She closed her case, smiling at the letter from Gwen that was still opened on her bedside table. The signature now read 'Gwen Harding' and the words there helped her sunken heart rise slightly. But as she viewed her room, the emptiness not only in the decoration but also inside her, Anna could not give her heart any more reason to fill.

There was nothing but emptiness in her.

Someone knocked on her door and she turned, lugging the case to the top of a trunk, and gave what smile she could to John. His arm was still in a sling but he looked as fine and fashionable as ever. He surveyed the room and shrugged, "I guess this is it."

"Father's booked us tickets for the boat tomorrow." Anna turned a circle in the room. "We're back to England by this time next week."

"Anna…" John's eyes went all over the room before meeting hers. "What do you want me to do? Because all you have to do is ask and I'd do it."

Anna put a hand to his face, closing the distance to hold herself close to him. "I wish I even knew what to ask but I don't. I don't know how you can help me."

John wrapped his arm around her, clutching Anna to his chest. Her arms wrapped around his waist and she buried her face in the fabric of his waistcoat, breathing in the smell of his as if she could imprint it on her brain. They swayed a moment before her father's voice sounded in the hall.

The speed of their separation was only matched by the distaste on her father's face as he entered the room. Anna ducked her head but did not back down under his gaze. He sniffed in John's direction but otherwise ignored him, facing Anna.

"Are you ready to leave?"

"I've packed." Anna motioned to her trunks and cases. "I think I've gotten everything but if I forget something it's truly not that important."

"I'm surprised you dismissed your lady's maid."

"I didn't." Anna frowned, "She got married."

"Then we'll get a new one for you the moment we're back in England."

"I don't need a lady's maid anymore." Anna waved her hand at herself. "I can dress myself."

"And repair your clothes?"

Anna shrugged, "I've learned some mending and I'm sure a few maids wouldn't mind helping me learn the finer points of it. I do know needlepoint and embroidery."

Her father only snorted and then shook his head, "Your grandmother requests our presence for dinner. If you'd like to eat with us, that is."

"Why wouldn't I want to eat with you?"

"I don't know." Her father shot another look at John, "I was under the impression, given how you stormed away last night, that you had no interest in persisting in common decency."

Anna bit her tongue on her response and shook her head ever so slightly to stop John responding. Her father cast one more look around the room before departing. Waiting a moment to hear her father's footfall leaving the hall, Anna turned to John.

"I'm sorry about him."

"Not as sorry as I am for you about him." John reached out for her hand, taking it with his. "I wish there was something I could do."

"Like sweep me off my feet and take me far away from here?" Anna tried to pass it off as a joke but John's response told her he saw the plea in her eyes.

"If I had two arms and didn't fear the police coming after me for whisking you away, I'd snatch you now and we'd be far away by morning."

"You've no idea how much I'd want that." Anna raised his hand to her lips and kissed there, "If only we lived in a different world."

"If only." John released her hand, "We'd best get to dinner before your father accuses me of seducing you."

"I'm sure he'd say far worse since he's aware we've not been as… discrete as we should've been."

John snorted, "We could've been less discrete."

"Don't tempt me, Mr. Bates." Anna walked with him, nodding toward his arm. "How is it healing, by the way?"

"It's fully functional and healing rather nicely. The doctor said there'd barely be a scar and I don't have to have the sling but I thought it'd be better to give my arm all the aid it needs in recovery."

"If you're arm's in a sling then you can't hold me." Anna whispered as they reached the bottom of the stairs and John stopped.

"There's nothing I'd rather do but, at the moment, I think our location and the constraints on our time make that a little difficult."

"I know," Anna sighed to herself, "It's like the universe revels in keeping us apart."

"There's a sick pleasure to be had by someone because of it, that's for certain." John reached forward to open the door to the sitting room and Anna preceded him to take the seat next to her grandmother.

