Author's note: This fic is set post-garden party/start of the war, but pre-York. I so wish we'd seen more of the process of Tom and Sybil falling in love – what led to that grand declaration underneath that arch? Yes, I know that idea has been explored, over and over again, in exhaustive detail, and by much better writers than me. But this little interlude more or less wrote itself, so while I know this is probably not the fic you WANT to read from me, it's the fic you're getting, for now. (No, I haven't completely abandoned A Woman's Prerogative, and I have a loose plan of how it's going to continue, but for now it's… I don't know, marinating, I suppose.) Anyway, enough yammering… I hope you enjoy this.
Tom Branson sat in the sweltering heat on the footboard of Lord Grantham's Renault, parked in the gravel drive outside of one of England's grand houses. Lady Mary and Lady Sybil had disappeared inside hours ago, here at – whose house had Lady Mary said this was? He couldn't remember now, but then again he never took much of an interest the aristocracy, save for one very notable exception, of course. He mopped his brow with his handkerchief (again) and took a swig from the flask he had brought (again) – water, not liquor; he wasn't a drunk – and finally gave up on keeping his uniform tidy, tugging his tie loose and flicking open the top few buttons of his shirt, fed up. His jacket had been discarded almost immediately after Lady Mary and Sybil had gone in; if he had to sit here and wait like a knot on a log, he would at least do so as comfortably as he could manage.
The light had long since faded, forcing him to put his book aside and leaving him with little to do but think and wait. Think and wait, think and wait: sometimes it seemed like that was all he ever did these days. He pulled his watch from his pocket and strained to see the dial; finally he made out the time: it was just after 11:00, which meant that he had been waiting here for some three hours now. He exhaled heavily and leaned his head back against the cool metal of the Renault's door, closing his eyes.
Had he been at Downton, the soft hum of voices and laughter from inside might have been soothing, but tonight it pricked at his consciousness uncomfortably. Sybil was in there, no doubt amongst scores of eligible bachelors; perhaps it was her he heard laughing, her blue eyes flashing happily as the man who had made her laugh smiled triumphantly, placing his hand lightly on her bare arm, leaning in to whisper something else that would make her blush and smile again. He cringed at the thought, feeling his ire rise and then scolding himself for getting upset about some imagined scenario. At the same time, he realized that this mental image was well within the realm of possibility, and it stung to think of how entirely probable it actually was. There she was, inside the stately walls of this proud mansion - most likely being wooed and courted - and here he was, outside, as useless and unnoticed as the marble statues that flanked the grand entrance.
Branson clenched his fist in his pocket reflexively, wondering if perhaps it wasn't time that he stopped pretending that maybe – just maybe, if he was patient enough – that she would one day come to see him as more than just a chauffeur. Maybe it was time to go back to Ireland, to try to forget about her once and for all. He'd tried it before – forgetting her, that is - but he had failed miserably; distance, it seemed, was his only hope.
The sound of the front door opening and the crunch of footsteps on the gravel startled him out of his reverie, and he stood hastily, jerking open the door of the Renault and fumbling for his discarded jacket. An apology for his state of dishabille was already on the tip of his tongue when he turned and saw her, his breath catching a little. Of course he had already seen (and admired) her tonight, but now, as often happened when she appeared unexpectedly, the sight of her was positively arresting. She looked uncommonly beautiful, bedecked in all the regalia of a true Lady, and yet, in many ways, it was an uncomfortable reminder of the gulf between them. Tonight, fresh on the heels of his troubled musings, the image struck him like a plunge into ice water: she is so very far above you. He blushed, looking down at his now-haphazard uniform, an ever-present reminder of his station.
But then, she laughed, genuinely and warmly, amused at his hasty efforts to reassume proper decorum. "Really, Branson, you don't have to panic. It's only me," she said teasingly, and he laughed, too, relaxing instantly. Sometimes when he saw her approaching, an awful lump would form in his throat and his pulse would quicken and his face would flush, cock-sure though he pretended to be: but then, like now, they would fall into their easy rhythm, immediately and effortlessly, because she had an uncanny way of disarming him, and in those moments they were together, it didn't seem like she was above him at all. In fact, it felt like they were very much the same.
