"I would speak to you later," he murmured, leaning conspiratorially close to her with that maddening smile, as she put a few finishing touches on Lady Mary's supper tray. The smile she couldn't refuse. At least she was angry enough at him to not grin back, all moony eyed, as she supposed she usually did. She conjured the image of him and his smile, watching her at the wretched garden party. She wasn't there for his viewing pleasure and come to think of it, why was he there at all? Then there was his absent wife rising to float between them, the vague talk of different truths and mention of his sweet, wonderful mother, who she had loved immediately, much to her frustration, and insistence that he wasn't upset with her. Well what if she was upset with him? Of course she would speak to him later, and she would give him a piece of her mind.
"When I'm done for the evening," she murmured, her mouth a tight line. She finished preparing the tray and it shook in her hands as she left the kitchen to take it up to Lady Mary. She checked herself, breathed deeply and focused her energy on silently and smoothly mounting the numerous stairs. She wondered, not for the first time, how he managed that dinner tray for her so long ago, on the evening of the fair. With his stick and his bad leg, it couldn't have been easy. She shook her head, calling up the ridiculous conversation about truths, and the conversation with his mother a week earlier, during which Mrs. Bates explained that her son was in fact still legally married to Vera. He never said he wasn't, but his vague statement on the way to the flower show, that he had been married had thrown her, and when their talk turned to Vera she asked. Her recollections served to renew her fire, her resolve. Her resolve to what? Tell him off? Give him a smack? Shout at him for being so kind to her, so gentlemanly? For trying to protect her honour? As quickly as it had risen in her, her ire dissipated, replaced with a sagging sense of resignation. He wasn't free; had told her as much. So what was it she wanted? An explanation? No, she wanted the truth. She wanted him to tell her all the things he had skirted around - his past, his military service, his injury, his drinking, his marriage, all the things that his mother shared so easily when Anna proved to her that she saw her son for who he really was, a good man, with a good heart and a strong sense of honour and conscience. She wasn't sure what she wanted exactly, but she knew it involved Mr. Bates sharing a great deal more of himself than he deemed proper. She wanted what she shouldn't want, what couldn't be.
As she ascended the stairs, her thoughts swirled up about her. It was ridiculous that she, of all people, should fall in with a married man, and that even now, at the outbreak of war, that married man filled her thoughts. She who knew better, who had learned long ago, who, since, had always taken care to hold her heart separate, who had seen through so many half truths over her years in service - she should have keyed into what he didn't say, what he talked around. Her ankle turned slightly on the landing and she nearly dropped the tray. The jarring rattle of china snapped her back to her senses, to the job at hand.
So she settled into Housemaid Anna, silent and servile. She sat with Lady Mary, listened to the younger woman's disappointments, smoothed her shoulders comfortingly, even held her when she began to weep. She was oddly grateful for the distraction, though not for her Ladyship's grief. It saddened Anna that it took the loss of her future with Mr. Crawley for Lady Mary to realize just what he meant to her.
With the wrenching disappointment of Lady Grantham's miscarriage, and the earth moving announcement of the commencement of war earlier in the day, upstairs took to bed early.
Branson had offered to host a small celebration for Gwen in the garage, as Mr. Carson deigned it disrespectful and inappropriate to celebrate in the servants hall, what with the state of both the house and the country. Lady Sybil herself promised to make an appearance, insisting that a bottle of champange be opened.
Anna couldn't remember another night when she was done seeing to Lady Edith and Lady Mary before half past eight. Most of the staff had trickled out in the direction of the garages as they finished their duties, so Mr. Bates was alone in his chair in the servants hall when she descended into the room. He smiled even before he looked up from his book. She kept her mouth in a hard line, utterly irritated by his recent cheek. "You wanted a word, Mr. Bates?" Her words cut the air and his smile faltered. She slid into the chair next to him, for even in the midst of her frustration she wanted to be near him, which in turn ratcheted her up even more. His voice was soft, the request spoken low, "I wonder if you could be convinced to take a walk with me. I find I am in need of the night air."