They talked quietly until Spratt appeared to bring them all in for dinner. John offered Anna his hand, to help her stand, but her father stood in his way. "I'll take care of my daughter, sir."

"I only offered her my hand."

"In more ways than one." Lord Ravensburg stared John down. "Why are you still here, Mr. Bates?"

"Because he's a guest of mine, not yours." Mrs. Levinson snapped, taking John's good arm. "I thought you were bred with manners."

"I have manners."

"Then perhaps we'll need someone to remind you of how you treat others, in any circumstance, but especially in homes where you're also a guest." Mrs. Levinson's face practically vibrated with rage. "I've had quite enough of you tearing down Mr. Bates under my roof and I won't stand for more. If you've nothing to say that's productive or at all kind then you'd do better to keep your mouth shut."

She dragged John out of the room and Anna removed her hand from her father's hold. Anna went to follow but her father stopped her. "Remove your hand."

"I need your attention."

"You can ask for it without keeping me in your grip." Anna extricated herself and folded her arms over herself. "What could you possibly need to tell me you haven't already expressed, at great volume, before?"

"I'm hoping I don't need to remind you that you've a reputation to protect."

"Are you worried about what I might do to further destroy my reputation?" Anna waited but her father only shuffled. "If this has something to do with my relationship with Mr. Bates-"

"It has to do with Mr. Bates being in your room, or you sharing his room, or something about a cabin where you stayed for a time."

Anna bit the inside of her cheek, "If you've heard any of these things from Mr. Green then I think-"

"Mr. Green may've had parts of his life that were less desirable-"

"Less desirable?" Anna scoffed, "You wanted me to marry someone who took me against my will. Who used my name to gain loans he couldn't pay back and…"

She stopped herself, "We're not arguing this again because there's nothing to discuss. He's dead and that's all I can hope for."

"Anna," Her father brushed his hair back. "You don't realize what this could do to you-"

"We're late for dinner." Anna turned to the door and this time her father did not reach to stop her.

The silence of dinner only broke for the scrape of utensils on plates. Occasionally Mrs. Levinson tried to speak to John or Lord Ravensburg but neither would speak. Anna kept her eyes on her plate, pushing her food around without putting her utensils to her mouth. As soon as she could, Anna left the table and retreated to the sitting room to shuffle a deck of cards until the door finally opened.

Mrs. Levinson entered, clapping her hands together. "Your mother's gone up. Says she needs a full night of sleep since she never sleeps on the ship."

"She'll find a way to put herself to sleep." Anna held up the deck, "Fancy a final game?"

"You say that like we'll never see one another again." Mrs. Levinson sat down as Anna dealt the cards. "That's not the kind of feeling I want when I see my granddaughter."

"I've the uncomfortable feeling," Anna placed the remainder of the deck between them, taking her cards to look at them. "That my father won't allow me to leave his sight until another man can put his chain over my neck and hold me in thrall."

"Normally they give rings, not chains, and they go around the finger, not the neck."

"Isn't it the same in the end?" Anna laid down her cards and drew a few others to replace them. "Whomever my father convinces to marry me will own me, the way my father hopes he does at the moment, and I'll be trapped in ballrooms with people I don't like while pretending I want to be there."

"And you don't think I won't make my way over to England to help you find a bit of enjoyment in that?" Mrs. Levinson laid down her cards and sat back, "I wouldn't mind making your father's life a bit of a headache if I could."

Anna took the cards back, shuffling again to deal. "You aren't going to tell me I should fight him?"

"I didn't think I had to tell you to do that." Mrs. Levinson took her cards and organized them before drawing some replacements. "I thought you would figure that out for yourself."

"How do I do it without destroying my family?"

"I'd say that's already destroyed." Mrs. Levinson showed her cards but Anna flashed hers and smiled. "Like this hand."

"We've all got our tricks." Anna reshuffled the deck and set it to the side. "If I run from my family, if I fight back, then won't that just put Mr. Bates in an awkward position?"

