A/N: Thank you to everyone who has been reviewing this story. I really enjoyed reading everyone's reactions to the last chapter, especially those surprised by the turn of events. I'm looking forward to seeing your thoughts on this one as well.
The world fell away from him between one moment and the next. He could not hear, could not see or feel anything but Anna, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm as they made their way down the corridor. The police were waiting for her in the servant's hall, the familiar uniform of an officer standing out next to a plainclothes inspector.
"And just what is this all about?" Carson asked gruffly, clearly annoyed at having his orderly house disturbed.
"We're here for a woman named Anna Smith," one of the men stated.
She stepped forward in confusion. "I'm Anna Smith," she told them.
"Miss Smith, you are under arrest for attempted murder."
"What?" Bates demanded, even as one of the men put handcuffs around Anna's wrists. "There must be some mistake."
"No mistake, sir. They called us from the hospital this morning. A Mrs..." He consulted a notepad, "...Vera Bates was attacked and stabbed. Those that found her said they saw Ms. Smith here leaving her room at the Grantham Arms yesterday."
Mrs. Hughes stepped forward, clearly outraged. "That is impossible. Anna couldn't possibly hurt someone."
The housemaid had gone white as a sheet as the officer explained the crime she was being charged with committing, and Bates simply could not draw breath. For a moment, he felt like the sea had risen up and crashed over him, blacking out the sky and making it impossible to move.
Bates himself knew that Anna had been in the Grantham Arms the previous day. He'd seen her enter, even if he hadn't asked her yet why she'd been there. And he'd had no idea Vera was even back in the village. Besides, like Mrs. Hughes, he could never conceive of Anna harming anyone, even Vera.
"She can argue that before a jury," the inspector told the housekeeper before stepping to the side and forcefully taking Anna's arm. But Bates had not moved and stood firmly in the men's way.
"Step aside, sir."
He heard them only distantly over the rushing blood in his ears, a sound that drowned out all thoughts and feelings but one: he had to save Anna. Whatever he'd done to alter the timeline had resulted in this moment, making her arrest his fault. He'd tried so hard to keep her safe, to protect her from these horrors she'd already lived, but yet again, he failed her.
"You can't take her," he said, even as he thought, You can't take her again. Not again. I can't have failed her again.
"We can and we will," the officer said, glaring at the valet. "Now step aside."
"She's innocent," Bates said anyway, his desperation growing like a tide.
The plain clothes inspector seemed to hesitate at the valet's obvious emotion, and his growing desperation. He spoke softly, in clear terms, "We're taking her to the police station in York. The best thing you can do for her now sir is to hire her an attorney."
Briefly, wildly, Bates thought about fighting the two policemen, about wrestling Anna from their grasp and attempting to escape with her. This nightmare was not supposed to happen again. At the very least, it was not supposed to happen so soon. Perhaps they could run away somewhere? But he had no money and Anna would be a wanted criminal. He should have been the one arrested, not Anna, and for Vera's murder not attempted-
Mrs. Hughes stepped to his side and took his arm forcefully as the officer moved around him with Anna. He wanted so badly to break free, to break Anna free and hold her in his arms against the cruel world around them. But with the housekeeper's iron grip on his arm, he instead stood mutely watching, unable to do anything. The helplessness crushed his heart and soul more effectively than anything before.
Anna's face showed her fear and her confusion as they marched her down the corridor. She looked over her shoulder at him as her expression twisted into anguish. Wanting to call out to her, but unable to speak, he could only watch mutely, impotently, as they took her away.
The rest of the servants had gathered along the corridor as they marched Anna out, some struck dumb and others whispering behind raised hands. Bates waited a long time after they were gone before he allowed the agonizing feeling in his chest turn to rage.
He turned to Mrs. Hughes, still standing at his side. "I must go," he informed her.
"To York?"
"No, I have to see Vera first."
Bates took deep breaths before he entered the hospital, taking great pains to calm himself despite the severe turmoil making his mind race and his heart pound. Anna had been arrested.
Again.
This was never supposed to happen, not this time. How could he have allowed this to happen? The injustice of it seared him like hot coals settling into his stomach, leaving him sick with worry. But he had no time to spare for his own feelings. Bates knew there would be plenty of opportunity for self recrimination later. At this moment, he had to help Anna, and the only way to do that was to go to the source of the problem.
