A/N: Thank you for all the reviews to the last chapter. I'm pleased people seem to still be enjoying this story. As always, I greatly appreciate feedback.

Anna promised to speed through unpacking Lady Mary's luggage so that she would have the entirety of the evening off to spend with her husband. He waited dutifully for her downstairs, having arranged for Carson to undress his Lordship on this one night so that he could be with Anna. It had actually been upon His Lordship's insistence that the change was made as he noted Bates' excitement at his wife's return. Bates had felt hesitant to give up the duty, but Carson assumed the responsibility without complaint, murmuring only that he had dressed Lord Grantham in the valet's absence before.

Bates and his wife walked to the cottage together with him carrying Anna's suitcase in his free hand. Along the way, she described the sights she'd seen and the experiences of traveling in a foreign country. But the way she spoke seemed perfunctory and altogether too calm for a homecoming.

Hoping she was simply tired, he asked jokingly, "Did you eat frogs' legs and dance the can-can?"

"No," she said, not quite looking at him as she walked. He waited for her to say more, to tease him about the French garter she'd purchased on one of her outings in the city. But Anna was eerily quiet.

"What is the matter?" he asked finally.

Anna studiously kept her eyes downcast, not meeting his, and her silence built in him a growing terror. What had happened in France?

"It's nothing," she managed finally, barely breathing out the words.

"What is nothing?"

"I don't want you to overreact."

At this he stopped dead in his tracts, and Anna did the same, although as she turned towards him, her eyes were at his feet rather than meeting his gaze.

"Please tell me," he begged her. The suitcase suddenly felt very heavy indeed, and he greatly desired to be back at their cottage.

She took a deep breath before answering, and finally said in a rush, "I was mugged when we were in London. Yesterday, before we traveled home on the train."

Bates did not know whether to feel relieved or horrified at her confession. She was still standing in front of him looking solid and uninjured, but her countenance was so off that he wondered what might have been done to her.

"Were you hurt?" he asked, setting down her suitcase so that he could touch her face. But Anna turned her head at the last minute, betraying discomfort at his closeness.

His hand fell away as he waited for her response.

"No, not badly," Anna managed, her eyes only meeting his chest.

When she glanced around at the openness surrounding them, Bates realized that she probably longed to be home in the safety of their cottage. Without further ado, he picked up her suitcase again and they made haste to return home.

It wasn't until they were seated in their parlor that Anna seemed to relax enough to say more regarding her misadventure.

"I had visited Trafalgar Square and was walking towards Piccadilly Circus. It was the last outing allowed to us, so I decided to see the city a little. I haven't been many times to London, you know. Mister Molesley went with me, but we became separated in the crowd. I stopped in a side street to see if I could spot him, and before I knew what was happening, a man was brandishing a knife and demanding my valuables."

She paused here, and Bates wondered if a cup of tea wouldn't help steady her nerves. But he waited to offer, not wanting to interrupt her telling of the experience in London.

"I didn't have much with me, just a few shillings as spending money. I wanted to buy you something at one of the bookshops. But I gave it all over without a second thought. I was so frightened. The knife just seemed so large. And sharp."

"You did right," Bates told her quietly, relieved that she hadn't attempted to thwart the villain and retain her possessions.

"But that isn't the worst of it," she went on. For the first time since returning to the cottage, she risked a look at his face, and their eyes met for the briefest moment.

Bates waited, his stomach coiled into knots as he wondered what might have happened. Had the man hurt Anna, had he cut her?

"He took my wedding ring."

It took a moment for him to realize that what she said was the worst of the story she had been holding onto, and even longer to comprehend that she was waiting anxiously for his reaction. She looked at him as though he would be angry or disappointed or-

"Oh, Anna," he sighed.

They sat next to each other on the small sofa, separated by a short space that suddenly felt like a wide gulf. In an instant, he had bridged that gap, reaching for her gloved hands. He realized now why she hadn't removed them at the door along with her hat and coat. Gently, he peeled away each leather covering until he found the unnaturally bare ring finger on her left hand, devoid of its usual augmentation.

When he looked up at her face, he saw that tears had begun to make tracks down her cheeks.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I shouldn't have let him take it."

"I'm only glad that you're all right," he said sincerely, pulling her close. The ring was inconsequential compared to her. "I can replace it," he reminded her. "I cannot replace you."

"But it isn't the same," she began, her voice losing the battle to her emotions as she buried her face against her husband's chest. He felt her arms wrap around his back as he held her against him, closing his eyes as he reminded himself that she was now safe and sound.

"You are what is important, Anna," he told her softly, the statement coming from deep within him. "You are all that matters. As long as you weren't harmed, nothing else is of consequence."

