Chapter Eleven

"And the moonbeams kiss the sea"

With the setting of the sun, even with the window fully open, it was still unbearably hot here at the top of the house. The air was heavy, with not a breath of wind.

Her head throbbing, Sybil sat up in bed pondering what she should do on the morrow. How could she have been so foolish; so utterly naïve? She only had herself to blame for her present predicament Slamming shut her book of Shelley's poems, she tossed it carelessly aside. The book overshot the bed and landed on the wooden floor with a dull thud.

Closing her eyes she lay back on her pillow. A moment or two later and she sat up again. She pummeled the pillow back into shape. If only … But she knew only too well that by speculating on "ifs" and "might have beens" she was only prolonging the agony, tormenting herself to no good purpose, but even so she couldn't seem to stop.

Damn you, Tom for placing me in this position thought Sybil. But that wasn't entirely fair. After all, so much of the present situation was her fault too. What it came down to in the end was trust and if there was no trust...

She had made her decision.

Now, all she had to do was act upon it.

Her mind once made up, Sybil threw back the heavy, encumbering bedclothes, clambered out of bed, caught up her white lace shawl from off the back of the chair by the door, and, clasping it to her, wrapped it comfortingly around her slender shoulders.

Then, quietly opening her bedroom door, she looked out cautiously across the darkened landing towards Tom's room. Beneath his door there still yet gleamed a narrow strip of comforting lamplight. Good, thought Sybil, he must still be awake. Better to strike while the iron was hot, while she had the resolve to do what must now be done. To leave matters as they stood until morning would do neither of them any good; least of all herself.

Softly she crossed the landing.

Reaching the door to Tom's bedroom, she stopped. Should she knock? No that might … Instead taking a deep breath Sybil simply grasped and turned the door knob. The door opened quietly enough, swung back silently and slowly on its hinges. But then to her mortifying consternation and embarrassment, beneath her feet a floorboard suddenly creaked; the very same board which had betrayed Tom's presence there earlier that same evening. She froze, stood absolutely still.

Save for the soft, warm apricot glow cast by the lamp on his desk, the snug room was in complete darkness. Tom was seated at his desk busily writing, his back towards her, but a momentary glance was all that it took for Sybil to see that he was barefoot and wearing nothing more than his vest and trousers.

At the sound of the board creaking, Tom half turned in his chair and looked hesitantly towards the door of his room, to see, standing by the door, motionless in the shadows, Sybil, in her ivory white night gown and lace shawl, her dark hair spilling down over her shoulders like spun ebony. Tom also froze, mesmerised by the vision of loveliness before him.

If he says anything now thought Sybil, I won't be able to go through with this.

Then the tableau shattered into pieces.

For, so as to forestall Tom, moving quickly forward out of the lengthening shadows, Sybil swiftly closed the short distance between them and came to stand next to him by his desk. For his part, laying aside his pen, Tom gazed up at her, wonderingly, half fearful of what she would say to him.

"Downstairs, earlier tonight, I promised to let you know my decision in the morning" she said softly. Her voice was scarcely above the level of a whisper.

He nodded dumbly.

"Well then. Tomorrow's too long a time to wait". Sybil paused; looked down at him. There was, Tom thought, gazing up at her, an elusive quality in her voice, something off-key. It suggested what? Anger, disillusionment, mockery, rejection, or … He thought he saw a slight smile play about the corners of her mouth and with her next words knew his eyes had not deceived him.

"Tom, my love, I gave you my answer in the garage at Downton. And nothing … nothing which has passed between us here tonight changes that at all. Did you really think it would? Any of it?"

"You mean you still …"

"… love you and want to marry you? Yes, my love … my darling. Now more than ever. I fell in love with Tom Branson, not the Master of Skerries. All I want … all I've ever wanted ... is you, my darling. Do you remember what I said to you on that very first day here in Dublin, in Sackville Street, when you saw for yourself, for the first time, what the British army had done? About us being the future?"

Tom nodded.

"Well, my love, I meant what I said then. Every word of it. And while losing both your parents at such a young age was awful for you, the way you were treated at Skerries - by those who should have cared for you - was terrible, what you suffered here in Dublin before you found a home in Clontarf with Ma, with Ciaran and all the rest - that too, my darling is in the past. Let it remain there. Forget it. Let it go. Whatever you may think, none of it has any claim on you; nor on us. We, my love, what we make of our life together here in Ireland, we are the future".

Sybil gazed down at Tom, the warmth in her voice proof both of her sincerity and the depth of the love she felt for him.

"Jaysus", Tom said softly, almost in wonderment, his eyes bright and glistening. "I don't deserve you. Sybil, love, you're truly incredible".

And then, as she stood there before him, clad in nothing but her white nightgown and shawl, bathed in the warm glow of lamplight, slowly and ever more earnestly, Tom began to pay spoken homage to her as a woman; as his soul mate.

No-one, thought Sybil, as she stood there before him, basking in Tom's open adoration of her, had ever, indeed could ever, have spoken to anyone, in the way that Tom spoke to her now. She could never, for one moment, imagine her father ever speaking to her mother in this way and - here she smiled - certainly not, for all his urbanity and outward sophistication, Sir Richard Carlisle to her sister Mary.