"Please don't put that back on on account of me," she said, nodding to his jacket. "I'd hate to be responsible for your death from heat stroke."
"That would be a terrible guilt to live with," Branson laughed, then added with a teasing smile, "but I'm sure you'd find a replacement for me soon enough." He tossed the jacket back into the vehicle, relieved, and shut the door after it.
"Don't be absurd," Sybil said, opening her own door and placing her shawl inside the car. "Revolutionary Irish chauffeurs are very hard to come by." It was too dark to see her face very well, but her tone was mischievous and playful.
Branson laughed. "Maybe the first two," he agreed, "but regular chauffeurs are common enough, I think."
"Well who wants a regular chauffeur? I know I don't." Sybil said coyly, peeling off her silk gloves, then turning and placing them carefully on the seat beside her shawl.
Branson felt his cheeks flush a bit and was relieved that it was too dark for her to tell. He took another sip of water, and although the thought seemed incredible, he could not help but wonder - was she . . . flirting with him? He wanted to study her face, to see if he could read something in her expression, but her back was turned now, even if there had been enough light to see very well. He squashed the thought almost as quickly as it had come. Don't be a fool, he berated himself. She's only being kind.
"Where's Lady Mary?" he asked after a beat, only now realizing the absence of one of his charges.
Sybil sighed and leaned back against the Renault. "She's still inside, flirting," she said, exasperated. "I begged her to leave because I was so bored, but she wouldn't have it. She said that if I was too 'socially inept' to enjoy myself at a party, then I could very well wait for her in the car, but that she wasn't going to cut her evening short on account of me. She said she'd come out at midnight and not a minute sooner."
"Well, if she's going to be a while, let's go sit by that fountain." He nodded at a point over her shoulder, and she turned to see where he was gesturing. "It's too hot to sit in the car, and besides, I don't like not being able to see your face."
"Oh?" she said, sounding a little surprised. "And why's that?"
"Because you're English," he said teasingly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked, bemused.
"It means you say twice as much with your eyes as you do with your mouth."
Sybil laughed. "That's ridiculous," she said as they walked towards the fountain he had indicated. At a fair distance from the house, it was well outside that structure's foreboding shadow, and at the moment, the full moon reflecting off the milky white marble provided a good deal of light. "You really think you can tell what I'm thinking just by looking at me?"
"More or less," he said blithely; he was goading her a bit - something he was rather fond of doing, truth be told - because he loved how animated she became when he teased her.
"Alright," she said, her tone a bit defiant. "Let's test your theory, shall we?" She picked up her pace a bit in order to reach the fountain ahead of him, and sat down very purposively on the wide rim that formed a sort of bench around the perimeter of the fountain.
Branson stopped just a few paces in front of her, hands in his pockets, and she raised her chin a bit, arching an eyebrow at him challengingly. He bit back a smile as she said, "Alright, Mr. Know-It-All. What am I thinking right. this. second?" She narrowed her eyes at him and kept her lips pressed firmly together, although the corners of her mouth were turned up in a smile.
He sat down beside her, looked at her contemplatively for several seconds, then smiled and said, "You're thinking that I'm very arrogant and that you don't believe I can really guess what you're thinking." Sybil looked surprised and he smiled more broadly, saying, "I'm right, aren't I?"
"Lucky guess," she said, eying him suspiciously, as if trying to determine whether he could really see her thoughts. "Try again."
Branson laughed. "I'm not a mind-reader," he said. "There has to be some context. But I think I know you well enough to tell when you're lying – or when you're annoyed with me for being right – or when you're upset, even though you say you're not. Like right now, for example."
"What?" she said, again taken by surprise at his prescience.
"You didn't come out here because you got bored. Something happened in there that upset you – I'm guessing some self-important conservative ass said something ignorant and you couldn't stand it anymore."
Sybil gave a mirthless little laugh. "You know, you could have quite a career in espionage," she said. "Who's your source on the inside?" She shot him a teasing look.
"My source?" he said, looking confused.
"Oh really Branson, don't be coy. Someone must've told you. Who was it?"
