Oh, she was the unluckiest, clumsiest creature in Creation! Only the greenest of green girls could have been so utterly stupid!
Such thoughts - and others like them - had been marching round and round her head since she had fled up the stairs in the wake of the innkeeper's wife, some two hours ago. Doubtless, he - Sir Anthony - would be heartily offended by what she had said of him, in her ignorance, and there would be no going back. And, which made it worse, he had been so kind to her, before then, so thoughtful and sympathetic.
She supposed she ought to be grateful that after this, she would have no cause to see him again. Her flight from home would completely ruin any plans her parents had for a match between them, and she did not think that he looked like a gentleman who would be too enamoured of London pursuits. Tomorrow, she would find him and beg his pardon and bid him farewell.
And that, Edith thought with determination, would be that.
Anthony Strallan sipped his coffee through pursed lips and cast another look at the parlour door - his tenth in half as many minutes. He had awoken to a blanket of muffling white outside his windows, and the rather distressing tidings (brought by Stewart) that the road were impassable in either direction. He had rather intended to be gone before his fair companion had arisen, hoping to spare her any embarrassment she might have felt after last night.
For the dozenth time, Anthony cursed himself. He had been jesting, hoping that an attempt at humour would reassure her, would diffuse the awkwardness she had clearly been feeling after their official introductions had been made. But as usual, he had fallen, metaphorically at least, flat on his face. You always were a clunch, he tutted in disgust. And now they would be stuck together for as long as it took for this deuced snow to melt and -
The somewhat apprehensive creak of the parlour door made him leap to his feet and turn, quickly smoothing down his coat. Lady Edith stood shyly on the threshold, a faint blush of embarrassment tinting her pale cheeks. But before he could speak, she had shut the door behind her, come frankly forward and said, in somewhat shaky, but perfectly clear tones, "I must beg your pardon most heartily, sir. I was offensive and brutal and - and thoroughly, thoroughly bird-witted."
Lord, thought Anthony admiringly, but she's neck-or-nothing! She had no reason to believe that I wouldn't be furious with her, and she still came in directly to apologise.
He smiled at her reassuringly. "Come, come, my dear - no need to look so Friday-faced. You weren't to know. Doubtless if I had introduced myself like a gentleman at the beginning, you wouldn't have said anything of the sort to me."
Lady Edith let out a shaky, relieved breath. "No. I wouldn't have, I promise."
"And besides," Anthony added, "I should apologise for that foolish jest I made. I've no intention of - well, you know."
The last remaining bits of tension seemed to leak out of her then and she gave him a proper smile. "I feel so awful," she confessed, "after you were so kind to me, with my wrist and - "
"Ah, yes. How is it this morning? Not paining you, I hope?"
She shook her head, looking much more the thing, and lifted it for his inspection. "The landlord's wife bound it up for me and I think it will do quite well." She glanced out of the window. "Have you heard that we are snowed in?"
"I had indeed." Anthony smiled and pulled out a chair at the table for her. "And that being the case - would my lady care to take some breakfast?"
Catching his mischievous tone, Edith grinned up at him, her eyes sparkling with fun. "Why, sir, you are too kind. I should be delighted."
As they ate, slowly they discovered more about each other's lives. "It's all my sister, Diana's, fault," Anthony explained ruefulluy. "After Maude - my wife - died… nothing would do for her but that she should try to throw me into the path of every eligible woman of her acquaintance. Doubtless she has met your mama."
Edith smiled wryly. "Oh, I don't think that I can be considered eligible, you know. A hoyden, perhaps, but not eligible." She sighed. "That is the trouble, you see. I am… not the sort of woman gentlemen wish to marry."
"Hence your flight to London?" Anthony asked kindly.
Edith nodded miserably. "I thought that if - if I were away from home, then Mama and Papa would… forget about me, about trying to find me a husband. My aunt is a kind woman - I do not think she will mind letting me stay with her, at least for a little while." Her voice grew quieter, more faltering. "I hope she will not mind."
"I am sure she will not," he reassured her in a voice of forced jollity. "I am sure that your family will simply be glad to know that you are safe and well."
Edith looked up at him, big brown eyes filled with bleak hopelessness. "I believe," she managed, in a stiff, restrained sort of voice, "that my running away will rather be something of a relief for them. I have not been the easiest of daughters. I would that I were, but I am not."