"What kind of position?"

"The kind where all of Green's lies are proven true to my father and he sends people to find me because he'll never believe I wanted to run away for myself. He'll believe Mr. Bates kidnapped me."

"Then you've got to make it very clear it wasn't Mr. Bates's decision."

"And how do I do that?" Anna sat back in her chair, "How do I publically declare to my father that Mr. Bates, despite everything my father mistakenly believes, is the man I need?"

"You'll find a way." Mrs. Levinson stood, "Though I would advise you not try to wake him up with a public declaration that you have engaged in the kind of relations only married people should share."

Anna coughed, "I haven't-"

"I'm old but I'm not dead, Anna." Mrs. Levinson bent down, kissing Anna's forehead, "And I like Mr. Bates so I'd rather not think of him in that light. If it's all the same to you."

Anna smiled and stood, kissing her grandmother's cheek. "Thank you."

"Just promise me you won't allow your father to ruin your life like Mr. Green wanted to." Mrs. Levinson rubbed at Anna's shoulder. "I couldn't bear to watch you destroyed in that way."

"Me either." Anna walked with her toward the stairs. "What made you think Mr. Bates was the man for me?"

"The way he spoke during that first dinner." Mrs. Levinson smiled, mostly to herself. "He allowed Mabel and Madeline to speak when no one else would listen. He wasn't concerned with telling everyone who he was or what he'd done but in listening. That is the kind of man you needed Anna, someone who cared what you thought instead of hoping you'd spend a lifetime raising him up."

"He's wonderful." Anna agreed, stopping outside her door. "I don't want to leave him and that's what tears at me."

"Then find a way not to leave him." Mrs. Levinson pointed toward her room. "Unfortunately all of my wisdom has drained out and I've nothing else to give you tonight."

"Goodnight Grandmama." Anna kissed her cheek again and Mrs. Levinson kissed her back.

"Goodnight Anna."

Anna watched her grandmother go into her room and put her hand to the knob at the same time. But when her grandmother's door closed, Anna still found herself in the hallway. Her eyes glazed a bit on the door and then she pushed off, marching toward John's room and entering it.

It was dark and she heard something from the bed. John's lamp flickered on and he squinted at her in the brightness before his eyes widened. "Anna? What are you doing here?"

She did not answer. Instead, Anna worked the buttons of her dress loose. Each one felt like an eternity before she could free her body so John could look at her. So she could bask in the glow of someone willing to give honest appraisal with absolute sincerity. And when her body was finally free, a little shiver at the chill of the room temporarily stopping her progress, Anna crossed to the bed.

John, either in shock or confusion, had not moved. He lay immobile but pliant as Anna worked his sleep shirt over his head. Her fingers traced over the muscles and skin she knew so well, felt over jutting bones while she dipped into the nuances of his body with her tongue. The hiss that escaped his teeth told her all she needed to know as Anna worked his trousers from his legs.

Then, when he lay under her as naked as she was, Anna put her knees on either side of his hips. John's tentative hand on her thigh, just above the knee, trembled but he forced it to hold firm as he looked up at her. "Anna?"

"Please," She put her hands on either side of his face, holding him steady as she straddled him with her body resting on his stomach and his slowly rising erection thickening at the crease of her ass. "Please give me this. If this is the last time we have this chance I don't-"

But whatever else she planned to say flew from her mind. John responded without needing to hear her plea with words. One hand went behind him so he could rise up and kiss her. He shifted ever so slightly under her to sit up and Anna moaned into his mouth at the brush of his arousal against her growing wetness.

They held one another close a moment, breaking their kiss without realizing it, just to hold one another close. Anna breathed, her forehead resting on his with her hands on his neck, and lost herself in the rhythm of his heart. When she raised her head, to look in his eyes, her hands cupped his face again.

"I never want to lose you."

"I don't want to lose you." The light on his bedside table reflected in the tears in his eyes. "I can't live life without you Anna. I'm nothing without you."

