"A plea deal?" Mary said. She knew it wasn't what he wanted. She also knew he was telling them at a family dinner that included Violet and Isobel so that everyone would be careful with what they said. Isobel didn't know the full truth, not officially, and one of Matthew's stubborn stances on the topic was that his mother wasn't to be told by anyone but him. It was silly, a rare time where she saw just how Matthew and Isobel resembled each other. Isobel was no fool, and Mary suspected she knew and had known the depth of the horrors Matthew had faced. Isobel knew and didn't ask, because she didn't want Matthew to feel he had to confess his sin to her. It wasn't a sin to Mary, and she suspected Isobel felt exactly the same, but Matthew felt he was at fault for not stopping it, and Isobel didn't want him to be more shamed than he already was. They were both trying desperately to not inflict any more pain on each other. She suspected it wouldn't end well.

Isobel looked like she was struggling to not be angry. "Why would they even want a plea deal? They have more than enough dead men to see the Duke hang."

"Why would you agree to that, Matthew?" Cora asked, the concern she had clear on her face.

Matthew set down his wine glass carefully. "Mr. Beesely doesn't need my permission to do this. He was doing me a courtesy in telling me. Apparently there are people who would prefer that the scandal of a duke committing mass murder not be dragged out over months."

Her father looked to say something and then seemed to reconsider it. He just realized the same thing I did, Mary thought. If the Duke pleads guilty, then Matthew wouldn't have to testify. Matthew testifying worried her beyond belief. A lengthy prison didn't sound like much punishment at all but she suspected that if there was a trial, it would be Matthew that suffered.

"I doubt that Philip would accept a plea deal," Matthew said after a long moment. "But the offer will be presented soon so I thought you should all know."

It was another topic to wait to discuss until they were alone in bed later that night. She joined him in their bed and let her head rest on his chest. "Are you very angry with the prosecutor?"

"I'm not angry with the prosecutor at all." He said it so easily, she knew it was the truth. "He's being pressured from high places to make this go away." He pulled her close. "It would be easier, and safer, for everyone, if Philip took the plea deal. My mother is correct, the murders mean that Philip will never live anywhere but a prison. I don't need to see him die. He can't do this to anyone else. That's the outcome I wanted."

"I want him dead," Mary said bitterly. "I won't lie about that. You don't want to know the depth of rage I have for him, for all of them." She had more than once in the last few months daydreamed of slowly torturing Philip of Crowborough to death in exquisite detail. The accident was just that, an accident, just fate and no one's fault. Philip had known who Matthew was the moment Matthew had been brought to his house as a servant from the workhouse. Matthew's memories of the time made that clear. Far too many of the Duke's sneering comments made more sense to him now that his memory was no longer suspect.

"Well, you'll probably get your wish," Matthew said after a long moment of thought. He held her. "Mr. Beesely suggested that… we might want to consider some time away from England. After the trial."

She felt her blood run cold. "Does he think the truth will come out?"

"He thinks even if the truth is completely avoided, and apparently many people much higher than both of us want that truth avoided, I would still be ruined. With Murdoch dead, the bulk of the testimony has to come from me. That means I will have to describe how mentally incapable I was." He sighed deeply. "After I get done explaining how remembering how to count past ten was beyond me for months, then Philip's attorney will imply I must be lying as I seem quite well now. And then Mr. Beesely will parade as many witnesses as he can find to prove that yes, I was barely able to function and only slowly got better. You may have to testify to how scattered I was."

"But you are well now," she said carefully. She did see his point though. "No one can deny that."

"But I will always be that chap that can't quite be trusted," Matthew said. "I can never practice law again. Robert can't be rid of me as his heir but the tenants… are happy for our family's sake that I was found to be alive, and worried that if I trip and hit my head, I'll be little better than a drooling idiot. You're not blind, Mary, and you're not stupid. You've seen the looks I get. Everyone currently knows me as the poor fellow who lost his memory for a year. What they'll know after the trial is that I was little better than a simpleton, to where I worked like a slave and let myself be horsewhipped because I didn't know it was wrong. And I will have to display the scars on my back to the jury. There's no way the defense attorney won't force that point. That's the best outcome."

