When Edith arrived home - in a cab, at Uncle John's insistence - it was to a familiar, cheerful voice in the hallway. "Darling girl, how are you?" Anne beamed and pulled her into a tight hug.

"Anne! Oh - oh, whatever are you doing here? Is something wrong? I - "

"Nothing, dear heart, save that I was worried about you." Her mother-in-law touched her cheek. "Looking a bit pale and peaky, I think. I know you well enough by now to realise that you wouldn't ask for my help even if you did need it, so I thought that I might as well just catch a train down and see. And I'm jolly glad that I did."

Edith squeezed her hand in mute agreement. "Where are Veronica and Flora?"

"Upstairs resting. And you? They said you'd been to see Forrester. Everything all right?"

"Oh, yes." Edith didn't think she could face telling anyone her news just yet. Not when it was still so new for her. Besides, she had a vague idea that Anthony ought to be told before anyone else, even Anne. That was the way these things were usually done, wasn't it? Or so she supposed, from her limited knowledge. "Just… silly paperwork stuff for Anthony. Have you been here long?"

"I arrived about half an hour before you did. Don't worry, I've been well looked after so far."

"Who's looking after Pip?"

"He is nearly grown up," Anne reminded her. "But Claudia's promised to look in over the next couple of days, and he has Mrs Dale and Mrs Cox to keep him up to the mark." Anne watched her narrowly. "I'm far more concerned about you, at this moment. Have things been dreadful?"

"No. Not… not dreadful." Edith tried a smile, but it trembled and quivered like a leaf in high winds. "Just… exhausting. And - and I miss Anthony, of course."

"Of course - and here I am, keeping you standing about in your own hallway!" Anne hooked her hand into Edith's elbow, tugged her into the library and plonked her down on the sofa in front of the fire. "Well, my love, there's no shame in missing one's husband. In fact, I'd call it a very good sign. Not that it isn't horridly difficult, of course."

"Y-yes," Edith managed. "Especially when - " And then she stopped.

"Especially when - what, my dear?" Anne pressed, noticing the curious flush that crossed her daughter-in-law's cheeks.

"Oh, nothing," Edith shrugged. "Just… especially when one sees so many other couples around one, I suppose."

"Mmm." Anne did not sound wholly convinced, but she did not press her any further. "Now, what I propose is that we have a few days here together, and then that you should go home to Locksley and have good long rest, my dear. You look as if you very much need it."

And from what Uncle John said, Edith thought, I may well carry on needing it, over the next few months. I certainly don't want to be in London when the - the baby arrives!

"Do you know, Anne, I think that might be a very good idea?"

"Are you quite all right, my dear?" Anne asked over breakfast the next morning. "You're looking… a little pale."

In truth, Edith was not all right. She'd woken feeling thoroughly nauseous, in fact, and the sight and smell of Veronica cheerfully devouring a healthy portion of kedgeree next to her was doing nothing whatsoever to help her composure.

"Q-quite all right," she replied, trying a smile as her stomach heaved again. "I… does the milk taste a little off this morning?"

Anne took a composed, thoughtful sip of her tea. "I don't think so, my dear. Why?"

Flora frowned. "Oh, Edith, darling - you aren't feeling ill, are you?"

"You are looking a bit green about the gills, Edie," added Veronica, her face creasing anxiously. "Why don't you - "

But Edith had already lurched to her feet, cutting off her friends' concerns. "I'm sorry - will you excuse me?" Hand clamped over her mouth, Edith fled the room.

Some ten minutes' later, the door of the downstairs lavatory clicked open behind her - just as she had finished hideously and helplessly heaving up her breakfast.

Anne's soothing voice sounded above her. "There, there, my darling. Much better out than in." Edith, still clinging for dear lie with both hands to the rim of the toilet bowl, heard the tap running, and then the sound of a flannel being wrung out, before Anne lifted her gently up and wiped her face. The cool water soothed her flushed cheeks and brushed away the tears from her watering eyes, and Edith sighed in relief.

"Come along, dear-heart," Anne said, tugging the chain to flush the toilet. "Let's go and find you a glass of nice cold water to swill your mouth out, hmm? And then we can sit and have a little chat."

Edith's hand clutched at hers. "I'm not ill, Anne."

Her mother-in-law chafed her elbows warmly. "No, sweetheart, of course not."

"No, really." Edith let out a shaky, croaking laugh around the soreness in her throat. "I - I'm - I'm - "

"Pregnant," Anne finished for her.

Edith exhaled. "Yes. However did you guess?"