Anthony swallowed the morsel of bread he had been chewing - with difficulty, owing to the sudden lump in his throat. He felt a sudden swell of tenderness towards this poor lovely girl, who had felt so unwanted and desperate that she had run away from her home and family, and who even at this moment looked on the verge of tears. He knew not what to say. Neither of the women with whom he had spent considerable amounts of his time in adulthood were or had been like this: his sister Diana had that same irrepressible cheerfulness possessed by their late mother, and Maude… Anthony smiled a little wistfully. Maude had been so wonderfully hardy, so optimistic and sturdy. Comforting weeping women was something utterly beyond his wisdom.
"I have often observed," he offered quietly, "that people tend to be far happier once they cease trying to force themselves into a mould they are not meant to fit." He gave her one of his crooked half-smiles. "Your parents may want an easy daughter - but I do not believe that it is in your character to be dutifully compliant. Perhaps you should simply stop trying to be so."
Edith looked up at him, blinking in startlement. "You… are a very odd gentleman, sir," she told him thoughtfully. "I have never heard anyone speak as you do." Truly, that was so - there was no one of her acquaintance who so much as listened to what she said, let alone replied thoughtfully instead of simply offering meaningless platitudes.
"Then we are well-matched, are we not, ma'am?" he rejoined. "Now, let us think of how we are to amuse ourselves, hmm?"
Edith could not remember when she had spent a happier day. Anthony had found a battered chessboard and collection of chessmen from somewhere and set it up on the parlour table, and they had played goodness only knew how many games. As they played, they talked and laughed and teased, and grew quite thoroughly re;axed in each other's company. So this is the 'awful old widower', is it? Edith thought as she toyed with a knight she had won from Anthony. His head was bent over the board in concentration, considering his next move, but sensing her scrutiny, he looked up, meeting her brown eyes with his own startling blue ones. Edith looked away, suddenly feeling hot and cold and trembly all over. He wasn't old or awful at all. Far from it.
The inn was deserted save themselves and the landlord and his wife, and in the absence of society's disapproving gaze, Anthony saw Edith blossom. When she was not focused on her own supposed inadequacies, Edith was amusing and quick-witted and well-read. When she made a joke, she could not keep a straight face, but would nibble on her bottom lip in a vain attempt to keep a smile from breaking out. When she was conversing passionately, about a book or a person or a piece of music or a place she had visited, her cheeks flushed and her eyes flashed and she would wave her hands and nod her head in enthusiasm, making those shining red-gold curls dance with exuberance.
She was adorable and he did not mind in the least admitting to himself that, as far as Edith Crawley was concerned, he was a lost man.
"How did you hurt your arm?" Edith blurted out suddenly. And in the next second her face had flamed crimson. "Forgive me," she managed at last. "I should not have asked."
Anthony smiled gently. "Oh, there's no great secret to it. A shooting accident, three years ago." His smile grew lop-sided. "You see, nothing terribly heroic or scandalous about it."
"Does it hurt you?" Edith murmured, her voice soft.
Anthony shook his head. "No. It's a damned nuisance, that's all." His lips twitched. "Now, are you not glad that we shall not be married? You shan't have to be bothered by this, at least."
"No," Edith whispered, and Anthony was absurdly delighted by the faint wistfulness in her voice. Perhaps… But no. She was a sweet slip of a thing - no older than five and twenty, surely! - and he was a crippled old cove on the threshold of fifty. That was no future for any girl, and certainly not one as lovely as Lady Edith Crawley. No, he would enjoy her company for as long as they were stranded here, and perhaps see her safely to Town, and then politely but firmly refuse any invitations issuing from the environs of Downton Abbey.
That evening, they ate a hearty, convivial supper in the parlour, waited on by the landlord himself, and then retired to comfortable armchairs. "This has been such a delightful day," Edith confessed, stretching her stockinged toes out from beneath the hem of her dress to warm them further. "I don't think I have ever felt so completely… comfortable with another person before." She looked up at him, a trifle anxiously. "Is that an odd thing to say?"
Anthony sketched her a brief bow from his chair. "On the contrary, my lady, I am most flattered."
Edith was staring into the flames thoughtfully, and when she spoke next, it was almost as if she had forgotten his presence entirely. "I do not think I should mind being married so very much, if I could be sure that it would be like this."
Anthony swallowed. What had her mother been about, to let her grow up so untutored that she would say things like that to gentlemen she barely knew! Oh, she would get herself into scrapes a-plenty if someone did not keep a sharp look-out for her. "It can be," he managed at last. "I am sure that for you, it shall be. You must just… find the right person."
