She knew this would happen. Inevitable. The moment Tom Crawley enters her life again, it gets immediately complicated.

Gwen's angry at her. Sybil wants to be a good friend, convince Gwen to respect herself more and not let Tom Crawley get her into the kind of trouble she can't get out of, but Gwen won't talk to her at all. All the scullery maids and kitchen maids hate her, too, and spill tea on her apron because of that ridiculous parade they made through the downstairs, as though she planned that whole thing, as though she was flaunting something torrid. Even Mrs. Hughes seems to hate her because she can't sack her. Anna's still nice, at least, but far too busy to be a friend.

Sybil suddenly finds herself in a very lonely place.

It's not fair. It's gossipy and petty and ridiculous. It's the sort of behavior she loathes in her own sex - letting men divide them and turn them against one another.

The problem is Tom's the only person who will talk to her nowadays. When she comes to his chamber to light his morning fire, he talks to her. When she's back there to clean his room later, he shows up, very conveniently, and talks to her. The problem is she doesn't want to talk to him. He's bedding her friends – co-workers - using them shamelessly. It's repugnant. He disgusts her.

But the other problem is she has to pretend to be polite to him because he saved her from getting sacked.

The other other problem is that the things he says she usually finds herself agreeing with.

"Did you have a chance to read any of those pamphlets I gave you? What'd you think of the one on Marxism? I'm not as extreme as that, are you? But don't you agree the time of the czars is at an end? Kings and queens and monarchs, they're so outmoded, archaic. The modern kings are the captains of industry. Vanderbilt and Rockefeller and Carnegie and Ford – he's the greatest of that lot. Men like them, women like Susan Anthony, women like you, Sybil, you're the ones shaping the future, don't you see? All these kings and czars and earls are trying to preserve the past, like the world is a specimen in a jar."

"Even your father?" she asks, surprised.

"Especially him."

Another morning, he surprises with this confession. "I envy you, knowing where you want to go in your life. I don't know what I want. I don't know who I am. Other than a disappointment to my family." She doesn't say what she thinks – that he'd be less of a disappointment if he went to university, got a job, stopped bedding the help. "If I'm honest, all I really want to do is fix engines and drive motor cars. Why can't I just do that?"

"Like Pratt? A chauffeur?"

"There's nothing wrong with being a chauffeur. Sounds like fun to me. Simple. Uncomplicated. Tom Crawley, chauffeur." He gives her a formal bow. He's only wearing pajama bottoms at the time. "At your service, m'lady." She laughs without meaning to.

Politics and religion and books and her upbringing in Ireland and his expulsion from university (two universities) and tomorrow's possibilities and yesterday's papers and he's smart and well-read and funny (if lewd) and she'd be lying if she said she didn't enjoy the attention because no one has ever paid attention to her in her whole life and for a few minutes a day they make their own secret world and she starts to forget to find him repugnant and disgusting and stops pretending to be nice to him and starts to look forward to seeing him and it's complicated and...nice.

Things carry on like that as the year ends and 1914 begins, as winter drags on and spring starts to peep out from around the corner.

He waves a flier in her face one late-March morning. "Are you interested in going to this rally next week in Thirsk?"

"Yes, I should say so."

"Despite getting a concussion at the last political event you attended?"

"Even so. If I can get the afternoon. I'm due one." She's actually due two afternoons off – the last time she was to have one, Mrs. Hughes took it away so one of the scullery maids could go see a sick sister. Sybil knows damn well that maid doesn't have any siblings, but what could she do?

"I'll make sure you get it off—"

Nooooo no no. "That's kind, sir, but not necessary. I'm sure it won't be a problem."

"Then we'll go together, I'll take you in my car."

Not a good idea. "I can get the bus in the village."

"Don't be ridiculous."

Well she's not being ridiculous. "It might be...difficult for me, sir."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"If anyone here should see me riding with you," she says as directly as she can manage.

"Has someone been giving you grief? Who? Tell me."

That's the very last thing she needs. "No one, sir."

"Then what is the problem?"

He's not this obtuse, she knows he's not. "Sir. Please."

"Well to hell with what anyone else thinks! What does it matter? We're not doing anything wrong." This is where their secret world butts up against the real one and falls to pieces. It would be better if they stayed apart. He huffs and puffs, waiting for an answer, but she has none. He relents. "Fine, have it your way. I'll pick you up en route to the village. Where no one will see. How's that?"

It doesn't sound like "her" way at all. It sounds like sneaking around. It sounds like a whole afternoon out with her employer's son. It sounds like a mistake and a risk.

The day is fine when they go to Thirsk so the top is down on his car. Her hat is pinned but she holds onto it because he drives so very fast. Still, she's not concussed this time, so she can actually enjoy the ride, more or less, though she doesn't want to enjoy it too much, or let Tom see her enjoying it too much. And the rally is a ripper, entirely interesting, though Tom makes them stand at the back near the exit in case danger crops up again. At least he has no excuses for putting his hands on her this time. And if his hand does keep touching hers, brushing and tangling, it's only because they're standing so close, crammed together by the crowd.

"Do you have to report to your post this evening, Miss Sybil?" he asks when the rally lets out.

"No, sir. I'm back on duty tomorrow morning. To light your fire."

"And you best be there on time, miss!" he says, winking at her. "I don't know about you but I'm starving, and I need a pint."

"I don't have much more than my bus fare," she protests.

"Then you'll have to sit there for hours watching me eat."

