AN: Rather short chapter today but I am thinking about writing a companion piece to this that deals more with Mary and Matthew's life in NY (and maybe the life of Edith and Patrick at Downton as well, I have a few ideas concerning the style of the story in mind, we'll see.)

Thanks for all the reviews, they make me very happy :)

Kat

Mary

"This is our house?" She cannot believe it. How is this even possible?

"Yes."

"It is bigger than my father's house in London."

"I know."

"How do we pay for this?"

"I told you they are paying me a lot of money. And I received a rather generous signing bonus. Also, I saved every penny of the money I earned working for the law firm in London for the past four months."

"Will we be able to maintain such a house?"

"Yes. I've talked it through with you father. There won't be any difficulties concerning that."

"I don't know what to say."

"Do you like the house?" She cannot believe he is asking that question.

"Like the house? I love it. It is wonderful. Matthew, it is so much more than I expected."

Matthew

"It is so much more than I expected." His wife words come back to him when he walks home one night from the office after they have been in New York for three months. She was right. Their life in New York is marvelous. Mary's title and the fact that she is the daughter of 'that Levinson girl who became a countess' have opened the doors into the highest circles of New York society. But his job and his colleagues have also opened doors for them to the upper-middle class. To his surprise Mary seems to prefer their upper-middleclass friends. When he asked her about it she explained to him that they were a lot more like her mother than all their upper class acquaintances and he realized that she was right. When he told her so she laughed at him and told him that her mother's family hadn't always been as incredibly rich as they were in the 1880s and that her mother had spent most of childhood as a middle-class child. He smiles at this. Mary has never been more herself than she is in New York. In England she always put on act for everyone but him, here she puts on an act for no one.

"Matthew", she says and smiles when he enters their sitting room.

"You are in a particularly good mood today."

"Yes, I am", she says, gets up, walks towards him and puts her arms around him. He can smell her perfume now and it makes him dizzy.

"Matthew, look at me. I have got something to tell you and I want to see your face." His stomach does a backflip when she says this because he has inkling of what is coming. She has been tired lately and very tenderer towards him. As if her feelings for him had intensified, if that was possible.

"Matthew, we are having a baby." Although he suspected it, it makes him happier than he has ever been before. He has been hoping for Mary to be pregnant since their wedding night because he feels a desperate longing to be a father.

"Oh Mary, I love you." He lifts her of the ground carefully and swings her around just once. When he puts her back down she kisses him more lovingly than ever before.

Cora

She smiles at her husband when he brings her her letters. He does this every morning and she knows he does it so that they can have a few minutes for themselves.

"There's a letter from Mary for you."

"And you want me to open it right now and tell you what's in it." Her husband smirks at her and she can't deny him. So she opens the letter and scans it. She never reads her daughter's letter out loud to him right away because sometimes Mary mentions things she obviously doesn't want her father to know about. But what she sees on the page now, she knows she is allowed to share with her husband.

"We are going to have an American grandchild, Robert."

"What?" The dumbstruck look on her husband's face makes her smile.

"Mary is pregnant. The child will be born in New York. He or she will be an American."

"I gather that makes you happy."

"In a way. Although I'd much rather the child were here for us to spoil him or her."

"They won't stay in New York forever."

"Are you happy Robert?" He doesn't look happy.

"I feel old."

"You aren't old. You were very young when you became a father, so now you are still young when you become a grandfather."

"I was as old as Mary is now. Which means that I am still young enough for most things." He is grinning now and she is glad she hasn't rung for her lady's maid yet.