Chapter II.

White pawn and black queen.

Could a white pawn ever make it over the field, beat the black king and take the queen?

Matthew Crawley should probably have minded the position of his rook instead of contemplating such depressing and rather unsubtle analogies.

Napier had him already checkmated. In every sense of the word.

Oh yes, he'd been a patient, waiting for the right time to strike.

Napier had taken his queen, his one true love...

Only that she had not loved him, had she? Not with her whole heart...

Mary's interest in him had been calculating, a means to get what she truly wanted and loved

- Downton and the Countess' coronet.

Matthew frowned at the ivory chess pieces in front of him.

No, he had been right to leave, he had done it to save himself, to protect what remained of his sanity. He had to forget her, to rip the very thought of her out of his brain.

Admittedly, the war had served him well in that sense. The horrors he witnessed on a daily base, being occupied every day with the basic instinct to keep alive, it all left little space for romantic dreams of unattainable Ladies.

At least in broad daylight, where he had to be in control of everything. Always in control.

At night, Mary Crawley's face, her voice, the smell of her skin, her hair, the sound of her laughter, the soft curves and angles of her slender, feminine figure...the very idea of her preyed upon him, tormented him.

When he laid in the dirt of the trenches, in every unguarded moment, whenever he allowed his mind to wander even for the briefest of times, memories of her would flash before his eyes.

Some were sweet, some were absolutely maddening.

Surely he was cursed. A mad fool, so in love that he could not even forget this woman after three terrible years of not actually seeing her face. Mary had bewitched him, entangled his soul in her...

Matthew? Aren't you done yet?"

He startled and looked up to see a young woman towering over him, the light from the electric lamps casting a strange hue on her strawberry hair.

Lavinia's green eyes looked sharp, signalling mild annoyance. She sat down next to Matthew, before the gentlemen had a chance to rise.

"Well, the last round didn't take very long now. I'd offer you a re-match, dear cousin Matthew, but Miss Swire appears to have you otherwise engaged already."

In a daze, Matthew looked back at his chess partner who had spoken. In a ridiculous posh accent.

Captain Evelyn Napier, Mary's fiancé. Handsome, heroic, high-born and well-bred.

Still, Matthew recalled that Mary had not thought dearest Evelyn all that alluring when they had both courted her years ago.

And now, all of a sudden, he's become the world to her.

Matthew emptied the last of his port, suddenly aware that he had had a good few that night.

Maybe that's what annoyed Lavinia, causing her to leave the Ladies' party in the drawing room to seek him out in this cloud of cigar-smoke.

"You've quite finished me off, Napier. I give up." He laughed without a hint of mirth.

Lavinia blew into the air impatiently. "Great. Then come back and join us."

Evelyn, equally bored with Matthew's brooding gloom, got up and stretched.

Matthew, swaying slightly out of his chair, raked his eyes over the figure of his secret rival.

Not too tall, but athletic. A good horseman. Paired with his attractive aristocratic features, it was not too far-fetched to think Mary would fall in love with him after all.

"Are you alright, Cousin Matthew?" Evelyn said, real concern swinging in his nasal voice.

Matthew looked away quickly, to hide a whole range of emotions that threatened to make a show on his face.

'Cousin Matthew' he had called him. Just like Mary to teach her fiancé to call him cousin.

As if Napier were already his cousin-in-law.

Well he wasn't! And that being the case, he rather tried to pretend that this day would never come.

"I'm fine. Maybe too much food at dinner. Not used to it in the trenches." he tried to joke, but neither Evelyn nor Lavinia laughed.

Suddenly, the door swung open and Sybil came in.

Matthew groaned inwardly. He was trying to pull himself together and there goes Mary's sister, who may not have a close resemblence to her, but enough to inspire taunting memories of his broken heart.

"Aunt Rosamund would like to know where everyone is better come into the drawing room." Matthew nodded curtly and followed his youngest cousin into the next room.

Perhaps she would tell more stories about Mary's childhood without him having to explicitly ask for it.


Yeah, I'm not a chess expert. Neither is Matthew apparently :) Thanks for reading and reviews would keep me ever so happy!