The mugger could have taken every possession they both owned, Bates knew, and still he would feel the same so long as Anna was not hurt. But even as he acknowledged that truth, he burned with a growing guilt at not having been there to protect her. Had he been at her side, the mugger likely wouldn't have targeted her. But she'd been a woman alone, and that image instantly brought back flashes of Mr. Green.

"I should have been there to protect you," he said, remembering the times Anna had suggested he accompany Mr. Crawley on the trip instead of Molesley. And each time, he had refused for Molesley's sake. But now he wished he hadn't. He wished that he had gone, for no other reason than to be there to keep Anna safe.

"How could you have known?"

With this question, she pulled away from him just enough to see his face. And in her eyes he read one question. Did he know?

She didn't say the words aloud, but he could see them in her eyes so clearly. The doubt cut through him as sharply as that mugger's knife would have done and it felt twice as painful.

"I had no notion that any such thing would happen to you," Bates told her sincerely. "Had I thought for a moment you might not be completely safe, I'd have moved heaven and earth to accompany you."

Surely with a large man standing beside her, Anna would have been safe. And where had Mr. Molesley been, if he was to have accompanied Anna on the errand? Why hadn't the valet been there to protect her?

Bates he knew the other valet did not deserve his anger, but it flowed through him nevertheless, making tracks down useless alleys only to dead end where it always did. He was to blame. He should have been there to protect his wife.

"So..." Anna began quietly, "this didn't happen before?"

Shaking his head miserably, he responded, "No, not at all."

He thought about Anna's visit to him in prison after the trip to France, of how she had been a sight for sore eyes after a longer than usual absence. Bates recalled how he'd felt starved for her company and that hearing about the sights and experiences of France had been little in comparison to the few minutes he was allowed in her company.

"I'd have warned you if I'd known," he stated. He wouldn't have let her go. He wouldn't have let her go alone.

Anna's eyes shone brightly with fresh tears she tried valiantly not to shed.

"Even if it changed the future?" she asked.

Part of him wanted to confess that he did not give one damn about the future beyond what it held for the woman in front of him. But that was not entirely true. He cared about the Crawleys and their fates. He still found tendrils of guilt would tug at him for all the young men who lost their lives in the war. But Anna was still at the heart of everything. Her well being meant more to him than anything else, and there was no future without her.

"The only thing which matters is that you are safe and happy," he told her, cupping her cheeks between his hands. She was his to protect, and he had once more failed her. It would not happen again.

Anna smiled at him timidly, his words obviously touching her. "He didn't hurt me," she assured him. "He was rough when I hesitated to give over the ring, but he didn't cut me."

Her right hand automatically went to the pale circle of skin where her ring should have been on her left hand. Bates once more took both of her hands in his.

"I will buy you another ring," he promised her.

Her lips forming a pout, Anna said with remorse, "I liked that ring."

He thought for a moment, unsure how to solve the problem. Finally, he said slowly, "Then I'll go to London and search the shops to see if it has been pawned by the mugger."

It would be difficult to find the one which belonged to her as most rings looked alike - simple gold bands. But it would not hurt to look, and-

"Don't be silly," Anna told him, her face now betraying the smallest of smiles. "You can't search all of London for one ring."

If it would make her happy, he'd search the entire Earth for her ring and look for the man who'd dared to hold a knife on her besides. But even Bates had to admit how unlikely he would be in succeeding. Plus her spirits already seemed improved at his willingness to act on her behalf.

"How was the rest of your trip?" he asked her, hoping it was not completely overshadowed by the frightening events in London. "Did you see the Eiffel tower?"

"Yes," she answered with a nod, "Although I was too frightened to go to the top. Mister Molesley and I stood at the bottom and admired it from below."

Again with Mister Molesley's presence. Again, that pang of jealousy hit him and Bates pushed back the possessiveness which could so easily consume him. Apparently he had been ready enough to tour France with Anna but not to protect her from a mugging in broad daylight in the middle of London.

"We did not go exploring much together," Anna said, likely reading his mind, "but there were a few days he tagged along with me because he was too nervous to go out on his own."

"Then you were very kind to accompany him."

"I rather wished you were there. We could have had our picture taken together in front of the Louvre."

As it was, they only had the one picture together, the one taken in the park after their wedding ceremony in Ripon. Anna had it framed before she left for France and it adorned one shelf in their home. She had placed beside it a few other photographs, including one she had found from his army days when she cleaned out his mother's house.

"Did you get my postcard?" she asked.

Bates nodded. "I did. But I'm glad you're home."

Their eyes met, and he felt an almost physical tug, as though they were connected by impossibly thin string unseen by the naked eye. That string had gotten finer and more elastic during Anna's travels, but now that she was home, it sprang back, pulling them together with an undeniable force.

He put one hand to her jaw as he kissed her. Anna's lips met his with equal fervor, and for a time they lost themselves to the joy of a much anticipated homecoming.

TBC