Her eyes widened. It was not what she was expecting, though, of course he would wish to speak with her in private.
"We'll be locked out," she reasoned.
"It's not that late yet and I've a key." She was a bit surprised at that - he could proabably see it in her face, because he explained, "I've taken to wandering the grounds at night when my leg keeps me up - Mr. Carson was agreeable to lending me a door key."
She eyed him, "All right then. A walk it is. But I need to put an appearance down at the garages first to congratulate Gwen properly. Shall I meet you in the courtyard at half past nine?"
He had dipped his head and smiled, his eyes twinkling slightly. She stood, not liking the way his eyes made her stomach flutter, and pushed in her chair.
"Until then, Miss Smith." She was glad her back was to him as she walked away because his words only served to make her scowl.
She returned to the courtyard from the boisterous party still in a tetchy mood. She watched him from the shadows a bit. He was staring peacefully at the sky when she saw him across the courtyard, a half smile on his face. She was pensive and broody. Even looking at him made her ache for want of him. She sighed, not really caring to hear what he had to say, but wanting to be near him, all the same.
"Mr. Bates," she offered him by way of greeting.
He smiled at her, "I was beginning to wonder if you were going to come."
"I said i would."
If he noticed the slight sharpness of tone he did not let on, "Did you enjoy Gwen's celebration?"
"I did. I shall miss her. She has been a good friend to me."
"To me as well, though I suppose, to some degree that was your doing."
She let the comment go unremarked, though it nearly drew a bristling response from her, such was her foul mood. She usually worked hard to stay positive and cheerful, it was how she coped, but lately she had been having a hard go of it. Visiting the elder Mrs. Bates had been wonderful, but heartwrenchingly frustrating too. It had taken her a week to ken the reason, which was simple and obvious; she wanted the sweet woman for her own. It was bad enough to love Mr. Bates, but she wanted now more than ever to be part of his small family. She could picture it so clearly. Standing in the kitchen with the older woman, doing dishes, laughing and smiling, hearing stories of when little Johnny was a boy. Stories that would make Mr. Bates roll his eyes and shuffle into the other room for respite. Helping her to prepare dessert or tea. Asking her advice on preparing the dishes of which Mr. Bates was fond. Getting together of a holiday and cooking a goose. Tea with Mrs. Bates had been too tantalizing a glimpse of what might have been. She had yet to shake the sense of disappointment. And then there was Gwen. The news of Gwen's new place had left her with a surprisingly bitter taste in her mouth, though in her heart she was happy for the young woman. It meant losing her friend, breaking in a new housemaid, learning a new woman's idiosyncrasies. She well and truly loved Gwen; the girl was as much a sister to her as any woman she had ever known. It just wasn't fair. She chided herself for being selfish and petulant. She really didn't fully know what had gotten into her.
She stood well away from him as they walked, though she automatically fell into step with him, matching his uneven stride. Silence yawned around the slow crunch of their footfalls and neither attempted to fill it. Instead Anna let the strangeness of the all too familiar grounds bathed in the light of the full moon draw her attention. It soothed her to cast her gaze on the familiarity of it all and have it look so different. Beautiful in foreign and enchanting ways. Had she never walked the grounds in the moonlight? She supposed not. It wasn't proper. So much of life around her, so much of what she wanted was not proper.
He stopped them at a low bench set against a stone wall. It afforded a beautiful view of Downton through the black scrabble of trees. The folly and the reflecting pond were beyond the trees and the moon cut a bright flickering disc into the gently rippling water. She settled on the hard stone, well away from him, peevishly determined to hold onto her frustration. Leave it to him to take her to the most beautiful place she had ever been on the grounds to tell her again how things couldn't be.
"Anna," he finally began softly, his voice taking on an unfamiliar timbre.