But Branson chuckled and shook his head. "No one, I swear. Just another educated guess. I know you're too polite to leave a party because you're bored. And I know you're not good at biting your tongue when someone says something you don't agree with. And I know these kinds of parties aren't exactly filled with liberal thinkers and advocates for women's rights."
Sybil sighed and smiled ruefully at Branson in a way that confirmed how correct his assessment was. She was silent for a moment before she sat up a little straighter, shimmying slightly in a gesture that almost looked as if she were trying to nudge an unseen hand off her shoulder. "It's so silly," she said finally, her voice a little sad and resigned. "I know I shouldn't get angry when they say stupid things. I should just pretend I don't know anything, that I don't even have an opinion – just laugh and change the subject."
"Is that what your parents want you to do?" he asked quietly, unable to keep a hint of disgust from creeping into his voice. He would never understand this world of artifice, of saying one thing and feeling another.
Sybil looked down, seemingly abashed. "Well, that's what you do if you want to 'catch a husband,' isn't it? You don't talk about politics or women's rights or anything controversial. You just smile and nod and laugh when you're supposed to and it's as simple as that."
Branson shook his head. "That's ridiculous."
"It is!" Sybil said adamantly, then sighed, in an attempt to calm herself, and continued more calmly, "It really is. I just can't do it. I know it's what they all expect, but I just can't. I had to leave before I insulted someone and made a scene."
Branson seemed amused by this possibility and said, "I wish you had."
"You say that," Sybil answered, "but I don't think you mean it. You wouldn't see me for months if I did – my parents might never allow me out of the house again."
He chuckled, but shook his head. "I don't know how you stand it sometimes – I don't think I could."
"Stand what?"
"Not being allowed to have your own opinion."
"Oh, we can have as many opinions as we like," she teased, "- so long as we keep them to ourselves." They both smiled, but in truth he felt indignant at the absurd precepts that were forced on women of her class, and more than a little bitter at the fact that she was likely to be continually disappointed and dismayed by the small pool of men her family considered "appropriate" matches. He desperately and unselfishly wanted her to be happy, to be able to live a life that wouldn't crush her spirit and dash her dreams.
Sybil sobered a bit and continued. "I know it will sound terribly ungrateful and childish of me, but sometimes I wish I could be someone else." She glanced up at him anxiously, and added, "Do you know what I mean?"
Branson nodded. "You mean you'd like to just be Sybil sometimes, not 'Lady Sybil.'"
"Yes!" she exclaimed, relieved that he seemed to understand.
"It's only a title," he said gently. "You don't have to let it define you."
"I know," she said. "And it's not that I don't appreciate what I have, really. It's just that - sometimes I feel as though everything's already been decided for me – and there's never any question that I might want something different, because why would you?"
"But you do want something different," he said fervently, confidently, before realizing that he sounded a bit too presumptive and adding, "- Don't you?"
"I'm not sure," she said softly. It was an honest answer. "I'm afraid I don't really know what I want."
"You will," he said quietly, reassuringly. "One day."
"I hope so," she said. She was quiet for a beat, then added, "I think I'd like to have a job. You know, go to work, be useful. It must be nice to be able to feel like you have some purpose."
"You mean like driving ladies into town to buy new hats?" he said self-deprecatingly.
"Don't sell yourself short," she said. "You do much more than that."
"True," he said. "Sometimes I drive to the church, or to the train station."
"And sometimes we're going to buy shoes and dresses, not just hats," she added good-humoredly. If he was going to poke fun at himself, she wanted him to know that she did not consider herself above some gentle mocking, too.
"You're right," he laughed. "I'd forgotten about that. I guess I'm doing important work, after all."
She smiled, but then looked down and said more quietly, her tone somber, "I know you must feel like you're wasting your time. You're so smart, and ambitious – what makes you stay?"
"You sound like you're trying to get rid of me," he joked, but privately he feared that perhaps she was.
"Of course not!" Sybil exclaimed. "I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have you to talk to." She looked as though she wanted to say more, but she did not.
