Thank you to my four wonderful reviewers! This chapter focuses a bit more on Mary and Larry, as well as Sybil. Enjoy!

Sybil felt a surge of anger rush through her. For a year everyone had been so caught up in organising her wedding no one had bothered to stop and ask her how she felt. To be miserable and lonely is one thing, but for no one to stop and notice, for no one to take an interest in how she was feeling, some how that made it all ten times worse. And now for Mary – Mary, who had locked herself in her room all summer after her own heartbreak, and refused to listen to Sybil as tried to explain how she really felt about Larry, to tell her to call it off when it was already far too late – why the sheer cheek of it amazed her, even now. Her reply was cool, disguising the suppressed emotion underneath.

"Larry is an honourable man. He's handsome, he is very rich and will be able to support me throughout the war. In your eyes, how can I do any better?" Mary flinched, her eyes betraying the hurt that that last sentence had caused her.

"Oh my darling, can you not see that all that has changed now? Last summer, I ruined my one chance of happiness – no, don't interrupt – I made the one man I have ever loved doubt me, because I was afraid of living in anything less than the lap of luxury. Can you not see how I regret that? How every day I wish that he could return to Downton a pauper, so I could show him just how much I love him; that I would follow him to the end of the world if he would only give me one kind look, one caress. That is my burden, the indecision of those months, and I cannot bear it gladly, but bear it I must. But you are too young to take up a cross so heavy. You are seventeen, Sybil, and have your whole life ahead of you. Now that I have known love I can understand the agony of a loveless marriage. And yours is far worse than that, for I can see it in your eyes that you loathe the man. Do not let money be your motivation, never let it be such a powerful hold. Call off the wedding." With every word, Sybil had felt a red hot anger flow through her veins. The unfairness of it all; the injustice! For Mary, who despite her flaws, was the person she loved and trusted the most in the world to think of her as so shallow was unbearable, and she barely trusted herself to speak.

"You pretend to understand me, but you don't, else you would not insult me as you have now. How dare you? How dare you suggest that I am mercenary, and heartless, or that I am too naïve to realise what I am doing. How dare you even think that of me?"

"Sybil please, I am on your side,"

"Then be on my side! If you could know, Mary, if you could only

imagine the heartbreak I feel at entering in something so devoid of love, you would not talk to me as you have done." At this, Mary's eyes narrowed.

"There's something you are not telling me, isn't there. Sybil, have you done something stupid?" She took Sybil's shoulders. "Sybil, you are not pregnant, are you?"

"No! Oh please, just leave me alone. He swore that he would break me if I told you."

"Sybil, you are frightening me. Tell me, now. What has he said to you?" Mary demanded.

"That he would ruin papa unless I accepted him. That his father had the power, and that it would be my fault if we were made poor, and miserable. Mary, you must not tell!" During this, Mary's face had gone as white as chalk, and tears pooled in her eyes.

"Oh my dear. Why didn't you tell me? Yes father owes money to the Greys, but William Grey and father have been friends for a good many years, why, the man is my godfather! He would never do anything to hurt us, and it is only papa's sense of honour that has kept Mr Grey from dismissing the debt completely. I know – know for a fact, my darling, that both him and his elder son would be horrified to hear of their names being used in such a manner. Oh I could strangle that man!" Sybil could scarcely breathe. Seeing this, Mary took her wrist and steered her towards a chair. Sybil whispered,

"I can't believe how stupid I have been. You are right, Mary, I am naïve, and weak. How could I have let a man like him make me feel so unhappy?." At this, the barrier Sybil had erected burst its banks, and fat tears escaped from her eyes, sobs wracking her body. Mary held her, and for a while the dark heads were close, and Sybil felt safe, for the first time since Larry's proposal. At last, Mary looked at her.

"We need to get you out of here. I believe the chauffeur's cottage is empty; I can ask Anna to take you out down the servant's stairway. I will explain…"

"No," Sybil cut her off. "I will face him, hopefully for the last time. If my last words to him humiliate and disgrace him, I think I will begin to forget him sooner." Mary nodded, and together, the sisters went downstairs. And Robert, as he saw Sybil, thought she had never looked more beautiful.

There was a feeling of anticipation in the church, the excited murmurs of long lost great aunts who seemed to have appeared out of no where to see their "Favourite niece" married. Larry's eyes shone brightly, and he gave his dark hair an impatient shake as he craned his neck to get a glimpse of his bride. To see her glowing face (he was convinced she had forgotten all that nonsense about refusing him.) And if she was still stupidly headstrong, or she if she kicked up any sort of fuss, well, she would pay for it later. Because Laurence Grey had never been a victim. His wealth and title had made sure of that at Eton. Whilst other boys had scrubbed fireplaces with red-rimmed eyes and backs red raw with whiplashes, he had sat by those same fireplaces, imperiously demanding that they stop that infernal racket. His eyes had said, "The older boys don't touch me. I am superior – I can hurt you, if I want, and no one will do anything to stop me." When he caught his mother in the nursery, hugging his terminally ill sister Sarah Jane as if she couldn't bear to let her go, he did not let the fact that she never seemed to glance his way hurt him, or let himself feel miserable that he was so obviously a hard, spiteful little worm in her eyes. Instead, he would go over to Sarah Jane and smack her, hard. Or pinch her under the table. And when his childhood spent with his uncle, after Sarah Jane was admitted to Great Ormond Street, he did not feel afraid, or alone. He would not be a victim as his uncle bellowed at him over his poor marks and expensive clothes. Instead, he would terrorise the maids, hitting them, and famously getting the under-housemaid pregnant at just sixteen. And when Sybil Crawley spurned him, and told him in that cold, clipped way of hers that she was "Terribly flattered," he would not be a victim. He would not allow her to refuse him, to act as if she was something better than him by denying all that he had to offer. Because Larry Grey was not prey; he was a predator.

The church was cold, the January wind blowing from Siberia, as the Dowager Countess muttered darkly. Cora sighed. Matthew was not here; Mary would be so disappointed, she thought. How could her daughters have such terrible luck when it came to husbands? At least Sybil had found someone. True, seventeen is a little young, but during wartime, why wait? Her face clouded when she thought of Sybil's frightened face and tired eyes, but she immediately dismissed it as bridal nerves. After all, she had felt exactly the same way. But a part of her remained uneasy. But as soon as the thought crossed her mind, Mrs Majorie, the near stone-deaf organist, thumped out Lohegrin on the organ, and Sybil walked in on her father's arm, flawlessly beautiful in the pale light of the morning sky. However, as she peeked at her daughter's face through her tears, she was puzzled. There was no apprehension, or joy, or even anxiety. Instead, her face was one of steely determination.

I promise I will get on to Sybil at university soon, but obviously a few things need to be cleared up first. I wasn't really planning on developing this very much, so sorry if it seems a bit rushed, but I wanted something to make her snap and take independence. Next chapter there is a big confrontation, (not just with Larry Grey…) And Cousin Isobel comes in to the scene and gives Sybil some sympathy and advice (seem familiar?)