Edith looked suddenly, sharply at him, seeming momentarily to be much older than her years. "Your wife, sir… was she the right person for you, do you suppose?"
He ducked his head, smiling shyly. "Yes. I believe she was, ma'am."
Edith returned his smile, a little sadly. "Then… you were most fortunate, Sir Anthony." There was a moment of aching, precipitous silence - and then Edith gave a jaw-cracking yawn.
Anthony tutted. "I am keeping you up." Edith opened her mouth to protest, but Anthony interrupted. "Get you to bed, child," he ordered kindly and Edith sighed.
"I am rather tired." She levered herself carefully out of the armchair, brushing down her gown, and Anthony rose with her. "Good night, Sir Anthony."
"Goodnight, my lady. Sleep soundly." Sweet dreams, my lovely girl.
"Well," said Edith over breakfast, "what shall we find to occupy ourselves today?"
Anthony leant back in his chair and watched her, amused, over the rim of his coffee cup. He was surprised that someone as youthful and obviously energetic as Edith had not yet grown bored with the paltry amusements available at their place of shelter, but he supposed that that was merely the novelty of it all. If she were forced to live like this all the year round - at Locksley, say - he was sure she would feel very differently.
And where the deuce did that idea come from? he wondered, trying not to allow his confusion to show on his face.
"I know," Edith continued, merrily unaware of his current train of thoughts, "I could sketch you." She twinkled at him. "You could sketch me. Or - "
They were interrupted by a polite cough from Stewart. "Sir, my lady, I am informed by the landlord that the snow has melted sufficiently to allow safe passage," he announced.
Edith felt all at once as if she had been dealt a sound blow to the stomach. Somehow, she had tricked herself into believing that this temporary little bubble of warm contentment and companionship would last forever. And now… well, now it had burst. She looked up at Anthony and, just for a fraction of a second, thought he wore an expression as stricken as her own must be.
Carefully, she rose to her feet. "In that case, Sir Anthony," she forced out. "I ought to be driving on. Th-thank you for… for everything." Dropping him a slight curtsey, she blundered towards the door. "I shall go and see about my horses." She would not cry. She would not cry!
"Lady Edith!" His voice stopped her, her hand on the door-latch.
She whirled around, hoping she did not look too eager. "S-sir Anthony?"
"Stewart and I… would be honoured to escort you safely to London," Anthony offered. He half-shrugged, a most inelegant gesture. "If - if you could bear our company?"
"Oh, y-yes," Edith managed, trying not to shout her joy aloud. "That - that would be most kind of you, Sir Anthony."
They walked to the inn-yard together, so closely that their arms brushed once or twice. Stewart, busy checking both curricle and phaeton, noted that both his employer and the fair damsel they had rescued wore identical, slightly dazed smiles. Privately, Stewart allowed himself a brief moment of amusement.
Anthony paused at his horses' heads, under the pretence of examining their tack; tactfully, Stewart melted away. This sudden breaking-up of their little party had brought several things into sharper perspective for Anthony. Before, he had thought that he would be perfectly capable of giving up Edith's company when the time came - he had only been acquainted with the girl a day and a half, for God's sake! - but when the moment of parting had come, he had found himself unable to contemplate it. Unable to contemplate the thought of bidding goodbye to this vision of sweetness and never laying eyes on her again. He had to speak.
"Lady Edith?" He could hear his voice trembling. "Please, do not feel beholden to me in any way - do not let it influence you in any respect but…" Anthony sighed and broke off. He was making a mull of it already.
"Sir Anthony?" Edith pressed gently. "Come, now, tell me - what is it? I believe we are well enough acquainted that we may speak frankly to each other, surely?"
He took her right hand in his own left and stood staring down at it for some moments, his thumb brushing absently over the backs of her knuckles. "Lady Edith, I hope very much that - that once we are in London, you will allow me to call on you. If I may be permitted that honour?"
"Sir Anthony, I - " She stopped, and reached up hesitantly to cup his cheek with her hand, a shy, sweet smile breaking out over her face. "Anthony, I would like that very, very much."
His eyes widened in delight. "Edith - oh, my sweet one…" And casting a quick glance around the inn-yard to ensure their solitude, he dipped his head and quickly kissed her lips.
When they parted, Edith was flushed and glowing. "Then that is settled." Impishly, she offered, "When we are in London, perhaps I might drive you?"
Anthony handed her up into his curricle, his heart as light as air. "On the contrary, madam," he began in tones of mock-severity, "I already have sufficient experience of your driving to last me several lifetimes…!"
