A/N: First, I know I have a few messages to reply to and I think two reviews to reply to as well. I am sorry. But I figured if you wanted me to make a choice between updating and answering correspondence...You would prefer a chapter. Lots of people to thank in this chapter. First, Faeyero, for reading these chapters and tirelessly editing them and tirelessly asking me questions that have me pondering things and for constantly pushing me to be better, better, better in the best way. Secondly, I need to thank URMYSTICK, (and it's not for what you think, people, so get your minds out of the gutter) for her help in introducing me to Irish cursing. Any mistakes are mine because, well, some of these words were unfamiliar to me. Finally, I need to thank Cheerupsleepy, for being the legal eagle of this chapter (and future chapters) and educating me on 1920's UK law. Finally, thanks to everyone who comments. Seriously. This pace is starting to kill me but I see the finish line and we will get there and the comments keep me going! PS This is an intense chapter.
Chapter Thirty Eight
Matthew woke before his alarm on the day that it would happen. He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, his hand on his belly. He glanced over at Mary, who was wrapped in her blankets, her face pressed against the edge of his pillow, her toes curled against his calf. For ten years, he would have given anything to have Mary lying beside him, her icy toes pressed to his calf. I wouldn't want to push in, she had said the first time they met–and his whole world had shifted.
Now, though, today, he could not look at her for more than a moment because of the business he had to deal with; if he did, the rage, the bitterness, the desire to rip anything into shreds would engulf him and he could not meet Carlisle feeling that way. He could not meet Carlisle after revisiting the memory of Mary as he'd found her in the small library, how she'd kept her eyes closed but could not stop shuddering, deep scratches on her arm–deep enough that a man would have to work to put them there-blood matted in her hair. He could not imagine Carlisle having someone keep tabs on her throughout the years, waiting and hoping for her to return. He could not think about the necklace or its accompanying note, the unwanted present that caused his normally strong wife to wilt, to fall to the ground, once again at the hand of Carlisle. He could not think of Carlisle's eye on Grace, examining her, imagining himself in Matthew's place. He could not think of the man inside his house, flirting with his wife until she said something that made him furious. He could not imagine Mary pressed against the wall, terrified, with Carlisle looming over her. These were all things he could simply not think about today, the day he would face the man himself.
He had to be cold. And he could not be cold if he kept remembering his wife burrowed in his arms so recently, murmuring brokenly every time I say it, it's like it's happening all over again. He could not think of the letters to her granny in which she'd alluded to it...I hate to think of it, I really do, but how many women does it happen to? How many men do what Sir Richard did to Lady Mary in her red dress in the small a library? Could you fill a ship with us–the victims? Five? How many throughout history? I think you could fill a country with us...
Matthew could not think of all the victims of the crime of rape, his own wife among them. Especially after poring over the law and becoming even more enraged to see how little recourse there was for what Sir Richard Carlisle had already done and how little could be done, how pitifully little, to protect his family from what he could do in the future. It made Matthew feel helpless–and he did not like to feel helpless. It reminded him of the war, lying on his pallet, trying not to think of the soldier whose face he'd watched explode from two bullets that had seemingly come from nowhere. He had not known the other man, but he had felt the helplessness then, and the fight that everyone claimed they were winning did not feel like a triumph. Everything felt dirty and grimy; everything felt like a loss. Chatty letters of love and affection from Lavinia, Mary's good luck charm...everything felt like water he tried to hold in the palm of his hand. None of it mattered and at night he prayed that if there was a bullet with his name on it, it would at least take him cleanly.
But Mary and the children were not a nameless man in the trenches. Mary was no longer water dripping through his fingers, or a good luck charm he couldn't stop touching with dirty hands. She was his wife whom he made love to. He was not a single man, lying on his pallet, praying for a single bullet to take him cleanly. He slept beside Mary every night, held her in the darkness, heard her breathe. He knew the sounds she made when he was inside of her. He touched the swell of her stomach with his mouth and tasted hope. He rocked Gracie to sleep and knew sweetness. He knew the thrill of hearing his daughter yell "Papa!" when he walked in from a day of work, and the patter of little feet as she ran to him. He knew what it was like to be loved absolutely. And yet...the law, the thing he knew best–the system in which he placed his trust–could not protect these things, these moments, these people who loved him and depended upon him.
So he would have to find another way. These things were too important to be water slipping through his fingers.
He'd asked Tom to join him in the meeting. He hadn't planned it. He hadn't even told Mary of the meeting–not because he was trying to be secretive but because he knew she would worry...and didn't she have enough to worry about? And so he and Tom had been walking and talking, and he had just sort of blurted out his plan. It had been Tom who had once cautioned him to be careful, to think of his family first. He'd known Tom was right then and that his advice applied now too–such strange and correct advice from the Irish "radical"!