Anne shrugged. "Oh, well, I've never known you to be queasy, and you are a newlywed." Her lips twitched. "Let's just say, certain conclusions have been drawn." She tucked a hand under Edith's arm. "Added to which," she murmured, somewhat wickedly, "it took Anthony roughly the same amount of time to get Maude increasing with Phillip."

"I - I haven't even told him yet," Edith murmured, letting herself be steered out into the hall again. "I only went to see Uncle John yesterday."

Anne led them upstairs to her sitting room. "Oh, don't worry about that. He'll be delighted. Surely you don't doubt that?"

"No, no! I know very well he'll… he'll be so pleased. But… it's just this beastly war, isn't it? I want him home. I hoped that he would be, by the time anything like this happened." Edith bit her lip. "I was being stupid, assuming that - that two weeks couldn't possibly be long enough - "

Anne chuckled softly. "No, my dear. Quite frequently, this sort of thing takes us by surprise, whenever it happens. I was married to Phillip for nearly a year and a half before I fell pregnant with Anthony. I'd quite talked myself into thinking that it would never happen - and I was positively astonished when the doctor told me!"

Edith sniffled. "How did you tell him? Phillip?"

Anne's smile broadened. "Well, I didn't, not exactly. We were at one of Lady Alvindale's balls - famous in her day, my dear - and I swooned dead away in the middle of the polka. I came round, lying on a sofa in her drawing room, to Phillip receiving the most tremendous scolding from our hostess for not taking good enough care of me! 'Anyone would think,'" Anne mimicked in querulous accents, "'that at your age, Phillip, you'd have sense enough to know better than to drag your poor wife out into society when she's in such a delicate condition!'" Pausing, Anne wiped away tears of mirth. "The look on his face - quite imprinted on my brain, my dear." She softened. "And then he looked at me, and said, 'Are you, my dearest?' and I had to break the news to him then and there. I think he'd just about recovered from the news by the time I told him I was having Diana - and then we had to start the whole circus all over again!"

Now Edith did laugh. Anne kissed her cheek. "There. That's better. Write to Anthony today, and make your plans to go home, my love, and then you'll start to feel better. Just you see if you don't."

My darling Anthony,

I can hardly believe that I am writing these words. On our honeymoon, I said to you that I wanted as many children as you could give me - and you seem to have taken those words rather to heart.

When you come home again, Anthony - unless you're very quick about it - there will be a new face here to welcome you. We're going to have a baby, you and I. You're not to worry about me - Uncle John says that I'm hale and hearty, and that I should just carry on as normal, save being a little gentler with myself than usual. Of course, your mother guessed practically as soon as she arrived, and she's taking the most tremendous care of me. Isn't she wonderful?

I can't tell you what endless and complete joy you have brought me, Anthony…

"George," the Dowager Countess of Grantham said, somewhat severely to her son, "are you bothering Captain Talbot?"

"No," George and his playmate answered in unison. They were crouched on the library floor, George's tin soldiers surrounding them, Captain Talbot looking just as boyish and enthusiastic as his hostess's son.

Lavinia couldn't help smiling at the chaotic picture that they made together. "Well, Nanny's looking for you. It's time for bed. When you've had your bath, I'll come up to tuck you in and read you a story, all right, my darling?"

"Oh, Mummy, must I?" George sighed, the corners of his plump little mouth turning down in an expression of burgeoning recalcitrance.

"Yes," Lavinia insisted. Henry rested a gentle hand on George's shoulder as he looked about to protest again.

"You should, old chap. Even soldiers need their rest. How else can we be fighting fit, hmm?"

"All right, Captain Talbot." Henry saluted him and George mimicked the gesture. Something caught in Lavinia's throat as she watched them, but then George turned away and the moment passed. "Nanny?" he called as he toddled out into the hall. "Nanny?"

Standing and tweaking his trousers back into order, Henry grinned down at her.

"You're very good at that," Lavinia offered, a little shyly, suddenly aware that they were alone, for the first time since that awkward moment a few weeks' ago, with the boxes. That day when he had called her pretty.

Henry shrugged, tucking his hands into his pockets. "I have sisters who are much younger," he explained. "My father remarried, after my mother died."

"Oh. I see. That's a good quality to have." She smiled. "Women like that, you know - men who are good with children."

"Do they?"

"Mmm." She blushed a little. "The eldest Miss - Miss Bentley, for instance."

"What?" Henry barked out an incredulous laugh. "She's barely out of the schoolroom herself!"