Anna fought past the ache in her heart and seized his lips. They shifted against one another, both trying to meet in the middle but seeming to drive one another away in the urgency of their efforts. Her hand fumbled behind her as she reached for him and scraped her nails along him enough to send John grunting into her shoulder. They shifted and Anna lifted up just enough onto her knees to feel him at her entrance.

But John did not move toward her or even bring Anna toward him. Instead, one of his hands went to her hips and the other stroked at her clit. One of Anna's hands grabbed his shoulder and held herself as steady as she could while John glided over her folds. He did not look away from her face and Anna continually forced herself to open her eyes or blinked rapidly so she would not fall to the rising pleasure. Her body practically hummed with it and each slip and slide, each teasing exploration that sent his fingers deeper inside her or touched with just a bit more energy had her leaving marks in his shoulder and seeing spots of black at the edges of her vision as she forgot to breathe.

When it came, that glorious moment they shared together, Anna finally shut her eyes. It may have been her imagination but the taste on her tongue told her she bit through her lip in the strain of keeping silent. But all that mattered to her, as her mind tried to sweep away the fog of the moment, was that John's eyes never left her.

"I want to remember you like that. In that instant where the world doesn't matter because you're so wrapped in ecstasy it's all burning anyway." John brushed an escaping strand of hair from her forehead. "That's the expression I could paint forever and never get right."

"Let me see it on you." Anna lifted his hand from her and finally sank down, giving relief to her shaking legs and driving John's eyes back into his forehead.

She shifted and rocked, gyrating on him to try and build the tension in his body. However, his hands controlled his thrusts and with the control he had it was all Anna could do to keep pace with him. Soon they writhed together, seeking the sensations and emotions they needed for John to finally tip over the edge.

Anna watched him then, as he watched her, and held him close when he tried to pull away. The adjustment rubbed her still sensitive nerves and her buried her finish in his neck as he did the same to her. Their hands slipped for holds as they tried to crawl into the other's skin just to be closer… Just to share their hearts for a moment longer.

A slight turn put them on their sides and Anna worked herself next to John. Her fingers intertwined with his as her head settled on his shoulder. After a moment Anna started, wet drops striking her head through her hair. She turned to look at John and saw his tears as they coursed silently down his cheeks.

Reaching up to wipe them away, Anna felt her own tears. The tears for the future they wanted to build together. Tears for the moment torn from them. Tears for the terrors and pains they endured. Tears for those memories they shared with no one else and the sounds they might never hear from one another again. And tears for the inevitable dawn that could only bringing misery to them both.

Eventually they dozed against one another, the weight of emotions and the exertions of their evening bearing down to leave them exhausted and slumbering in the comfort of one another. A comfort Anna wished would last forever. A comfort disturbed as John's kisses started from her forehead.

He worked down her body, placing her gently on her back, and left no patch of kiss untouched or unloved. The devotion in his efforts, the unparalleled commitment, had Anna clutching for his sheets. And John only worked harder when one of her hands found his hair and tried to steer him where her body begged for him again.

It was a testament to his fortitude as well as his control when John followed her instructions to a fault. He did not succumb to her pleas or her whimpers but worked her higher and higher, only to back away at the moment Anna wanted to crash. And when his lips and fingers finally brought her to climax for the third time. Anna could only let her legs fall open as her body lost all energy.

Again, John did not follow the implied directive. He kissed up her body, back to her lips, and brought her back to him instead. But even he was powerless when Anna wrapped her leg over his hip and yanked him closer. Powerless when Anna's tilted hips and practice slid him deep inside her. And powerless when she whispered in her ear.

Her fingers sought the places she could encourage John forward. She tugged at his earlobe when she told him, in explicit detail, what she wanted from him. And Anna's hand found better purchase at his ass when her legs pulled toward her chest and spread wider. But her greatest achievement came when her lips touched his with a murmur of 'I love you'.

