The Folks Who Live On The Hill

by phantomwriter05

In early 1936, when Lady Grantham intents to hold an all female society house party, Lord Grantham, reluctantly, turns to their heir, newly returned to England after long exile, for security. However, what was sold to an adventurer by his Donk as a leisure holiday turns deadly when an assassin lurks his Ancestral Home's halls in search of vengeance on the women of Downton Abbey.

Prologue -

Presto! DOUBLE CROSS:

Part I

It was a strange business.

The news circus on both sides of the Atlantic seemed teeming with the fascination over actress Freya Ingrid. The delectable strawberry blonde bombshell that had a three-picture deal with "Brady-American". She had been shooting in London. It was a mystery picture, a thriller, about a woman who saw something she shouldn't. A lounge singer with a voice of an angel- the best the studio could buy in ADR -that fell hardline and sinker for a mysterious man with a past. The budget was modest. But the girl's 'gams' were anything but. Something to beef up studio sales between award season and the new Christmas picture that was sure to clean up the corners for Brady-American's fourth quarter profit margin. The local color in London was amused at the Hollywood invasion come again. Not since Lady Mary Crawley's failed third wedding to the still missing movie star Roger Sinclair, had the worlds of High Society London and the glamour of Hollywood rubbed so close. Indeed, the London Season of 1936 was used by many forward-thinking studios to recruit and smooth out new Tax breaks for perhaps using Britannia as a location for shooting movies. And "Too Sorry for Too Late" was supposed to be a trial run. It seemed nothing could go wrong …

Till Freya Ingrid went missing four days ago.

There had been press conferences from the Commissioner's Office. On the London streets were teams, squads, and companies of 'Bobbies' out in force, knocking on doors, and doing their best tough guy routines to the local citizenry. Even the Lord Mayor did his duty, for once, in personally seeing that the voluptuous sex symbol of the 'talkies' was "Ably in hand … or in our grasp, no, no, ah … we'll find her, lickety-tit! Split! Lickety-Split! Oh, damn your eyes you bloody vultures!" By this point the entire country was following the story rabidly. Men from Hollywood were taking up two or three rooms at Scotland Yard, their assistants and secretaries running in and out of unused Interrogation rooms, phones ringing off the hook from overseas.

Meanwhile, the good Inspectors of "The Yard" and MI5 butted heads over who had the jurisdiction. MI5 accused the London Police of being at fault for not cleaning up the city more. The disastrous "Battle of Cable Street" between the Cadets of "The British Union of Fascists" and the local Irish and Jewish citizenry of the East End being fresh on everyone's minds. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard accused MI5 of wanting to take over the investigation only in order to cover their own hide of this being an international incident. Then, the news media was at war with one another to get the best scoop.

Freya being a Norse name, the BUF claimed in one publication that it was a political kidnapping by radical Marxists. The woman coming from an Irish background made many sure that it was something to do with the government trying to block the appearance of Irish mobility through American society, at least that was what the Liverpool papers wrote. "The Guardian" claimed that it was American Mob scheming, hearing that Freya Ingrid was once Gilda O'Hara, the one-time daughter of the late New York Crime Boss Tommy O'Hara of the Irish Mafia.

This prompted the "Court Circular's" Richard Carlisle to write a scathing column insinuating that foreign visitor's 'petty and grubby squabbles' should not be brought to British Shores. In response, "The Los Angeles Times" wrote their own counter column, bringing to mind the last time that the Glitz of Hollywood was lured to England by Parliamentary promises. There, they were ambushed by a full on Civil War between George "The Comet" Crawley and Lady Mary Crawley, leading to battles between the Comet's rebels and Lady Mary's hired mercenaries on the fields of the County Grantham to the very stone streets of the Village of Downton. And in the end, top stars and starlets, high powered executives, and even studio heads themselves, who had come to see Roger Sinclair- third highest box office star in the world- marry Lady Mary Crawley were instead chased out of Downton Abbey. Some of the biggest stars in the world still felt the humiliation and shame of fleeing for their lives through the halls of the countryside manor as George Crawley fired double barreled shotguns of rock salt and pepper at them. Now, once more, lured back to England, their 'ample' commodity was missing. Perhaps, according to American papers, the whole 'British Project' should be scrapped entirely.

After all, what did they fight a goddamn revolution for in the first place?

"It seems such a shame, really. You know, my dolly, if they had just given you the part, like Mr. Stahr had asked Mr. Brady too, I feel, truly, that none of this would've happened."

"Yes, it was quite frustrating. You so earned it, my darling."

"Oh, it's alright, Aunt Rosamund, Granny. They were quite right in thinking it would be too soon. Being that I'm part Irish and we look so much alike, Mr. Brady felt that people might think I was replacing Minna Davis so near her death and that the audience would be so unkind when I didn't deserve it. Plus, there's already a famous star in this family. I don't think Donk's heart could take two."

"Nonsense, I would be delighted if the world saw just a glimmer of what I see when I look upon both my beautiful and talented granddaughters."

"My, my, Papa, such lofty praise and in front of foreign company, no less. One might rethink the stoic and stiff stereotypes of us English Gentry."

"The only thing I risk, Mary, is pointing out an obvious fact."

"Obvious … but, I dare say, one needed to be said as often as possible …"

"Especially by the critics."

There was a rise of amused and charmed chuckles that echoed through the long dining room of Downton Abbey. The crystal décor atop the white tablecloth reflected the golden light of lamps and flickering candles that threw tall shadows upon the walls of the opulent crimson room. There the closing courses of dinner, a strawberry custard pudding, was being served diligently. It was a full family affair for the Crawley's. They had just come from London. The Season, at its height, was sidelined by the news of the kidnapping. Thus, their time in the capital, at least for now, was changed over back to the countryside. This prompted several invites to those that lingered in the orbit of the popular House of Grantham to come and stay. For the guests there was notoriety and intrigue to the Crawley family. They were both famed and notorious in all the poshest circles of British Society.

It was said, and proven absolutely true, that the House of Grantham produced some of the most beautiful women in the British Imperium. The likes of Lady Mary Crawley, sleek, elegant, and fine like silk. The stunning Lady Rose Aldridge, Countess of Sinderby, youthful, intergenic as a girl in the noontide of her adolescence, and a body figure of pure pleasure. There was also Lady Edith Pelham, Marchioness of Hexham, who was not a traditional beauty, but her gorgeous figure and unrivaled glamor made her even more attractive than most. But the real draw to Downton Abbey and the House of Grantham was "The Twin Roses" as they were called. The two heiresses, Ms. Sybil Afton Branson and her cousin Ms. Marigold Crawley. They were without a doubt the most beautiful girls in the entirety of the Imperium, if not the world.

Ms. Sybil, Sybbie to those who loved her, was near perfect. Her satiny skin was as pale as moonlight, making her sorrowful cerulean eyes near luminous and gleaming like a cat in the dark. Her sleek frame was accented by long black tresses which were luxurious and glossy. Thus, it was, with pale skin, plump ruby lips, and raven curls, Sybbie seemed a princess who escaped a young girl's idyllic fairy tale book. Indeed, there was something different about the young beauty that was pervasive to all who looked upon her. She seemed out of time, archaic, or perhaps even ancient. Ever there was a wilting sadness to her piercing blue eyes that bore some memory of a tragedy felt so deeply that it rippled across tens of thousands of years. Across many souls and ingrained in her very blood, this divine spark had found its way into a solitary angelic youth and bequiffed to her a deep memory of many things both of great love and terrible heartbreak. Yet, there was something about her sorrow, the ever-distant look of melancholy in her eyes that only increased her beauty, as it did the love felt for her. Fore, the obscenely rich heiress of "Branson & Talbot Motors" seemed as much a judge of other's character by their own reactions to her.

Ms. Sybbie Branson, as one of the most beautiful and richest young women in the Imperium, evoked strong reactions of Love, both romantically as well as paternally. It was said that some parents forgot their own daughters just to overly comfort and luxuriate young Ms. Branson while she was in their company. While others, many of a darker tint of personality or nature, were overcome with an unquenchable lust for the girl. Whether it was her beauty or her fortune, there were plenty of men and women of many ambitions and ages that wished to take the girl and have her as their own, to dominate and subjugate her. The sorrow and vulnerability in her beauty making old animal instincts run afoul in dark and perverse contentment in deviant fantasies in which the young teenage princess was the subject of all. Thus, knowing of these things only recently, it became the job of her parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles to protect her …

Fore there was a time in which their beloved Sybbie was enslaved to such evil lusts of others who paid both fortune, honor, and soul to a mama's fiancé to have her in their bed and at the mercy of their perversions.