Matthew knew that if he did as his fury demanded he do, Carlisle would be dead and he would be questioned–perhaps worse–by the police, and then it was all about him, wasn't it? His feelings? His rage? It was no longer about Mary, the woman on the floor of the small library–or even the woman who had clutched at him in the bathtub, so worried to need and depend on any man, even one who had sworn to love her "for worse." Matthew could not even leave a mark on the man because he knew men like Carlisle, men slimy enough to go straight to the police for a simple punch in the face when he deserved much more than that. It made him sick with rage to know that Carlisle felt himself above the law in the small library, knowing Lady Mary could never tell the authorities, and yet he was a man who would use any means, even if it meant hiding behind the law. He was a man who found ways to push people into corners, where the only way out was through him. Yet, he was the sort of man who would never have made it in the trenches (and wasn't it funny he'd never been conscripted?), who would have found a way to remain at home, regardless of the cost.
"You have to keep me from doing what I want to do to him," Matthew had told Tom after telling him of the meeting. Tom had met his eye for a moment and nodded, as if to say: I'll do it, of course, but I don't know why you're asking me when I'm not known for keeping a cool head myself.
They'd shaken hands–the future heir and the old chauffeur, two husbands and two fathers–and vowed that when Carlisle left Matthew's office, he would know that he could not continue to bother the Crawleys. Matthew had intentionally been a bit vague with Tom, using words like "hurt" and "bothered" when it came to Carlisle's behavior because it really was not his story to tell. But even those words were enough to make Tom agree to sit in on the meeting. Matthew supposed that if he'd told Tom that one day Carlisle had gripped Mary's arm too tightly and left a bruise, that would be enough to make Tom to hate the man.
He lay in bed, his hand on his belly, staring at the ceiling, waiting for his alarm to ring.
Most mornings, Matthew would turn to Mary and kiss her awake–or to some stage of wakefulness, at least–and she would wind herself around him and fall back asleep on top of him so that he had to crawl out from under her. Or she would shift over him and kiss him in a sleepy way that promised more and he would have to say, but darling, I have to go work. Her voice would be hoarse with early morning desire as she replied Then you'd better get to it.
But this morning he could not allow himself to wake her or kiss her or even touch her. What if she asked him about his day? What if she started unbuttoning his pajama top as she did on some mornings (when she'd gone to bed early the night before)? It would be feel like a lie to touch her knowing what he meant to do in a few hours. And he could not steel himself to do what he had to do in a few hours while his wife lay shuddering on top of him, her hair curling around them, her lips on his neck. So instead he watched her, just for a moment drinking the vision of her in, and then he rose and went to Grace's room and stood, just for a second over her crib. She had her bum in the air, as usual. He wondered if Mary had slept like that at Gracie's age, if one day, when she was all knobby knees and awkward elbows, he would walk into their daughter's room to wake her for school and find her curled in blankets, only her dark hair visible.
This was his child. This was his daughter. And yet...
And yet, if there had been no small library there would be no Grace. Whenever he thought of it, which was rarely, he could not wrap his mind around it. He could not make it fit. So he did what Mary had always done and set it aside. But it was harder this morning, watching his daughter sleep, knowing in a matter of hours he would meet the man who had violently, viciously, and without Grace's mother's consent fathered her in the small library, destroying Mary in the process.
He was reminded of how it had felt when he was home on leave, preparing to go back, and everyone was hugging him, embracing him to touch him one last time, and he'd had to push them away, even his own mother. I cannot take the memory of you where I am going. I cannot think of you and do the things I must do. So when the photograph of Lavinia had fallen to the dirt floor beneath his makeshift desk, he had not picked it up. He had read her letters and the letters of others but only once, never enough for the words to really settle. He had turned Mary's good luck charm in his hands and thought of her kiss–Such good luck–on his cheek. He had put her away, too. He could not do what he had to do with all of them so near.
So this morning, he again distanced himself. He did not wake his wife to say goodbye. He crept out of his daughter's room. He even avoided speaking to Molesley because he was preparing to go back and he could not do the things he must do with them so near.
As he rode his bicycle to work, he thought: I am the future Earl of Grantham. I am a husband. I am a father. I am a civilized man.
But then he thought of the war, all the unspeakable things he'd done and asked other men to do for queen and country. He could kill. He had killed. It had been a long time since he'd thought of or dreamt of those unspeakable things but he remembered them all the same.
Am I a civilized man? Am I really?
He felt a headache brewing because suddenly he could not answer that question and it seemed important, necessary even to answer that question, before he faced the man he would like to kill slowly and painfully. When one went to war, when one wanted to live through the war, one had to believe that his side was the right side. He'd never wanted to kill someone, before the night he had found Mary in the small library. Yes, he had killed, but it was different to hate a man as he did Carlisle, to feel the rage and know he could commit murder, not for queen or country, not in a war, but for himself.
I am a husband.
I am a father.
He would cling to those concrete truths instead.
Richard arrived late on purpose. He did most things on purpose. He saw no need to show Crawley any type of respect when, as far as he was concerned, he would be married to Mary right now if it weren't for Crawley. He owed the man nothing, not even this meeting. But his curiosity (he was a newspaperman, after all) was strong enough that he wanted to know what the other man would say to him. He wanted to know what Mary had told Crawley. And if he was truly honest with himself (which was difficult, if not impossible), Crawley was connected to Mary. Anything connected to Mary was of interest to him. At worst, he was still lovesick, trying to grasp at the hem of Lady Mary's gown as she continually walked away from him. So he dressed carefully for the event, as if Mary would be there, though he knew she would not be. He kept rubbing his fingers together, feeling for invisible ink stains. A man now ironed his papers when he stayed at Haxby, and he comforted himself that Crawley was no more a gentleman than Richard was himself. Except for those damned bloodlines, he thought, remembering Violet and Isobel.