"You would think all of those bodies would be enough," Mary muttered darkly.

"Not without a confession," Matthew countered, taking on that clever tone he had when he knew he was right. "Without Bill Murdoch and I, Philip can claim those men just happened to die in the same place on his land."

She saw the problem. "With Bill Murdoch dead, you're the star witness." With Bill Murdoch testifying, Matthew was less important, because Bill Murdoch was going to testify to the whole conspiracy, that he chose men from the workhouse that were good looking and simple in the head so that the Duke could abuse and murder them. Murdoch's written confession was still valid to present to the court but now that he was dead, Matthew would have to bear the brunt of more difficult questions.

And if people in high places wanted the case done away with quietly, a thought occurred to her. "The pressure for a plea deal goes both ways, doesn't it? People in high places don't want Philip's… tendencies and exploits paraded about?" It made sense. She didn't like to admit it, but some of the people Matthew said no to having as guests at the house shocked her.

Beside her, Matthew sighed. "The problem is that my masterful plan to get Philip arrested for murder worked too well. There's nineteen dead men that the public knows about and wants justice for. If it was one or two, a plea deal might work. They'd offer him a few years in prison, some story would be made up about his health, and the men he killed would be painted as hired hands that attacked him."

"That's… that's awful, Matthew." Worse, he said it in such a resigned way, she knew he saw it as common place.

"Come now, Lady Mary," and he said her name in that teasing way he had when he wanted to make a point, "it's never occurred to you that justice is different for peers and commoners? Be very certain of this, Mary. The only reason Philip is in prison right now is because I am heir presumptive to the Earldom of Grantham. Even if I was Matthew Crawley, a mere solicitor, and not simple minded John Fox the footman, a reason would be found for a duke to receive a lenient sentence. Philip was a fool to let me live, on so many levels. Anyone else wouldn't have been believed."

"I'm glad he was a fool on so many levels," she said quietly. "Why does Beesely think you'll need an escape plan?" Testifying would be difficult, and she wasn't blind to the looks and whispered concerns that the tenants had. It was embarrassing for Matthew, and he was right in thinking he'd never be able to practice law again, but he was also clever enough to find something else to do. His ideas for the estate drove her father mad in part because they worked. He would see some mockery but most people would get past it easily, once he showed how clever he was.

Matthew was quiet for a long moment. "Philip won't take a plea. I think he wants me on the stand and Mr. Beesely pointed out how Philip can destroy me. He is the vengeful sort, it might be worth it to him. His lawyer will ask me… about that night in the field… the act…"

"The rape," Mary corrected. "You didn't allow it to happen."

He shifted uneasily. "That's not the point. The point is that Philip's attorney knows it happened and I'll be asked on the stand if it happened. Then I have to decide whether I am going to lie under oath."

"You won't." She knew him too well. The law and being a lawyer was something he considered to be a sacred trust.

"I can't." He entwined his arms with hers and pulled her tight. "I can't and not just because it's morally wrong. It is morally wrong and I will be taking an oath to tell the truth, but Beesely made it clear that he'll go as far as to not ask me so he doesn't have to know if I am perjuring myself. But, Philip will certainly know. If I lie, he'll get on the stand and point out how I did lie, and he's possibly got enough clout to bring a few people more on to testify. I'll be ruined, a homosexual and a liar." He paused. "At least if I tell the truth, I'm not lying under oath. If my attorney attempts to argue that it was all against my will, he will have to argue that I wasn't mentally competent then but that I am mentally competent now. I have exactly one person I can call as a witness to testify on my mental state who isn't also guilty of having homosexual sex with me, and that's Charles Blake. And I don't want to see him testify. It would destroy his life. People will see me as a pathetic victim. I at least was too stupid to know right from wrong. There's no reason for Charles Blake to have been at that house as anything other than a homosexual participant."

