A/N: Written for a tumblr prompt from lala-kate of "dark".
Once the lantern was extinguished, the darkness was absolute, for it was a cloudy night. Mr. Blake placed the lamp down outside the barn and they stood in silence as their eyes adjusted to the lack of light.
"I'll go first," he said at her side, shifting.
"It's my farm!" retorted Mary and took a step forwards, her arms outstretched in front of her, teetering in her sodden shoes, the mud squelching between her toes.
She felt his hand lightly on her back as they set off slowly across the farmyard. It burned a mark through his jacket and her dress and she shivered. The night was cool but not cold, a slight breeze ruffled the sleeves of her dress and it was quiet - so quiet. The suck of the mud as they walked, the sound of his breathing mingled with hers, the soft grunting of the pigs… every sound seemed exaggerated.
They reached the fence and the path and Mary stopped and turned round. The barn lay before them, a darker shadow in the dark, and she took a deep breath.
"They'll be alright?"
He leaned on the fence at her side and she saw the whites of his eyes as he turned to her. "Better than alright. But I'd have a word with your pig man in the morning if I were you."
She eyed him. "Indeed. Clearly he needs to be on duty day and night."
"Employ two."
Her lips twitched as she pushed off from the fence and started to pick her way slowly up the path. "I'm not sure Papa would appreciate the pigs being looked after more thoroughly than he is."
"Kill two birds with one stone. Employ someone to look after the earl during the day and the pigs at night," he replied coming up close behind her.
She looked over her shoulder and met his laughing gaze, her expression softening briefly. "Perhaps you should apply."
He gave a snort of laughter. "Will you be conducting the interviews, Lady Mary?"
"Wait and see!"
They were entering a passage between trees and the darkness became even more complete. Mary felt herself shiver again, her skin prickling in awareness of just how lonely this path was. Without knowing she was doing it, her steps slowed to a halt. Around her, a breeze rippled through the shrubbery, the leaves rustling. She took one breath, another breath and-
Something tickled her neck and she jumped, letting out a gasp. Warm laughter filled her ears and she span round, her heart racing.
"What do you think you're doing?"
He waved the branch he had quietly plucked from a tree in her face, leaves brushing against her cheeks and making her jump again.
"Scared?" he taunted her.
"Of you?" she replied, her breath catching. "Hardly."
She snatched the branch out of his hands and walked quickly up the path. He was insufferable, this Charles Blake, an insufferable man who had stayed up half the night, knee deep in mud to save her pigs… She gripped the branch tighter and pulled his jacket more closely round her shoulders.
At the top of the path they came out onto a ridge and the sky seemed lighter. Across two fields, the Abbey was a black silhouette, its crenelations cutting across the clouds. Mary came to a halt.
Her empire. She had never seen it like this before in the parallel universe of the nighttime.
Charles Blake stood at her side and put his hands on his hips. "I could murder a pork chop," he said prosaically.
She glanced at him. "I don't think Mrs. Patmore would appreciate being woken up just to cook you a pork chop."
"Sausages?" His eyes danced at her. "Bacon?"
"How can you stand there after tonight and want to eat those poor pigs?"
"How can you not? It was almost all I could think about… I thought you took offence at being called sentimental, Lady Mary."
"I'd rather not be called callous either," she replied and jabbed him with the branch.
It was too bendy to work as a poking implement however, and he caught hold of the end of it and tugged, forcing Mary towards him until she stood merely inches away from him, eye to eye and nose to nose. His face was pale in the surrounding darkness and she traced its contours with her eyes. The branch was pulled taught between them.
For a moment he stared her down, his expression a mixture of haughtiness and amusement, before it softened. "You have mud on your face," he said, without warning. He raised his hand and very gently pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes.
She grew warm, heat radiating out of her skin into the cool night air. "You have more," she murmured back as he lowered his hand. Her heart was pounding in her throat and the consideration of mirroring him and raising her own hand flashed through her mind to be pushed hastily away.
His eyes crinkled into a smile. "I wonder whose fault that is," he whispered, leaning even closer to her so that his breath warmed her already warm cheeks.
Before she could do more than let out a shaky breath, he took a step back, releasing his grip on the branch, and strode away from her over the ridge and towards Downton. She watched the lines of his back, the way his waistcoat and shirt moved against his shoulders and took several breaths.
He turned as he walked, stepping backwards to look at her, playful and open and willing her to follow him.
She smiled, a tentative, conscious smile, and chucked the branch away. Over the rooftops of the Abbey, a low glow of pale dawn light was seen and as she walked over the ridge and followed Mr. Blake back to her home, a solitary bird began to sing.