Yet, if there was a sorrow and a darkness to Ms. Branson, then there was only light in Ms. Marigold Crawley. Though not as rich as her cousin- sister in every way but name- Ms. Marigold seemed just as out of place. Yet, it wasn't that the young girl was out of time or seemed more fitting in a different age of man all together. It was simply that the girl, born of sorrow and secrets, seemed from a completely different world. Of Ms. Sybil one might say that she was the peak of human female beauty. Yet, it would seem that Ms. Marigold could not be judged by such standards, fore she alone stood apart, unique. She was an elven creature, statuesque, graceful, and fair beyond all countenance of man. She was as pale as her mother and cousin, rounding out a complexion that was model for an Englishwoman of standing reared in a country of much cloud and little sunlight. Yet, in the lack of sunlight, one could always find it stored in her perfect locks of shining golden hair. Whether by sun, moon, or stars, light seemed to almost reflect off the cascade of golden silk when caught in its net. It, like her deep emerald eyes, sparkled and gleamed alight as if the beams of a soul so pure could not be contained, shone from every point and end of her body. And such a light was never so shown in all its mastering glory and ethereal wonder than when she danced.

The famed star attraction of the London Metropolitan and Royal Stage was a fairy, hypnotizing beyond all reason and discipline as she moved to the stringed orchestra. At a tender age, too young many might say, she had become world famous. Her abilities of movement were artful and precise. Her intuition and interpretation by instinct and ear had broken centuries of choreography and rewrote the script on what was common knowledge of the very classics of the West. There were large productions, concerts, operas, which had to be served. But there was only one reason that tickets to the London Met were impossible to get during the Season. There was only one reason that the queue in the cancellation line stretched near a block. And there was only one reason that people traveled thousands of miles to attend the London Season. And it was to see world famous Prima Ballerina Marigold Crawley, illegitimate daughter of the Marchioness of Hexham, dance.

She had taken the world by storm, yet, she knew nothing of it. Fore, she lost herself in the pleasure and refuge of what she loved. In her artistry the girl saw no face in the audience but for the one burned into her broken heart. The face that inspired her, tormented her, and made her who she was. Of his name she could never speak, not now, not ever. But he was a part of her very soul, his memory, his undying love could be found in her graceful glides that enraptured entire generations. And yet, the fame, the riches, and the standing ovations meant nothing when the music stopped. She went to the poshest of restaurants and fancy tea shops, attended dinner parties with her beloved mama or with her sister Sybbie, and always a sycophantic applause met her as she entered a room. She was fawned over and pursued by the very top tiers of handsome young men and society hostesses. Her friendship sought by all and worn like a badge of the most exclusive privilege. But it felt so empty, fore she danced for the sorrow and love of only one man. The only man in the world whose love was a part of her very soul and yet she could never again reciprocate …

Now that they knew the truth of her maternity.

These two girls, Sybbie and Marigold, alone made the positioning and jockeying for a seat at the Grantham table worth it all. They were works of art in their own right. But taken together, with the quality of food and the maintained opulence of the surroundings, it would stand to reason that Grantham House in London and Downton Abbey in Yorkshire should always be besieged by the cream of society. Yet, there were some that did not approach the Crawley family, who lingered away, glancing at a distance. They invited Lord and Lady Grantham as well as their girls to their own homes for dinner and tea, of course. After all, the Crawleys were at the center of High Society in those days. But they dare not step foot on Grantham land or property, fore, the beauty and glamor of their house and young women so fine was ever guarded by a looming gargoyle that lingered in the shadows.

Those whose intentions were not noble, whose lusts were uncontrollable, found themselves suddenly superstitious upon invitation to the Grantham holdings. Many a frustrated dowager, a former American heiress of Boston or New York, would stamp her foot at a flustered son or grandson who told the butler to cancel their attendance to a tea at Downton Abbey or a dinner party of Lady Grantham's in her London abode. Always the staff reported of hearing an old woman shouting up the stairs. "You'd have better luck inviting the King to play cricket than running into 'him'!" Yet, still, with a bead of sweat, they claimed to their granny or mama that they, simply, 'didn't like tonight'. And when the cancellation was reported from Mrs. Hughes to Lady Grantham, everyone in the drawing room or the Downton Abbey library knew why.

He was rarely seen, if ever, at Lord and Lady Grantham's table. They say he often dismissed invitations and that Lady Cora had stopped trying. But still his presence sat heavily on many functions, sometimes put there by the likes of Tom Branson and Lady Edith in order to inject a little thrill of unwelcome anxiety into those they did not trust or like. The mere insinuation that he was near ruined some of the guest's nights, even causing some to leave early. Their longing minds remembering their evil pleasures with Sybbie in their cruel bed haunted the beauty across the table in their knowing glances and smug smirks at her. Yet, a simple utterance of one name by Marigold or Mrs. Lucy Branson would change their mood. An inquiry to Lady Grantham of if this mysterious figure might stop over tonight and receive this or that which they had forgotten to give him. Then, the hauntings of smug grins would be exercised into dismay, afear that Sybbie had told this shadowy avenger the names of those who had bought and violated her. That their name might have been one that had come up … then God help them if Ms. Branson's beloved sees them there, breathing the very air of the girl he loved above all things which they had despoiled with their degeneracy.

No one would be able to save them then.

They had heard rumors for months of other poor souls that had run afoul of him. The stories in the newspapers or the whispered gossip around the dinner party table. Of the origins of this fearful reaction had come the night that he had ambushed Lord Charles Blake in his own penthouse.

Lord Blake's neighbors heard the sounds of gunshots and then a loud smashing of glass. And it was when they went out onto their balconies to see what had happened, they saw Lord Blake cut up and bleeding. All around him was the shattered remains of a plate glass sliding door of his outside overlook that he had been thrown through. From out of the darkness came a young man, tall, broad, and shadowed, stepping in languid menace onto the balcony. Quickly the smaller man tried to reach for his smoking Walther PPK, but he let out a gasped gag when the avenger's booted foot stepped on the outstretched man's hand, making the Ulster Lord's knuckles crackle and pop like dried twigs. Then, stooping and snatching, he dragged the dapper gentleman to the balconies edge and made the man scream. There, to the horror of all who witnessed it, the youth dangled the twisting and desperate Lord Blake over the railing of his own city view with one hand. The frightening avenger's voice was growled and ghoulish as he threatened the senior member of the Foreign Office with a 'long drop and sudden stop' if he didn't tell him what he needed to know.

Where had they taken 'the girl'?

Afterward Charles Blake, the onetime co-conspirator and introducer of Roger Sinclair to the Grantham family became a less frequent guest of his old friend Lady Mary Crawley at Downton Abbey. They said that Lord Blake had been bought and paid for by the Nazi Party in Germany to act as their lobby and press agent in the House of Lords. But for many British Aristocrats that did not make the man a villain. Even the new King Emperor Edward VIII claimed the man should be praised. That the Imperium would do well with stronger ties with Chancellor Hitler. But even so, some found it exceedingly beastly that a gentleman would be accosted in his own residence, thrown through his own sliding glass door, and held over a long chasm to the London streets below. A victim of intimidation and thuggery by one of their own. But these gentlemanly outrages did not excuse the grave sin committed by Charles Blake that night.

Fore, it was, in fear and fey despair, Lord Blake told the young vigilante everything.

The rest was gossip, whispered in drawing rooms, told over dining room cigars once the ladies went through. There had been and would always be a certain 'Victorian' tradition and pedigree passed down through the ages. After a century it seemed that these sorts of things were accepted as normal, you must understand. Young men at Eton or Harrow, in their final years at Oxford and Cambridge, they all had a certain duty to their organizations and friends. It was Hellfire Clubs and the like. A secret handshake, a password, so you know you're amongst friends in the hallowed halls of the House of Lords or in Whitehall. The safety of knowing that there was someone looking after you. And for that price there were certain "expectations" of loyalty that each must go through.

