Merriment & Wisdom

A Mansfield Park fanfiction

Part Twenty-Five:

Good Opinions, Not So Lost As Was First Feared

At breakfast, Tom was painfully aware of just how little Fanny looked at him.

It was, in actuality, largely shame which stayed her eyes – she could not bear that she'd struck him, regardless of Susan's many gentle reassurances that, surely, given his behaviour, he'd been asking for it, and so surely it was all right, provided she did not do it again – but there was some anger – a lingering resentment over his complete and total desertion of her – in the avoidance of her gaze as well, and it was this anger Tom most keenly felt.

He was unused to Fanny being severe with him. Let alone cross.

The wife he had left behind was amiable and mousy and never quarrelled if it could be helped. The wife he returned to seemed – as his Aunt Norris might put it – far more prone to ill-tempers and sulkiness.

Though, of course, he could not forget how – to a degree – it was justified; he had been away too long, he had, however unwittingly, hurt her tender feelings and wholesome sensibilities.

Whatever nonsense Edmund had been telling her could not have helped his case, either.

It had not occurred to Tom, before his return, that Fanny's was a mind ready to be moulded; he'd supposed her character already as fixed as his own, set in its ways, albeit quiet and unassuming ones where his were anything but.

He ought to have, he now realised, taken into consideration Fanny being seven years his junior and having known no life outside of Portsmouth. He was uncertain if he ought to mourn the loss of the unfixed manner of girl he'd initially fallen in love with; he did not believe her entirely gone, though he could not assure himself his belief was anything other than wishful thinking, and it mattered very little in the end because if even the smallest bit of her were left, it was enough for him. He still wanted her – he wanted her good opinion, for her to like him – to respect him – again. Anything else they needed to mend their bruised hearts would surely follow if he could only bring her back around to admiration for his person. If she liked him a little less than she previously had, he could like her well enough for the both of them. But her regard... No, that much he did not suppose he could live without.

And there she sat, right across from him at the breakfast table, near enough he could reach over the butter dish and take her hand, yet she was cold and distant, and for all their current proximity, he might as well still be in Weymouth, so little good it was to him.

He almost wished she would strike him again; another slap would, after all, have been an acknowledgement of his presence.

It wasn't any use thinking of getting to her by means of Susan, either, given she was just as unfriendly this morning.

And Edmund?

As much as Tom longed to ask his younger brother exactly what he'd been telling Fanny in his absence, what nonsense he'd been teaching her, he was making a point of ignoring Edmund – the self-righteous prig, who could never understand what it was to be in dire straights, for he never stepped a toe out of line – as thoroughly as Fanny and Susan ignored him.

Mr. Yates did not speak much, for his own part, but not because he sensed the tension, or because of his conversation with Tom the night before – no, it was how gloomy and imposing Sir Thomas Bertram was, and how he did not know Tom's father very well, which held his tongue. That, and he was distracted by watching Julia and trying to make it seem as if he were not watching Julia whenever Sir Thomas or that beady-eyed Mrs. Norris glanced his way.

The meal concluded, thusly, with more noise from the plates being cleared than from those present at the table.

When Tom was not waylaid by his father, as he expected to be, and dragged off to some odious, monotonous task (it was almost as if Sir Thomas, too, was giving up and washing his hands of him – and it stung him to the core more than Fanny's hitting him ever could), he found himself free to wander the house, looking for some amusement.

To his surprise, he spied Fanny holding a riding crop and moving rather briskly towards the front doors, and – amazed – he followed. "Fanny!"

She turned, gulping hard and keeping her eyes fixed over his shoulder.

"Good God, you're not going out riding, are you?" He took in her fine riding habit – certainly as new as the crop she carried – gawking somewhat at the way it fitted her shape and flattered her bust and waist.

Her tone was even, almost sweet, but slightly defensive as well. "Miss Crawford does not wish to ride Maria's horse today – she is engaged in some other activity with Mrs. Grant this morning – and it does not look like rain."

Tom – narrowly – resisted the urge to laugh at Fanny's odd defensiveness. As if he would ever grudge her his sister's former mount! Or question her right to do as she liked best! The fact that she felt she must defend herself at all was a little disconcerting, given she was the future lady of this house and should not have to time her rides – if such she wanted – around the whims of Miss Crawford. What was Miss Crawford to Mansfield? She was not even Edmund's betrothed!

No, no – that was not what he meant by it at all.

"That is" – he bit back the laugh which still fought him stubbornly, breathing deeply – "I did not think you liked horses. I thought you afraid of them and unlikely to ever wish to ride. Did you not tell me as much?"

Fanny's cheeks coloured and she fiddled awkwardly with the end of her riding crop. "It was Edmund who taught me not to fear being on the horses – to venture a little–" And she choked off, unable to go on, as if just recalling who she was speaking to.

"I see," was Tom's only response – and perhaps he really did, a little.