His own marriage had proven to be a disappointment. Now, especially since he'd seen Mary with her hair down and her feet bare, he realized that he'd tried to fill the place of Lady Mary with Marianne–and Marianne was a poor substitute. A very poor one, indeed. How hard he'd had work to court her, to convince her middle class family that he wanted to make a proper wife out of their Marianne. They looked at Richard the way Richard had looked at the residents of Downton Abbey. He could practically hear their thoughts when they looked at him, Sir Richard Carlisle, the newspaper magnate: You can bring us up in the world. He had tried to convince himself that he loved her, that he could love her, but he did not.
Sir Richard Carlisle barged into Crawley's office. He didn't care to be announced. You know who I am, he thought with an imperious smile. He was surprised to see the earl's old chauffeur there. "You thought we needed a chaperone, Crawley?" he asked, grinning slyly and rocking back on his heels. To the other man, he turned and asked, "Weren't you the chauffeur?"
Branson leaned back against the inside of the closed door, hands in his pockets, and crossed his feet at the ankles. He put his hands in his pockets and looked Richard up and down. "Weren't you almost Mr. Lady Mary Crawley?"
Richard's grin vanished. He'd been pleased to see Branson, someone obviously inferior to himself. But he continued to rub his fingers together, an old habit, remembering the ink stains that had kept him from touching Mary when he asked her to marry him, from kissing her as he would have like to, after his proposal. There was nothing to rub away now, of course.
Crawley had not risen to greet him. Clearly, there would be no politeness here. Without asking, Richard took a seat across the desk from him, taking care to preserve the pleat of his pants. "So, why am I here, Crawley?" His voice boomed; it was how he spoke in the boardroom, when he was informed of a problem: So, what are we going to do about it? That was how he approached most things and usually his plans worked out reasonably well. When he'd seen Lady Mary Crawley at the party where they'd met, and garnered an introduction, he'd been flummoxed by her wit; he was afraid his smile looked like a grimace because he had been so out of practice. But then, once the party was over, he'd thought: So, what are we going to do about her?
Crawley's eyes were unreadable, Richard realized, and hadn't they always been? Except of course when Mary had been in the room as well. Then, Richard had been able to read the other man's very heart, as if it had been cut open for his inspection. It had been pathetic, really, to watch Crawley watch his fiancée, to watch Lavinia watch Crawley, and to watch Mary pretend not to notice any of it, as if she it were all beneath her notice.
Would I ever admit to loving a man who preferred someone else over me?
It was conversations like that with Mary, or dinners where she'd glance at Crawley over her wine glass, her movements small and delicate, her remarks witty, that made Richard start to hate her so it was all a mess inside of him–his lust for her, his desire to hurt her, own her and his love, moon, and June for her. It had never been simple with Mary. But he was sure that he had loved her. Of that he could be sure.
"We need to come to an understanding, Carlisle." Crawley's voice was cold. It was as devoid of emotion as a voice could be. He folded his hands in front of him on his desk. This was not the man Richard had caught watching Mary. This man's heart was not open for inspection. This man might not even have a heart to inspect.
Of course, Carlisle could not know Matthew's refrain: I am a husband. I am a father.
Richard grinned again. So, what are you going to do about it, Crawley? You can't touch me and neither can the Irishman at the door. So, really, what are you going to do about it? In his peripheral vision, he could see Branson moving his shoulders–surprisingly broad for a servant who sat behind the wheel of a car all day, he thought–against the door in an agitated way, as if his suit did not fit correctly...or perhaps as if he would like to knock Richard's teeth out. Richard almost wanted him to. Then, he'd go right to the police and have it all taken care of. It seemed as if all the emotion Richard had expected from Crawley was coming from this lesser man and this confused and unnerved him. He did not know which man to watch. "An understanding over what?"
"Over you coming near my family," Matthew stated levelly. "About you speaking to or touching my wife."
"Ah, yes–Mary." Richard smiled again, but this time there was meanness and bitterness there. "It's interesting how you call her your wife. You made damn sure of that, didn't you?"
"I'm not going to be goaded into an argument with you, Carlisle," Crawley stated, his mouth firm. "You have no business with me or my family or my wife. Yet, you've made it your business to send vaguely threatening notes and inappropriate gifts. You've even visited our home unannounced."
"What are you worried about, Crawley?" Carlisle folded his arms in front of him, sure that despite Crawley's words to the contrary, he could be goaded into an argument. "Are you worried that your wife," he smirked at the word, "brought me upstairs to your marital bed?"
Crawley only narrowed his eyes, the only evidence that Richard had unnerved him. It was the chauffeur who spoke, low and menacingly. "You'd best be careful, Carlisle."
Richard laughed. "Or what?" he retorted. To Crawley, he shrugged his shoulders. "It's funny that your muscle over there mentions the word careful."
"Is it?" Crawley replied. Of course, the man would have enough pride not to ask why.
