A/N: This is not the fic I was expecting to update just now, but the other day a friend made a comment on a blurb I'd posted to my writing blog on Tumblr. Her comment made me realize I had a perfectly good chapter written ... and that I'd never posted it! I can't imagine why. Well, that's not entirely true ... fighting illness and a serious whack at my confidence in my own writing abilities likely kept me from posting. Better late than never, I suppose! Hope you enjoy.

xx,

~ejb~

Previously ...

Only I was wondering … What am I to you? As it pertains to you and I and … us, I should say."

He grinned, then regarded her with full solemnity and sincerity. "You are my Isobel." It was as simple and as complex as that, and it was the perfect answer. For a long moment she simply smiled at him, allowing herself to be held, to begin to think she could grow accustomed to the feeling of a man's arms around her again.

"I love you," she said at last. He opened the door and she stepped inside, but he took her by the hand and turned her to face him once more.

"And I, you. Good night, Isobel. Sleep well, my love." He raised a hand to the back of her neck and kissed her tenderly.

"And you," she answered, kissing her fingertips and pressing them to his kissed them, and the back of her hand, and with a wave he closed the door.

She leaned against it with her eyes closed, smiling as she recalled each moment of revelation that had passed between them this evening. Her heart was once again her own to give, and as she reflected upon kissing him she knew that at the precise moment his lips touched hers, she had transferred in full the ownership of her heart to him. For good.

2. Feels Like I'm Falling in Love

Winter turned to spring, and summer had nearly arrived. Richard had been courting Isobel for the better part of five months, and the timing could not have been more serendipitous. The cold, isolated grey months had never been Isobel's favorite, and had she not had Richard to occupy her time she could easily have fallen into a dark, desolate turmoil as she faced her first winter without Matthew.

Instead, however, she had spent the time visiting libraries and music halls, attending medical conferences and flower shows with Richard. When the trees had come in leaf and the wildflowers had begun to bloom, they had taken a day trip by train to Whitby, over the moors. They had neither made an attempt to deny nor to advertise their courtship, but Isobel had felt particularly besotted that day as she sat next to Richard, their shoulders touching, and he'd taken her hand in his.

They had neither made an attempt to deny nor to advertise their courtship, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to act as if nothing had changed. While there'd always been an inherent sort of wordless communication between them, their nascent romance had lent new significance to glances across the dinner table at the Abbey. One evening, in response to a rather venomous barb directed at Lady Grantham by the Dowager Countess, Isobel, seated as she was to the right of the grande dame, had sent Richard a withering look. In response and to lift her spirits, he'd raised an eyebrow at her, his eyes twinkling, and she'd looked down at the floor just expeditiously enough that none should have caught the way her cheeks flushed. None, that is, except for him, and he nearly choked on the wine he'd been sipping.

Serves you right, her eyes told him.

Despite the excitement wrought by the wining and dining and out-of-the-ordinary experiences inherent in formal courtship, their favorite moments were those spent alone together at home. His or hers. Kisses stolen beneath the arched stone entrance to the garden at Crawley House when he would discover her there in the cool of late afternoon; the impromptu boutonniere she fashioned for him from a sprig of lavender and the blossom of one of her roses.

Most evenings when he arrived home from work he would find her there, waiting for him with a glass of whisky and supper at the ready. The words, "You don't have to do this, you know" had been on the tip of his tongue, but he refrained from saying them because of course she knew. At the center of her being was a need to feel purposeful; how better, then, to find fulfillment than to do for those she loved? And so he would greet her with a grateful embrace and an enthusiastic kiss and he would revel in the feeling of her hands, small and yet so strong, massaging his shoulders, pulling the day's tension out of them. A burden shared is a burden halved, she would say with a soft smile and love in her eyes.

It was growing increasingly difficult to part ways at the end of the evening. Following supper at either house it had become their custom to do the washing up together (she having dismissed her small staff after the death of her son; she had always taken care of herself and had never been comfortable with the notion of being waited upon in her own home) and then to retire to the sitting room. In the earliest days they'd sat in armchairs facing one another, progressing then to opposite ends of the settee. They would discuss the hospital, the recent developments in the use of insulin to treat diabetes mellitus or the effects of chloroform upon laboring women and their infants. He would raise the issue of politics, goading her just to see her with her ire up, hackles raised and bosom heaving.

"Why do you do this?" she huffed one evening, exasperated after dissecting the finer points of suffrage only to have him play devil's advocate. "You may be a stickler for the tried and true, but I know you are not so backward as to actually believe that the participation of women in the political system would lead to its collapse."