It had not even remotely occurred to him Edmund might have done him some good in his education of Fanny – rather than strictly robbing him of his untrained little creepmouse and replacing her with a blonder, prettier version of himself – until that very moment. He himself had – wrongly, it would seem – assumed the best thing for Fanny and her fear of riding would be to let her be, to allow her to do as she best pleased, and yet the idea that she should love to ride after all, that he might have a horsewoman for a wife to ride about the park with him, to race him and take an interest beyond service level in one of his great passions, was more appealing now than ever. When it had seemed impossible, he had decided it was of no importance. Now that it had come to be, he could not imagine how he could have supposed such a thing – to have Fanny to ride with! Such bliss. He should have to swallow his pride and, when he could bear it, thank Edmund for this much. Although, certainly something still must be done about this Miss Crawford having first rights to the horses nonsense – to be sure something or other must be done.

"I must go," said Fanny. "Before Aunt Norris sees and–"

Why should Aunt Norris prevent his wife from riding? He did not comprehend this at all. "I'll come with you," he said at last. "I'd very much like to ride in such fine weather as well."

She gave him one distressed, wretched look, for the first time that morning really staring full into his face, before blinking back unshed tears and showing herself quite resigned.

Then he recalled he was not dressed for riding as she was and – glancing down at himself – hurriedly asked Fanny that she not, for mercy's sake, leave the stables without him; he would meet her there once he'd changed.

"Fanny?" It was Mrs. Norris, her voice echoing as it came nearer. "Fanny, where have you sneaked off to?"

Tom noted, though he could not for the life of him make the least sense of, how Fanny tensed at their aunt's call. "I'll distract her," he offered, rather magnanimously. "She cannot nail me down this morning if I do not wish it – whereas I suppose you must be too good-natured to excuse yourself from whatever she asks." His eyes rolled towards the ceiling and his hands rested loosely at his hips. "No matter. If you suppose it will help your cause... You go on your own to the stables and wait for me, as we agreed."

They had not quite agreed, not in the traditional sense of the word, as he had simply decided himself it was what they would do, but Fanny – who had expected no protection from Aunt Norris whatever – was grateful for her husband's haphazard intervention and accepted this unlooked-for kindness with a wordless nod before fleeing the scene and rushing out into the sunshine of the day, making her way to the stables.

Another sort of girl – indeed, even Susan – might have – despite everything – taken Maria's horse and gone before Tom arrived. Fanny was not that sort of girl, however, and wholly unused to disobeying. It might tear her heart to shreds to see Tom – looking gallant and wonderful in his riding clothes – trotting along beside her on his own horse, to bear the honour of his company given freely when she knew he could no longer love her as he had before, yet she would not stir to save herself from such misery.

And they rode out, in good time, together, Fanny the most unhappy creature, despite being surrounded by so much beauty and pleasure, who ever graced the park's grounds.

"You ride well," Tom told her, bringing his horse so near to Maria's that his leg nearly brushed hers.

She forced a tight smile. "Thank you."

"Fanny" – his tone was softer, less merry – "can I ask you something?"

"Yes, by all means," she murmured demurely, giving a little nod and keeping her eyes facing ahead of her.

"Do you think, with rather a lot of patience, and – I reckon – a great deal of grovelling on my part" – he turned his head and gazed at her imploringly – "you might come to love me again?" It wasn't strictly love in the proper, romantic, idealistic sense he wanted – supposing it too great a hope – but it seemed passionless to deliberately ask for respect – besides, even Tom knew true esteem was not something which, if you had to ask for it, would likely never be really given, not genuinely – and untoward and crass to ask her to give herself to him physically, to warm his bed at night and allow him to touch her as he pleased, if she did not feel inclined of her own volition. Furthermore, you could not mention respect and grovelling within the same sentence and keep yourself coherent. Love, for all he actually meant by it, would have to do. There was a word missing, he thought, in their language, barred by the flimsy rules of proper English – something between lust and love, between regard and forgiveness. "What I'm asking is simply this. Can you give me reason to hope?"

Utterly stunned, Fanny pulled back on the reins, stopping Maria's horse. "Love you again?" She said the words as if they were of a foreign tongue, an insufferable portion from some dark magical spell wholly alien to her pure, upright being. "Can you really ask me such a thing?" She blinked at him. "I never stopped."

"Oh, don't play me for a fool, simply because I hardly know what to do with myself and display my position to you as vulnerable. It's bloody mean of you, regardless of what I may or may not have done to deserve it." And he pulled his own horse to a halt, perhaps a smidgen too roughly. The beast's head went up and down rapidly before settling, as if it were sneezing or had a bee flown up its nose. "From the moment I entered the house, there was obviously a cooling in your affections." His eyes flashed. "D'you deny it?"