"When your wife, who was then my fiancée, came to me, with those big brown eyes, asking me to hush up the story of her Turkish lover dying in her bed, I called her careful. I called her cold." Richard smiled fondly, as if the memory warmed him, so that his next words would have an even bigger impact. "It wasn't long after that when we became lovers." His grin flicked up at the edges. "Then she wasn't cold or careful anymore."
Crawley leaned back in his chair. "Do you honestly believe the shit that comes out of your mouth? Or is it only for my benefit? Either way, I won't be deterred. There will be no more notes or gifts or visits."
Richard paused. He had to readjust. So, what are are we going to do about this? "The note was to congratulate her on her recent wedding. I see nothing wrong with that. And as for the visit, I was only repaying the one your cousin and mother paid me."
The chauffeur snorted. "I bet Violet Crawley, or I suppose you know her as the Dowager Countess, demolished you. Oh, if only I could have been there to see it."
Richard ignored him. "You see, your wife has returned my favor of not publishing the story about the Turk, by telling people that I..." He slapped his own thigh, as if highly amused. "Wait for it, Crawley, she's telling people that I-"
"You should heed Tom's advice and be careful, Carlisle," Crawley interrupted, still in that even tone of his, but his jaw was hard and his body braced and Richard knew that he had him. It was quite funny when he considered that the lie over an affair with Mary caused no reaction but that the truth, or her truth, could make the man crumble.
"Well, hell, maybe Tom here would be interested, too," Richard threatened because in interrupting him Crawley had revealed his hand of cards. This Tom did not know about Mary. And Crawley did not want him to.
"I'm not interested in anything you have to say," Tom replied patiently. "It's as plain as day to me that you are the perfect example of what good common English inbreeding will do to a person as you are a complete bloody idiot."
"No, I actually think you would be interested in this," Richard continued. He wanted to snarl. He wanted to pace. But he wouldn't fold as easily as that. He pretended to smother a laugh over his next comment, as if he were about to relay a funny little joke he knew. "I hear Mary is telling people I raped her."
This Tom character took a step towards him. He looked at Crawley for confirmation, but Crawley was staring at Richard. "Excuse me?" Tom asked.
Richard took his time turning towards the man. He wasn't worth the effort, but something about the man's aggression called to some visceral part of Richard; Branson's emotions were what he'd expected of Crawley and he found he couldn't help antagonizing him. "Should I repeat myself? I'm assuming, despite your nationality, that you do know English?...Mary is telling people I raped her."
Branson pushed off from the door and kicked the chair Richard sat on so swiftly that Richard did not remember falling, or hitting his head, or sprawling out on the floor, or anything until he looked up and saw the chauffeur standing over him, murder in his eyes and his voice. "It's Lady Mary, you son of a bitch. And if you use that word again, I'll kill you."
Crawley came out from around his desk and put his hand on the animal's shoulder. "You're a husband and a father, Tom," he said reasonably, and Richard hated him all the more for stopping Branson. He always had to be the noble one, the honorable one. Wasn't that one of the reasons Mary loved him? And he hated that fact because Richard could be many things. He could be rich. He could be powerful. But he could only pretend to be honorable, and even then, not very well.
Then Crawley was moving, quicker than Richard could imagine anyone moving, leaning over and grabbing Richard by the throat. His grip was not strong enough to bruise, but the threat was clear. "If you touch her, if you speak to her, if you speak of her–or my family, you won't want to deal with the consequences, Carlisle."
Richard smiled smugly, though it took quite a bit of effort while he was at Crawley's mercy. "What consequences? There's nothing for the law to do and if you touch me, I'll go straight to the police."
"You are so predictable," Crawley said with disgust. "Don't you know there are plenty of ways to hurt a man–to kill a man–without leaving a mark? But then," he added with a cold smile, "you didn't serve in the military, did you, Carlisle?" And then, again, with more quickness than Richard expected, Crawley's hand was squeezing the very part of a man that hurt the most, until tears ran down Richard's face, until he would have done anything for the pain to stop. When he tried to squirm away, Branson stepped on his hand, rocking forward from his heel toward the ball of his foot to increase the pressure and additional threat. It didn't take much pressure at all for Richard to stop moving.
"Now you're going to make me a promise, Carlisle. And I'm going to continue to squeeze until you make that promise. You will leave every single part of my family completely alone–and that includes every part of Mary's as well," he added as Branson nodded. "You don't think of us. You especially don't think of my wife. You especially don't come near my daughter. We do not exist for you. Do you understand?"
Richard nodded weakly. His face felt as if it were burning off. He wanted to curl up. He would have pissed himself from the pain if the pain would have been coming from any other body part but for the one that Crawley squeezed.
"Say it," Crawley said in that same level voice. He could have been sitting at his desk, his hands folded in front of him, for the evenness of his voice.
Richard's pain was so intense he could not think, could not curse, could not hate. He could only hurt. "I–" his voice was hoarse and yet high pitched. He wanted to retch. "I promise."
"Say it."
"I promise to leave you all alone," Richard said in a rush of breath. "Now, please. Stop..." He made a sound that was no longer human.
"Oh, so you do have manners," Crawley continued squeezing harder. "I didn't know that you knew words like please and stop." He leaned closer to Richard's face, whispered in his ear. "My wife asked you to stop and you didn't listen. What makes you think that I would listen to you?" He paused, pulled back so he could meet Richard's pitifully tear filled eyes.
