One moment Mary and Lavinia are walking quite respectably through the garden, elbow to elbow, and the next Lavinia is giggling so hard over some uncharitable remark of Mary's that she can barely keep her feet. She shoves Mary, who nearly falls to the grass, and then Mary chases Lavinia across the lawn. They run easily these days, yearling deer in the spring after the boggy snows of grief have melted away. They fall onto a bench in a heap, breathless and as tangled as two briars. Lavinia's pale cheeks flush dark, her eyes are jewels of mirth, and something writhes in Mary that she puts no name to.
"I'll have to go someday," Lavinia says over tea.
Mama and Edith are gone off to some charitable function, and Papa is buried in papers in his study, and so there's only Mary to hear Lavinia's confession. "You're always welcome at Downton. Surely Papa told you—"
"No, I know. But I'm obviously recovered from the influenza, and I've no excuse to stay anymore, have I?" She asks it of her teacup rather than of Mary.
"You'll always have a home here, if you want it."
Lavinia smiles her gentle smile. "I've no doubt of it, but—"
"I'll miss you terribly," Mary says. They aren't the words she meant to say. Lavinia meets her eyes, but Mary can't read what she sees there.
Lavinia invites Mary to her room after dinner to return a necklace Mary lent her. As she rummages in her vanity, her back to Mary, she says, "Come to the city with me. Just for a little while."
"You're going, then."
Lavinia turns, the green and gold fronds of the necklace glinting like seaweed between her fingers. "Please come."
Mary hasn't it in her to refuse.
Mary doesn't expect to enjoy London. It's as dirty as she remembers. It's loud and smells of a chamber pot. Yet there is a peace in Lavinia's apartments Mary hasn't found at Downton in years. Whatever cars and coaches rattle without, within these walls is a world that belongs only to Lavinia and Mary. Some days they go out to the shops or on social calls. Some days they stay in with their tea and the Times.
Or they stumble back in from a dinner, half-drunk on gaeity, and they celebrate their youth with glasses of wine, and then Mary finds herself leaning against Lavinia's shoulder and staring into eyes fathoms deep. Thoughtlessly Mary kisses her mouth; it is only after Lavinia opens her lips to Mary's that she realizes that this is strange. They don't do this. She can't remember why. She kisses the wine from Lavinia's mouth. Lavinia moans against her, and the writhing quivering something in Mary unfurls. She curls her hand at the nape of Lavinia's neck and draws her nearer.
"Mary," Lavinia murmurs. She pulls away. Her color is high. "What are we doing?"
The question sobers Mary. "I don't know." She stares at Lavinia, at her breasts heaving and constrained under her dress, at her long slim neck, and she wants to touch her everywhere, all at once. But they don't do this. Mary gulps in a breath. "I'm sorry."
"I'm not," Lavinia says. Her eyes glitter like fire reflected and caught on the waves. She peers into Mary's eyes, and she says, "You'll have to undo my dress. I can't do it myself."
"Are you certain?"
Lavinia leans in and kisses Mary just below the jaw. "Be with me, Mary. Please." The words tickle Mary's skin.
Mary unfastens Lavinia from the dazzle of green and gold and lace that turns her elfin every time she wears it, like some nymph fresh-risen from the bright green sea. It's too fantastic; it's distracting, Mary told herself hours ago. It makes her want to kiss Lavinia, she knows now. She does, bending around to catch Lavinia's lips. They smile against Mary's mouth.
Then Mary turns and lets Lavinia do the same for her. Mary feels her hands shake. Finally they stand in their underthings, practically bare, and they stare at each other, and Mary is suddenly certain that this is a mistake.
But Lavinia steps in and kisses her again with a surety Mary would never have credited her for. "Can I see them?" Lavinia whispers against Mary's neck. "Please."
So Mary steps back, lifts her chemise over her head. She bends to slide her knickers off, and cautiously she straightens again. Now she is bare. For a moment the chill of it, felt and imagined, holds her still. Then she relaxes, and the tendrils of her womanhood curl out of her, writhing in the open air. No one's seen them in years, not even Anna – not since the ill-fated Mr. Pamuk has Mary stood so exposed.
Perhaps that's why she is so unprepared for Lavinia to kneel and take a tendril in her mouth. Mary gasps at the heat, at the questing curiosity of Lavinia's tongue. The intoxicated haze of want that Mary's been walking in for hours now – for months, perhaps, never realizing – sharpens suddenly in a spike of heat straight through her. She moans.
Lavinia pulls away and smiles coyly up at Mary. She rises and takes Mary's hand. "Come to bed?"
And Mary does.