"I don't suppose you'd be very pleased if I told you I was going back to Ireland, then," he said. He was teasing her, but her eyes widened for just a moment and Branson was sure that he saw a fleeting look of genuine horror on her face before she checked herself and assumed a more neutral expression.
"You're not really going to, are you?" she said, attempting to sound calm and mask her anxiety at this prospect. Nonetheless, he knew her well enough to catch a note of tremulous uncertainty in her voice, and his heart did a strange kind of flip-flop when he saw her look down and bite at her lip nervously.
"No," he said, firmly and reassuringly. "Not as long as I'm needed here, anyway."
Sybil looked relieved and her shoulders relaxed visibly. "Please don't scare me like that," she said lightly. "You know Pratt doesn't hear well, and I think I might go mad if I didn't have someone to listen to me."
Branson laughed and reached into his pocket, removing something from it and holding his hand out to her. She opened her palm and extended it towards him questioningly. "Here," he said, dropping a coin into her upturned hand.
"What's this?" she asked.
"For the fountain," he said.
Sybil smiled. "If wishes were horses…" she began.
"Then beggars would ride," he said, finishing the adage. "I know. It can't hurt to try, though, can it?"
Sybil stood and turned towards the water. Branson stepped closer to the fountain and was moving to toss in his coin when Sybil said "Wait!", making him freeze. He looked at her inquisitively. "You can't have thought of your wish already, can you?" she asked. "I mean - don't you need to think about it for awhile?"
He shook his head. "I know what I want," he said evenly, his voice lower and more serious than she had expected, and though she told herself she imagined it, she thought that his look was significant. She toyed absently with the coin he had given her, passing it from one hand to the other, and felt - not for the first time - a bit awed and even a bit envious of his self-assuredness, the easy confidence with which he spoke his mind and knew his own heart, passionately and unapologetically.
"I wish I was as sure about things as you are," she said with a soft laugh, a little wistfully.
"Knowing what you want's the easy part," he said with a shrug. "It's figuring out how to get it that's the challenge." He turned back towards the fountain, leaned forward a bit, and flicked his coin upwards off his thumb. It made a graceful arch and landed with a little splash in the open beak of the marble egret at the center of the fountain; he turned and flashed her a boyish, triumphant smile.
"How's that for luck?" he asked.
"Bully for you," she said, a bit sarcastically but with a genuine smile. Then, climbing carefully onto the edge of the fountain, she added, "But you should know I can't stand to be outdone."
"Careful there," said Branson, chuckling and folding his arms, watching her with amusement. "We'll have to walk home if you fall in."
She shot him an arch look over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised rakishly. "Oh yes? And why is that?"
"Well, we can't have you ruining the leather seats with your wet clothes, can we?"
Sybil laughed and leaned forward to reduce the distance between herself and her target, then laughed harder when Branson scrambled closer nervously.
"Alright, you're close enough," he said. "Just hurry up and toss it in before you break your neck."
"That's a bit dramatic, don't you think?" she teased. "But if you're really worried about it, you can hold me steady. I would hate to have to walk home."
For a moment Branson was not sure he understood what she was suggesting, because Ladies and their servants did not share more than the most cursory and formal physical contact. Surely, he thought, he must've misunderstood; she couldn't possibly be asking him to touch her. And yet, now she was looking impatiently over her shoulder at him, and said a bit petulantly, "Well?"
Branson swallowed and closed the gap between them. He hesitated again, unsure of where to put his hands. Sybil must have sensed his uncertainty, because she added, more quietly now, "Just put your hands on my waist," her voice noticeably less commanding and sure than before.
Perhaps he should've demurred, should've said "I don't think that's a good idea, milady," should've suggested that they go back to the car, because surely Mary would be coming out soon. Instead, he simply placed his hands very gently on either side of her waist.
"Alright," he said quietly, his voice low. His next words were even quieter still. "I've got you."
For a moment, Sybil remained utterly still. She looked down and felt strangely dazed by the sight of his large hands on her torso, long fingers splayed out against the blue silk of her gown. She knew it was a great impropriety, knew that she shouldn't have asked it of him – but then she felt his fingers flex against her skin through the thin fabric of her dress, and a little chill raced down her spine and made her decide then and there that she regretted nothing. And for the first time in her life, she consciously acknowledged that this - Branson touching her – did something to her, something she couldn't put a name to it or even describe very well, but something that made her pulse fly and her stomach flutter.