That was the moment he lost all control.

The bed rocked and squeaked slightly but Anna had no time to care. With the steady beat of John rutting into her, striking as deeply as he could manage to go, there was nothing and no one but them on that bed. The moment Jon wanted to paint forever came to Anna in an instant and she could imagine seeing herself when she came.

But nothing, and Anna wondered if she could swear to that until her dying day, matched watching John's expression as he finished for a second time. Or match the feeling of him deep inside her to leave a gift her body would never appreciate but would always mean the world to Anna. That moment when they might have made life… had the lives they led treated them a bit more kindly.

When the dark settled around them, Anna stroking over John's head as he lay on her stomach and stared into the corners of the room, the tears came again. Anna's skin tingled where his dripped over her and Anna wondered if she sufficiently soaked John's pillow. There, in the dark, they wept for the lives they could never have with one another.

The crush suffocated Anna as they pressed and mashed together to get to the boat. Her fingers clutched so tightly against her case handles she was sure she left permanent marks on her fingers. But all the while they moved forward

Despite her father's reservations, both loudly spoken and less loudly expressed, John accompanied them to the boat. And as his larger bulk pushed through the crowds to make a trail for them, Anna voiced her gratitude with frequent looks at her father. He ignored her.

Eventually their tickets and position earned them a priority place in the line and Anna tried to stay near John but the officers around the ship pushed him to the side. They followed one another's progress instead and Anna stood at the bottom of the gangplank to board the ship when John finally called out to her. She had to yell back to hear him but it proved unnecessary as he pushed his way through to her, seizing her hand and ignoring those yelling for him to return to his spot in the crowd.

"Anna, I know that I've nothing your father wants. I have no title, not pedigree, no name, and no standing in any kind of society but I've you and that's all I need. I can build us a house with these two hands, I can work land, and I will do everything in my power to make you happy. All I know is that I love you and there's nothing in this world I could ever love as I love you. If you leave me today whatever life I live will be half of what it could've been with you and, if you promise, I would wait forever for you."

Anna could not respond, the crowd pushing her forward so their hands wrenched apart. She fought against them, a hand gripping like a vice on her arm tugging her back. With a turn that nearly upset someone into the water between the dock and the boat she saw her father.

"Don't be a fool, Anna. What could he ever give you?"

"Everything." Anna yanked herself away, slipping a bit on the wet deck. "He's everything I need and that's all he's got to give me and he has. Like I've given myself to him."

"This is nonsense."

"This is love." Anna plunged back through the crowd, dodging her father's grip and ignoring the shouts of irritation behind her.

Her steps hurried on the plank and the wake of destruction behind her drew attention. Enough attention to have John stop in his tracks to stare at her. And enough so that when Anna flung herself back into his arms, her own wrapping tightly about his neck, some of the onlookers clapped.

"I choose you." She almost had to shout into his ear over the frustrations and shouts of those about them. "I love you and I'm going wherever you go."

John lifted her more fully into his arms and walked out of the station with her. They found the first cab they could and held onto one another tightly. They stopped first at a telegraph office, for Anna to leave a short but concise note as to her future whereabouts, and then at a registrar's office. There, before two witnesses and the registrar, they married.

The cab took them back toward Anna's grandmother's house and Anna wrapped herself around John to be closer to him. John bent down, kissing her head, and breathed in deeply before speaking. "What'll they say about it all?"

"That I missed the boat and made a scene."

"I'm being serious."

"So was I." Anna glanced up at him while trying to snuggle impossibly closer. "But that's for them to worry over. I've only got you to worry about now."

"And I get to worry about you."

Anna grinned, kissing him, "I hope I won't be too much of a bother to you, Mr. Bates."

"I don't see that happening at all Mrs. Bates."

"I like the sound of that."

"Good, because it's your name for as long as you want it."

"Then," Anna kissed him again, "I think I'll just keep it forever."