A/N: Glad this story resonates with some of ya'll. Thank you for the reviews and responses! I appreciate the feedback.
John found quiet delight in spending some of his mother's money on a retainer for a solicitor who specialized in such matters. The lawyer nodded slowly as he explained his situation, about Vera and even Anna, laying everything out on the table. The solicitor, a Mr. Hinchcliffe, gave no sign of being scandalized by the information that John wished to leave his wife so he could marry a young housemaid from the country. When boiled down, his situation was not so very unique. A man of his social stature having the funds to finance such a venture was unusual.
After some consideration, the solicitor advised, "If she refuses to cooperate, you will have to find proof of grounds for divorce. While there are some other options, I believe infidelity is your best option, if you can find evidence of it."
Snorting in amusement, John said, "That shouldn't be a problem."
"You'd be surprised, Mister Bates. But once you have found the evidence, you will have to leave the home to prove it has broken your marriage."
Annoyed, he pointed out, "Our marriage is broken now. And it is my house; I inherited it from my mother. Can I not throw her out?"
Mr. Hinchcliffe frowned at him. "The court would look unfavorably on that, even if you are a wronged man. While I understand that this is no longer a real marriage to you, the court still views it as a sacred institution not to be dismissed lightly."
"No, I understand," John said with an impatient sigh. "I suppose I am simply ready for it to be done with. Besides, there are other considerations with Vera."
"What considerations?"
He hesitated for a moment but was reminded that the lawyer was required to keep his secrets. It would be better to be open with him.
"She has information she's threatened to go public with, information damaging to my former employer. That is how she forced me to return to London with her."
The solicitor raised his eyebrows, nodding thoughtfully. "Quite a specimen of humanity, your wife, Mister Bates. And how do you propose to keep her quiet while simultaneously divorcing her?"
"I hope to pay her off."
"For the information only, I assume," Mr. Hinchcliffe said severely. "You cannot pay her for a divorce. The court does not allow for collusion, nor can you both be at fault. Only one of you may guilty. If you are going to allege adultery, then there must be no evidence on your part. You had mentioned a Yorkshire housemaid …"
John shook his head. "I am guilty of unfaithfulness in my heart alone, not in body." At the solicitor's raised eyebrow indicating skepticism, he said, "I would never do that to Anna."
Hinchcliffe nodded. "Did your wife bring any assets to the marriage?"
Vera had brought nothing into their marriage and had rarely contributed to it, preferring instead to live off his salary from the army while he was away and only bothering to find herself work when she wanted extra funds. The time he'd spent laid up after his return from Africa, his knee a wreck, she'd spent every moment during those months berating him for his uselessness, blaming him for their circumstances. At the sight of his injury, she turned away in disgust, refusing to go near him. The passion which had been the only saving grace of their early years of marriage vanished entirely. She made it known that he was no longer a man to her but a disappointment and a failure.
"No," John answered slowly, "and while she deserves to leave with none, I would give her everything just to be free of her."
Hinchcliffe said thoughtfully, "Mister Bates, you must either hate your wife very much or love this woman very much, to go through this difficult process. But I will see what we can do for you."
John rarely imagined her in her night gown, not when he was somewhere other than the bedroom. Even in the kitchen or parlor of his mother's house, his imagination kept him on the straight and narrow. But at night when he retired to bed, the lamp on his bedside stand casting a glow in the darkness, he saw her as he'd done so long ago when he had brought the tray of food to the female servants' door - her hair down and free, a shawl was wrapped around her shoulders.
Anna had looked so beautiful that night, even if she had been ill.
I'd live in sin with you.
The offer was unworthy of her and John degraded her by even considering it. He'd spoken too soon about them marrying, before he was free to court her openly. And his desire for her had been twisted into something untoward and ugly in an effort to make him stay. That he might use Anna like that... That she might let him... John shook his head in anguish just thinking of it.
He wanted to believe she was naive and blinded by her feelings, that she would never truly consider doing such a thing. But he saw it in her eyes that night - her desperation. Anna was so much better off without him there continuing to interrupt and complicate her life. How could she not appreciate that? How could a woman of her caliber have such strong feelings for him that she'd give up everything?
The only ruin I recognize is to be without you.