He felt her inhale deeply and release a breath slowly, and then she leaned forward further still, forcing him to tighten his grip on her, to give her some anchor to pivot from and keep from pitching forward into the water. Finally, stretching as far as she could, she physically placed her coin into the egret's mouth, bypassing a throw altogether. Then, she returned to a normal position, and he allowed his hands to linger for only a moment before he dropped them and she turned to face him; he offered her his hand to help her step down from the ledge.
Sybil felt instantly bereft at the loss of contact, her heart still racing. She placed her hand into his outstretched one, closing her fingers tightly around it, knowing that he expected her to step to his side, to offer a polite "Thank you" and introduce another topic of conversation – perhaps something less heavy and potentially loaded than all these reminders of how lonely and isolated she felt from the rest of her peers, of how well he understood her, of what they both dreamed of for their futures. She even expected herself to do those things. Yet an impulsive, reckless little part of her had another idea altogether, a sudden, mad urge to feel that tingling little shiver again. And so at the last second, she hesitated from the expected course. Stepping directly downward off the ledge, she settled into the small window of space squarely in front of him, so close that they were nearly touching.
She heard him inhale sharply, a quiet little noise of surprise. All of his experience and training told him that he should back away, should reestablish a decorous boundary between them, but in that moment, he forgot entirely that he was a Chauffeur and she was a Lady, conscious only of the fact that he was a man and she was a woman, and that he loved her.
So he remained fixed in place and did not give any ground. She kept her hand in his, not releasing it, and said without looking up, her voice barely above a whisper – "Like at the garden party… Do you remember?"
"Of course I remember," he said, just as quietly. He felt sure that even had she asked him 50 years from now, he would remember.
It was a long moment before she could summon the courage to meet his eyes, staring instead at the little triangle of skin exposed at his open collar. When she finally did raise her gaze, it was another beat before she spoke.
"I don't suppose you can guess what I'm thinking right now," she said, her heart pounding furiously. Suddenly the still night air seemed even thicker and hotter than before. She knew she was being reckless, knew she was being heedless and foolhardy and a thousand other words for stupid. Yet the teenager in her was defiant and willful and restless, and in that moment, all that seemed to matter was chasing that wonderful, heady little spark. Now, standing so close to him and breathing in the unique blend of leather and aftershave and newsprint that was so distinctly Branson, she remembered very acutely the little whispers of yearning that dogged her subconscious, maddeningly apt to bubble up to the surface in dreams.
She was unprepared for the earnest, longing look in his eyes, unprepared for the way it pulled her under. This is why you keep your distance, she suddenly realized. This is why you should not call him Tom and he should not call you Sybil. This feeling – like the steady pull of an undertow at sea – was the reason she had kept him at arm's length.
He was leaning forward, his lips just inches from hers, her eyes fluttering closed, when the sound of footsteps jolted them abruptly apart.
"Sybil?" came Mary's crisp, clear voice out of the darkness. "Sybil, where are you?"
"We're over here," Sybil called, her own voice shaky with her disconcertment. She glanced towards Branson, who seemed to have instantly resumed the cool, impassive expression he always assumed when dealing with the rest of her family – blandly polite and professional, his visage betraying nothing of what he really felt.
"Oh," Mary said, seeming surprised when she was close enough to see them, trying to make sense of her younger sister's flustered demeanor. She cocked her head to the side a bit and said, "Am I interrupting something?" She never would have posited such a suggestion if she had any idea how close to the mark she truly was.
"Of course not," Sybil said briskly. "We were just talking. Are you ready to leave?"
"Yes, quite," said Mary. She glanced quickly at Branson, hoping for some clue to explain Sybil's apparent agitation, but he only gave her a tight little smile and gestured for her to walk ahead of him. "After you, milady," he said calmly.
Shaking her head and giving an exasperated sigh, Mary followed her sister to the car.
To be continued…?