It was a balmy June evening, and the sun was low in the sky, dying the sky the loveliest pink colour. Branson was spending his evening how he spent most of them; down at the garage, cleaning and fixing the cars. How one person could ever need so many cars he wasn't sure; if he had money, he'd just buy one car, and his car wouldn't have any glass between the front seat and the back seat, and anyone could sit wherever they wanted. But he didn't have a car, and so he was lying under someone else's, laboriously fixing the gear box.
He heard someone approaching, and when he saw two small feet in regulation nursing shoes, he smiled despite himself. Seeing Sybil was always a strange mix of happiness and pain; he savoured every second they spent together because they were few and far between, but it still stung that, despite the fact he adored her, would do anything for her, because he was a farmer's son and not a duke's, everything was complicated and unstable and unlikely.
Branson pushed himself out from under the car, and stood up, wiping his hands to get the worst of the oil of them. Sybil was stood in front of him, a large parcel in her hands.
"I've brought you a present" Sybil said, her face lit up by a smile, "Oh, and happy birthday." She held out the parcel, and he took it, with a thank you.
"I hope you haven't been too extravagant." He grinned, carefully pulling off the paper his gift was wrapped in to reveal the most beautiful table-top gramophone.
"I always hate to think of you, down here on your own, with only Papa's cars to entertain you, and I saw it in Ripon, and I couldn't help myself. And I've brought you some music to play on it; I didn't know what you'd want, so I brought my favourite. It's not very exciting, it's a piano sonata, but it's so beautiful." She handed him the record, and he set up the gramophone.
The music began to play. It was the softest, most gentle piece of music Branson believed he'd ever heard.
"It's Charles Koechlin's Paysages et marines; landscapes and seascapes." She said, as the music filled the small room, and without really thinking, or considering what she was doing, only knowing that it felt right to do it, she held out her hands to him; an invitation to dance.
Branson slowly placed one hand in hers, and the other on her waist, and she placed her hand on his shoulder.
"I warn you" he murmured "I'm not much of a dancer"
"This piece isn't much of a dance" She replied, squeezing his hand.
She was right; instead of dancing, they just seemed to sway. To an outsider, it would have seemed bizarre; a chauffeur and a lady –dressed as a nurse-, in a garage, dancing to a piano sonata. It didn't feel bizarre; the only thing it felt to Sybil was right, like there was nothing she should be doing but enjoying this moment.
It was that feeling, the undeniable naturalness of the moment, that made her push herself up onto her toes, and very slowly, very lightly, kiss him.