It was in the middle of December 1925.
Almost all of Lady Edith Crawley's problems had been solved, or were soon going to be solved. In a little more than two weeks she was marrying Bertie Pelham, the most adorable man on earth.
Marigold, Edith's secret daughter, whom Bertie knew all about by now, was not only totally accepted but also very much loved, not only by Bertie himself but also by his stern mother.
They were all of them going to have a wonderful life in the beautiful Brancaster castle. The place where she had first met Bertie.
Whenever she felt like it Edith could still go to London and take part in the running of her magazine. The rest of the time it was expertly handled by the friendly and competent Laura Edmonds.
Even Edith's sister, Mary, had been a little bit friendlier lately. It wasn't any longer impossible to be in the same room as Mary without annoying her.
...
There was only one thing that could be a little better in her life, Edith thought. She wanted to become Bertie's mistress before she became his wife.
Not to try him out - there was no one like Bertie, and if sleeping with him wasn't perfect the first time she was sure it was going to get better - there was no way she was going to break with him because of that or anything else.
She loved him so much. She knew he was perfect for her.
No, she wanted to make love to him to show him how much she loved him. She wanted to show him that she loved him just as much as she had loved Michael Gregson.
Or rather - that she loved Bertie so very much more than she had ever loved any other man before him.
She wanted to give herself completely to him. She wanted to give herself to him as a free woman, not as a dutiful wife.
That was part of it. She also longed to feel him inside her and after that lie in bed totally naked beside him. She longed to lie there beside a totally naked him, after they had been making love to each other. She wanted to fall asleep naked, pressed against his naked body with his naked arms around her. With only a duvet on top of them to keep the cold of the bedroom away.
She wanted them to have that as a secret together on the day of their wedding. A secret between just the two of them.
...
Edith was going to meet Bertie after work today in London and then they would go dining and dancing. After that they would have a nightcap and some cuddling and kissing and talking in her apartment.
Then Bertie would leave, as he always did, to sleep in Hexham house. He had slept there whenever he was in London, even before he owned it himself. In the morning he would catch the train and go back to Brancaster. He had squeezed in this visit to London just to see her, coming today and leaving tomorrow, although he had a lot to do at Brancaster before going away on their honey moon.
This was the last time they would see each other in London before their wedding. Bertie and his mother were going to spend Christmas at Downton Abbey to let the two families get to know each other a little better. Edith doubted very much that she would have a chance to make love to Bertie then. There were so many other things happening during Christmas.
Bertie wasn't likely to sneak through the corridors of Downton Abbey late at night, all the way from the bachelor wing to Edith's bedroom. Especially not if he risked meeting his mother in the corridors. His mother who already knew that Edith wasn't a virgin.
No, tonight was Edith's only possible night.
Tonight was the night they were going to be united. Tonight was the night when they were going to be together as husband and wife, without being it.
Tonight he was going to be hers.
...
Later that evening, when Edith pressed her body against Bertie's during their dance, she could feel his arousal.
It wasn't the first time she had felt that, though usually she would pretend that she hadn't noticed. The first time she had felt it was actually when they were dancing at the Café de Paris that day when she had shown him her flat and he had kissed her for the very first time. She hadn't felt it during the kiss - he wasn't holding her close enough or maybe it didn't affect him so much - but during a dance later that night. He had backed away immediately then, looking a little embarrassed, probably afraid that he had offended her. He had been careful not to dance quite as close during the rest of the night.
None of them had said anything about it afterwards.
This time Bertie didn't back away. He kept dancing, holding her just as close, although he must have been aware that she could feel him. So she decided to be bold. She looked up into his eyes pleadingly.
"Please kiss me!" she whispered. "Kiss me and keep dancing like this!"
His lips were on hers almost immediately as they kept dancing. She softly made him open his mouth and put her tongue into it, meeting his.
They kept dancing like that, not cheek to cheek but mouth to mouth. Edith was holding on to Bertie, feeling suddenly weak. Her legs and knees were trembling, she wasn't dancing any longer, he was carrying her.
Their mouths were still together when the music stopped after the dance. Then they broke the kiss.
"Let's go home!" Edith said, without daring to look at Bertie. "I don't want to dance any more."
...
When they had got their coats and left the building he gave her a new, deep kiss. Edith was beginning to wonder whose idea this was. Perhaps - as usual - they had got the same idea at the same time.
They were walking the short distance to Edith's flat in total silence. Bertie held his arm around Edith's waist, kissing her from time to time almost without slowing down. He only slowed down to take his hat off the first time he kissed her, after that he kept his hat in his hand for the duration of their walk.
They both felt that they had passed some kind of limit now. They both knew something was bound to happen between them during that night.
AN: Well, I wanted to write something M for Edith and Bertie, since there are no M stories for them at all. But since it is me, who haven't ever written anything M before, I think it will still be fairly innocent.
...
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