"I should cut it off," Crawley stated in a matter of fact way, finally letting go and Richard curled up into a ball, like a child, like a little boy, dry heaving as the other two men closed the door and left the room.
Tom and Matthew walked in silence. Neither would be able to tell the other whether, upon exiting Matthew's office, they turned right or left. They just walked.
I am a husband.
I am a father.
Matthew's mantra continued because he knew that although he had terrified Carlisle, it was not enough when he remembered Mary lying on the floor of the small library, her luminous skin lighting a room left in shadows by the table and lamp turned over in the struggle. He'd remembered the scene so often before he'd seen her again. Then, in New York, and ever since, he'd filed it away, pushed it aside–just as she had pushed it aside (though it was never erased)–because it had to be. She would have been able to see the memory in his eyes, feel it in his touch. His version mattered so little when compared to hers–the true, actual experience–but even the echo of his memory of that night would have been painful for her.
But today he could not forget those scratches on her arms–scratches so deep they might have been made by talons. He'd seen Carlisle's hands today, the nails short and carefully manicured. How hard had he worked to put those scratches–no, grooves, really–into her arms? and for no other reason than to hurt her? For no other reason.
Tom finally spoke. "You can't keep going over it in your head. There wasn't anything more you could do, really." His words were diffident but his voice was hard, as if he was still going over it in his head, as if he were imagining a scene he had never witnessed in the small library.
"Was it?" Matthew asked, his hands fisting in his pockets. "It felt like a pitifully small thing."
"He's...what he did..." Tom trailed off helplessly, knowing his helplessness was nothing compared to what Matthew must be feeling.
"You can't ever tell Mary that you know or anyone else, not even Sybil. I don't know if Mary has confided in her," Matthew insisted. "It's very important, Tom."
"Of course," Tom replied, his eyes on his shoes as they walked. "I would never...I was only going to say that you couldn't have done more. He's complete a complete English gobshite prick," he said, his voice rising. "He would have gone to the police, just as he threatened. And I know, not as well as you, but I know English law. It doesn't exactly protect victims."
"I know." Matthew paused, hardening his jaw. "I looked and looked. Did you know it's easier to prove that someone threatened to kill another person, that the consequences are more severe for that, than it is to prove someone was raped? The victim has to prove that she did everything possible to fight. And even then...I can do nothing about what he did to her years ago. And it kills me, Tom." He scuffed his shoe on the road. He could not meet Tom's eyes. The admission made his throat feel raw.
"But he's been bothering her recently as well?" Tom asked.
"Of course he has." Matthew rubbed at his eyes, suddenly exhausted. "He sent her a note, alluding to what he'd done. He's been to the house. He's trying to ingratiate himself with Robert. I want to kill him. Do you know how badly I would like to kill him?" Matthew said with desperation, as they continued to walk.
"I can only imagine, Matthew," Tom replied slowly. "And I would help you to bury the body. But...you have responsibilities. And I know this is so...bloody trite when compared to...what he's done but she needs you–they need you–more than you need revenge."
I am a husband.
I am a father.
"I want to protect them," Matthew said passionately. "And there is so very little I can do."
"Well, you did what you could," Tom encouraged. "Truly, if you'd left a mark on him..."
"I know."
But it was not enough. It would never be. Even if the man fell over dead, it would not be enough. Because his wife lived on with the memory and would forever. How do you make a dead man pay for a memory?
I am a husband.
I am a father.
He cycled home for lunch, though it was not in his normal routine to do so. Halfway there, he saw Mary walking towards him, pushing the pram with Gracie dozing inside. Baby barely fit into the pram along with her now and he could only imagine his daughter insisting that Baby must come as well to Mary, and Mary's reaction. Suddenly, he was smiling as he got off his bicycle to meet them, to kiss his wife, longer and more deeply than he normally would in public. He tilted her head back and her eyes fluttered closed.
"Hello," she whispered against his mouth as he ended the kiss. "We didn't expect to see you."
"I was going to stop home for lunch." He smiled at her, but his wife noted his eyes looked weary. But Matthew was wondering as he drew her to him with his hand on her hip how long it would take them to get home and put Gracie in her crib so that he could make love to Mary, so he could hold her unmarred arm up over her head, as she throatily moaned his name into his ear. "What are you up to?"
Mary looked a bit guilty. "Don't be angry," she cautioned.
He didn't feel angry. He did, however, feel an urgent need to be inside her. "All right."
"I was going to the bakery," she said so quickly it was difficult to separate the words, "only because when I was last there, there was this chocolate cake. I asked Mrs. Byrd to make one and she said she would need to get some ingredients for next week." She took her hands off of the pram and grabbed onto his jacket in a joking way, inadvertently pulling their bodies closer. "And I need that chocolate cake." Upon their bodies touching, even a little, her eyes flew to his. "Matthew," she murmured, feeling his arousal. She looked around, as if other people might be able to tell.
He whispered the words hoarsely, urgently, near her temple. "And I need you." She'd never heard that tone from him before, the desperation that if he didn't have her...she didn't know what.
