June 24th, evening: Having dinner with the Engineer

"What a serious lapse! I should of course have taken better care to prevent that. I apologize!"

Edward bowed mockingly from his chair.

"So how can I satisfy your curiosity? You only have to ask, and I promise I will do my best to keep my answers within the realms of light conversation!"

"Well, why don't you tell me who you really are? Somehow I don't think you are just plain Captain Edward Torrington.' Hunter was fishing really, but he did not made it a point of studying people for nothing. 'The pin in your tie tells me you maybe a lot more eligible than I am. And if I am right, I shall know whom to hide behind at the Marriage Mart.'

Edward chuckled quietly, for the first time giving in to this reaction to Captain Hunter.

"You may not know it, but I have five years of practice in hiding and parrying! Hiding behind my back could lead to a rather undignified chase..."

His face became serious again, and with a real bow, he introduced himself properly:

"Edward Walham, Viscount Torrington, second son to the Earl of Gleve - as you can see, my eligibility rests solely on my father's name and the untimely death of my brother."

Hunter could not help smiling the smug smile of someone proven correct. 'Oh, you are forgetting that serious, reliable air that will have plenty of mothers convinced that you are the only one capable of taking charge of their flighty daughters, my lord,' drawled Hunter. 'And honestly to me your back is a much pleasanter view than a matron baring down on me with the intention of making me stand up with her daughter in a cotillion.'

Edward half-heartedly threw his napkin at Hunter.

"It's Captain or Torrington, if you please! I prefer to keep 'Milord' for those people I can't get rid off by other means."

He chuckled.

"You're the first one to call me 'serious' and 'reliable', though. Usually the words were 'bookworm' and 'not interested enough in society'. I fear in some respects I am utterly unreliable, especially where social engagements are concerned. I tend to be never in town when invited to them - which, unless you are willing to accompany me to the country, will accidentally proof quite fatal to your plan to hide behind my back."

Hunter caught the napkin easily and pressed it to his heart as if he was a knight catching his lady's handkerchief. He grinned at Torrington.

'You are reliable in your unreliability then. I can rely on you not to lift a finger to protect me from a scheming mama. Engineers are always wont to stay behind the backs of us, simple soldiers.'

"Actually we are not even supposed to be around when you get shot at! We crawl from our hiding holes only after the air is clear again."

Edward replied good-humouredly. Under other circumstances, he might have taken offence, but half a glass of wine, good food and pleasant company had made him mellow enough to recognize it as the joke it was. He even smiled at Hunter's overdone dramatic recieval of his napkin.

"And you must see that I have no special interest to remove others who can take the shots from the social battlefield. What would I gain if I made an exception for you?"

'I don't know. My undying gratitude? Or is that not enough? Are you that selfish?' Hunter pressed the back of his hand to his forehead in a theatrical gesture, 'Oh woe is me to have met someone so heartless.' Hunter tried to keep his face serious, but gave up and dissolved into laughter.

"Oh, your gratitude might be quite enough - provided it's really undying and of a substantial nature. After all, you are an ADC to the General himself, and I am just a lowly field officer who might need to petition you for favours. After all, my sister has two sons who have both set their hearts on a military career", Edward said solemnly, managing to hold out several second before his face, too, split in laughter.

Hunter got his laughter under control and took a sip of water, muttering just loudly enough for Torrington to hear: "Yes, but I am only a Sir, you are the lord here.' He shot a cheeky look at Torrington and spoke normally: 'If you want favours you should not wait too long, the death rate among the ADCs is really quite high.'

"As is that for engineers, for some reason ... So we'd better change the subject. Shall we return to the unsatisfactory topic of the weather? Or would you regale me with a tale of your devilish and daring exploits in enemy territory?"

Edward leaned back, crossed his legs and tried his best to look like the large-eyed boy he had once been when his nanny had promised a bed-time story.

Hunter leaned forward and pitching his voice a little lower, started speaking. 'Well, I'll tell you a story if you want it so much.' Hunter paused as if waiting for Torrington to say no and then continued.

'When I was a boy of fourteen I ran away from home to find my destiny, or so I thought. On the third night of my journey I had to sleep in the woods. It was an ancient, heathen wood, it seemed to me that something was watching me. I made a small fire and lay down to sleep. I woke some time later and found that my fire was out, but it was not the cold, it was sounds of distant singing that woke me, and suddenly I could not help but follow that sound. I walked and I walked until I came upon a lake and then I saw them. Several beautiful girls dancing by the lake shore, singing. I knew at once who they were for I heard stories from the villagers about the spirits of drowned girls coming out at night to dance in the moonlight. They also said they used their singing to lure men into the water and drown them. Suddenly I trembled with fear, because I wanted to run away and could not. And then one of the girls walked, floated towards me and I felt my legs moving against my will, leading me to her...' Hunter stopped talking and looked at Torrington trying to gauge his reaction.