Her words pricked at him like tiny needles, pulling at him with pain both shallow and deep. John had left her with no such assurances of his love. And he ha left her. He had walked away as she sobbed openly behind him, their dreams shattered around her on the ground of the courtyard. The hurt he'd caused was unforgivable. And yet, he knew she would forgive him if he went back to her. He knew it as surely as he knew he was unworthy of her forgiveness.
The night after he'd met with the solicitor, John dreamed of her again.
Each faint touch of her fingers on his skin was like fire, damning and destructive. Her lips met his in the barest hint of a kiss, causing a cascade of sensations through his body. He needed to halt her touches, but he could not push her away. He could not ask her to stop, to save her from herself.
"I love you, Mister Bates," she whispered, her voice strong but wary of rejection, the way it had been on the road that day as they walked to the flower show. Her body pressed against him, her slight weight enough to paralyze him with want.
"Anna, you know..."
He could not say it, had never been able to say it, not even when she accepted the inadequate words he'd offered to her as a proposal. Anna knew how he felt about her, could read between the lines of what he did not say. But he'd never spoken aloud of his feelings. It was a fresh regret to match all his others.
Her lips were on his neck, a pleasant distraction, driving all thoughts from his mind. And when she began to hum softly, John was left undone. Unable to move, to breath, to even gasp, he laid still and quiet, enjoying her kisses against his skin. John was unable to stop her, a weak man in a weak body who had longed for such romantic affection all his life.
"My Batesy..."
The voice broke him from the dream. Not Anna, not her voice at all. This one spoke harshly, with a detached growl that only intimated at true desire.
Wrenched suddenly from the fuzzy comfort of his dream, John looked down and noticed that a woman was indeed in his bed and pressed up against him. But the woman was not Anna.
"Vera," he seethed, pushing her away. He rubbed at his neck as he got out of the bed; he could still feel the warmth of where her lips had been. Not Anna's lips, but hers.
"Don't be that way, darling," she drawled sweetly. John saw that she wore a fancy low-cut gown, the sort of thing he would have considered more for a fine lady than his wife. He much preferred the pure simplicity of Anna's plain white nightgown. Flashing him one of her classic, charming smiles, Vera added, "We both know you were enjoying it."
The dream had left him with a humiliating level of arousal, but John ignored it.
"Get out of my room," he ordered her. "And don't you ever come in here again."
"But you're my husband. I mustn't shirk my wifely duties."
Shaking his head, John told her, "We are married in name only. Were it within my power, I would eliminate our God-forsaken marriage from the annals of history."
Her brow knitted together in real hurt. Once, such an expression would have given him pause, to cause this woman pain. He always regretted it when the drink had left his voice and temper sharp, causing her to lash out at him in return. But after spending two years in prison for her crime, after she had torn him from Downton, the only happiness he had found in life since the army, he realized that he no longer had an ounce of love left in him for her. She truly meant nothing to him.
"You don't love me, Vera. You never did. I went to prison for you. What more do you want from me? Do you want a pound of my flesh? I will give it to you, gladly, if you just let me go."
Vera glared at him for a moment before stating, "You can't give me what I want, Johnny. You never could. Even now, you are such a disappointment. And you have the nerve to try and leave me for some young trollop?"
Getting up from the bed, she stalked out of the room, casting one more look full of hatred over her shoulder as she said, "And you'll have your divorce only over my dead body."
John shut the door behind her and locked it.
He clamped down on his daydreams after that night. He pretended not to see the shadow of Anna that followed him to work in the morning and home in the evening. He looked away from her clear blue eyes when they stared at him across the kitchen when he boiled water for afternoon tea. When he heard her humming over some bit of imaginary mending, he tried not to focus on the haunting tune, or how vivid and real she sounded.
She seemed so real sometimes that John thought he might have gone mad.
After weeks of the same - her image staying by his side and him ignoring her - one night, he finally broke. Vera was out, likely at a pub. His Anna, the ghost of the woman he'd known and loved at Downton, was especially clear to him that evening. Instead of appearing to him in her usual housemaid's uniform, she was dressed in her night gown, hair pulled from its braid to cascade in soft waves down her back. Just the sight of her in such a state of undress left him undone with need.
Did she have any notion of what she did to him, when she looked that way?
"You should follow her," Anna advised boldly. "Follow her to the pub and find out who she goes home with."
