A/N: Hello, hello! Now that Series 3 is underway, I've been writing about a hundred drabbles a day because I love all the characters so much - I still find this storyline the most interesting though.

PLEASE NOTE: If you haven't seen thenew series, don't read this! If you don't want anything to be spoiled, that is.

Anyhow, this was a result of my terrible mind after I watched the first two episodes of the new series, and watched Sir Anthony be brave while Robert essentially told him to leave his daughter alone.

Disclaimer: Also, none of the characters or places mentioned in this fiction belong to me. They are property ofthe brilliant Mr Fellowes.

No Gentleman

For months he had been torturing himself.

After Lord Grantham had come forward, asking him to stay away from his daughter, Anthony's hands were bound. Still, thoughts of the strawberry blonde daughter of the Earl of Grantham invaded and clouded his mind like a thick London fog, coming upon him at all hours of the day. It was as though she were a spirit, and when she chose to remind him of what he had lost, it was like the memory of her would be all he would ever know again.

Edith had written him two letters since then, two letters he kept in his room at all times, and read frequently. The first, written in response to the one he had sent to her, after that interaction with Robert. It was full of frustration and confusion, with undertones of unmistakable anger. The second letter was only pleading – pleading that he would disregard her father's silly notion that he was the wrong choice for her, and that they should be together, even if just as friends. Yet his only real option was to disregard it. It had nearly killed him to do so.

He had let himself get far too attached to her, he knew, but it was a done thing and could not for the life of him be undone.

Anthony Strallan was a lonely man after all; the death of his wife Maud ensured that – her loss also taking the life of their unborn child. And for years, he could only think that his loneliness was somehow deserved. He certainly never expected to fall in love with a woman half his age, with a kind of beauty and grace he could hardly remember seeing anywhere before.

And now that he was no longer able to see her – but for the fragments of her that haunted him in memories and those two, terribly sad letters, all he had to comfort himself was the fact that she wouldn't be tied down to an old man like him.

But that was no comfort.

After a while, the older man realized that the only way he could find any peace whatsoever was in those fleeting moments where he thought of Edith. Torturous, yes, in that he knew he could no longer be with her. But the comfort came when he desired her company more than anything else, when memories of her were better than nothing, and the imagining of her sweet smile was enough to remind him that he was indeed still alive.

There were times when thinking of her, and the way she would look at him from across the dinner table were sufficient to lift his spirits. Times when vague memories of past conversations provided him with a way to pass the time. And then there were occasions where he knew he should feel guilty.

Guilty for remembering how it felt to have her lips pressed against his cheek suddenly and passionately, only to watch her walk away with that nervous and ever-so-charming smile on her face - leaving him wondering what it would feel like to have those same lips against his own.

And it was such thoughts, that reminded him that he was no gentleman.

Edith Crawley's lips were a subject he was beginning to ponder all too often. It was as though the longer he spent away from her, the more he missed the sight of her exposed shoulders in evening gowns, and the more he desired to feel her body heat from being so near to him. Her lips were just the beginning of it, for the better he got to know her, the better he found he was able to imagine what kind of person she was underneath all of her lavish clothing.

He knew he was a lost man the first time he imagined pulling her roughly against him with his one good arm, his lips crashing down on hers like a desperate wave seeking a shore on which to break.

She sighed into him, and he felt like a young man again.

Fantasies about her soft lips turned into absolute travesties of morality to the aristocracy - when he thought of her slim arms draped over his shoulders and her elegant nails clawing at the skin of his back. Thought of those pale, seemingly infinite legs wrapped around him in the most intimate of embraces as he buried himself inside her again and again. His name on her breath with each thrust, the temperature around them climbing to near unbearable heights.

And when he finally found his release within her warmth, he knew in his mind that he was too far gone to ever come back from such unbelievable daydreams.

And so he stayed away from her. To protect her innocence, and to protect himself from further torture.

Still, day after day, night after night, he couldn't keep the images of her at bay.

Until finally, one day, their paths happened to cross in London.

Her bright hair caught his eye first, the familiar flash of red reflecting in the late afternoon sun as she crossed the street. He had heard from Lady Violet that Edith had begun working in London at a firm, something secretarial. It seemed to scandalize the family a bit, but for him it seemed like just the thing for her to have done. How like her.

Anthony had called out to her before he had time to think, immediately chastising himself for causing her head to turn. She saw him instantly, and all he could see was her.

The smile that spread across her face then nearly ended him, and she practically ran back across the cobblestone street to him.

"Sir Anthony!"

The enthusiasm did not go unnoticed, and even he thought it odd that she should be so pleased to see him after so many months. Especially when, as far as he knew, she was still bitter and saddened by the whole business.

And yet, all he could do was worry that she could somehow know – somehow read his thoughts and see into his mind, how he relied on the memory of her for comfort; the things he had done to her in his fantasies. Petrified, he tipped his hat. The gentlemanly thing to do.

But what she did then surprised him most.

Without any further pleasantries, without any warning whatsoever, she put a gloved hand against his face. Before he could register what was happening, he finally felt her perfect, smooth lips pressed into his own.

He did not, could not, resist.

She sighed into him, and he felt like a young man again.

He gingerly snaked his arm around her slim waist, pulling her closer, eliciting a noise of approval from Edith that made him wonder if it was all truly happening or not.

But when she pulled away, the first words spoken by either of them were his.

"I'm so sorry."

She shook her head, the realization of what she had done causing an undeniably endearing blush to form on her cheeks. "Don't apologize."

"I have tried to stay away from you..." He admitted.

"But?"

"But now..." He smiled at the freshest memory in his mind, of the feeling of her lips – and so much better than he had imagined.

"Now I don't think I can let you go."

She opened her mouth in mock-surprise. "You're going to steal me away, then?"

"If I have to."

"That's not a very gentlemanly thing to do."

He couldn't stifle the laugh that bubbled up at the realization of the irony of her statement. He let go of her waist after a moment, still smiling despite himself. He should know better, especially since it would not be easy now with her family in opposition to their romance. But for him that was nothing, if it meant he could have the woman of his fantasies – the very woman of his dreams.

He leaned forward then, so that his lips were almost at her ear. "Well my dear," he said with a smile. "It seems I'm no gentleman after all."