Edward relaxed back in his chair and listened to the story with a quiet smile. One of his grandmothers had been Welsh, and he had inherited enough from her to truly appreciate a good storyteller.

When Hunter paused, his smile grew a bit deeper and he inclined his head slightly, indicating to Hunter that he was waiting with anticipation for the climax of the story.

'I struggled, I grabbed a tree branch, but only got scrapes and cuts on my hands for the effort. And then I was in her arms.' Hunter lowered his voice further and spoke quietly as if truly reliving the horror. 'Her flesh was cold, so cold, it felt like it was burning my skin. And the smell... From afar she looked perfect in her beauty but up close I could see the blue-ish tinge to her skin, could feel the smell of rotten flesh. Her eyes were black, soulless pits... She dragged me to her lake and suddenly I knew that there would be no escape. I wanted to scream but her grasp was so tight I could barely breath. She dragged me to the lake's edge and pushed me in.'

Edwards fingers instinctively tightend around the stem of his glass and he ducked his head a bit, an unconscious move against the icy water.

"I hope you could swim!", he uttered, quietly teasing, but more pro forma; he had allowed himself to be captured by the tale, and was really itching now to hear the end of it - not because he believed any of this to be true, but because it was a good tale nicely told.

'No, I could not move a muscle. I was sinking and I could not do anything to save myself. I wasn't dead yet, but I felt like I was held by the death's own embrace.' Hunter took a sip of water and leaned back in his chair, as if the story was over.

Edward smiled slyly.

"The either you are the proof that one does not in fact die if doing so in your sleep, or there is yet some part of the story to come that you shamefully neglected to tell me, sir!"

Hunter smiled back. "I thought you might wish to guess the ending".

Edward's mouth twisted up, and he cast his face in a rather horrified expression, exclaiming:

"I'm shocked to find, Sir, that you are an incorrigible tease!"

His napkin was still in Hunter's possession, so he had to steal the other man's to throw it, what he did with a minimum of fuss as he continued.

"But I will guess, since this is your tale, you are obviously alive - or at least a reasonable facsimile of it - and you promised me something dashing and heroic, that you found some marvellous way to extricate yourself from your predicament, probably enjoying the favours of these maidens along the way as well. But now that I have provided one kind of ending, will you give me another? Or would you wish to expand on your stunning deeds?"

Chuckling, Hunter plucked the napkin out of the air before it could hit him in the face.

"Well, what happened was that I woke up and found a huge dog half-lying on me and licking my face. It's breath, by the way, was awful. Turned out that I what I took to be a forest at night, really was just a copse and there was a farmstead on the other side of it.' Hunter preened, 'Is that a suitably heroic tale for you then?'

"Very! Especially since anybody knows how vicious huge dogs can be!"

Edward smirked.

"Now what could I do to surpass such a marvelous tale, I wonder?"

'Well, whatever you decide to do, you must choose carefully: it is after all your chance to tease me.' Hunter smirked and relaxed even further in the chair, practically draping himself over it, rather than actually sitting.

"In this case, I probably should start to tickle you!", Edward mumbled darkly. He considered for a few moments.

"I don't have any grand and heroic tales for myself, but would you like to hear about the time when the crown was defeated by a lovely old spinster on my watch?"

'Oh, I would! Such a tale could only be better if it was Sir Arthur defeated by an old spinster,' Hunter grinned just imagining it, 'I never said that by the way.'

He gestured to Torrington to proceed with his tale. 'And if that fails to tease me, you are welcome to tickle me. Do keep in it mind that I am liable to retaliate.'

"In this case, Sir, I'm afraid I will have to pull social rank after all! One does not tickle a lord! Especially if one wants to have him speak with one ever again or him to not repeat certain unfortunate statements within the hearing of the commander-in-chief!"

Edward sneakily offered some biscuits to his guest, hoping that it would make Hunter put the napkins down so that he could restock his ammunition.

"Before I came here, I was for some time building streets and bridges in Scottland. One day, The men under my command and I were working on a certain stretch of road that had the special merit of running straight for nearly three miles. We were busy preparing our tools one day to lay out the next bit of road when suddenly a little old lady appeared by my side, demanded to know whether I was the officer in charge, and when I admitted that much, proceeded to clip my jaw with an umbrella, because, as she explained, she could not do so by hand due to our difference in height."

He shot Hunter a glance under his lashes, as interested in the other man's reaction as he had been in his.