"You're beautiful, Sybil" Tom concluded. "You're all a man …" Tom paused, corrected himself. "… all this man could ever want in a woman".

This intimate scene, played out in the stillness of Tom's quiet bedroom at the top of the small house in Clontarf on the shore of the Irish Sea, they would both remember down to the end of their lives. And, it was following Tom's spoken homage to her, that the relationship between the two of them changed forever. Subconsciously, each independent of the other, it was at this precise moment that they jointly realised the intense physical need they each now had of one another.

And, fully and jointly comprehending this shared need, ignorant of it as they both might once have been, or perhaps had pretended to be, as realisation slowly dawned upon each of them, however much they had both consciously, or subconsciously, tried to suppress it in the past, that had steadily, and inescapably, drawn them together, from the day of their very first encounter at Downton.

It was what had bound their lives inextricably together, leading inexorably and finally to this moment in time. And it was because of this, that suddenly the very air became charged with an overt sexual tension; one which neither of them could deny, nor ignore, for a moment longer.

As Tom finished speaking, in an entirely spontaneous gesture, but totally unaware of the effect it would have on him, Sybil let go her lace shawl, allowing it to slip from her shoulders and fall to the floor. Tom found himself all but spell bound, this time by the unintentionally sexually charged simplicity of her action.

Reaching out towards her with both hands, he swiftly drew Sybil down to sit in his lap. As she settled herself contentedly there in his enfolding arms, she felt his lips eager and hot against her own, gave herself gladly up to the fire within him, letting Tom burn kisses all along the curving line of her jaw, into the very hollow of her throat, down to the cool softness of her shoulders. For her part she kissed his forehead, his eyes, the tip of his nose, his cheeks, his lips, over and over again.

Their kisses grew ever deeper, ever more passionate.

Tom wrapped his arms about her even tighter, clasping her to him. Slowly, and with a mounting, pressing need of her own, Sybil began tugging Tom's vest out of the waistband of his trousers and slipped her hands up under it, caressing his skin with her fingers, running her hands up and over his chest. She grasped hold of the bottom of his vest, began teasing it upwards, kissing his exposed chest, his nipples. Realising what she intended, for one brief moment, Tom broke free.

No they mustn't.

Not yet.

It certainly had never been his intention to seduce her, but now here she was, so warm and lovely in his arms. And, it surely could never have been her intention to seduce him.

"Sybil … love … I … don't … think … we … should …" She swiftly silenced his words with the passion of her kisses. Realising that finally, after years of self-denial, they had both now reached the point of no return, a decision had to be made. A decision they would have to live with, for better or for ill.

And make it they did.

Together.

Deftly, scarcely parting their eager lips for an instant, Tom sought to help her. Reaching back behind him, he quickly pulled his vest up and over his head, throwing it down onto the wooden floor.

They had no need of words. A silent private message had passed between them. Teasingly, Sybil smiled back at Tom, her dark eyes deep and fathomless. Now, openly showing that she wanted him … oh how she wanted him …

Sybil began gently running her fingers over his half - naked body, kneading the firm muscles in his broad shoulders, his back, playing with the patch of soft fine light hairs in the middle of his chest, tugging at them gently but persistently, slipping her hands lower towards where the line of hairs thickened, darkened and disappeared from view beneath his trousers. Tom gasped. He found the touch of her fingers on his skin was electrifying.

Again his lips sought hers, crushing them with the intensity of his ardour. Sybil felt his hands cupping her swelling breasts tightly, and then lightly squeezing her taut nipples, caressing her thighs, probing gently between her legs through the flimsy virginal whiteness of her nightgown. For Sybil, previously unimagined feelings were now searing through her, stirring sensations within her which were almost unbearable in their intensity.

Tom gasped again at what she did next as Sybil's caressing hands moved lower, to his groin, found and grasped through his trousers, the hard and swelling proof of his urgent need of her. Momentarily shamed, Tom mumbled, "I'm sorry, love. I can't help …"

"Don't be my love ... don't be" said Sybil, her voice husky, almost inaudible. Any coyness, any embarrassment, any prudishness she might once have felt towards matters sexual related to the male of the species had long since been dissipated to the four winds by the purely clinical, purely professional experiences, she had encountered as a nurse during the war.

But now, insistently, with no holding back, Sybil's soft mouth eagerly sought Tom's. And this time, as their mouths met, she twisted round willingly in his encircling arms, tangling them both in the gossamer cloud of the tresses of her dark hair. The erotic intimacy of Tom's caresses became even more ardent, so much so, that they caused Sybil to arch herself against him with a sudden, involuntary drawing in of breath, uttering a cry of ecstasy that, as she spoke his name, slurred it almost beyond recognition.

And, by the time Tom lifted Sybil in his arms and carried her the few short steps to the waiting bed, if anyone had asked the question, neither of them would have found it possible to say which was the seducer and which the seduced.