It, of course, was silly, juvenile even. But the test was not to make sense of the ritual, but to show devotion, to show belief, as you did to your brothers and their credo. Of these brotherhoods, each had their own initiations which ranged from the strange: the ritual slaughter of an animal, to the perverse: nude young men in Greek masks wrestling in blood and wine as the old men watched. But in the afterward, at your anointment, you were praised with great praise and brought into the fold. And in that exclusivity came certain privileges that was afforded.

There was seniority in the handful of rituals that they observed thrice a year. It was to test loyalty, as well as to reap the rewards of being the masters of their own universes. One such of these rituals was held on the blooming of spring on the ancient Greek holiday dedicated to Bacchus. Each member of the Hellfire Club was to provide one daughter, niece, or tribute to be brought to the old abandoned Halifax Estate in Dorset. The rules had been clear. No one may show their face. The men, no matter the age, would go nude … and the girls … had to be girls. No younger or older than … well, no gentlemen ever spoke such things even in private. But in the evening, the abandoned halls were rife with laughter and giggling as drugged young girls in see through white linin dresses and flower crowns danced, sang, and fled playfully from 'the sons of Bacchus' in their decadent masks looking to catch a lovely nubile nymph.

It was a tradition that went back a hundred years at the height of the British Aristocracy under the Georgian Kings. Many famous Lords partook, and many young ladies of admiration and standing were haunted by the half memories after awakening in a soaking tub, pained by what they lost and yet could not remember how they lost it. It was said, till her dying day, Lady Violet Crawley, Countess of Grantham for forty years, still felt bile rise when she saw old men in masks and when people spoke of her uncle. Yet, later in life, leaving harsher memories to ignorance, folding into society, many of these same Aristocratic women would be the first to defend such a practice. Some going so far as to deem it a rite of passage, others active in recruiting the loveliest of young things into these evil decadences and counting them lucky to be a part of it.

One such of these, pursued vigorously, and paid for handsomely to be the greatest prize of all, had been Sybbie Branson. For a furthered agenda, Roger Sinclair had sold his fiancé's adopted daughter to these recruiters in the previous year. She would be the highest water mark, the most celebrated of tributes, exalted as a goddess come to the mortal plain. And when the night was over, both 'step-papa' and 'Princess' lied of a "riding accident" to her family as to why she couldn't walk properly and flinched at being touched by those she loved.

Some would say later that in their most triumphal moment, they had signed their death warrant to everlasting torment, when they bought Sybbie Branson for their foul debaucheries.

Fore, it was, as the scenes played as they always had for over a century, there came the sound of a loud and vengeful motor engine echoing through the abandoned halls. Then, just as the girl's stopped running, the men lifting up their masks … the old doors broke open and a motorcycle screeched to a halt on the overgrown checkered tile floor. There, a tall shadow, frightening to drugged young girls and drunk aristocrats alike, dismounted and stood to full height. He was imposing, demon like in the glint of his cerulean eyes in the twilight, haunted and fierce. They said that Lord … well, a Lord who was the head of this … brotherhood, came forward to chastise and berate this 'dark fellow' who had trampled on their sacred ceremony and heritage. It seemed ludicrous, a naked lusty old man, chasing young girls, to show outrage at such barging in. But his voice was caught in a hicc-up when the avenger brought down a hammering fist atop the old lord's head, driving him face first into the dusty floor like a railroad spike. Then, from what was told, the rest was a red blur of horrid violence unlike anything that the British Peerage had been subjected to in times of peace.

When it was over, the local sheriff and a few deputized denizens found the old Halifax Estate aflame, lost forever, never to be salvaged. There they found a gaggle of crying and frightened young girls in odd costumes, huddled together, heavily dosed with narcotics. But the most frightening display remained at the Estate's eldest tree atop its hill. It was there that they found a dozen and more naked men, unmasked. Some as old as grandfathers and others young and virile, all men in places of incredible privilege in society and government. Yet, they were all hung upside down by their ankles and beaten viciously to an inch of their lives. It was estimated that though their bodies would mend, their minds would never recover from what happened that night. Moreover, on their exposed pot and taut abdomens were written their full name and title in their own blood to identify them in the many pictures taken of them in such a state.

Among the girls there was only one missing. A young orphan from India, her father a Lord's son, a Colonel. Her mother had been a simple belly dancer at the garrison. Upon their death, her begrudged grandmother had sold the pretty copper skinned embarrassment to the family to her stepson for his ritual. But it had been the girl's aunt who paid a young man double to rescue her niece and bring her back to safety. That morning the young half-Indian girl was returned to the arms of her beloved baroness aunt as was the money that was paid to her savior. The young hero took his toll in the blood he shed of those who had ritualistically violated the girl he loved all of his life while he had been away these many long years.

Yet, it was said by several private Harley Street physicians that each member of the Hellfire Club was branded that night with a rune of an ancient language lost to knowledge. Some believe that it was "The Mark of Cain", an Adamic symbol seared to the everlasting soul that denied the wearer entrance to the very Gates of Heaven. Whither it was true or not, one fact remained above all else. Each time they looked in the mirror, the dotted and curving lines of their ancient mutilation would always catch their eye. Then, they would remember the broken bones, split skulls, and horror found on that terrible night. Of course, there was no reports to the police. The sheriff and the local tenant volunteers were paid handsomely by the best of London solicitors for their silence. But ever afterward many in London Society looked upon the House of Grantham with trepidation and superstition.

Never again did they observe their rituals or make secret handshakes in high places, afraid of the brand upon their chests, and of the dark figure looming in shadowy places that gave it to them. Then, with hatred and fear, would they forever grudge Mr. Matthew Reginald Crawley and Lady Mary Josephine Crawley. A noble man who passed on the sense of ever being a benevolent- and at times violent- defender of the downtrodden. And of an elegant great lady, whose selfish sorrow in the death of a baby daughter and cruelty in her grieving birthed a never-ending rage in one she bore that damned all Gentlemen and the evil entitlement to which they guarded their vile secrets.

Thus, it was the wedding of great love, great tragedy, and a mother's terrible mistake one Christmas Eve that conspired into the world a dark crusader whose phantasm haunted the many nightmares of monsters and monstrous men alike.

"It's a hell of a horror story …"

Everyone stopped their conversations over their sweetened convection and glanced down the table. Across from Lady Rosamund Painswick and seated between Lady Grantham and her daughter, the Marchioness of Hexham, was Chris Everman. He was an average sized man of average height and average build. Taken all together, despite his charms, there was something rather average about him. With his dark cropped hair and Roman nose, he looked rather like what most would say someone from New York City would. With the accent to prove it. As Lady Edith saw from her vantage point, Mr. Everman looked rather lost in his own world, weighed by some beastly burden that he did not say. She was sympathetic, so she listened and chimed into a conversation had by her sister Mary and their brother-in-law Tom. There was something rather jolly being planned special for tomorrow, or rather, was in the planning for the three of them, Rose, and the girls when Mr. Everman spoke up … to no one in particular.

"Come again?"

Lord Grantham was courteous to one of their foreign guests, but they could all tell that he didn't quite appreciate the curse in his Staten Island drawl. The broad faced man, younger than Cora and his daughters but older than their granddaughter's by at least a decade, looked up in surprise. There was something sweaty and nervous about the sudden glance of the entire table. It took him a moment to realize that he had made some sort of outburst, lost in the fear that he might have said something he shouldn't. But after a moment, stumbling, taking a pudding wine glass, he cleared his throat.

"Just the whole, you know, the whole thing … I'm sorry." He shrugged with a grunt of apology.

"Oh, don't be …" Lady Grantham came in with a legendary hostess's ability to sympathize with anything, ranging from using the wrong fork to a full-scale Viking invasion from the sea. "You've been through quite the ordeal. I can't imagine how worried you must be for poor Ms. Ingrid." She had a girlish quality to her sympathy that was always rather pouting.

Lady Cora's tact seemed old-fashioned nowadays, one might have even taken her as insincere. Not when every hostess in London and York rather flirted with a heavier sexuality than the excessive compassion of their mamas from the Edwardian Age. Yet, it seemed comforting to her daughters, teasingly wholesome and loving to her granddaughters … and eye-rolling and cringeworthy to her only boy, to whom she used an unguarded familiarity and sterner language with in private. But Chris Everman was a special case, more special than most.

