He stood there frozen at the sight. The Lady Sybil lying on the pavement. The blood from her head staining the gray cobblestone and turning it brown.
"Milady?" He whispered, or shouted. He couldn't tell thanks to the noise of the raucous mob gathered here at the Ripon count.
It happened so fast. Too fast. Rowdy toughs made their way to the rally. Troublemakers posing as Liberals, spoiling for a fight.
"Look, I'm on your side! Don't cause any trouble! You have to believe me!" Tom Branson pleaded but the man who led the toughs hhoved him aside and he was momentarily lost in this sea of humanity.
The same man confronted Mr. Matthew. Insults were thrown, fists flew.
Then a scream, shattering glass, flesh and bone colliding with stone.
"Milady?" He asked again. His breathing rose as hers fell. He went pale. Tears started forming in the back of his eyes. Blood rushed to his head. He felt faint. No time for that.
"No. Please God, no."
Took him a second to notice Mr. Matthew was shouting at him.
"Branson! We have to get Sybil out! You hear me?"
He could only nod. He quickly took her in his arms, as if he was carrying her over a threshold, and briskly walked back outside where the car was waiting, with Mr. Matthew in tow.
"Get out of the damned way!", he wanted to shout. But his throat seemed to have run dry. His grief was choking him.
When Tom Branson was 9 years old, he tried to wake his Nan-Nan from her nap, but she didn't and never would again. He helped carry her to the waiting hearse. His mother said "She felt light because her spirit has flown." He prayed that night that wasn't the case with Lady Sybil.
"She can't! She mustn't! OR I'LL GO MAD!"
His prayers were answered.
A week later, on a rainy Thursday night, one Liam Doyle was found stabbed to death in an alley outside a tavern called The Queen's Crown.
Tom Branson would remember that day years later as the day he realized he was in love with Lady Sybil Crawley.
Because, well, what do you do to those who harm your loved ones?