He did not need to ask why. The solicitor had already told him that he needed proof of Vera's infidelity. John could find the proof he needed if he went after her, if he found witnesses and individuals willing to sign sworn affidavits of her exploits. Of course, the sort of men Vera spent time with were not the type to involve themselves in legal matters. And a judge would not believe his word alone.
"I'm not saying it will be easy," she said gently. The ghost spoke with Anna's confidence and her strength. He could not help but look at her. "But you do have to try."
"You are better off without me," John told her. It was the first time he'd responded to her visage since the night of his dream and Vera's failed seduction. He knew it wasn't Anna, not really, but in his loneliness, he so longed for it to be her.
She shook her head at his statement. "You know that isn't true."
"I don't know that. What I know is that I've caused you-" He stopped suddenly, interrupting himself, "I've caused her pain - a great deal of pain and none of it deserved."
Anna stared back at him, a challenge in her eyes. "But I love you, Mister Bates," she said. "And I will never love another the way I love you."
The statement was as absurd at that moment as it was when Anna said she could never be happy without him. She was too good to waste her life pining for the likes of him. He hoped – no, he truly believed – that she would move on, some day. She deserved love and happiness in her life, and he would be selfish to deny her such things by trapping her in a relationship with him.
"Now who's speaking untruths?"
He fired off the question in irritation, but he instantly regretted it. In the blink of an eye, the blonde vision that looked like Anna was gone, the space in which she'd stood an instant before was suddenly empty. The room felt cold and lonely without her.
John continued in the same manner for weeks and weeks, going to work each day and returning home again. He bought food from the market and cooked his own meals. He took care of the house, making repairs as he found them and otherwise preparing it to eventually be rented out or sold. And he saved, as much as he could on a reduced salary. Mostly he worked to keep his mother's inheritance intact, in case he could use it to pay off Vera.
The Anna his mind had conjured appeared to him often, although he barely acknowledged her presence. She wore different clothes - usually her maid's uniforms, although sometimes a dress with gloves and a hat, or still on very rare occasions, her night gown. And when Vera was not around, she spoke to him. She encouraged him, smiled in earnest, and conversed with him about his day.
Anna never berated him. She never spoke of disappointments or sadness or grief. He sometimes wished she would, considering that she had more right to hate him than perhaps even Vera. While he'd never intended to use her so horribly, he had done so nevertheless. And he deserved to feel whatever wrath she might lay at his feet.
"You think I would berate you?" she asked him, as though reading his thoughts. But of course she could read his mind; she was a figment of his imagination. "How could I knowingly cause you pain?"
"I hurt you," John responded aloud. Grimacing at his pronoun, he corrected himself, "Her. I hurt her. I left her sobbing with grief."
"Because you went away," Anna said, "not because you intended to hurt me."
"What do intentions matter if the outcome is the same? I never intended to use her or lead her on, but what I did amounts to the same. I had no right to let her believe we might have a future together."
She stared at him, her head inclined slightly to the side, studying him closely before answering. "We will be together, Mister Bates," she informed him.
"How can you believe that? With Vera holding me hostage..."
"I believe it because it is true. And your wife isn't the impediment here. You know I would go with you even without the divorce."
Her statement angered him, partially because he knew the words had to come from somewhere deep within him. Forcefully, he spat, "Don't say that. Not again. You would never live in sin with me; I wouldn't allow it."
"And why not?" she appealed, moving closer but not touching him. "We love each other. What could matter more than that?"
He took in a deep breath before answering, his emotions swinging wildly out of control. "You matter more than that. Your life and reputation. Your job..."
Vera could destroy her, utterly and completely. If the story about the Turkish diplomat came out, not only would she be ruined, but the Crawleys may even be forced to release her from service. She'd never find another decent position and would be forced to find other, lesser work outside of service. She could be reduced to factory work or worse.
"All I want is to be with you, Mister Bates. I have no care for the rest."
John shook his head. "You should care."
Behind him, he heard the front door begin to open and he whirled around to see Vera entering the house. When he looked back at the image of Anna he'd been speaking to, she'd disappeared.
"Did I hear you talking to someone?" his wife demanded suspiciously.
He did not bother looking back at Vera.
"Just myself," he said sadly, the truth of his words hitting him with an undeniable force.
TBC