"I know what you are about to say," she cut him off, letting her ire flare even more at the bemused and patient look that flickered over his face when he held his hands up in silent surrender. "I shouldn't have sought out your mother; I should have respected your privacy, I should have come to you first before I went to his lordship. Well, you wouldn't tell us, so I had to find someone who would, because none of us believed you capable of theft. And why should I have come to you first? So you could tell me to stay silent, that it doesn't concern me, to let you throw your life away, to dream of another man? Well I'm sorry Mr. Bates, but you and I both know how hard this kind of stain is to wash away. You are not a thief; you don't deserve to be marked as such. You've overcome the problems you had with drink well enough that none of us even suspected. And whatever wrong you feel you have done Vera," she paused, all too aware that it was the first time her name had passed between them. "Giving up your place and your future does nothing to help her, does nothing to make it right. So, go ahead, tell me Mr. Bates, tell me how I have acted out of turn. Or would you rather I hand you a noose?"
Her anger flagged, but she kept her jaw hard, her chin thrust defiantly forward, her gaze trained ahead as she waited for his response.
When he finally spoke it was with a tenderness that made the breath catch in her throat. "Anna, I told you before; I wasn't upset. I meant it. I only wanted ... to thank you. And apologize."
She sighed deeply and shot him what she hoped was a withering glare, "You couldn't have done that in the servants' hall or the courtyard?"
"Anna..."
"No, Mr. Bates," she interjected with a fierce finality. "I'll not be toyed with. You push me away with your words and then in the next breath take my hand and pull me closer."
She kept her eyes trained to the horizon, taking in silvery pools of moonlight and the darkened spider shadows of trees between them and the big house, the stark, shockingly pale columns of the folly. Even still she caught sight of his hands in the periphery of her gaze. Long fingered and graceful, his hands were, worrying at the fabric on his knees. Distracting. She sighed and pushed off of the cool unyielding stone of the bench. She needed to stand away from him. She was relieved when he didn't stand and move to her. She needed to prickle and seethe a bit. She wasn't entirely sure why.
"I received a long letter from my mother yesterday." He began again, coming from an entirely unexpected angle. It was an unfair tack; the mention of the woman, so like her son, teased out a smile. Anna was grateful that her back was to him. She had no response, thrown from her brooding as she was, which knowing him, was what he wanted. He only paused for several beats before continuing, "She must have mailed it off right after you visited her. You've decidedly made an impression."
She could hear the smile in his words. Felt the mantle of anger she'd been holding about her shoulders slip a bit. She sighed. "Your mother is wonderful. She loves you ever so much."
"Funny, she wrote the exact same thing about you." Again his words, or perhaps his mother's words, threw her. In her mind's eye she could picture the angle of his grin. It was so easy to let the faceless spectre of Vera slip away into the shadows. To pretend she didn't exist. Though not so easy as when she was a nameless never-mentioned fragment of his past. She did exist though, was still his legal wife. Her jaw hardened again and she chewed at the corner of her lip before saying it out loud.
"Did she write of having to enlighten me about just how married you meant you were when you said you "have been married"?
He sighed heavily. And then to her surprise chuckled. "She did actually. I didn't imagine it was possible to shout through paper and ink, but she managed it admirably. Anna..."
She wanted to rage at him. Wanted to be bitter enough to learn to stop loving him. Life would be so very much simpler then, less like a raw and open wound that refused to heal. She hated that she couldn't hold onto the anger, couldn't even bring herself to wish away the incessant ache that was longing for him. She hated the hurt sounding whisper that left her throat worse, though. "Do you still love your wife, Mr. Bates?"
It was was a calm enough night that she could hear the shifting and whispering of his clothes as he moved a bit.
The silence stretched.
"I don't know that I ever loved her," when his admission finally came it was a rasped whisper. "I thought I loved her once, but I was young and angry and such a fool. I didn't know what love was then."
"So why did you go to prison for a crime she committed?" Sometimes her own audacity shocked her. She fought the urge to apologize.
There was that low chuckle of his again, the one that licked through her. The one that raised a flush on the back of her neck. "You don't miss a trick, do you, Miss Smith?" She could fairly feel his eyes on her back. She folded her arms across her stomach; it was a cool night. Not chilly exactly, but cool enough to threaten the oncoming change of seasons.
