons as well?”
“Lord Harrington,” the man mused, as if trying to place it.
“No lord,” Steve corrected. He finished his task and pushed his hair aside with his forearm quickly, tossing it back before he brushed his hands together. The man watched as he did, and he frowned, assuming he had seen the new mend on his coat as he had shifted. “Just Steve,” he added, feeling every bit of the difference between himself and a viscount, especially one so careless with his person and his inherited responsibilities. He didn’t seem half the villainous rogue that the rumours would have it, but perhaps his light-footed charm was what availed him of the opportunity to achieve such mischief. After all, Steve had found him trespassing, in hiding from the duke’s retinue. Such a man could not be decent to have around when Max returned, but Steve could decide what to do with him over a drink, at least. “And your name, sir?”
He already knew, but wanted to know whether the man was both scoundrel and liar. But no— for whatever else he was— teasing, troublesome, carelessly wealthy and crushingly beautiful— he gave his name readily, Steve already nodding in knowledge as he gave it.
It was Edward.