She was silent for a long moment, her thoughts racing. "You're right," she said finally. "Philip wants you to lie on the stand so that he can completely destroy you. Everything else, all of it can be forgiven and forgotten, especially since there are others who would prefer their own secrets not be revealed. But if you lie on the stand... there's no taking it back. He'll find someone to admit to having relations with you."

"He might even do it himself," Matthew said softly. "So that he wins our little conflict and lands the killing blow."

"You can't lie on the stand then." She held him tightly. "There are worse things than people knowing." Although it was awful. It was good that Rose's season would be before the trial. It also gave her some time to plan. Beesely was right, they needed an escape plan. Grandmama Levinson and Uncle Harold were coming for the season. She could ask then. It wouldn't be forever, it might not be long at all.

"I'm sorry," Matthew said softly. "I can't lie on the stand. I can't… I can't let him take that from me. I can't let him win. I have to see this through." He sighed. "I was wrong. I thought I was being so clever, that I was trapping him and getting him locked up and executed for murder, all without ruining the family. I have put you and the entire family through a nightmare and this trial will only make it a hundred times worse."

She hugged him tightly. "The family will get through this, Matthew. As someone told me recently, we're still titled and rich, we still have our friends, and we will be together."

We could go to America if we have to, Mary thought to herself as she felt him relax in her arms, but I will do whatever I can to make sure the damage is mitigated.

0o0o0o0

"You want me to plead guilty?" Philip said, finding it suddenly amusing. He exchanged a look with his solicitor. He perused the paperwork. "I'm not sure what incentive there is for me to make things easier for the courts."

Beesely the lead prosecutor leaned back in his chair. "Personally no, I don't want you to plead guilty. I think the only suitable punishment for you is the gallows. If this goes to trial, you will hang."

"I may hang," Philip said, a slight smile coming to his face. Dobbs, his lawyer, nodded. Dobbs was a fellow traveler who had done a fine job keeping his ear to the wall. "But I may not. I heard your star witness slipped the mortal coil. That leaves you with who? The lovely Mr. Crawley. The somewhat befuddled Mr. Crawley, as I am sure you know by this point."

"Not so befuddled anymore," Beesely said coldly. "And with all due respect, your grace, you are sitting here because of him, and not Bill Murdoch."

"Yes… He does like to think he's a clever little fox." I should have let Hightower kill him, he thought again. Crawley had just been so… amusing as his toy. Murdoch hadn't even known what a prize he was bringing to the door when he showed up with a trembling, nervous, barely coherent Matthew Crawley in tow as the next fox for the hunt. He'd been shocked himself, as the papers for the month prior had been all about the tragedy that had fallen on the Earldom of Grantham. He had never forgotten his humiliating stay at Downton Abbey. The only good thing that happened was that he had eliminated the threat of Thomas Barrow. Robert had scorned him, he'd been completely wrong about the inheritance situation, and then not only did Robert embrace the middle class lawyer as his heir, Lady Mary actually married the man. Every time he had seen them at public events, it had angered him that the pretentious little bitch had married a man who fit his every taste. It had been far too tempting, and he was paying the price for that indulgence.

Therefore Matthew Crawley had to pay as well. He set the paper work down, unread. "What is the offer?" That there was any offer was because certain people didn't want certain secrets out and he had already considered playing that hand. The problem was that he was in prison and it was all too clear that his status only afforded so much protection.

"If you plead guilty to the murders and the assault on Mr. Crawley, you will get life in prison with the possibility of parole after twenty years. Any accomplice who chooses to plead guilty will get twenty years in prison." Beesely leaned back in his chair. "You don't deserve it, but you're a peer and people in high places want to be generous. I suggest you take it. You won't get a better offer."

"I doubt that," Philip said easily. "The only offer I'm interested in is having these ridiculous charges dropped."

Beesely smiled thinly. "Unfortunately for you, I don't think you have enough… Frightened acquaintances in high places to make that happen."

Interesting, Philip thought. "We'll see, won't we?"