"But your work..." she trailed off lamely. His tone had ignited something within her and she found that, standing there on a public street, fully clothed, she was wanting him more insistently than usual and he was wanting her perhaps more than he ever had before.
"I'll go back, tell them I'm taking the rest of the day. You get your chocolate cake. Make sure that Gracie stays asleep. And I'll meet you back here," he said through his teeth, his words quick. It was a physical pain now, his need. "And then..."
She swallowed hard at the look in his eyes and nodded. "And then."
She bought her chocolate cake and she made eye contact with Gretchen. Mary could have sent someone for the cake, she knew. But there was something inside of Mary that very badly wanted to let Gretchen know that it was all right, that she did not need to feel shame whenever the two women met. If Mary had been willing to analyze herself, she would have realized that because she had lived with her own shame, how monstrous it was, she could not bear to be the cause of someone else's shame, especially another woman's. So she met Gretchen's eye and she smiled and thanked her and she touched her hand as she paid for the cake. "Thank you," she called out casually as she left. She hoped in some small way, the exchange would accomplish what words simply could not do in this case.
But when Mary met Matthew again, she could feel the tension, the need, in every touch–the hand at her elbow as she pushed the pram, grazing her waist when they arrived home. He gathered Gracie up and put her gently in the crib and then took Mary by the hand, dragging her towards the bedroom. It seemed pointless to mention the servants or his mother noticing that they were in their bedroom in the middle of the day.
He shut the door and pushed her up against it, taking her hands in his and lifting them above her head. He kissed her, opening his mouth, all tongue and lips and teeth, no soft kisses to begin this time, and she matched him, tilting her head, pressing her lower body against his. She'd never seen him like this or felt this from him. She imagined that this would have been the way they would have made love if they'd been together when he came home on leave during the war because it felt as if he needed her body to help him erase something; it felt like he needed her to let him. Because she loved him, because she wanted him just as much, she met his silent desperation, his demanding kisses, beat for beat, and when his hands tightened on hers, above her head, she tightened her grip as well. She could tell he was struggling to be gentle and she wanted to tell him, don't be gentle; I won't break. But even if she had had the courage to do so, he was asking so much of her mouth already that there was no room for those words.
Then he turned her and placed her palms against the door. He started with the buttons on her back of her skirt, then pulled her blouse out from the waist band and ran his hand up underneath, pressing into her flesh in a way that made her arch her back and purr like a cat. He pulled the blouse over her head and she helped him but then returned her palms to the door, even as he pressed open mouthed kisses to her shoulder and her neck and she pushed back restlessly against him. He was pulling her skirt up in his hands, higher and higher, until he could flick at her garters and rid her of all her under things. The whole time he was worshipping her back with his lips, rubbing himself against her. She wondered if it would be now, standing up with her back to him, if that was even possible.
"Matthew," she moaned, and he turned her again, so quickly that her loosened skirt fell to the floor and she put her hands to use, undoing his belt, yanking it off, then unbuttoning his pants with swift and confident fingers. Her speed and desperation spoke to something of what she wanted from him and suddenly he was dragging her to bed. He laid her down as he rid himself of the rest of his clothes, leaving them on the floor where they fell. He did not care about them. She did not care that the sunlight was coming in from the opened curtains. And when he lay on top of her, most of his weight on his forearms, his head immediately went to her breasts, where he stayed for a long time, nipping and sucking, before one of his hands slid between her legs. He levered himself up to her neck while her hands clawed at the headboard.
"Do you want me?" he asked, his whisper harsh with desire. Her eyes were closed and her head thrown back and she was beginning to pulse, to break, when his hand stopped moving. "Do you want me?"
She opened her eyes, met his demanding ones. "Of course. You know I do," she repeated, barely able to get the words out with the wanting, the aching in her belly. "I always do."
"Even like this?" he asked before biting her lip, hard. He was breathing so heavily. His muscles seemed more tense, harder than usual.
"Any way," she murmured as they rolled and her hands went into his hair. "I want you every way."
He rolled her again onto her back. He lifted her thighs and knelt in front of her, so her lower body wasn't even touching the bed. His eyes were questioning. She knew exactly what he wanted to know. Would it be all right, like this, with the baby? In essence, really: darling, is it all right if I pound myself into you?
She nodded, biting her lip. She could touch no part of him; he was too far away. He entered her gently and she moaned loudly because she'd been so close already, before, that even this tender contact was enough to send her over the edge. And then, without warning, he really was pounding himself into her. It was not elegant. It was not lovely. It was visceral and guttural. But it was also right and she grabbed the headboard to anchor herself to something because she'd already finished once, early on since he'd primed her so completely, and she could tell that he was nowhere near finished, even as he demanded, "Again," in that voice she'd never heard before. And, indeed, when he shattered and fell forward, catching himself with his hands, she arched and cried out his name again, through clenched teeth, crashing, perhaps more intensely than she ever had before.
It took him a moment of heavy breathing, his face just over her belly, before he leaned forward to kiss her there and dislodged himself from her, prompting a quiet moan from her, so he could lie beside her and wrap his arms around her and kiss her cheeks and her nose and her eyes and of course her mouth. He usually needed a bit more recovery time before he could be depended on for a cuddle and a kiss but this time he seemed intent upon it, worried even.
