When Bertie looked up at Edith again after calling himself an utter fool he noticed that there was something strange with her. There was something in her eyes that he had never seen before. He couldn't interpret it as anything else than pity. For some reason she felt sorry for him.
It was strange, because he felt he had been treating her so badly that morning at Downton Abbey, and that was what he regretted now. He had been breaking her heart as well as his own. Just because of his own stupid pride.
She shouldn't pity him for that, she should blame him.
"It all went to my head", he said after a while. "Becoming a Marquess. I grieved Peter, off course I did. And I was scared of the responsibility, just like I told you that day. But through it all I was happy, because I was so sure you would marry me now. I thought that it was my lowly circumstances that had made you hesitate. That I couldn't possibly give you the kind of life you were used to, however much I had wanted to."
He was quiet for a while again, wanting to give Edith a chance to answer him. Edith looked surprised. As if she had expected him to say something very different from what he actually said.
"That was not the problem at all", Edith said then. "I wanted very much to marry you. I'm certain we would have managed, we could have lived just splendidly. I'm not as helpless and spoilt as I was brought up to be. I just wanted to tell you about Marigold before I accepted you, but I never dared to. You becoming a Marquess only made it more difficult."
"Yes, I understand that now", Bertie said with a sigh. "I have changed, as I just told you. That visit to your parents' home wasn't my finest moment..."
Just then the waiter arrived to serve their first course.
...
After the waiter had left and they had tasted their smoked salmon, Edith looked at Bertie in silence again. She seemed to expect him to say something more, so he looked down at the table again.
"What made me so upset that morning at the breakfast table was that I thought you had confided in everybody else but wanted to keep me in the dark", he said.
"It wasn't like that at all. And I wanted to tell you, I just didn't dare to. I knew that Tom knew but I had no idea that Mary did."
"Actually, that was what hurt my pride most", Bertie said with a new sigh. "That you had told your sister - please don't be offended that I say this - but the two of you didn't seem to get along all that well. But I thought you still trusted her with your secret, but not me."
That was the mildest description of the relationship between her and Mary that Edith had ever heard.
"My mother used to say that we were at each other's throats from morning till night. So no, that doesn't offend me."
"Ah."
...
Bertie was quiet again, thinking things through.
"How come you told your Aunt about Marigold but not your mother?" he asked then.
"Aunt Rosamund saw me coming home after my night with Michael - or rather, her maid saw me. I will tell you the whole story later, when you have said what you have to say. If you still want to hear it then."
"So you didn't really want to tell her either?"
"No, not really."
"I hope you understand that your aunt is not the only one you have told it to", Bertie said then.
"But she is! I promise..." Edith was anxious for him to believe her. It was the truth after all.
"No, she isn't. Because you told me also. Perhaps Mary provoked you to tell me, but you were the one who actually told me. You said Marigold is my daughter. Remember?"
Edith only looked at him.
"So I was the second one to be told about her. I like that", Bertie said with a smile.
AN: Thank you for reading! Thank you for the lovely reviews! Please leave a comment!
...
I have seven unfinished stories going on at the same time now, two Edith/Anthony, four Edith/Bertie and one that is about all three of them but mainly about Anthony, what happens to him after he left Edith.
I still want to finish all of the stories, but I'm not sure I will be able to...