"You want to know why I'm doing this? This is why. Look at you. That fire inside you … it's still there. It did not die alongside Matthew. Whether I agree with you is not the matter at hand. Your circumstances have changed, but you've not changed, Isobel. You care about those life has forgotten. You speak for the ones who have no voice. You're the most selfless person I've ever known. It's still there, burning brighter than ever." He moved closer to her on the settee, taking her hand in his and raising it to his lips. He raised his eyes to hers as he kissed the back of her hand, lingering, sucking lightly on the knuckle of her index finger. He saw her eyes close, watched her press her lips together.

"Isobel, you're beautiful," he told her. "You've always been, but when you've a bee in your bonnet you're breathtaking." His hand moved to the back of her neck and she scooted closer, moaning into his mouth when he kissed her forcefully.

She threaded her fingers through his hair, marveling at the softness of it. His arms went around her, drawing her against him until their chests pressed together as his mouth explored hers.

oOoOo

She hadn't meant for it to happen at all. His cottage had become something of a refuge for her, a haven in which she could look at the paintings on the walls and walk upon the floorboards without each glance and every step reminding her of Matthew. What was more, she liked the lived-in feeling of the place, its furnishings chosen for utilitarian and sentimental purposes; for comfort, not for show.

He had given her a key to his cottage not long after they began courting in earnest, and before long she was spending the majority of her time there, even when he wasn't at home. So much time, in fact, that she'd a favorite corner of the sitting room sofa, a favorite blanket with which to cover herself as she read. And with regard to reading, a sufficient number of her books had begun to migrate over from Crawley House to warrant his designating them space on one of the bookshelves by the fireplace.

She kept to the common areas of the house - the kitchen, the sitting room, the garden (which benefited much from her regular presence and practiced hand) - except for the occasional foray into his study when he requested a particular volume or article brought to him at the hospital. But on one particularly chilly afternoon she went in search of the cardigan he'd lent her for occasions like this one, when the fire and her favorite tartan throw were inadequate against the damp. It wasn't on its customary hook by the front door, nor anywhere else in the downstairs so far as she could ascertain. Perhaps he's hung it in the wardrobe, she reckoned, and made her way upstairs to seek it out.

She had not ventured into his bedroom prior to that afternoon. It wasn't that he'd forbidden it - quite the contrary, in fact. When he'd observed how happy she seemed, how well and truly at home she was in his home, he was more than pleased to give her the run of the place. For Isobel it was more what it implied - an intimate sort of familiarity. She loved him, this she knew with all certainty. And he loved her. If fact, she was often caught wrong-footed by how much he loved her.

But to be in the man's bedroom brought to mind thoughts of a sort that she should not be thinking with regard to a man who was not her husband. I will not look at his bed, she resolved, but upon entering the room it was the first thing upon which her eyes fell, situated parallel to the doorway as it was. She caught herself smiling. She had figured him for dark walls, tartan bedding, and a dearth of furniture. Instead she discovered whitewashed walls and a lovely stone fireplace much like the one in the sitting room. The bedframe was of wrought iron but it and the exposed ceiling beams were the only dark-colored features. The bedding was white with blue pinstripes. Beside the bed sat a simple ladderback chair, and a settee upholstered in a light grey faced the fireplace, a sheepskin rug on the floor in front of it. Bookshelves lined the walls in a similar fashion to those in his study. White muslin curtains hung in the windows. The room was not at all what she had supposed it would be, and yet it was perfectly suited to him.

She opened the doors of the wardrobe in search of the cardigan, but it was not to be found. Not finding it, she should have closed the doors and gone back downstairs. Instead she found herself trailing fingertips over the jackets and shirts, the uniform she had so thrilled at seeing him in. She missed him suddenly. Idiot woman, she chided herself with a shake of her head, pining after him like a doe-eyed schoolgirl! Swiftly she shut the wardrobe doors and turned on her heel.

It was just as she was about to step out of the room that her eyes alighted upon a cardigan draped over the chair next to the bed. It wasn't "hers," but she picked it up anyhow. It was of dark grey wool, cable knit, and when she held it to herself she caught his scent - a mix of shaving soap and woodsmoke and pipe tobacco. She smiled as she caught sight of his pipe upon the mantel. Chilled as she was, she shrugged the garment on, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He was only slightly taller than she and so it was not absurdly outsized on her, and once she rolled the sleeves and fastened the buttons she began to warm up straightaway. She should have returned downstairs then, but as she grew warmer her eyelids became heavy, and being wrapped in Richard's cardigan was almost as comforting as being enfolded in his arms. She lay down on the bed, sighing as she discovered his pillow smelt even more strongly of him. In her fatigue and surrounded by his essence she must have thought he was there with her, as just before sleep claimed her she whispered, "I love you."