"It was a much more self serving gesture than it seems and not something I care to have known. You can't know how whiskey fueled and bound us. How bad it was. The shame in my mother's eyes..." His voice drew in tightly , went rough and small and Anna held her breath, willing him the courage to continue, forgetting her anger. When he did, his words gained momentum. "My drinking, my life was not going to get any better with her. So much of what we were together was my fault - it all seemed an appropriate penance for my sins. Confessing, taking the blame, serving the sentence, it saved my life. I was so weak, Anna. When they found the silver, i was relieved; I knew it to be my one true chance to quit the whiskey, and that ridding myself of drink was my one chance to rebuild a life for myself. To see my mother proud of me again."
He was still and silent for a time before he coughed a dry self deprecating laugh. "That's the truth behind the man you fell in love with, Anna."
She wanted to hold him then, felt the last of her defenses sift away like grain through her fingers. It was just too natural to be open and easy with him. How could she do anything but love him, regardless of what it meant for her? Especially after he had finally opened himself to her so honestly. She wanted to share what comfort she could with him, but waited until she was sure he had spoken himself out to tell him what had been obvious to her during her visit to London.
"She is proud of you, you know. Your mother. You should have seen how she held off offering me tea until she was sure I believed in your innocence," she turned back to him, warm with the memory of the woman so like the man she loved, the man she should not love. She sat back down on the stone bench, at a distance, but one she hoped conveyed that something of an understanding had been reached. She splayed her palm flat on the stone between them, wondering if it cooled her or she warmed it. She quickly threw the thought off as nonsense. He wouldn't quite meet her eye, but her nearness seemed to give him permission to continue. He took a purposeful breath and did so in earnest, "Anna, our marriage had been broken and over long before I went to prison. Long before she disappeared from my life. That's what I meant when I said I have been married. I haven't seen her since before the trial. She didn't visit or respond to my letters when I was in prison. After a while I stopped trying to get in touch with her."
Anna sat very still, measuring her breaths, not wanting anything to startle him from the naked intimacy of his words. She decided she liked the idea of her palm warming the stone more than the idea of the stone cooling her palm.
"She is a difficult woman, but I was a difficult man. Together, we were... We were a bloody mess." He dropped his head into his hands, dropped his voice to a pained sounding rasp. "I've tried so hard to keep my past separate from Downton, but no matter what I do, it will be there, ready to reach out and ruin everything. I've only ever tried to spare you my shame."
She worked hard to keep her tone gentle and playful, "And does your mother have anything to add on that matter? Your fighting so hard to do the right thing and spare me your so called shame?"
This time his laugh was genuine and full throated; loud enough to make her grateful for the distance between them and the Abbey. "My mother reminded me that choices are never black and white, that love rarely waits for appropriate circumstances, and that it isn't a sin to seek happiness. She also reckons that you are a woman grown who knows her own mind, and proceeded to write that I had better hurry up and find a way to divorce 'that woman' so that she can give you her grandmother's wedding ring. Which was, by the by, decidedly not offered when I announced my engagement to Vera."
Her heart pounded loudly in her ears and she swallowed, trying to will it to slow. She felt his words in the pit of her stomach, took the time to enjoy the sensation before she pulled her wits together and steadied herself to speak, "She's a wise woman, your mother."
His fingers curled around her hand where it rested between them on the stone. She sat, still as that same stone, but for the erratic rush of her blood and the obscenely loud sound of her breath catching in her throat.
"I have absolutely nothing to offer you, Anna."
She closed her eyes and shuttered her awareness to the feel of his hand cradling hers and the sweet jolt of desire that raced through her at the raw fragility his voice. She tried to speak several times and found she couldn't. The words wouldn't form on her tongue.
"I only ever wanted you," she finally whispered, risking a peek out of the corner of her eye, as though he would disappear if she fully opened her eyes.
"I can't even really give you that."
