A/N: Written for Rose, who requested a bit of post-S3 Mary/Richard without a great deal of angst. I think I've managed to pull that off—though I'm also not sure I'll be able to leave this at "a bit." This definitely feels like the start of something more…what do you guys think? ;) Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about A Lady In Paris—I'm just still planning what happens next. ;)
Spring, 1922
1. Gloves Off
The rap of the knocker on the front door of Grantham House in London drew Isobel Crawley's gaze from her lap, where her infant grandson gummed away at his first morsel of bread and butter.
"I wonder who that could be?"
She swiveled in her wing backed chair to peer out the bay window overlooking the street, but her crinkled forehead indicated she couldn't make out who stood on the doorstep. Mary had a better vantage point from the sofa, but she made no move to look and sipped her tea as low muffled male tones rumbled through the walls from the entry hall.
"Evelyn Napier, I should imagine," she replied, lowering her cup onto the saucer resting on her knee, the white of the china stark against her black skirt. "He phoned yesterday to say he might drop in some afternoon this week. Though I thought he said he wouldn't be in town for a few days."
"Perhaps he's had a change of plans," Isobel said. "I only met him the once at Downton. He seemed a very pleasant young man. He's never married?"
"He was nearly engaged, before the war."
Isobel smiled, stiffly, and returned her attention to the baby, who had begun to fuss and wriggle in her lap toward the side table where her plate held the enticing buttered bread. Did it upset her, Mary wondered, for her daughter-in-law to receive a call from a former suitor? She hadn't considered that when she'd happily told Evelyn she'd be pleased to receive him. Surely Isobel couldn't think she'd consider rekindling an old flame so soon? They'd scarcely buried Matthew seven months ago.
Not that she'd ever described Evelyn as a flame. They hadn't had so much as a spark between them, and Evelyn knew it. She opened her mouth to explain, but before she could utter a word, Molesley, who'd come with them to serve as butler in Grantham House, opened the drawing room door.
"Sir Richard Carlisle to see you, Lady Mary."
She nearly dropped her teacup. Isobel looked as if she might drop the baby—and she didn't even know the whole sordid tale of the engagement, what had begun it or what brought it to an end, Mary having begged Matthew not to tell. Not after Richard left the way he did, and said what he did, and she felt so awfully about her part in making things so terribly wrong between them. Her stomach twisted now with guilt, so fresh was the memory of that early morning two years ago, and she plucked the baby from her mother-in-law's arms to prevent wringing her hands, too. She half-expected to see the darkening bruise beneath Richard's eye as he strode into the room, dressed in greatcoat and scarf and carrying his trilby almost exactly as he had then.
Of course she did not. And as further proof that time had passed, she noticed that his hair was a little thinner on top, a little greyer at the temples—though these subtle changes only made him look more distinguished rather than advanced in age.
"Sir Richard," she and Isobel greeted in unison, and he shook their hands in turn.
"Mrs Crawley. Lady Mary. And this must be the future Earl of Grantham. A big title for a little boy," Richard added, reaching out as if to shake the baby's pudgy hand as well; his eyes widened at the pincer grasp that closed around his long index finger.
"Well, we call him Georgie," Isobel said, beaming.
"Yes I received the birth announcement."
Richard looked at Mary as he spoke. She felt Isobel's eyes on her, too, understandably perplexed; Mary wasn't sure even she understood her own reasons for writing to Richard about the birth of her son. Only that it seemed right, somehow, after he'd sent condolences for Sybil.
He'd offered none for Matthew, however. I am a great many things, but not a liar, he rasped in her memory, though his resonant tones filled the small drawing room of the town house.
"George is not a family name, I think."
The remark was innocuous enough for Isobel, but Mary understood his tacit meaning: they hadn't named him for his father.
"We didn't want him to live in anyone else's shadow," she replied.
They hadn't settled on what to call him before the baby came, though they had decided not to name their child for anyone. Mary had stuck by this mutual agreement with her husband even when her family believed she ought to call him Matthew.
"Indeed." Richard's eyebrows pulled together as he leaned in to study George. "I don't see that being an issue with regard to family resemblance, either. I don't see much of either parent in him."
"He looks like himself," Isobel said, a little defensively.
"I mean he's a handsome lad," Richard clarified.
"Thank you, Sir Richard. If you'll excuse me, I'll just take George upstairs for his nap."
Mary handed the baby off to his grandmother—George did not willingly release Richard's finger and let out a loud protest until Isobel popped another morsel of bread in his wide open mouth—then she and Richard seated themselves across the tea table from each other, he in the wing chair where Isobel had been sitting and Mary resuming her place on the sofa. It wasn't until she was handing him a cup of tea that she realised she hadn't had to think about pouring it the way he liked.
