AN: Thank you for the lovely, supportive responses to the first chapter! And now, the first of two appearances from a certain M. Dregson...

London, January 1911

Edith tugged the piece of paper she had just finished typing free from the machine, set it aside neatly atop the stack of pages she had typed that afternoon, reached for the protective cover for the machine, covered it up safely - and finally, luxuriously, stretched her arms above her head and sighed in relief. The working day - the working week - was done.

"That," came Mr Gregson's voice from behind her, "is the sound of a woman who needs a drink."

Edith turned and gave him a shy smile. She had been working for him for four months now, and still she was not entirely used to his easy informality. In truth, she thought, she was not used to such kindness.

She had been lucky to get this position. After the horrid events of March, life had changed utterly. Papa hadn't been exaggerating about the money. The house had had to be sold. The servants had been dismissed. Mama had utterly collapsed. Mary had swept in and taken charge, ushered them all off to her fancy townhouse. It had been unendurable. Mary lording it over them all had been bad enough, but Sir Richard had been even worse - such a forbidding presence at the dinner table, so disapproving of Sybil's political opinions, so cold and dismissive when Edith had asked to borrow books from his library. She had known that she could not stay there indefinitely.

Aunt Rosamund, as she so often did, had come up with the answer. She had helped Edith find a place on a secretarial course. Nothing fancy: just typing, Pitman shorthand, and politeness - but it had been a chance. A week after finishing the course, Edith had got the job with Mr Gregson.

He was a journalist - the editor of The Sketch, in fact, which had impressed Mama no end - and he required a secretary to take care of the administration side of his job, and his writing. Edith typed his articles up, and wrote to prospective contributors, and rephrased in diplomatic tones Mr Gregson's often somewhat sharp edits to his journalists' pieces. It was interesting work. Mr Gregson was trying to place The Sketch at the forefront of modernity, and it sometimes skated over the line of the appropriate, into the scandalous. There was a small part of Edith that rather enjoyed that - enjoyed watching Mary squirm with embarrassment at her husband's obvious disapproval, over the obligatory Sunday lunches at their house, enjoyed the new, slightly startled, half-admiring glances that Sybil would occasionally shoot her, enjoyed feeling a part of the new and exciting world that seemed to be opening up around her.

And, which was best of all, the post was live-in. No more Mary reminding her constantly that she was in charge. No more Sir Richard, with his arrogance and presumption and forbidding manners. Just thirteen shillings a week and her freedom.

Her employer was - despite his disapproval of poor grammar and awkward syntax - a kind man. He smiled and made small-talk and never gave a sign of the personal unhappiness he must constantly be enduring.

Edith had found out very early on about Mrs Gregson. His wife was ill, being cared for in an asylum. Mr Gregson's housekeeper, Mrs Finlay, was not averse to a little gossip now and then, and had told Edith the whole sorry story with really very little prompting. It had been two years' since Mrs Gregson's nervous breakdown, and still there was no change in her condition. Mr Gregson found it far too painful to even visit her - but Mrs Finlay had assured Edith that the institution which cared for her was one of the best in the country.

Now, Edith stood and tucked the chair neatly under the desk. Mr Gregson had given her a small nook in his library in which to do her typing, and he would often come down at the end of the day to check on her progress, and share a few minutes conversation. She smiled and shook her head. "No, thank you, sir."

Mr Gregson sighed dramatically, a flicker of wry amusement in his eyes. "But it is so boring to have to drink alone. Can I really not tempt you - or are you incorruptible?"

Against herself, Edith laughed. "Perhaps just a small sherry, then. Thank you, sir."

"That's the spirit - so to speak." Mr Gregson was already pouring himself a whisky. "Dry, medium, or sweet?"

"Dry. Thank you."

"I should have guessed." He winked at her over his shoulder. "You're much too sweet already."

Edith felt herself blush. Lately, during these conversations, there had been more of that - little compliments, a growing warmth in his eyes when he looked at her. Sometimes, she felt dizzy with it - too dizzy to remember until later that he was, technically, a married man.

Mr Gregson passed her her glass of sherry, and their fingers brushed, making Edith's hand twitch reflexively. "Steady the buffs!" Mr Gregson chuckled and guided her into the corner of the sofa in front of the fire. Gregson stretched one of his legs out in front of him, crossed the other over it neatly at the ankle, allowed his arm to spread across the back of the sofa, and turned to smile - the picture of relaxed manhood - at Edith.

