Saturday, 10:49 am
One upside to being left behind for the hunt that morning was a truly slow wake up. Hester hadn’t experienced the luxury much on her trip, since she always felt at least a little bad about missing breakfast and tried to make herself as productive as possible the moment she opened her eyes. Today, though, she took her time.
It was a beautiful sunny day out, so Hester dressed in a sleeveless forest green linen day dress. Her hair was swept up into a loose bun to keep it off her neck, with curly red tendrils framed her face. Retrieving a large woolen blanket from the trunk in her room, Hester gathered up the pages of her novel as well as another book off the shelf and headed downstairs.
The staff were more than happy to supply her with a few sandwiches and a carafe of coffee before she headed outside. A few hundred yards from the main entrance of Dovecoats there was a large tree that provided some - though not total - shade. Hester enjoyed the romantic aesthetic of the sun glints that shone through the shape of the leaves, though, so she set her blanket beneath it and began to read.
Hester’s comfort book that she had brought out with her was Jane Eyre, much to the surprise of anyone who had actually read HER novels. Hester’s writing was closer to a lighthearted Anna Karenina than the gothic tale of the adventures at Thornfield Hall, but Hester loved reading stories different from her own. The horror didn’t make it to her own pages because she meant what she said - she wanted to give women a break from that, in real life and fictionally. But she couldn’t help enjoying it herself.
Besides, she imagined Mr. Rochester himself of the “strong features” as being a large man himself. And it helped her fully understand the heroine Jane on that score.
After a couple chapters and a cup of coffee, Hester was feeling calmer and more ready to try tackling her own story again. She rolled from her back onto her front, setting the pages out in front of her as she propped herself up on her elbows. She set down Jane Eyre as a spot to write on, using the fountain pen to bring her new ideas for her character’s happy ending to life.
“Is this the magic of a novelist in action?”
The deep, steady, amused voice shocked Hester out of her working reverie. Her head turned quickly to the left, where she saw Theodore standing just outside the border of her large blanket. He was shading his eyes from the sun, and smiling down at her. A little ways behind him, Hester saw the rest of the hunting party heading into Dovecoats, with the slight dark figure of Rose staring over in their direction as she walked.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say magic…that’s my other job, remember?” Hester tried not to fixate on how much larger Theodore looked from this position. Staring up at him illuminated in the sun called excellent attention to the solid width of his legs, the strong yet soft expanse of his chest and arms, and most importantly, the gentle gravity of his deep, round belly. “Would you like to join me? I can’t finish these sandwiches and coffee on my own.”
“Are you certain you don’t mind? I’m not interrupting?”
“Of course not. Please.”
Theodore hesitated, then made his way onto the blanket. It was somewhat slow going to get down next to Hester, but like getting onto the horse, Hester was impressed by his flexibility. His legs curved under each other, and while he did collapse somewhat near the ground, it wasn’t nearly as awkward as even Hester was sure she looked when she went to sit.
Hester capped her fountain pen and sat up carefully, gathering her papers before pouring Theodore his own cup of coffee and opening the basket of sandwiches and offering them to him.
“Thank you, Miss Browning.”
“How was hunting, Mr. Owen? Did you bring back many grouses?”
“My father and Lord James certainly did,” Theodore said. “But I’m hopeless at shooting, always have been.”
Rose must have loved that, Hester thought, remembering how her cousin considered her own shooting skills to be exemplary. This must have shown in Hester’s face, for Theodore continued.
“I could feel my conversation companion getting more and more frustrated as the time went on, so I offered to let her shoot at the next drive. But that was, it seems, also the wrong thing to do. She was rather scandalized.”
“Well, if I’ve learned anything during my time in England, it’s that the only thing worse than a man being mediocre at something is…offering to let a woman try it,” Hester laughed. “We may be better at it than you, and that just won’t do.” She elongated the last word into a British pronunciation as best she could, deewwww.
“Heaven forbid,” Theodore said wryly. “Now, how is your writing going? Do you need a second set of eyes on anything?”
“It’s going well. And I’ll share it eventually, but…I’m afraid if I showed you my work now, then you and your family have a much higher likelihood of leaving this weekend early in a whirl of scandal - far beyond simply implying a woman could hunt a grouse - and then Rose would never forgive me,” Hester said, only half-kidding as she put her book’s pages back in her basket.
“I imagine she’d get over it,” Theodore said, his tone taking a turn for the even more dry. “Though, I’m especially intrigued now. Your marketing for your work must be exceptional.”
“I just have to go with whatever the publisher’s decide, I’m afraid,” laughed Hester. “And I’m usually underselling - it’s how I’m even able to come stay with my much more respectable side of the family.”
“It’s a new century,” Theodore replied, waving his hand dismissively. “If relations and the world can’t handle some women daring to experience pleasure by now, then what on Earth are we doing?”
“I quite agree,” Hester said, surprised, and ignoring the tingling that rose up at Theodore’s use of the word pleasure. “Though not everyone does.”
“I believe someone told me recently that - mmm - ‘everyone is very stupid sometimes’, so…”
“They sound incredibly wise. What an excellent point.”