"Are you all right?" he asked, his voice concerned, his brow furrowed. "Did I hurt you? Were you uncomfortable?"
She could barely speak. Her body felt completely loose, her mind blank. "I'm completely comfortable. I'm fantastic," she managed to whisper.
He kissed both of her hands, ran his hands soothingly up and down her arms, again and again. "I was a little more rough than normal."
"Maybe more than usual," she replied, sighing with pleasure, still. "But not rough."
"I wanted you so very badly," he admitted, his lips against his throat. "If Gracie sleeps long enough, I could be prevailed upon to have you again. This time I promise to be more gentle."
She rolled on top of him. "I like that you wanted me so very badly. I love it actually. And I like that it's different every time between us. Gentle or demanding or..."
"In the tub or against the wall," he smiled while she played with hair, smiling back at him.
"I love you," she told him seriously. "I trust you. Maybe it should be harder for me to trust you in this area but it isn't. It isn't at all. Not with you."
He wrapped his arms around her and rolled her back over, his head resting on her breasts, her body free of the full weight of him. She ran her hands through his hair and it was pure wifely intuition that her her asking, "Did...did something happen today?"
He did not want to tell her.
I am a husband.
I am a father.
"I met with Carlisle today," he admitted, his lips against her breast. "We reached...an understanding of sorts."
She pulled him up by his hair so she could glare at him. "Excuse me?"
"I didn't want to worry you unnecessarily, but I'm telling you now, so it's not a secret." He felt as if he was trying to find a loophole in the laws of marriage, though no one would ever be able to convince him he'd done the wrong thing.
She moved away from him, drawing the throw around herself to cover her nakedness in the bright light. "How could you not tell me?" she whispered.
"I'm telling you now," he reminded her. She cast him a withering look, so he continued. "And because I asked you last week if you trusted me to handle this and you said yes," he said quietly. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "So I handled it. I didn't want you to worry. And now you don't have to worry at all because it's already taken care of."
"I feel like you should have told me," she murmured. She wasn't angry but now everything made sense, the way he had made love to her as if he'd come back from war–because, in a way, he had.
He shrugged, a movement she couldn't see. "And maybe if you weren't pregnant and there weren't a million other problems going on, I would have, but..."
"Did he–was he..."
"It doesn't matter," Matthew continued in that civilized tone. It appeared he'd released any caveman-like tendencies a few minutes earlier. "It's over. It's handled."
She turned towards him. "So you won't share any details?"
"No," he replied with great gentleness, taking his face in her hands and kissing her mouth softly.
"Matthew, I–" She grabbed his wrists and shuddered. "You're telling me there is nothing to worry about?"
"I am," he said sincerely.
"And you won't tell me any more than that?"
"No," he said definitely.
She leaned forward, pressing her face into his neck. His arms came around her. "Because you love me, because you want to protect me."
"Yes."
She suddenly realized that, due to so many factors, he'd never been given the privilege before–not really. He was her husband. He was the father of her children. And so, though she had to choose to do so, she let it go, or tried to. She allowed herself to be protected. She trusted him to do that, and she loved him enough to let him. "All right." She clutched him, betraying her emotions, but her words were calm. "All right."
They had a lovely dinner, just the three of them and Isobel. Mary even shared some of her cake, but only because she'd seen some lovely looking scones at the bakery as well that she planned on going back for. When Matthew gawked at her words, she wasn't sure if it was because she would be revisiting Gretchen or because she seemed so keen to eat so much. So she said lightly, during her third piece of cake, "Dr. George did say I had to gain weight, darling." They both knew that if they were alone, she would have reminded him of his now infamous words: d'you think we've made a baby yet?
Gracie loved the cake so much she shared none of it with Baby.
Matthew rocked Gracie to sleep that night. He asked if he could and of course Mary agreed. Gracie babbled a bit more than normal and he couldn't find it within his heart to insist she sleep so he just went on rocking her, in the old rocking chair, until her eyes began to close and she curled into him. "I love you ever so much, Gracie, darling," he whispered and she nodded half asleep as if she knew that he did.
Mary was reading when he entered the bedroom, free of her blankets, and he knew that she was still worried about him, pretending not to watch as he changed into his pajamas. So when he lay beside her, he took her in his arms and kissed her–just kisses, drugging kisses that numbed her mind until she was able to simply sigh, find the place in the curve of his neck, beneath his jaw, and fall asleep. His kissing sedative had worked. She was no longer worried about him.
He was awake much longer, and when he finally did fall asleep, he was not thinking I am a husband. I am a father.
Instead he was trying to answer what should have been a simple question: Am I civilized man?
He woke to Mary's pale face over him, her eyes dark and worried, her cold hands on his cheeks. "Matthew," she said, as calmly as she could manage, though she'd been panicking a moment ago, "it was just a nightmare, darling."
He could hear Gracie crying. He tried to push away the images Mary had interrupted. He could hear Gracie crying for Papa. "Gracie?" he asked, his voice hoarse as if he'd been screaming. Had he been? Oh God, had he been? He hadn't had one of these in months, nearly a year.