For a few moments they are a tangle of limbs, trying to orient themselves in a bed smaller than either of them enjoyed at Downton. Mary finds herself straddling Lavinia's lap, staring down at her flushed cheeks, the nubs of her breasts, rosy in the lamplight glow."I want to touch you everywhere."
"Yes," Lavinia breathes.
Mary runs her hands up Lavinia's bare sides. Her fingers bump along Lavinia's ribs. Lavinia inhales a giggle at the touch, and Mary ducks in to lip along Lavinia's collarbone. Lavinia smells of Alice Martindale's drawing room, of wine and sweat. Mary inhales her, one breath after another until she begins to feel light-headed. "I never thought..." she begins, and doesn't know how to finish. She's been months carefully not thinking at all.
Lavinia's kissing Mary again, peppering Mary's neck, her ear, her jaw. A hand strays down Mary's belly. "More."
"Are you sure?" Mary tries again.
Lavinia shoves away to stare Mary fiercely in the eye. "I will not do this halfway. I will have all of you, Lady Mary Crawley."
She is a lioness, a jewel; how did they all fail to see it before? How has Mary hidden it from herself for so long? "Yes," she promises. Carefully she rolls her arse under so her tendrils are free to move. She taps at Lavinia's hand with one of them.
Lavinia laughs, her eyes full now and bright with more than just wine. "In me, Mary."
Mary wonders at her joyous certainty. It's Mary who knew a night of illict pleasure years ago, but Lavinia who leads, who curls her hand around the tendril and guides it downward. She falls back against the bed and wriggles her hips, watching Mary with wide-open eyes.
How could Matthew help but love this woman? But even Matthew never saw what Mary's seeing. He never did – never could do – what Mary is about to. She leans down over Lavinia, hands braced on the bed, knees wide, and she sinks down onto Lavinia's thighs. Her tendrils poke under the edges of Lavinia's knickers, and Lavinia gasps.
Mary lifts her hips just high enough for her tendrils to pull Lavinia's knickers down properly. Lavinia's tendrils squirm beneath her. Mary gasps in her ear, "I want to see yours, after this. I want you to touch me how you touch yourself."
"Yes," Lavinia promises, high and breathy.
Mary glides her tendrils along the heat of Lavinia's folds. Mary knows this part; Lavinia's can't be so different from her own. She massages, sends the tip of her tendril tickling up and down the fold. "Oh, God," Lavinia says, squeezing her eyes shut. Mary keeps on, rewarded by each shudder, each sharp intake of breath.
Lavinia grips Mary's arm. "In me, Mary," she demands. Mary laughs at her impatience, but she closes her eyes and presses deeper. Past Lavinia's folds and her quiescent tendrils, something gives, and Mary pushes in, first one tendril and then the other. It is exactly like satisfying herself, and it is nothing like. Lavinia's quim is hot and already briny-wet, eager, other. Mary's progress is measured not by pleasure but by the way Lavinia squirms beneath her.
Except there is pleasure, sharp twists of it through Mary with each squirm. She's thickening now, hotter and faster than ever happens when she's alone. She's thicker in Lavinia than she was even a moment ago. "All right?" she gasps. "Too much?"
Lavinia rolls her hips up against Mary in answer. Mary keeps going, pressing, bending into Lavinia's welcome heat. "Yes," Lavinia breathes. "Yes. Yes." And then she shudders around Mary, body folding toward Mary with the force of it.
Lavinia falls back against the pillow, gasping each breath, eyes shut. Mary sits back and looks at her. Her red-gold hair has gotten loose from its pins and now falls across her shoulder in a tangle. After a few seconds her eyes open, and her lidded gaze falls fondly upon Mary. "You now."
"You," Mary pleads. "I want to see you."
Lavinia shoves onto her elbows and then upright. "You will. I promise you will." But already her fingers are sliding down Mary's belly and farther down, sliding along Mary's overheated flesh. Suddenly Mary teeters at the precipice. She falls headlong, and Lavinia holds her as the waters close over her head.
When they recede, she is still in Lavinia's arms. Rather than look at her, Mary lays her head on Lavinia's shoulder and closes her eyes. Lavinia begins to pet her hair. "All right?" Lavinia asks her.
"I think so," Mary says. She doesn't move. "Lavinia, what do we do now?"
"We rest a little while, and then, Mary Crawley, I shall return all your favors." Her voice is full of promises so rich Mary can nearly taste them.
Still, Mary's words are tight in her throat, like unfallen tears. "After that. I don't know if I can go back to before." Finally she dares to sit up and pull away far enough to look into Lavinia's eyes. "Lavinia, I can't be to you what I was."
Gently Lavinia smooths a curl of hair from Mary's face. "Nor I."
Something new curls in Mary, warm and bright.
[end]