Note: I do not own Downton Abbey. If I do, I'll have Matthew Crawley all by myself.
Hello. Welcome to Boundless. I have been unbelievably addicted to this series, and this collection is a way of letting out my feelings. I will explode if I don't. I hope you enjoy.
Prompt: Nighttime
The hounds are after her again.
Her suitors cannot be blamed. She is a beautiful woman, albeit a widow, and a powerful one as assured by her beloved Matthew. She will not want for anything she cannot attain. Her engagement to any man will be pivotal for anyone she chooses. They have been persuading her with gifts – golds and silvers and gems that tinkered when sunlight streams from the window. They have been praising her youthfulness, from the silken nature of her hair to the alabaster pale of her skin.
But her heart does not yearn for their words or their devotion. She wants it from Matthew – only Matthew.
At night, she slips on her nightgown and sits on the bed, brushing the creaseless sheets and the plump pillows. She has long abandoned her side of the bed. Instead, she crawls to where Matthew used to rest, imagining the golden halo of his head and the warmth of his body. If she closes her eyes, she can still imagine the paleness of his skin and the marks that littered his torso, the narrowness of his hips and the strength of his thighs. He was – is, my dear – a sight to behold, and she will take all the stars that light the heavens just to have him with her again.
As she buries her small body with the blanket, she can still feel his roughened hands hold the ball of her shoulder, keeping her against his chest. She can still hear the thudding against his ribcage, a lullaby sung even upon her waking hours. She would have kissed him where she felt the pulsations, lips brushing from the site to his nipples, up to the expanse of his pectorals, to the hollow of his neck, to the angle of his jaw, to the pink of his lips. In her youth, she appeared cold and uncaring, but with Matthew she melted into a loving woman.
Sometimes, tears escape her eyes – the first weeks after his death; the times she visited his grave; when George first walked; when their boy first called her Mama when it would probably have been Papa; whenever a new suitor comes; when she first kissed another man months after his death; when she rejected her first suitor's offer of marriage after his death; when Tom came to her on the anniversary of Sybil's death; on every anniversary of his death; on every birthday he will never have; when Granny succumbed to old age, then her father, his mother, her mother, Mr. Carson, Mrs. Hughes, Mrs. Patmore; when George first invited a girl – she's a nurse, Mama, and a brilliant one. I wish to marry her and love her wholeheartedly for the rest of my days—
My love, you have missed a lot.
She heard of the story of Queen Victoria, whose husband, Prince Albert, died due to typhoid fever at the age of 42. In their story, the queen has asked for his bed clothes to be prepared for every night until she died. For Mary, she will always have her stuffed dog – their lucky charm, the one that brought them through war and epidemic – on the bedside table. Every night, she whispers her prayers.
Watch over us, my love.
Before she succumbs to her dreams, she will always whisper I love you, terribly so to the spaces between her body and the sheets, and the wind usually whispers back so do I, darling. So do I.