"So, do you think we'll get the edition in on time?"

"I should think so, sir," Edith reassured him. It was rather flattering, to have one's opinion sought, to be consulted and asked questions as if her ideas, her view of the world, really mattered.

"What do you think of our articles this week?" Gregson pressed.

Edith frowned and looked away. It had been a particularly scandalous week, to put it mildly. "I'm… not sure you pay me to think, sir."

"A diplomat's answer." He lifted an amused eyebrow. "Are you shocked?"

"I… don't know." It was the honest answer.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you were," Gregson shrugged carelessly. "I doubt that free love and divorce are the sorts of topics that get discussed over the tea-table in…" His forehead creased and he asked, "Where did you grow up?"

"Cadogan Square, sir."

"Really?" Momentarily, Gregson had been diverted. "How… up-market! So how did a girl from Cadogan Square end up typing my letters for me?"

"My father died," Edith admitted quietly, taking a rather large gulp from her sherry glass.

Mr Gregson's expression of amused interest vanished as he leant forwards in real concern. "My dear, I'm… so very sorry. A long time ago?"

Edith shook her head and took another sip of her drink. "About six months before I came to work for you."

"He… left you badly off, I take it?"

"He left us penniless." The words came out more bitterly than she had intended. Sometimes, she thought she was beginning to forgive Papa for all he had put them through. Clearly, she was wrong.

"'Us'?"

"My mother, and my youngest sister. Sybil. My older sister is married - to a newspaperman, in fact. You might know him - Sir Richard Carlisle?"

"Oh, I know Sir Richard." Mr Gregson twinkled at her. "He's… rather an experience, isn't he?"

Edith chuckled into her glass and drained it. Solicitously, Mr Gregson filled it again. "That's one way of putting it."

"How did he die? Your father? If you don't mind my asking."

Edith looked away, eyes prickling. "He… couldn't bear the shame - you know, of having lost so much money…"

Mr Gregson's arm slid down from the back of the sofa and curved sympathetically around Edith's shoulder. "He killed himself?"

Edith nodded, a single droplet of water escaping to trickle down her cheek. Half-irritated, she swiped it away with the back of her hand. "Sleeping pills. An overdose." Her head was swimming. Closing her eyes on the room, Edith mumbled, "I found his body."

"You all must have been devastated."

Edith hiccuped and Gregson patted her gently on the back. "The others… don't know. My godfather's a doctor. We made sure none of them found out, told them it was a heart attack. My - my mother loved him very much." The story was coming out all muddled, but Mr Gregson seemed to understand. His hand, squeezing her thigh comfortingly through her skirt, certainly suggested that he did, anyway.

"Oh, my poor dear girl," he crooned, tugging her closer to him. "You've had such a horrid burden to bear. How could anyone have treated you so badly?"

Edith sniffled and Gregson rescued her half-empty sherry glass from her, leaning forwards momentarily to set it aside.

"You must have been so unhappy, sweetheart," he sighed. "And you don't deserve it, not at all. You're the last person on Earth who deserves it." With each syllable, he pressed soft kisses into her hair. "I'm so glad that you came here, you know." He smiled against her forehead and Edith curled into the warmth and the bulk of him with something like relief. "You threw open my windows and let in the air and the light, when I never thought I'd see it again…" He huffed out a little laugh against her skin. "Oh, precious girl, haven't you realised how much I've grown to care for you?"

"M-Mr G-gregson…" Edith managed, and then stopped. She couldn't have articulated what she intended to say next - whether she wanted to push him away or pull him closer. It seemed that the world was cracking around her, had been cracking around her for so many months now, and currently, the only thing that seemed to make any sort of sense was Mr Gregson's arm around her, holding her up, and his mouth in her hair, and his voice - his calm, kind, low voice…

"Shhh…" he soothed her, stroking her damp cheek gently with the back of one of his fingers, as one would pet a frightened kitten. "Call me Michael. Please."

"M-michael…"

"Oh, my darling…" he murmured. His hand slid down from her cheek to her arm, and then to her waist, rasping against the lawn of her blouse. "Let me look after you now…"

And so it was, that when Mr Gregson - Michael - tucked his other hand under her chin and lifted her face to be kissed properly, Edith did not resist at all.