The man that sat at the Grantham table was actress, model, and bombshell Freya Ingrid's manager and fiancé. He shared the title of co-executive producer on two entrees to her modest, but growing, filmography. Ms. Ingrid signed the deal with Pat Brady and Monroe Stahr with the assurance of "Quality Control" for her projects. She relied heavily on Chris for these things after the absolute flop of her last picture in which she played a Boston Nun who ran an orphanage. Every review in the trades either remarked how they wished they grew up in an orphanage run by a nun with those 'gams', or wondered who Ms. Ingrid was fooling, trying this late in the game for something serious. It seemed that everyone knew that when it came to Freya Ingrid it was her bosoms that put bumkins in seats. Still, after the death of Brady-American superstar Minna Davis, everyone in Hollywood was looking to replace her. "Too Sorry for Too Late" was supposed to be Freya and Chris's big shot. She had the sex symbol status and all she needed was the right role. Mr. Brady had been so sure that 'Femme Fatal' seemed what everyone would be looking for in absence of the sainted Irish maven of the silver screen.

But that was not why he was at Lord and Lady Grantham's table.

Chris Everman may be all of these things in Hollywood now. But what interested Lady Grantham most about the man was where he first started out. Not the rich son of a Tinsel Town executive or the graduate of the polished walls and lecture halls of the American Ivy League. It was in a small two room apartment in Hell's Kitchen where he rode the subway most days to Fifth Avenue. There, putting on his chauffeur hat, he would report for duty to "San Sochi" the Levinson family's New York Mansion. For many years, he accompanied Lady Cora's late brother Harold on many incursions into the bowels of the City for business and pleasure. Several times he had even driven for Lord and Lady Grantham, waited at the Docks for Lady Mary and Lady Edith in the years after the War. So it was, at Lord and Lady Trenwith's ball, when Lord Grantham recognized the man from his days in Washington D.C. during his testimony at the "Tea Pot Dome" incident, he was pulled deep into the Crawley's orbit.

It was purely mercenary in ways of nostalgia for Cora Crawley. She had long made peace with the idea of Downton Abbey and Grantham House being her home for the rest of her life. She had her soul mate, her children, her granddaughters, and now her grandson, newly returned home from long exile. All of which filled Cora with a deep and quiet satisfaction that she could not begin to describe. But still there was always a part of her that would call New Orleans, Newport, and New York … America, home. But now, to the handsome older woman those places seemed a fading memory of another life. The Levinson Fortune, built on Cincinnati Tin and a New Orleans commercial cotton plantation, was no more.

Their holdings and interests were lost overnight in the "Crash of '29". San Sochi was burned to the Ground in 1932 by Pinkertons after her boy for rescuing their darling Rose from herself. Amantha Pointe, her mother's ancestral Gothic Mansion in New Orleans was derelict and damaged beyond repair when her boy gave pitch battle to the Ku Klux Klan and their evil cultist leader in 1933. And now she learned that Levinson Manor in Newport, built from the concept blueprints from "The World of Tomorrow" pavilion of the 1883 World's Fair in Chicago, was completely destroyed months ago. Once more, it had been her boy, and once more, he was being hunted for another's sins. This time it had been by a former Ottoman Princess with a score to settle against Mary for the death of her son in the grand Lady's bed many long years ago. But those things she could live with. They were places of many beloved memories, but in the end, they were only places, made of wood, glass, and stone. All that mattered to Cora was that her grandson survived. That her boy did everything in his power to return home to her. But what hurt the most was the loss of all the rest of what had always made those lost places home. She brought Chris Everman to her London House and Downton Abbey to reminisce of her mother and brother.

Both now being dead ...

She did not know, and might never know, what happened to them. Fore George did not speak of it to her, or to anyone. It was nearing a year now since Harold had passed. All she knew of it was that he had shot himself with George's own gun in New Orleans when the youth wasn't paying attention. But as too why he did so, her boy only shook his head grievously and said quietly "Darkness caught him, couldn't shake it." But Cora was not fully ignorant as George thought. She still heard rumors of the ritualistic butchering of Madeleine Allsopp by the same evil Cultist Priest that George fought in 1933. And some people say that George and Harold had come too late to rescue her in the crypts of the ancient and haunted St. Louis Graveyards … "The Gates to the City of the Dead".

Of Martha Levinson's death her daughter knew nothing, not even where she was buried. All that was known was that Martha had gone to Amantha Pointe after the Crash, telling George to meet her at San Sochi and to wait till she got back from New Orleans with something of value that would save the Levinson and Crawley fortunes. But after a year of waiting, living on his own, alone, in the New York Mansion, Martha Levinson never returned from New Orleans … and never will. To Cora's dying day, George swore he knew nothing of his Great-Grandmother's fate, only that she was dead. But Cora knew her boy all his life and loved him much longer than even before that. She knew, deep down, that George was lying to her. But she did not press it, fore if it was true, then there was a reason for it. Perhaps it was a death of cruelty and suffering insurmountable, and it seemed most likely. But whatever it was, George Crawley loved his Granny too much to ever tell her what evil fate of doom fell upon her mother in New Orleans those seven long years past. And somehow, for just this once, her imagination was enough, and that the real truth might have been more than she could bear.

It had been a true wrench in Cora Crawley's soul to think of all that had befallen her mother and brother in her absence. A helpless sense of sorrow and guilt for not being there, not bearing a burden, of not being able to try to help the best way she could. She and Robert had never been on the best terms with her mother. Martha Levinson had always considered her daughter to be brainless, born more beautiful than the finest jewels, and yet so much air in such a lovely head. All of her life, Martha had thought Cora mentally challenged. And at her wedding, Martha's blessing had been that 'at least my dummy found another one to make a matching set'. The old Southern Belle had never let up, never.

Mary was too vapid and stupid, Edith was plain and timid, and Sybil would've been perfect … had the girl's parents "Twiddle-Dumb and Twiddle Dumber" not lost the goddamn instructions on how to put her together right. Yet, still, Cora would've endured the final years of complaining and moaning about dying in 'Merry old England' if the mythic Martha Levinson had the mercy of doing it in a warm bed, surrounded by her family. The same had gone for Harold. Cora would've done anything to get her brother back here, with Ms. Allsopp on his arm. He might have done wonders for Tom and Mary's motor business, make Henry wish he hadn't sold out to Mary during their divorce after …

after Caroline died.

Sometimes Lady Grantham thought she might go crazy with the not knowing. Then, there were times that she was grateful that her baby boy did not tell her of it. Ignorance was not bliss, but also didn't weigh on you at two in the morning, awoken to a crushing guilt and tears that no amount of a husband's love could mend. But the real heartbreak of the matter was not only that she wasn't there, but that in her stead had been her boy. What she didn't know killed her. But what tormented her like the fires of Hell and damnation was that George did, because, her boy, their only boy, had been there. He alone survived to witness the horror and tragedy of the fall of the Levinson Family to this terrible Depression.

George Crawley was there the day the Stock Market crashed. He had been there when the Levinson factory was burned down in Cincinnati. He waited for his Great Grandmother at an empty San Sochi for an entire year, near starving and alone in a lawless city on the brink of chaos. He had gone to New Orleans years later and seen what his old enemy had done to his Grandmamma, even if he told her daughter he didn't know. And he had watched Harold be consumed by darkness after witnessing the ritualistic murder of the woman he loved by that same ancient adversary that defined a young adventurer's childhood.

It destroyed her, remembering so vivid and clear the very day that her brother had killed himself.

It had been memorable, because, across the Atlantic, the Grantham family had been on Holiday. They had all gone down to the beach resorts for the summer. Robert had thought it too beastly hot, but Sybbie, Marigold, Viki, and even her mama Rose was keen. And never let it be said that there was anything in Robert that could deny being so ably wrapped around his granddaughters' little fingers. Thus, with Edith and Marigold meeting them there, Lord and Lady Grantham, Mary, Tom, Sybbie, and Lucy traveled to the summer resort. There, inviting nobody else, especially not Mary's beastly Movie Star, they cut loose.

So many memories of great fun and laughter was made on that holiday.