Theodore grinned and took a bite of his sandwich, and Hester followed suit. Hers was a cucumber and cream cheese on white bread, while she had given Theodore the roast beef on thick brown bread. After a few moments of thoughtful chewing silence, Theodore spoke.
“I had a conversation with my mother yesterday.”
“Oh yes, Mr. Owen?”
“Yes, I - ” Theodore hesitated, and Hester began to wonder if something was wrong. But he looked at her, and continued in a more serious tone: “would it be quite impertinent if I requested for you to call me Theodore? Or even Theo? You can certainly say no, but as a friend, it would make communication much simpler.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Hester breathed. When Theodore looked at her curiously, she elaborated. “I rather despise being called Miss Browning, so if I agree, then you must call me Hester. And make everyone happy.”
“All right then, it’s agreed, Hester.”
“Thank you…Theo. So. How did the conversation with your mother go?”
“Well enough, I suppose. And rather quickly. When we arrived from our ride, you probably saw me approach her. She inquired whether I was certain I needed the hors d'oeuvre in my hand, and I told her it may not be a need, but a want. And then, like you suggested - that her care was appreciated, but the execution unnecessary. That as a marginal change in my public food consumption was unlikely to alter the outcome one way or the other, I simply wished for us all to enjoy the weekend together.”
“Oh, wonderful, Theo!” Hester finished her sandwich and clapped a couple times. “I know that can’t have been easy for everyone’s British sensibilities - how did she take it?”
“Fine, it seemed. Lunch was called immediately after, and she stayed rather quiet, which is an improvement from criticizing. Of course, she could have just been worried that Rose would overhear on my other side, or that she is planning to use the reprieve to bargain for a stricter diet after the weekend.”
“That’s true. Still, I’m - wait, ‘Rose’? Is she calling you Theo now, too?” This wasn’t any of Hester’s business, but she couldn’t help blurting it out as her brain whirred to catch up.
“Oh - well, ‘Theodore’ seems to be her preference, but - yes. She offered use of her Christian name during the hunt today, so I reciprocated,” Theodore replied, breaking eye contact with Hester to tug at the loose strings of the wool blanket beneath them. He also took the time to finish his own sandwich.
“That’s nice,” Hester said, hoping her encouraging tone came across despite the force she had to put behind it. Of course it was nice. It was progress! Perhaps Rose would come around, and Theodore would join their family.
“I suppose,” Theodore said, his dark eyes looking up with a half-smile from the blanket. Hester ignored the melting feeling in her legs. “But the conversation with my mother could not have been more perfectly timed, really. As the last picnic luncheon I had attended is where my engagement ended, so I was not going to be in a position to gently receive any more negativity.”
“Really?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It was more intimate than the one yesterday - a bit more like this, actually - but is still an unpleasant memory.”
“Did you eat the last deviled egg?” Hester asked, knowing it wasn’t her best joke, but unable to hide her curiosity. Theodore still rewarded her effort with a smirk.
“Perhaps not the last, but certainly the most.”
“Who was she?”
“Celeste was our neighbor. Which, as you know from the size of these estates, meant we saw each other occasionally, but not constantly. We formed a connection when I was still in school, and while I was getting plump from inactivity, I wasn’t…much more than that, at the time.
She was pretty and kind, and her parents enthusiastically encouraged a marriage to a future Viscount. Mine were…ambivalent. Celeste’s family had money, though no connections to a title of their own. Still, it could have been a worse choice in their eyes, so they left well enough alone.
I wanted to wait to marry Celeste until I had a firm grasp on my work moving forward, and we could get a place of our own. This took a couple years, and in that time I grew…well, just, grew. And with every stone, Celeste became more distant. I took this to be understandable frustration at the delay in our future, and I attempted to help her patience with gifts of jewelry, chaperoned trips…whatever I could think of.
But once I was ready to forge our life together and tried to move forward with the wedding, she actually balked harder. It took…longer than it should have for her to admit the truth, and for me to see it. On a picnic just outside London, Celeste told me that I had grown into a man she did not have interest in marrying. That if I could not control my size, she had serious doubts about my ability to control an estate, or her happiness.
She went on to marry the…third or fourth son of an earl two counties over, I believe. Even a life where she was all but guaranteed to never come into a title sounded more appealing than one with me.”
“Well, she sounds like a perfect nightmare,” Hester said matter-of-factly after a stunned pause. Theodore, who had been speaking frankly, half-smiled with just a hint of sadness.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been engaged again, but at my parent’s insistence, I’ve certainly been featured on the marriage mart circuit. And Celeste’s views on my abilities and appearance seem to be shared by a great many eligible young women. I hesitate to say whether it’s a flaw, or in any way their fault.”
“Theo, when we first met, you called me optimistic. But I’m rapidly learning that that’s really you. Of course the girl who would say that sort of thing to you isn’t ‘kind’! And they may be ‘eligible’, but any girl who shares that sort of sentiment is actually a blithering idiot.”
“I suppose I may be an optimist,” Theo said slowly, cautiously. His dark gaze seemed to hold space for confusion, and something else. “But… I understand their choice, that’s all. Hester, are you saying you don’t?”