"She's with your mother," Mary replied. Her hands wanted to shake but she knew she could not allow them to. When she'd awakened to his screaming and thrashing, and then heard Gracie wake as well, she'd known that Isobel would go to Gracie; she'd heard Isobel's footsteps and murmured soothing and Mary had also known that her place was here, with Matthew. At this moment, he needed her more than her daughter did–and what a revelation it was to know that her greatest fear, having to make a choice, could be made depending on the circumstances. "She'll be fine. She won't even remember this in the morning," she soothed.
He pushed his wife's hands away as gently as he could. His pajamas were soaked in sweat. "You should go to Gracie," he insisted.
Mary bit her lip. She went to the bathroom instead and filled a cup they kept there with water and brought it back to him. "Here," she said evenly. She knew she did not like to be coddled after a nightmare; very obviously, he did not want to be either. He didn't want her there at all. So she sat on her side of the bed. She didn't look at him but she listened to his breath settle.
"You should go to to Gracie," he repeated.
"You've already said that," she reminded him, trying not to snap at him. She felt as if there was a rubber band around the two of them, that there was no way for either of them to move without pulling the other, hurting the other. "Your mother is with her. I'm not worried about Gracie. I am worried about you."
"Well, don't." The rubber band snapped and she felt the sting. He stood, walked into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind him.
She closed her eyes. She wasn't angry; she could not find it within herself to be angry when he had dealt with much worse from her. But she did rise and go to her daughter, who reached for her immediately, though Mary saw on her face that she thought Mama would only be one step closer to Papa. She swayed and she shushed and she tried to soothe. Gracie's shrieks turned to whimpers against Mary's neck. She kept whimpering, "Papa. Papa."
Isobel sat in the rocking chair. "He used to have them all the time. Not when he first came back, but after his legs started to work again and they didn't pain him so much. It was as if all the pain from the war suddenly burst through. But it has been a long time." She met Mary's eyes. "Did something trigger this?"
"You would have to ask Matthew," Mary replied gently, still swaying. She knew what loyalty meant to her; she would never want her triggers spoken aloud outside of the bedroom she shared with her husband. The baby's face was hot against her neck and her nightgown was wet from Grace's tears. "Though I don't recommend asking him now."
Isobel gave her a wry smile. "No. I'm sure you know how to handle him best."
"No, I didn't mean to say I know better than you," Mary began. "It's just–I have nightmares like that too, sometimes. You know. You've seen. He'll just snap at you if you go to him now. I didn't mean to offend you."
"You didn't," Isobel said firmly, sadness in her eyes for both of them–her son and the woman she now considered her daughter. "And I understood your meaning perfectly." She paused. "I'll leave you. When he...when he comes to see Grace, as we both know he will, he won't want to see me."
"Thank you," Mary murmured to Isobel, tears filling her eyes. Her gratitude spanned the time from the letter she'd sent them to New York until this very moment. Cora had not been wrong to be jealous not only of her granddaughter's relationship with Isobel–and her daughter's, as well. "Thank you for everything."
When Matthew did come for Gracie, he'd changed his pajamas and stuck his head under a faucet of cold water and then waited for his hands to stop shaking. He tried to forget the dream–the memory really–the way the German had been running at him, the way he had pulled his own gun and pulled the trigger, just as something exploded nearby and he was knocked to his knees. He realized he'd shot the man in the stomach. He knew the man would die, and die badly. But he'd been called back by Mason–by William–and he'd gone, refusing to grant mercy to the German who probably had a girl back home and a mother who prayed for him. Maybe he even had a good luck charm from a girl he wasn't supposed to love and did anyway.
Gracie lifted her head from Mary's shoulder and reached for him. "Papa," she squeaked rather pitifully. It had been his scream that woke her. She knew his voice and she'd been so worried that something was wrong with her papa.
The man who shot the German in the belly did not deserve this perfectly innocent child. He did not deserve to hold her, or soothe her, or teach her to ride a bicycle someday. He was uncivilized, a monster, in a uniform.
He reached for Grace, the baby he did not deserve, and he expected Mary to pull away, to jerk, to keep their girl from him. Didn't she see that he was dangerous? But the handoff was simple: he took Gracie and Mary let her go. He walked with Gracie back to their bedroom and expected that Mary would follow. He would try to comfort Grace but he would not allow Mary to comfort him.
When Gracie finally calmed, slept curled on his chest, he finally spoke to Mary. "I don't want to talk about it."
She touched his shoulder briefly. "I never asked you to talk about it." He allowed her to take one of his hands. "You've seen plenty of my nightmares, my ghosts, recently. Did you really expect me to be afraid of yours?"
He didn't have any words. He was undone. He pressed his face into the baby's hair. Here was Grace and also grace.
"It makes me feel a little better, actually," she said with a small, ironic smile as she cuddled closer to the two of them. "I'm not the only one with baggage, you know."
He laughed–which was the point, after all. "I'm glad I could help." He remembered that she knew what it felt like, to wake from a nightmare only to find you were living a different life than the one in your dream. She would know better than to ask. She trusted him to hold their daughter and to hold her. She trusted him to protect them both and when he said she did not need to know the details of the meeting with Carlisle, she believed him.
I am a husband.
I am a father.
A/N: I could ask you questions, but mostly I want to know what you thought. Thank you.