"And very eager to step into matrimony, from what I hear." Lavinia shook her head. "Be careful - she's taken rather a shine to you." Now that his leg had been pronounced well healed, Captain Talbot had proved rather a success at last week's charity dance held by the vicar and his wife.

Henry pulled a somewhat horrified face which, for some reason, cheered her. "I'm obliged to you for the warning. Do you… have time for a turn about the garden, before you have to tuck his lordship in?"

It was a fine evening for the time of year and she had been chained to her desk all day, organising nurses' rotas and linen and a hundred and one other little things without which the convalescent home could not function correctly. Lavinia nodded. "Yes, I suppose so. Although… you should know, we aren't using the title with George, not yet. Before Matthew - " She stopped and took a shuddering breath. "Before Matthew died," she forced herself to say the words, "we didn't even call him Viscount Downton. And now… I - I don't want him to grow up… conceited. He's 'Master George' to all of the servants, still. He won't be Lord Grantham until he's sixteen at least - and even then, only on high days and holidays."

Henry inclined his head, and paused to allow her to pass out of the French windows ahead of him. "Very sensible of you, Lady Grantham."

"You - " She hesitated briefly and then pressed on, "you don't have to use my title, either, if you don't care to. My - my Christian name is Lavinia."

"Yes. I know." His mouth twitched, embarrassed. "But I… wasn't sure if - if I still had the right to your Christian name, after my disgraceful behaviour. I think I did well to escape a scratched face, didn't I?"

"N-no. It doesn't matter." Thank goodness for that cool breeze! Lavinia was sure she'd be as red as a tomato by now without it. "I - I didn't think you meant anything by it." How could you have, Henry? I'm a boring little widow with a small child, staring middle age in the face. You're utterly unattached, independently wealthy, handsome, charming - you could have your pick of women. Whyever would you even look twice at someone like me? You only looked once because you've been cooped up here for months on end!

She hadn't even been able to keep hold of a man like Matthew, who had always seemed so solid and earthbound and decent. What chance would she ever have with a rogue like Henry Talbot? They'd both end up miserable. Lavinia shivered. She already knew what it was like when a romance fell apart - it was not an experience she wanted to repeat.

"Ah." Captain Talbot paused on the terrace, clicked open his cigarette case and lit one, before offering the case to Lavinia. Mutely, she shook her head. "Well, that's rather awkward," he sighed.

"Is it?" she wondered. Henry exhaled a cloud of smoke into the dusk. Lavinia found it rather comforting. The smell of tobacco smoke always reminded her of evenings spent playing on the floor of her father's study, as a small girl. Back when the world had seemed such a simple place.

"Well, yes," he replied at length. "Given that I… that I did mean something by it." He lifted a hand. "I'm not going to be a cad again, don't worry. It was thoroughly inappropriate of me - if my stepmother ever found out, she'd tan my hide for me and then send me back to the nursery until I learned to behave properly. I - I don't know what came over me."

Lavinia huffed out a surprised laugh and tucked a loose curl of hair behind her ear. "It - it honestly doesn't matter. I - shouldn't have snapped at you the way I did. It - it isn't you. It's just… it is very soon and - " (the confession tumbled from her mouth before she could stop it) " - and my marriage… well, it was all a bit of a mess, at the end."

Very quietly, Henry asked, "Bit of a brute, was he?"

"No! No. Matthew… was a very kind man, with a very large heart. But we should never have married. He… was in love with someone else, you see." She frowned. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I barely know you."

"Well, I'm very glad that you have," Henry reassured her quietly. "And… I'm sorry - for everything. Does your mother-in-law…?"

"No. She adored Matthew." Lavinia swallowed and it felt like there was broken glass in her throat. "I… I wouldn't want to do or - or say anything that would… tarnish her memories of him."

"Of course." He bowed his head. "Well, with any luck, Lady Grantham, I'll be out of your hair by the end of the week. Once I'm cleared fit for duty."

"Oh! Con-congratulations." She felt suddenly as if a lead weight had dropped into her stomach. "You'll - you'll have to write to us, when you get back to the Front. Just… let us know that you're safe." Hastily, she added, "Lots of the men do that, you know, once they've gone back. And… George rather looks up to you - he'll miss you terribly, if you don't keep in touch."

Henry smiled lopsidedly. "Well, we can't have that, can we?"

"No. We most certainly can't." Lavinia dipped her head politely. "And on that note, Captain Talbot, I shall leave you to your cigarette. Goodnight."

"Goodnight… Lavinia."