There were pictures of Donk being led hand in hand by his granddaughters to brave the tide that crashed against their thighs. There had been Mary lounging in her stylish sunglasses, fashionable hat, and sleek and shiny red provocative swimsuit that drew attention wherever they went. Tom Branson and his father-in-law in short sleeve button down shirts, straw hats, and sunblock on their noses, both looking not amused at Lucy for snapping their picture while looking so ridiculous. A relaxed Edith having a Sandcastle being built around her by Marigold and Rose as she napped. Then, the rest of the roll was dedicated to their smiling and laughing girls that played in the surf, rode each other's back, or helped Sybbie carry an ambushed and outraged Mary to the deep end of the ocean while Tom laughingly tried to stop them. Yet, no one had seen Mary smile more or laugh so with abandon as she ran Sybbie down, tackling her into the surf to be slathered by muddy sand and pelted with kisses as they were dogpiled by her nieces who got no less.

It was truly a glorious day, filled with peaceful sleep, good food, laughter, and family. She remembered so vividly watching Mary and Edith snuggled with the girls as they slept in their mama's rooms. Yet, Cora could remember standing on the balcony of their beach house staring out at the moon over the ocean, the stars twinkling on the calm waters like a mirror's reflection. When Robert found her, he wrapped her up in his arms as they shared her view of perfection in a night. It was then that Cora voiced that there was nothing better, nothing in the world, than what had happened this day.

However, thousands of miles away, the sun set slowly over the violet and orange skies of Southern Louisiana. The evening whispered through the tall live oak trees with trunks that twisted and gnarled, their leaves rustled and shuttered in warm winds that cut through the humidity. There, in a little woodland glen, led to by a path swallowed by undergrowth and ivy was a small forgotten cemetery guarded by a rotting picket fence. The fragrance of Jasmine and Lavender filled the air. Inside the ruined gate was the headstone of twin girls born before Harold Levinson, lost to the fever that had run rampant during Reconstruction right after the American Civil War. The other headstone was for a baby boy that shared a birthday with a twelve-year-old Cora. He had suffered and fought for two weeks before his lungs had given out. In devastation, the boy's brokenhearted big sister spent weeks buying and planting scented flowers around the babies graves so they knew they were welcome back home if they chose to return to visit. Now, half a century later, they grew wild and untamed through the glen. Their smell was stifling to the solitary figure who struck the little graveyard's sod with his spade in growing darkness.

The young man worked quietly and solemnly. The new grave was larger than the smaller ones, yet, whoever had built the little memorial for their lost children had foresight or despair enough to expand the space in case there were more to add. It seemed providential to a young boy years before when he planted what was left of the blackened and charred bones of his great-grandmother at the feet of her lost children.

At times the boy turned back for a second to glance at the kneeling figure of a stocky balding man who stared at a stiff and still figure of a petite woman wrapped tightly in a fine linin and lace tablecloth. Harold Levinson looked worn with great age that came artificially and overnight. He was much thinner than he used to be. His suit and trousers were mended, his suspenders weatherworn, and his white business button down was yellowed and threadbare. The old man's chest hair was exposed in the muggy heat of the evening, matted in perspiration. But his blue eyes, stinging from sweat, looked nowhere but at the covered face of the slain maiden that lay in a bed of lavender and jasmine that he had picked for her from his baby sister's now unruly garden. He never looked up at his young partner in this expedition to reclaim the Levinson family heirlooms, his nephew, who was digging Madeleine Allsopps grave. The young man then went back to a labor he was becoming too familiar with in these last eight years. Yet, in a few stabs the work would be finished.

Then, there was a shot.

With a trained snap of defensive posturing, like a cat landing on its feet, the youth whirled back. In the distance Harold lay slumped over the stiff young British debutante. With shovel in hand, running and hopping through the thick glade of his Granny's flowers, the boy rushed under the twilight shade of the live oak. Sliding to a halt on well-worn boots taken off a corrupt Federales Captain, he looked upon the scene. Uncovered was Madeleine's fair face, pale and lifeless. Her cover had been caught by the gusting warmth of the coming New Orleans night and it had been blown over.

Somehow the sight of it, of her still face, the warmth and life stolen from its beauty, had caught Harold at the wrong moment. It was then that a torrent of terror in the dark memories of the things he saw in those dark Witching Hours while in the New Orlean's crypts took ahold of him. And it was in that moment, remembering his beloved girl's final cries of suffering and the horror of her blood upon the mask of the Necromancerthat Harold Levinson was taken by a deep existential despair. His nephew saw his great-uncle's solution in the form of Matthew Crawley's Webley MK IV service revolver taken from his son's Mexican weapon's belt hanging from an oak limb. The barrel of the sleek retrofitted weapon smoked as did the exit wound through the older man's temple. The youth squeezed his eyes shut painfully and turned away.

"You damned old fool!"

The boy snarled with clenched teeth of a sorrowful rage that crushed him. The boy didn't have the best relationship with the man. He had been missing for years, since the Depression had started. And somehow in all those years he had never once checked to see if his mother or grandnephew was alright till he needed the famed adventurer and fighter for a matter of familial archaeology. Yet, when they were together, his much-begrudged Uncle Harold had his moments … even if he had to remind him ten times a day that Sybil was his aunt not his sister and that Mary was his mother, not his aunt. But even then, the man was still family, the last of the Levenson's. They might not have been the best people in the world, but when he was chased from England for saving Sybbie and Marigold, Martha and Harold Levinson did not hesitate in taking him in. They were rather intrigued and amused at the idea of housing an Outlaw to the British Royal Family and thumbing their nose at the Prince of Wales and the British Aristocracy by harboring him openly. It was more than he could've said for his own family when Prince Edward posted the wanted posters at Westminster.

Yet, these memories were but just a collection of so many more that ended with him digging a grave alone in some fairy spot he surveyed as a fair enough place to rest a body of a friend or family member. The sickness of loss and grief in bitter exile for so long ate at the young outlaw. It was with disgust that he turned and flung his shovel, tired of the taint of death that it gave his hands. Then, all the smiles and tears of many faces, friends, family, and foes fell upon him, crushing him to his knees like a weary Atlas who had taken a false step under such a burdensome weight. There, alone, once more, the terrible years of wear and punishment from this terrible Depression overcame him. And in his moment of despair he let out a long and strangled cry of rage into the empty darkness of coming night. His chest heaved when he held himself up by his hands and knees at the side of Madeleine and Harold's lifeless corpses.

But no tears came, there had been too many over the years, and he found them all gone now.

Then, somehow, the youth found the strength to get back to his feet again, for just one more bout. Slowly, he trudged through the field of lavender that covered the glade like a young girl's tears. Picking up the shovel the boy gave a long-haunted look to the collection of corpses that lay under the live oak. Then, in resign defeat, the young man lit a lantern to hang on the wing of an angel statue crypt belonging to two great-aunts that none of their siblings ever met. With the sound of metal stabbing the earth, the outlaw started again at the freshly dug grave to widen it to accommodate two. As the stars shown above the rustling screen of oak tree canopies, the boy thought that there was nothing worst, nothing in the world, then what had happened that day.

And as midnight turned the hand in Southern Louisiana, the Grantham family awoke on the shores of England in high spirits to a breakfast feast. Yet, for George Crawley he had put the last hammering stake into the makeshift cross that marked where Madeleine and Harold were lain, right next to his mother, accompany with all her children save one. Somewhere in that hour while Lady Grantham offered a cheery toast of Orange Juice to her family, George gathered his things and stared out at the graves. He would take stock of what Madeleine and Harold had that he could sell to survive the long journey to complete their quest alone. It had been many years since that boy had made the perilous trek from New England to New Orleans, and he had barely survived it then. Now, pursued by the cruelest of the fallen Royal House of Pamuk's hunters in one of the hardest years of the Great Depression. He would have to make a journey by foot through hundreds of miles across river, through field, and over mountains to get to the ruins of Levinson Manor in Rhode Island.

But on that quiet early morning, slinging his jangling pack of fine leather across his back, a young outlaw, the last of the company, heart heavy and full of pain, turned and headed back the way he came.

"Did you ever know George?"

The name shook both Mr. Everman and Lady Grantham from two different tracks of mind. Everyone paused a moment while an awkward silence was cast dimly over Downton's table. It would seem an innocent question if the very utterance of the House of Grantham's heir was not loaded with connotations synonymous with a looming threat and often weaponized against unwanted guests. Yet, for others, his reputation as an adventurer and explorer proceeded him. And Lady Edith being his chief chronicler, it was not unheard of for the more curious sort, undeterred by the darker reputations, to inquire after a tale or two of adventure and mystery. But when all their eyes turned toward Sybbie, who innocently sipped the edges of her pudding with a spoon, they pondered what brought the question up …

Certainly Mr. Everman was caught off guard by this providential or mind reading inquiry.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Branson?"