"Now Richard," she said, "I think George is very handsome, even if he does look more like his Aunt Edith than he does like me." Or Matthew. "But I never knew you to flatter."
"Then rest assured it's without a trace of flattery that I say I knew you'd look feminine with one of the new French haircuts."
Mary held her teacup to her lips for a moment before she actually sipped; as she swallowed, Richard spoke.
"I'm curious whether you did it before or after your husband—"
"It was after."
He gave her a measured look. "I confess I'm rather surprised you'd go against his wishes when they seemed to be all that mattered to you for so long."
"He missed the birth of our son and then crashed his car an hour later. It was the least I could do to express how I felt."
Richard's eyebrows went up. "You're angry with him."
Who wasn't she angry with? Matthew for dying, herself for being angry with him, her parents for not seeing that she was, Richard for making her admit to it.
"I did think it was rather discourteous of him to die that way after what he put you through during the war," he said, running the tip of his long index finger along the ridge of his trilby where it rested on the side table. At least Mary could take comfort in the fact that he didn't judge her for what she had revealed.
A small comfort.
But enough for her to fix him with her level stare above her teacup. "Says the man who threatened me with ruin if I jilted him."
The lines of his jaw and brow seem to sharpen, and Mary remembered his face, so close to hers, his hands gripping her arms. She tensed at the edge of the sofa as he leaned forward and stretched one hand out toward her, but it was only to grab a sandwich from the tray.
"Admit it, Mary," he said, his face relaxed again as he sat back, crossing one leg over the other. "I treated you abominably, but I never had the power to hurt you the way the late Mr Crawley did."
It was as near as he'd come—or probably ever would come—to an apology. Is that why you never published? she wanted to ask.
Instead she said, "Is that why you're here? Can't stop trying to prove you're better than Matthew?"
"Well I've never crashed a car."
Mary had seen the retort coming in the hard gleam of Richard's eyes, but she flinched anyway, not having braced for so low a blow.
She was equally unprepared for Richard to glance away, his chin jutting slightly, taught, his words equally so when he added in low tones, "I understand, the accident was the other driver's fault. Not Mr Crawley's."
"Is that what they put in the papers?" Mary asked hoarsely, and she too had to look away.
Mercifully, Richard gave her a moment to pretend she was looking out the window at the new Silver Ghost parked on the street as she sipped her tea, and waited until she turned back to pour another cup before he spoke again, this time in a tone more conversational than confrontational as he munched his sandwich.
"How are you finding your stay in town?" He shook his head, declining her offer of more tea; he sat at the edge of his chair, hunched slightly with his hands clasped between his knees. "You never seemed to care much for London life before."
"That was before I had to live in a small village following the sudden tragic death of my husband."
It seemed so silly, in that light, to think of the lengths to which she'd once gone to avoid being an object of pity. Did Richard think the same? She searched his face for some sign that he did, but his features had settled into a bland expression as his gaze drifted just over her shoulder, out the window.
"Your sister resides in London now, too, I believe?"
His eyes swung back to hers, the creases at the corners deepening in the shrewd expression she knew so well. And there it was.
"But not here with you in Hanover Square."
"You know with whom and where better than I do," Mary said, relieved that her voice did not quaver and her teacup did not rattle against the saucer as she set it down. "Is it too much to hope that after keeping my little secret quiet you'll do the same for Edith? Or do you still want to punish my family?"
She had meant to shame him, even the slightest bit, but Richard merely dimpled as he placed his hands on the arms of his chair and pushed to his feet.
"Of course I do, but Lady Edith was the one of you who made an effort at civility." He retrieved his hat from the side table, but did not put it on. "I won't publish a word about her."
"Thank you." Mary reached out to take the hand he extended to her but pulled up short just shy of his fingertips. She had to take a look around her at the familiar drawing room interior of her family's London home to reassure herself she had not been transported back to Richard's Fleet Street office in 1917. "Do you expect me to marry you in return?"
Richard gave a puff of a laugh. "I won't even expect so much as dinner with you."
Mary accepted his handshake then—a brief firm squeeze—but when she felt his grip start to relax around her hand she tightened her grasp, seized by a sudden impulse.
"What if I want to have dinner with you?"
She did, very much. For all this interview had been painful some of the time, and awkward for most of it, it had also been the most authentic she had felt in half a year. Richard had not treated her with kid gloves, but had trusted her not to crumble beneath the weight of truth. He always had given her that, she realised. We're strong and sharp, and we can build something worth having, you and I. If you'll let us.
She didn't know what they could build out of this broken heap, but if there was anything to salvage, Richard would be able to see it.
His expression was a mask, but the tell-tale muscle beneath his cheekbone gave a tremor. "Well, then," he said, donning his hat, "that would be a first."