She sat up straighter, turned her head to look directly at him, and felt a sort of ferocity swell up inside of her. She moved her hand in his and linked fingers with him. She held her soft soprano low and even, almost daring him to deny it, "Do you love me, Mr. Bates?"
His response was breathed, "Do you really need to ask?"
He wouldn't meet her eyes, seemed at odds with himself. And in an instant, whatever it was that had fueled her anger transmuted and burgeoned and broke through any last sense of propriety holding her back. She stood, tightening her grip on his hand and bold as brass nudged her way between his knees. His bewildered, conflicted expression, for he was eye level with her chest and didn't seem to want to either meet her eye or stare directly at her bosom, brought her a wicked sense of delight, emboldening her actions. She thrilled a little at her fearlessness, at how hard he was trying to remain impassive, at the knowledge that she wasn't going to let him. She ran her thumb across the fingers entwined with hers and waited. His eyes finally settled to stare, unseeing, over her left shoulder. When he found his voice it had a low edge to it she hadn't heard before, "What is it you want from me, Miss Smith?"
"Not want, Mr. Bates; need," she ran her thumb pointedly across the center of his palm. "I don't really need to ask, but you need to say it. I need to hear you say it."
Smoldering eyes sought hers and she felt his gaze in places that left her gasping and speechless. She was exquisitely aware of the desire he exuded, of how strongly her body was responding. A deep flush burned her ears and cheeks and she felt her nipples prickle against the constraint of her corset. An image of a fox came to her mind; predator turned prey.
"You were wrong, you know, " his smile, the flash of his teeth, tugged at her in very physical ways. He rubbed a fold of the fabric of her skirt between his free thumb and forefinger.
"Oh?" She raised her brows, conceding to his playful diversion, "How so?"
"I didn't invite you to walk with me to condemn the actions that saved my place at this house. Would I have appreciated being told before you shared the information with Lord Grantham? Yes, but I understand why you did what you did. I'm deeply grateful - eternally grateful, really. I've never been championed so utterly." His smile had grown to mirror the fullness of the moon, but it sank into seriousness, "I wanted to tell you how happy you made my mother, and to apologize for what a stubborn, self defeating fool I've been. I wanted you to know how much..." His voice constricted with emotion and he looked away.
When he wouldn't meet her eyes, she pressed his palm to her heart, holding it there with her hand and in the next blink they were hers, full to brimming with everything he usually locked away. And then she was lightly tracing over the ghost of stubble on his cheek, the fanning lines at the corners of his eyes, the soft brush of brow. He shivered and bucked under her fingertips, his breath gone ragged. She strained to think of the last time she had let herself feel another so intimately. She imagined herself a string stretched taut and humming. It was the most natural thing in the world to close the narrow space between them and press a kiss to his temple, then another to the scar on his cheek, and another against the flesh of his throat that was constricted by his collar. She found his mouth first with her fingers, tracing lightly across the surprising softness of his lips, mewling against him when his stubble caught at her sensitive fingertips. She pulled away quickly, her heart surging loudly in her ears, shocked at the carnal depth of sensation it caused, slightly horrified at the wordless animal sound that issued unbidden from the back of her throat at the contact. Still she held his open gaze in the brightness of the moon, her own eyes widened, both of their breaths coming loud and ragged. Her whisper was tender and insistent when she found her voice again, "Do you love me, Mr. Bates?"
Twin tears fell from his eyes as he half choked, half whispered. "Oh God, Anna, so much." She brushed them away with her thumbs and then pulled him tightly to her, resting her chin on his head. "There," she murmured, with a gentle chuckle. "Was that so hard?" She ran her hands over the breadth of his back and he trembled under her touch. Humid breath warmed her collar bone as he mirrored her soft laugh, and slowly his arms encircled her, tightened around her until it was deliciously hard to breath. Her fingers found the close cut hair at the back of his neck and traced patterns in the textures there. They stood like that for what seemed like hours and she felt the burr of his words at her throat. "Oh my sweet, sweet Anna, so very much."