"George … did you know him when you worked for Uncle Harold and Grandmamma?" The girl pushed with a laconic shrug of a silky bare porcelain shoulder as she languidly scooped her custard. For a moment the man and the teenage girl shared a glance, and he was lost in her deep sorrowful eyes. Lord Grantham frowned looking back and forth between the raven beauty and the movie producer, sensing something more. The two trying to work the other out, as if they both knew something that no one else did at the table.

Something to do with George, or of his business of late.

"Umm …" The Hollywood man untangled himself from the girl's piercing gaze that seemed to know much more of recent events than he was comfortable with. "Oh …" He cleared his throat. "George, ah, Georgie?" He caught himself, determining to play it all up. "Oh, sure, yeah, of course I knew the little guy." He shrugged. But then, he turned back to Lord Grantham. "Meaning no offense, of course." He held his hands up with a charming smirk.

"Of course, not …" Lady Grantham chimed in. "He was quite small for his age before he …" Something melancholy came over Cora, stopping short of what she was going to say.

"Before he left?" Lucy helped with a sympathetic smirk.

"Yes …" Cora returned it roughly. "Before he left." She finished quietly.

"Yeah, well, not so much anymore if I hear right." Chris nodded as he scooped up the strawberry and custard in a large portion on his spoon. "I hear he's pretty grown-up lately." He chewed, doing everything in his power to avoid the beautiful Ms. Sybil who had an arrogant smirk in private.

"Taller than most." There was something veiled in her elegant and musical accent.

Sensing the tension, Lord Grantham spoke up. "Well, I don't know rightly where he gets that from." There was a self-deprecating lilt to Robert that played to a few charmed chuckles.

"His mama … perhaps." Rosamund replied without thinking. But she couldn't stop herself from finishing the sentence. Suddenly, and with discomfort, all eyes could not help but turn to Lady Mary Crawley who swirled her wine. A look of contempt came over a cold face at the comparison.

"It's possible."

She replied coldly, sipping bitterly, as if they were speaking of someone else entirely. Some other woman, some lost mother, that Lady Mary was only vaguely aware of. But her contempt drained away in private and just the hint of a longing sorrow was shown under her cold and beautiful exterior. But when she caught Tom's eye next to her, and he saw her private emotion with sympathy, she glared. It was not his business how she internalized a decade of a mother's torment.

"Ah …" Mr. Everman swallowed waving off his own notion. "He wasn't that big when I knew him. But the kid had crazy squabbles I tell ya." He chuckled … one might have thought nervously.

"Do you think so, Mr. Everman?" Sybbie added. Her lady like bite made more people turn to frown at her … except the man himself.

"What is it?"

Marigold leaned over to whisper to her best friend, noticing the man was refusing to look at her under pain of death. But Sybbie only gripped her sister's silk covered thigh under the table in wordless expression that explanations would come later. The ballerina turned to her Uncle Tom and shrugged at the inquiry on his face at the strangely antagonistic turn of his little girl.

One might not have ever known that it had been Sybbie who insisted that the man stay at Downton.

Sensing the mood turning, the man cleared his throat, gave a half-hearted chuckle, then sat up to tell a story. "I remember one time he went with old Mrs. Levinson to some mom and pop store, German, I think. But when they got there, they were on their lunch break, see, but uh, that wasn't gonna cut it with your Ma, right? So, you know, I offered to drive'em somewhere else till they open again. But you know Mrs. Levenson." He turned to Cora.

"Oh, yes, I know … it had to be that store, at that moment, and no other, right?" Cora smirked nostalgically.

"They'd only screw it up elsewhere …"

Both the former Chauffeur and the woman's only surviving daughter said together with knowing grins.

"Anyway, so she says she's gonna go around back, right? To rouse their lazy … uh, keisters, as it were. But the little guy … I mean George - no offense – says to her that she's nuts, right. So, he lays out on the hood of the car, slouches his hat over his eyes, and puts his hands behind his head. Then, he tells her that if she's gonna go walking down alleys on her own, she better have left him something good in the will. Because, he ain't calling no hospital if she gets mugged." He continued.

"Sounds about right …" Tom said with a smirk.

"Right? Anyway, so we wait around about five minutes, seven minutes, no one comes out of the shop. So, the kid rouses himself and tells me he's gonna go check it out. And I says "Yo'Georgie ya'wanna get some Johnnies over here" … you know policemen? And the kid says to me "are you crazy? How is that ignorant old bird gonna learn anything?" Heh, I tell ya, that kid of yours is a piece of work." The man said to Mary.

"Yes, I'm sure." She deflected as if she knew not why that would interest her.

"Well what happened?" Rosamund pushed.

"Oh, Oh … I remember this!" Lady Rose blurted out, but then mastered herself. "But I'll let you finish Mr. Everman. But I must tell you it's all very exciting." She promised.

"Well, like Lady Sinderby said …"

"The store was getting robbed! Sorry …"

"Oh my gosh …" Cora said in sudden shock at Rose's unrestrained admission. "It wasn't!" She looked to Robert who was as disturbed as his wife was. They had never heard this story of both their Grandson and Cora's mother being in danger. Surely, they knew the outcome of it. But it seemed at that moment, in the newness of it, that it might as well have been happening right in front of them.

"It was. See, when your Ma walked round, she found the old kraut, I mean German, and his wife tied up. A couple of Gumbas were shifting through the inventory, beaten on grandpa about the combination to the safe. But instead of Mrs. Levinson walking away …"

"She confronted them, like a pig-headed idiot?"

"You know your, Ma."

"To my everlasting torment, yes."

"So, she gives the wops the third degree like she's dressing down bellhops in Newport. They don't like that one bit, so, they pull out their pig-stickers, right? They threaten to carver up like a turkey dinner. And the old lady just scoffs at them saying that they ain't got an oven big enough to fit her a- … uh, derriere. But these boys don't like no lip, especially from super fancy old ladies who can buy and sell them five times over. So, they start circling your Ma, with the pig stickers, ready to pounce on her. Then … BAM!" The man slapped the table making the lamps and candelabras jangle.

"The kid comes out of nowhere, leaps right off the roof of the brownstone and gravel surfs the lead gumba into the pavement. Then, he turns and just starts fighting them. It was … insane, INSANE! I ain't never seen anyone move the way Georgie out there did. He fought like one of them Chinamen in those 'chopsaki' films outta Hong Kong, you know? He was blocking, redirecting, kicking. It was just crazy to watch, you know. I mean it was enough to unnerve them gumbas to leave the Krauts, the loot, and Mrs. Levinson and high tail it outta there! It was the damnedest thing I've ever seen, no mistake." Mr. Everman mimicked the boy in memories with chopping hands as he finished the animated story with a shake of his head in nostalgic admiration.

"Yes … we're, uh, fully aware of his skill in combat." Robert cleared his throat while he sipped his wine, trying not to comment on the vulgarity in speaking with ethnic slurs and telling tales of violence at a society dinner table in the presence of Gentlewomen.

Something flickered in Edith's eyes. "Some of us, more than others …" She drew out with a cold glance at her older sister. Once more Lady Mary Crawley, who still remained the hostage of the young Lord of Downton who had recently overthrew her, said nothing. In response the sleek pale woman in form fitted red satin only glared haughtily at her sister with a lift of her chin in superiority.

Tom sighed. "There's no need for this …" He whispered between his sisters whose moods swung so often these days. One moment they seemed the closest of friends. The next, at the mere mention of the children, and especially George, they were at each other's throats. He turned to Lucy for help with a pleading tilt of his head in exasperation at two women that were too old to be acting in such away, fighting over the children and their affections like they were dolls.

"I wonder where he learned all of that." Mrs. Branson spoke up on behalf of the beleaguered mediator.

She, alone at the table, with perhaps maybe Lady Rosamund for company, knew very little of George Crawley. When she first met Tom, the boy was not present, out of country some said. In fact, it was during that magical first Royal visit that she learned that he didn't even live at Downton. Instead he stayed with his Grandmother Isobel, Lady Merton, at Crawley House when he wasn't at sea as an apprentice to the likes of Captain Allan Quartermain and Ms. Mina Murray, or … if rumors were to be believed, that dreaded Sikh Science Pirate whispered to make his tracks twenty thousands of leagues under the sea.