That’s exactly what Hester was saying, but she wasn’t exactly in a position to explain how much.
“I…I understand that societal convention says men have to somehow be simultaneously lean and strong. In the same way I ‘understand’ that women are expected to be perfectly smooth yet curvy. That doesn’t mean I agree with it, or think anyone who stubbornly buys into that appearance only while punishing anyone who dares to fall outside of it is in the right.”
As her last word hovered in the air between them, the sound of Dovecoats’s heavy front door opening pulled their attention. Lady Elizabeth took a few steps out, and raised a hand in greeting.
“Hester!” She called. “Could you come inside and give me a hand with something?”
“Coming, Cousin Elizabeth,” Hester responded, and Elizabeth turned back inside. “I suppose I must…”
“Yes, I ought to as well,” Theodore said. Hester got to her feet, leaning against the trunk of the large tree.
“Lots to do before tonight.”
“Yes, the ball.”
“Yes.”
A moment of silence lit something in Hester as Theodore looked at her.
“Hester…”
“Yes?”
“I hate to ask, but…could you give me a hand up? That’s the trickier part.”
Hester resisted laughing and crying, and just smiled.
“Of course.”
“Now, I don’t wish to pull you down…” Theodore seemed to be musing half to himself as he looked around.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. See? The tree has our back,” Hester said, using one hand to loop around a hefty lower branch while reaching out the other to Theodore, grinning. He looked at her in surprise, then smiled hesitantly back as he got into a better position. He placed both feet out in front of him with his knees up, pressing into his round, squishy belly. Reaching out with one hand, he clasped Hester’s free one to pull himself to his feet.
Hester felt faint, but diligently held on. Theodore’s hand was soft yet strong, and the tingling that erupted where they touched rapidly spread through the rest of her body. She knew that Theodore was likely trying his best to just use her for balance as he heaved himself to his feet, but she still felt enough of his considerable weight that she had to hold on to the tree branch a little tighter to steady herself.
“Thank you,” said Theodore, his round cheeks a light red color as he looked away from Hester’s eyes. Up close, Hester could see the color accentuate Theodore’s own freckles, which scattered lightly across his nose like stars. He began to brush at his pants, and then at his middle, shaking off the crumbs from their snack. Hester’s knees went weak as she saw his plush belly wobble under his hands and well-fitted hunting shirt.
Still, she quickly collected herself, and Theodore helped Hester gather up her belongings. They made their way inside quietly, each managing to only glance at the other when they were looking away. Once in the entrance hall, Theo offered Hester a quick bow of his head.
“I’ll see you tonight, Hester.”
“Thank you for the company, Theo,” Hester said after a brief pause where she made sure to hold back exactly and entirely what she truly wanted to say. Theodore smiled, and headed towards his bedroom’s wing.
“What did you need, Cousin Elizabeth?” Hester asked after a few minutes of looking through the hustle and bustle of the staff putting together the decorations and set up for the evening’s ball.
“Hmm?” Elizabeth, who was a friendlier-looking and significantly taller version of her daughter Rose, looked down at Hester through her glasses. “Oh…could you check with Rose? I think she had something she needed help with. She’s in the drawing room.”
Hester found Rose, Louise, and her Aunt Shirley all sitting in various corners of the drawing room. Louise was working on embroidery, and Shirley had a glass of what Hester suspected wasn’t just tea as she talked with Rose.
“Hello,” Hester said. “I’m sorry to interrupt. Rose, your mother said you might have something you need my help with?”
“I don’t,” Rose said, turning on the stiff couch to face her cousin. “I simply wanted to ensure you had time to rest and prepare for the ball tonight.”
“Ah.” Hester kept her gaze level with her cousin, but didn’t push back on the obvious challenge. She thought about her dress for the evening - a light green (yes, that color again, but with her fiery red hair her options were far more limited than most) and gold stitched ballgown that laced up the back. It took quite a bit of time and effort to get into, and so Hester avoided confrontation in order to ask a favor. “Rose, could I take you up on your offer to borrow Jane for a bit tonight? Before or after you’re using her? I could use a little help with my dress.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Hester,” Rose said, her tone clearly conveying how far from sorry she truly was. “But Jane will be far too busy tonight doing my own dressing and hair. It is a ball, you know.”
“I’d heard,” Hester sighed. “All right.”
“I can come help you, Hester,” Louise spoke, looking up from her embroidery. “Honestly, Rose.”
“Honestly, Louise, I’d think you’d need all the time you could get on your own appearance.”
“Didn’t you just say that you needed your lady’s maid all night?”
“There’s a difference between necessity and responsibility. What are you smiling at, Grandmama?”
Shirley had been smirking heavily into her cup, and looked up as she was addressed.
“Oh, just pleased that I no longer have to go through the trials and tribulations of being young,” Shirley said, meeting Rose’s gaze levelly. She raised it to lock eyes with Hester as she added, “and fascinated to see how this weekend turns out.”
“Thank you, Louise,” Hester said finally, turning to her cousin. Louise offered her a smile, and Hester felt simultaneously relieved and claustrophobic in this room. “Could you come get me for tea time too, please? I’m going to take my things up.”
“Of course, Hester.”