"Or I could take the bus back to the village. It's right over there," she says, pointing across the street to the omnibus pulling up to the stop.

Aha, he hadn't thought of that, had he! He loses some of that self-satisfied, clever-boots look on his face. "So you were prepared to go the whole afternoon without eating? Starving yourself? What sort of plan is that? Now come along with me. As my guest." He offers her his arm. She hesitates. The bus is loading, it won't be there much longer. "Please, Sybil?"

Which is how they end up at the Golden Fleece eating meat pies and pea soup and drinking lager. And whisky. And discussing whether Mary Richardson's slashing of the Rokeby Venus at the National Gallery was valid protest or poorly thought out vandalism lacking a more easily comprehended central metaphor. And sharing a cigarette.

She watches his throat move as he drains his glass. She remembers how his skin there smells, how warm his neck is. The room is over-heated and Tom takes off his coat and loosens his tie, rolls up his sleeves to his elbows. The beer, whisky, and smoke must really be getting to her head because the sight of him doing this routine rivets her completely, makes her much, much warmer all over. It's ridiculous considering the number of times she's seen him without any shirt on at all. His eyes are dark in here but dancing, watching her watch him. He plucks the cigarette from between her fingers and puts it between his moist lips.

"They usually have a bit of music in here at night," he says, breathing out the smoke. "Shame they don't tonight. We could've had a dance."

"Do you come here often, then? Do you bring girls here?" The whisky makes her say that.

"Sometimes, Miss Sybil, sometimes. Are you jealous?"

"What's to be jealous of?"

"Absolutely nothing, believe me."

"Do you dance with them?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm very glad the band took tonight off."

It's dark and late when they're finally back on the road to Downton. The drink has made her sleepy and soft around the edges, and it's minimizing the alarm of pesky thoughts like, "This is all a little too Tess of the D'urbervilles, isn't it? He could pull this car off the road and do anything he likes to me," and also, "Well Thomas Barrow will have served at table tonight and seen that Mr. Crawley wasn't at dinner, and then report that to everyone downstairs and then they'll all have put it together that Mr. Crawley must be out with me and I'll never have a moment's peace again."

"Can I ask you something, Sybil?" Tom asks, rousing her from her thoughts.

"Yes, sir?"

"Actually, let me ask you two things. First, will you please call me Tom, not sir?"

She shouldn't. Didn't Alec D'urderville ask the same? "If you like, sir. Tom. Sir Tom." She giggles. Oh god, she's very loose. She tries to temper it. "But only in private." Yes, so very temperate. "And the second thing?"

He's quiet for a while and she can't read his face in the dark. It makes her suddenly very nervous and that's sobering. Finally, he speaks. "Did you read in the paper the other week about the launch of the Brittanic?"

She sits up straighter, much more sober now. How could she miss it? The maiden voyage of the Titanic's sister ship was very big news indeed. But she hadn't mentioned it at the time, not wanting to touch a sensitive topic, not wanting to go near the death of his brother, and Tom certainly hadn't mentioned it then either. "Yes, sir. I did," she says somberly.

"You couldn't get me on that bloody ship for all the whisky in Ireland," Tom comments darkly, drolly. "I suppose you heard about my brother. After...after it happened, I started to dream I was drowning. Every night, the most terrible, vivid dreams. Or I'd dream Patrick was drowning and I couldn't save him. His face was like a ghost's, his mouth was open, he was screaming under the water, silently. His face, I'd see it during the day, all the time. Screaming."

"I'm sorry. Truly."

"When you first met me, I was drowning. I've been drowning for a long time. But every day I know you, Sybil, is a day I'm rescued."

She's rendered speechless by his speech. Her hands twist together in her lap and her guts twist, a tight and nervous feeling. The words are softer, more tentative, than she intends when she finally manages, "Don't play with me, sir. T-Tom. It's not right."

He reaches out to her, finding her hands in her lap, clutching them. His large, warm, strong hand takes one of hers and brings it to his mouth. His lips brush her skin as he says, "I'm not, darling girl," just before he kisses her hand.

He has a key to the back door of the house. No one has a key to the back door of the house. Except for Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes. "How do you think I've managed to sneak in late all these years?" Tom whispers, leading her inside.

"Ring the front bell?"

"That might defeat the purpose of sneaking in."

"Shimmy up the drain pipe, then."

"Why do you think I stole the key in the first place? Nearly broke my neck once shimmying up the drain pipe."

He follows close behind as they climb the servants' staircase silently. She's waiting for him to lay his hand on her hip and try to steer her into the second storey hall, down the corridor, and into his room. He stops on the second storey landing. She stops, too. She won't thank him for the lovely evening he gave her or the tender sentiments. That would be too much like what a girl would say to the man courting her.

"Thank you for taking me to the rally today," she says softly.

Pale moonlight from the small window behind her and inky shadows catch the smooth planes and deep hollows and fine creases of his face, painting it older and more handsome. She waits. He doesn't say anything. She waits still.

"Good night, Tom."

She turns from him to head upstairs to the servants' corridor. But his hand wrapping around her wrist stops her. "Sybil." And he's right there but pulling her close, too, and they come together in a kiss. Her first. His warm, dry, soft lips pluck a kiss from hers sweetly, naturally, almost chastely, almost. "Good night," he murmurs against her hot cheek.

And then he's slipped through the door, closing it softly behind him. She stands on the stair, clutching the handrail.

It's just a kiss. Hardly anything at all. A simple, uncomplicated gesture.

TBC.