There had been an incident that past Christmas Eve before the Royal visit involving the death of her cousin Mary and her husband Henry's daughter Caroline. No one talked about it, but most of the family blamed George for it. But by the time they came to their senses, realizing how preposterous it was and repented, the damage had already been done. The boy had been ostracized by the family, especially by his own mother. So it was, in the years that Lucy Smith courted Tom, she never saw the boy. And what she knew of him where the things reported at tea by Sybbie and Marigold, who spent much of their days at Crawley House with him when he wasn't away. And by the time she had married Tom, Downton had been scourged, the Abbey had been sacked, and the young outlaw was in the wind for the next eight years, leaving behind a bitterly regretful family to mourn his long exile.

Even now, pardoned by the old King on his death bed from pressure by Princess Mary and the Lords, Lucy still didn't know much about her step-nephew. Tom had kept her well clear of the "Grantham Civil War" in which George Crawley and his men were victorious. And afterward she had met him but once or twice, shaking his hand when he congratulated Tom and herself on a wedding that he missed by seven years. Other than that, she was kept far from Lord Grantham and her husband's dealings with the young Lord and Consulting Detective in matters of the Estate and its debt, to which he was Downton's creditor. There was also the matter of Lady Mary's ransom as his captive, which was linked to the Estate's debts which she must pay with interest, in full, before her own son would return social freedom to her. It was a continuingly humiliating mark on Lady Mary in high society. But then, Lucy Branson thought it rather just, in private. Considering it was her cousin Mary's near decade of tyrannical rule and strangely oblique selfishness that plunged the county in open rebellion and nearly ruined their family.

It seemed only fair then that Lady Mary be forced to pay her own debts in reparation for what she had done in her horrid grieving over the terribly tragic loss of her baby daughter.

"I believe there was a Martial Arts master that George befriended closely in Chinatown, now that I think of it." Lord Sinderby provided to Lucy's question. "He trained with him for a number of years." He continued. "Though blast me if I can remember his name." He chuckled.

Rose met his gaze with a cute little scrunch of her pristine face, as if joining her mind to his in shared thought.

"That was George for you." The producer shook his head. "One big serious scholar, that kid. Spent most of his time reading old books, ancient scrolls, and devouring Mr. Levison's library. Old Mrs. Levinson was afraid she took on a geek instead of a roughriding outlaw. That is till she saw him fight those goons. Then, she wouldn't let up about him boxing amateur. He'd always tell her that his skills were for 'knowledge and defense, not to buy you a new tacky hat.' Heh, the kid had style. Still the old lady persisted, calling George's 'code of honor' sanctimonious horse- uh … leavings. Ha! I swear by the end of it the kid got so fed up with Mrs. Levinson riding him all the time that he told her, straight up, that when he decides to Box, the old lady would be the very first to know." Then, Chris made a punching motion to his eye to demonstrate George's intention toward Martha.

"He didn't …" Cora said with playful shock.

"Oh, yeah, I tell'ya I've never seen anyone go back at Old Mrs. Levenson the way the kid used too before the Crash. They were like two miserable tinder boxes that sated each other with endless bickering just enough so that they wouldn't blow up and kill all those fancy Dutch Harpies on Fifth Avenue." The producer laughed.

"I could believe it." Edith smiled fondly of her nephew and grandmother, two people she had been closest too in her family.

"I … I think it was something with an "I"." Rose started making headway with Atticus. "I, um, I …" She squinted her eye shut while sucking on her spoon thoughtfully. "How maddening! I can see his face clearly. Such a Lovely old man, very kind, always smelled of fresh laundry." She sighed.

"I believe it was because he owned a laundry shop." Atticus politely and slowly corrected the lovely woman with a smile of amusement.

"Golly …" Rose put her hand up to her mouth. "It all makes sense now, doesn't it?" She giggled.

Atticus turned lovingly to a wife of whom he had been separated from for some five years now. Yet, he and the children still visited every weekend at Downton, and both still refused to divorce. Rose and Atticus's love was palpable across a table. But the terrible trauma that Rose had suffered that led her to flee New York with her family still lingered, dividing them, though the chasm was closing little by little as the year's past. She recovered slowly in her family's home, surrounded by those who loved her, supporting her. Every week Lady Grantham accompanied her adopted daughter to therapy in York. Afterward, at their usual teashop, Cora always assured Rose that one day she would return to be the wife and mother she should be for her waiting family.

"Sensei!" Rose suddenly clapped. "I believe his name was Sensei!" She conferred with her husband.

"No, I don't believe so. I think that was what George called him." He corrected.

"That wasn't his name?"

"No, that is what students and apprentices call their masters in that sort of education." Edith chimed in.

"Well, I'm flummoxed then." Rose admitted defeat.

"I was about to say Zatara …" Atticus commiserated. "But, of course, that isn't right either." He tapped his spoon thoughtfully.

"No, darling, that was the Magician he worked for and studied under." His wife corrected. "I do remember that, because, George always did tricks for Viki and Hugh before we put the babies to bed." She reminded him.

"Of course, …" He smirked fondly with the ringing wonder and laughter of his children echoing from his memories to the warmth of his heart.

"Wait …" Tom interrupted. "You don't mean Giovani Zatara? The famous Illusionist?" He stopped in his tracks. "The one we took the girls to see last year?" He pushed.

"Naturally." Rose replied nonchalantly. "How do you think we got such good seats, darling?" She teased with a faux boastfully haughty look at Tom, playing at tossing her golden hair.

"George was a Magician's assistant?" Mary asked in a sudden surprise that took her unawares.

"Mmm …" Both Lord and Lady Sinderby nodded in unison. "For quite some time when we lived with him in New York. Mr. Zatara taught him escape artistry and sleight-of-hand, in exchange George lugged his boxes from show to show from Queens to the Jersey Shore. He also helped him test risky new tricks." Atticus nodded. "He was good, though not quite the showman that Mr. Zatara was born to be. Though, I never quite knew what George was going to do with all the things that Mr. Zatara taught him. He certainly hasn't made a go at being a Magician since then." He shrugged.

"No, but I dare say he's made jolly good use of the things he learned during his time in America and Mexico." Lady Edith assured them with a troubled look of a mind cast into dark memories and knowledge. Her family may have been ignorant of much of George's adventures. But as someone who wrote about them in serialized short stories in her magazine, the Marchioness was more than fully aware of the amazing things that her nephew had lived through and seen … as well as the truly horrifying and terrible.

"Did you ever meet this Sensei of my grandson's, Mr. Everman?" Lady Grantham asked lifting her spoon to her lips. "Perhaps you knew his name?" There was an inquisitive girlishness in the hostess's voice as she finished her pudding. Doing her best in keeping their guest involved and at the center of the conversation as not to rudely leave him behind.

"Uh …" He balked a moment. "Well, I heard of him, I'll say. Mrs. Levinson, as you know, she was a bigtime Democrat, didn't trust no Negros or Chinamen. She, heh, she and Georgie used to get into it- a lot- about the kid's friends and the two of them's different attitudes toward other races, if you catch my meaning. Your boy, he, uh, he always had a knack for making the most, well, interesting acquaintances that one wouldn't expect to be found walking up on Fifth Avenue or staying in Newport over the summer." He scratched his neck nervously.

"I see nothing has changed then." Lady Mary muttered into her wine snidely, making Tom and Lady Grantham glare.

"Anyone of interest to you, Mr. Everman?" Sybbie asked lightly.

"Nah, not really. I wasn't no Republican the way Georgie was, out there, mixing with strange Magicians, and Chinamen."

"Really, not even with those who were both? Say like … Tatsu Suchong?"

CLINCK!

The moment that Sybbie casually let slip the name they all swore they could hear Mr. Everman go stiff. The entire table looked up when he let his spoon clatter to his plate in sudden shock. With panicked eyes he gazed up at the young beauty. Her long ringlets of pure silk, her bluish silver satin gown, and black choker. She was dazzling in the dim light and shifting shadows. But there was an edge to her that was unmistakable. Her eyes gleamed in the flickered candles like a feline predator that catches sight of the prey after following the scent for a merry hunt.