While Major Clarkson was reluctant to share information about Vera's condition at first, the valet was careful relay to the doctor his former association with her. Then he added, "And she's accused someone at the house of this attack."
Clarkson frowned at him for a moment, taking this in, before he began to explain Vera's injuries with military precision and the detached certainty of a medical professional.
"She was cut with a sharp blade several times about her upper arms and chest. I wouldn't say the cuts were superficial, but most were not very deep. One in particular on her arm is particularly deep, but it too should heal in time."
Bates did not need to ask if the wounds might have been self inflicted. He already knew, and based on the doctor's expression, he was reluctant to see it called a crime.
"Where is she?" Bates demanded forcefully.
At his query, Major Clarkson hesitated. "She's resting now, Mister Bates. I anticipate releasing her in the morning if you'd care to speak to her then."
Clamping down on his emotions, he said slowly, "I understand, sir, but I must speak with her today. Now. An innocent woman has been arrested."
The other man did not look surprised at the revelation. He said slowly, "Be that as it may, I cannot allow you to barge in and interrogate one of my patients."
Forcing himself to calm, bringing his rapid breathing to a more manageable level, Bates said softly, "She used to be my wife. And she has accused my intended of a crime she could not have possibly committed. I just need to speak with her for a moment."
The hospital was as busy as it had been since the beginning of the war, and it was clear to Bates that the Major had no time to argue with him.
"She's in one of our private rooms at the end of the hall, away from the officers. There is a nurse with her now."
With a nod, the valet headed in the direction the doctor had indicated, careful to keep his steps unhurried despite the blood rushing furiously through his veins. To think he'd actually been glad that he'd managed to avoid Vera's death in this new version of events, only to have her turn up and make a mess of things yet again. And once again, his ex-wife had chosen to involve Anna in her machinations against him. Part of him truly did want to kill the woman and put everyone out of the misery she'd created.
The nurse was leaving as he entered the room, and her expression betrayed annoyance with the woman she'd been sent to assist. The private room was barely more than a store closet which fit a bed, a small table with a lamp, and a chair to one side, having obviously not been built for such a purpose. But Bates supposed that while the hospital tended to the wounded men brought in from the war, they had to have a place to put injured and sick villagers as well.
Vera was awake and waiting for him. Her color seemed good, despite her injuries, but Bates could also see the pain in her expression. They'd been married for many years. While there were things about the woman he still did not understand or appreciate, even now, some aspects of her were completely ingrained in his psyche. The sight of her hurting was one of those things.
"Hello, Vera," he said cordially, once he'd unclenched his jaw.
"Johnny," she responded, hissing the name. "And what might you be doing here? Come to finish off the job that little harlot started?"
Snorting in derision, he said, "Anna didn't do this, and we both know it. It was a story you made up to get back at me. No one else is here, Vera, just you and I. For once, try being truthful and admit what you've done."
The woman glared up at him from her bed, but she did not move. For a moment, she seemed quite small under the worn hospital blanket, and the artificial light from the lamp cast shadows across her face that made her look years older.
"I admit nothing," she answered, her eyes flashing even as she afforded him a deadly smile. "I've already told the police I didn't see who did it, only that someone came into my room, grabbed me, and started stabbing me."
He looked down at her, noticing the bandages on her arms. Those on her chest were covered up by a hospital gown, although a sliver of white gauze poked up from the neckline. Her injuries looked more concentrated on the front and side of her body, where she could reach herself. An attacker would have had to reach all the way around her to stab her in such places.
"Then why did you say it was Anna?" he asked.
"I didn't say it was your precious Anna. Someone from that pig sty you people call a pub saw her come into my room and leave again a few minutes later."
She paused, allowing him to digest this information. As she tended to do, Vera held something back, something obvious that he could sense. It was a guessing game now as she had no intentions of volunteering more information.
But Bates had no patience for guessing.
"And what were you doing at the Grantham Arms?"
Her eyes flashed, but she did not answer.
His anger building with each moment, Bates demanded, "What do you want?"
Vera's eyes narrowed as she stared at him like a cat toying with its prey. "I want what is rightfully mine," she told him.
Shaking his head at her, Bates said slowly, "I don't belong to you, Vera. We are divorced, for good now. I won't go back to you."
Her laugh was full of condescending falseness as she regarded him. "I don't want you. Why would I wish to remarry a man an old cripple who threw me over so callously? No, I want what is mine, the money I should have had at your mother's death."