For most of the dinner he had been sure that Lady Mary Crawley's fancy little lap kitten was teasing and tormenting him. That Sybbie Branson was giving him the air of being a flirtatious and spiteful upper-class great lady who lost out on an acting gig and was churlish on the fact that the spoiled little princess had never been told "no" in her entire luxurious life. That he must be punished and humiliated in public so that he might punish and humiliate her in his bed as the manor slept.

But with the utterance of just one name, Ms. Sybil had revealed her scheme. Here, in this instance, it came to why he was brought so far from London, into seclusion of the countryside. It now occurred to him why she pressed so hard about George Crawley and their time - he and Gilda's - with him in New York. Sybil Afton Branson knew everything from the moment they left London. And when she charmed him into coming along, he thought for just a moment, an afternoon, that when dinner was over, he might come to his room to find the beautiful young princess lounging on a silk bedspread in nothing but choker and jewels. With a wilting pout, Ms. Sybil might convince him for a word of recommendation to Mr. Brady to be Freya's replacement on the picture. And maybe a year ago, for the right price to a future step-papa, she would be his to do with what he had been dreaming about for days.

But now he could kick himself for not heeding the advice that every stuck-up asshole in a London ballroom warned him about. What they told him when they saw that beautiful girl turn and catch his eye with a soft wilting smile that enchanted him. It was the same warning that hunters gave about encountering some females during certain times of a season. Their advice was simply this: Wherever Ms. Sybil Afton Branson went these days, 'he' was not far behind.

From this very moment it became so very crystal clear that this teenage queen with an eye on picture show stardom was not playing hard to get. Ms. Branson was not throwing off her family's scent so that they wouldn't suspect that she planned to give herself to an up and coming movie producer in exchange for Hollywood clout. She lured him here. With a smile, a look of demure gentleness, and those tight pencil skirts that showed off that gorgeous ass, he fell hook line and sinker. This wasn't a coincidence, or a favor called in by fortune's gamble. When Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Dennis Nayland Smith went outside the department for help in finding a missing Movie Star, it wasn't just one person who met him on the roof top of London Police headquarters. There were two of them. The Comet, and his sleuthing partner, a motor heiress with Celtic blood …

And Chris Everman had wandered right into their trap.

"Mr. Everman, is everything alright?" Cora tilted her head inquisitively, frowning at her eldest grandchild in confusion and blanket chastisement for a crime undetermined.

The chair squealed when the average sized man shot out of it, causing Ladies Grantham and Hexham to reel back. The man in question leaned over as if to snatch the girl up. Quickly, Lady Mary caught her daughter's arm and tugged her against her, while Marigold threw herself against her sister, clinging to her tightly in protective embrace and squeezing her eyes shut in fear. Immediately, defensively, Tom Branson and Lords Grantham and Sinderby stood in reaction.

"Steady on, sir!" Robert suddenly snapped at the aggression that was pointed at his beloved granddaughter.

"I'm sorry, Lord Grantham, Lady Grantham …" The man was now sweating profusely as he barely made eye contact with his hosts. "But I, but I, well, I must go now! Thank you! Thank you for everything! But I gotta go!" He turned and made for the door.

"Mr. Everman!"

"Sir, stop at once!"

"I've got to go! I've got to go!"

The manic character pushed right through Thomas Barrow who had stepped forward in defense of Ms. Sybbie and Marigold when he thought the man would accost them. The butler stumbled back against the shadowy crimson wall with eyes alight in anger. Throwing napkins down to the chairs squeaking and rattling, the rest of the Grantham family stood at such a sudden reversal. Tom, Mary, and Cora quickly converged on Sybbie to ask if she was alright and to enquire just what had happened, and what exactly their beloved girl was 'playing at'. But Robert only had to glance at his prized beauty, standing next to Marigold, to know, somehow, what might be going on. With a sigh at the knowing look shared with the girl at his side, he motioned for Thomas and Richard Ellis, and his sons-in-law to follow. Behind them came Edith, Lucy, and Rose. Soon all in the dining room joined in confused pursuit.

Meanwhile, a fleeing man, sweating and hunted like a beast, darted blindly with a crash against sundries. His breath was caught in a shuttered sigh of panic as he sprang from the small corridor that led from the dining and ante rooms back into Downton's Great Hall. But as he sprinted forward with abandon, looking behind himself, he startled to a halt. In his mania to escape, the movie producer suddenly found himself adrift in a thick robe of pitch black to which he had run so deep into that he could not find his way back.

When he had come downstairs to join the rest of the Crawley family for dinner, the Great Hall had been lit with a fire in the stone fireplace. End tables had been lit by gilded lamps and a hanging chandelier of crystal at the center. When they exited the library to go to the dining room, there was even more light, as tall standing reading lamps had been switched on next to seats by the fire or in the corners near potted trees.

But when he exited the corridor, he had found no lamps turned on, no chandelier agleam, and even the fire in the hearth was doused. All he could see was the dim glow of dying embers giving off sauntering smoke that oozed dimly into this abyss. There, in the middle of the pitch-black hall, he found only a yawning chasm of still and hollow darkness that obscured his vision. He became acutely aware of his heavy breathing that echoed loudly in the silent hall, his feet thudding distinctly on thrown rug as he wandered about for a moment, stricken dumb by the drastic change in environment.

Above, he saw the glimmer of stars from the glass sunroof that domed above Downton's foyer. Searching for any visibility, his desperate gaze was then drawn to the first landing of the great stairs of Downton. There he saw streams of silvery moonlight cascade in thick angles upon the John Singer Sargent portrait of a young Cora Levinson. In a heavenly vision, the porcelain teenage heiress sat a garden swing in a long sky-blue gown, about her were Roman columns wrapped by trellises of roses. The pinks, purples, and maroons of the blooming pedals seemed saturated in the pale light that was thrown across the tall canvas.

Hearing the sound of approaching voices, Mr. Everman quickly darted forward. He did not know the layout of the house, or how much time he would have. But there was something human in his instinct to run to the light, wherever he could find it. He didn't have time to pack. But he knew that he could grab a few valuables that he didn't allow himself to part with from his room at "The Criterion". Plus, if push came to shove, he had plan B and C in his waistband and coat pocket. There was no way that the fops in livery he saw coming in and out of the anteroom were gonna stop him from getting away. Quickly, though not quietly, the former chauffeur made pace for the staircase as he heard feet approaching.

Then … he stopped.

He had been crossing the hall at an angle, moving toward the tall staircase from the right, coming out of the dining room … when he saw it. The red glow from the chamber of a smoking pipe. He saw the rise and fall of the flickered embers of the inhale and exhale of the blue clouded smoke in the darkness. But he didn't stop till he saw them, glittering like gems that reflected torchlight in a cave. With every slow exhaling breath, the growing light of the embers were reflected in a pair of deeply haunted eyes. They were cold and emotionless, affixed to the figure cloaked in darkness as if Mr. Everman were prancing through a spring meadow at Easter Luncheon.

In the long silence a cold dread creeped up the man's spine as he was frozen still by the sudden realization that he was not alone. The breathing of the silent watcher was now audible with each slow ponderous puff of the pipe. The desperate man felt locked down, held in place by the reflection of orange and amber in the disembodied eyes of a shadow slumped leisurely on the wooden bench built under the railing of the Grand Staircase next to the ascent of the servant's stairs. In the dark he noticed that the slouching figure had a single foot lifted and pressed against an ottoman footrest as one who was lounging in his own home … patiently waiting on an expected guest.

"Been a long time, Johnny."

The voice that echoed through the silent great hall was one that Chis Everman did not know. It was deep with a trembled bass. But despite the use of theatrics, there was still a considerable youth to it. Whoever had cornered the Hollywood man was not as old as one might have thought him. But his accent was not native to Upper-Class or Working-Class England. It was hardboiled and undoubtingly American. But it had been unfocused, with no clear region of origin. He had a cowboy's practicality, a southerner's directness, a New Yorker's toughness, and all coming from an educated Englishman's understanding of Syntax. But to which sentence structure or region it originated from, it did not matter. What mattered was that in the dark a pair of cerulean eyes and that voice ripped the very soul from a guilty man.

And if the stories were true, he was the last person that Freya Ingrid's kidnapper wanted to be alone with in the dark.

"Oh, uh, hey … Georgie."

---

Entr'acte Music

"Main Theme (LA Noire)" - Andrew Hale