He stared at her in shock.
"You want money?" he asked. "All of this was about money?"
"I want what I'm owed. Consider it hazard pay after so many years as your wife."
He could not believe she would go through so much, that she would subject Anna to what she had, just for the sake of his inheritance from his mother. But then, he could believe it. Vera had never been a woman to be trifled with. When backed into a corner, she was as dangerous and unpredictable as an alley cat. And today she had demonstrated the sharpness of her claws.
She went on, "You see, I did a bit of digging on your precious Anna, and she has a past. She stabbed her step-father once, did you know that? They didn't arrest her, but it is in the police reports, if you know where to look. And now she's stabbed me, the wife of her lover. It has something of a symmetry to it..."
Bates glowered at her as she spoke, his blood pressure rising with each word. But he kept his anger restrained, deep within. Vera had engineered all of this, had likely stabbed herself after Anna had left, just to get her arrested. And all to punish him and use the circumstances for blackmail.
It was his former life all over again, although now the pieces were falling into the puzzle at odd angles, and he could not make out the picture at all.
"I gave you money already, Vera. Why go through all this for more? Is it really worth it?"
Her glare betrayed more than a passing dissatisfaction with her husband. Instead, her eyes flashed true fury, the sort he knew to expect from a woman who hated him so much, she'd killed herself just to get at him and take him with her into death.
"You mean the money the man you hired to seduce me stole away in the middle of the night?" she demanded. "It's gone, as is your wonderful Mister Franklin. It seems I wasn't what he wanted after all."
"And so you set all this up to get more money from me?" Bates asked. "I've given you nearly everything I have. The only thing left is-"
Nodding knowingly, she finished for him, "Your mother's house."
He finally understood.
"You want the house."
The property was certainly his greatest asset, and it had the benefit of being able to turn a profit for the owner by way of rental income. If he gave her his mother's house, then Bates truly would be penniless with nary a dime to his name.
"Don't do this, Vera," he begged. "It is one thing for me to go to prison for you, but Anna has done nothing wrong. She is innocent."
"She stole my husband," the woman responded archly. "That is hardly the action of a so-called 'innocent.'"
"She didn't steal me. You were already gone. And let's be truthful, Vera. You haven't wanted me for a very long time, if you ever wanted me at all."
She shook her heat at him. "That's your problem. You only ever see in black and white, John. I wanted you the way you were before - confident and strong. Not the way you came back, broken and useless..." Her face screwed into an expression of disgust as she noted, "You felt so sorry for yourself, so self righteous and pitying. And then came the drinking."
Bates focused his eyes on the floor, saying nothing. If Vera wanted to talk, he would let her. Nothing she could say would ever exceed the internal scoldings he had given himself over the years, focusing on his failings as a man and a husband. He knew he had neglected her, that he had not supported her as he should have done. The woman he had married was not the same woman who deliberately stole the regimental silver knowing that he would take the blame for her. And in going to prison for her crime, Bates acknowledged that her alteration was as much his fault as anyone else's.
"I know I was a bad husband," he said. "But I never laid a hand on you. We both know that."
She glared at him, either not hearing what he had to say or not caring. After so many years of separation from this woman, he was able to distinguish that she selected the reality she wanted. It may not even have been a conscious choice as she genuinely believed him to be the monster she'd made out to the women at Downton.
"You know what I want," she told him. "What should have been mine by right as your wife, what you owe me for so many years of misery."
"If I give you the house in London... will you say it wasn't Anna?" he asked.
She nodded, although he could not mistake the irony in her expression. Bates could not believe her, not after she had reneged on a deal before. Calming his voice and the hands which threatened to shake with anger, he took a few deep breaths before speaking.
"I will do as you wish. And you will do as you have promised. But know this, Vera. If Anna is not released for jail. If you try to betray me and she suffers, I will find you. I will hunt you down, and I will do what I have never done before. I will make you suffer, and I will take you from this world."
The threat was not an idle one, not after all this woman had put him and Anna through. Their eyes met, and he could see that she believed what he said. The shadow of fear in her gaze confirmed it even as she said, "I understand."
He turned and moved to leave the room, having nothing more to say to her. But before he was out the door, Vera said, "We could have been happy together."
Pausing, Bates did not look back at her as he responded, "No, we couldn't have."
TBC