"How can I deny it?" gasped out poor Fanny, quite bewildered. "But surely you're aware it was all for disappointment, at your recent actions, and at losing your affections. If you believed because I am small and sickly and was a poor relation before I ever was your wife, losing you could not affect me as it might another woman, you were mistaken."

Tom had to tighten his clenched legs to avoid falling from the saddle in shock. "Losing my affections! What the devil are you talking about?"

Fanny gnawed her lower lip. "What cause did you give me to suppose you...?" Her face was vivid with unadulterated pain. "You never wrote, in all the time you were away." She motioned, sadly, at his left hand. "And seeing you now, I shan't ever wish for another letter again so long as I live. A letter could only have told me that you... That your feelings for me..."

Tom's brow crinkled. "Why do you point to my hand?"

"You've removed your ring, Mr. Bertram," said she. "I have been quiet – I am always quiet – but I'm not blind. You come home after such a morally dubious commission as you showed me last night" – all those unclothed girls! – "telling me there was nobody else, but not that..." Not that there was me.

"I lost it," Tom burst out, quite startling her with his exclamation. "And it's Tom – not Mr. Bertram, dash it, how many times will you get it wrong?"

"Y-you," she stammered; "you lost it on the shore at Weymouth?"

No secrets from her. He sighed. "I lost it at cards – gambled it away. I was an idiot, as much – I'm coming to fear – for assuming I would have your instant forgiveness as for wagering with the damnable thing in the first place." He added, conscientiously, "I meant always to replace it, of course." He did, truly, somewhere in the back of his mind. Things just somehow got in the way – he hadn't yet the time to go searching for a new wedding band.

Fanny let the reins fall slack. She wept into her raised hands as they covered her face. They were not all tears of agitation, though she was still inwardly tormented over her husband's teetering morality; they were also full of relief.

Relief addressing a pain she had not thought there a balm in existence for.

Tom slipped down from his horse and held his hands to Fanny to help her out of the saddle as well. "Wife, if we both still love each other, if we've both been quite mistaken in thinking all hope lost, then I can't see how the rest matters. We mustn't expect perfection – that we care for one another is enough. It's more than most people after an ordeal like ours have, I shouldn't wonder."

In moments, Fanny was clasped in his arms, being drawn to him as he bent down to kiss her – repeatedly, ardently. His mouth pressed to hers as if it could not bear to be separated for long, pulling away for a breath so short it scarcely seemed worth the effort then coming back for more. He caressed her neck, her jawline; his fingers played intently with the stray golden curls that came out from under the matching burgundy hat she wore with her fine new riding habit, which – had it not been for the tempting curls spilling from it – he, being a man, would probably never have noticed the existence of.

"It's only you I want, Fanny Bertram." His forehead leaned against hers as he cupped her cheeks with his warm hands. "I never stopped, either. How could I?"

"Oh, tomcat," sobbed Fanny, kissing him in return, opening her mouth as his became more forcible from her unresisting encouragement. "It's not fair!"

"I know," he conceded, pulling away again and gazing down at her as if she were a little twinkling golden miracle he'd personally snatched from some better place for his own, though he hadn't the right to. "Rest assured, my dearest, my most unfortunately put upon little creepmouse, I know it's not."

It was a very different Tom and Fanny returning to the house than the pair which had left it earlier, albeit separately.

Tom stuck as close to his wife as a shadow, tugging playfully at her sleeves and bending over her in order to blow rather dramatically down the frilly collar of her riding habit.

The fact that Fanny was, for all her gravity, privately prone to fits of ticklishness did not, at this particular moment, help in her struggle to keep a straight face. She was bright scarlet from head to neck, and giggling madly already as they came through the doors, almost tripping over the threshold as they did so.

Tom whispered something which made her gasp, "Mr. Bertram!" and pretend to swat at him with her riding crop.

"Oh, so that's how it is, is it?" He grasped her waist and, lifting her off her feet, spun her about twice in rapid succession – then, rather than stopping at simply that, he wound up for a third time, for all her squealing and squirming.

"No, no," shrieked Fanny, still swinging the crop, slicing it through the air in pitiful defence, not actually landing a blow nor wanting to. "Put me down! Put me down! You must set me down at once!"

"Frances Harriet Pri–" Mrs. Norris – appearing before them seemingly out of nowhere at all and, evidently, in very poor humour – caught herself, but only just. "That is, Bertram." She spat out the amendment, as if she were choking on it. "Mrs. Bertram, will you please try to act with some decorum?"

Tom's dancing feet skidded to an abrupt stop. He placed Fanny down as gently as if she were a delicate newborn kitten. "Ah. Hello again, Aunt Norris. What tidings of the afternoon? Did we miss anything eventful?"

Fanny stumbled from one foot to the other, struggling to regain her balance; her hand was pressed to her forehead. "Oh."

"Careful, Fanny." Tom gripped her arm, steadying her, only for her to teeter in the opposite direction. "Whoop!"

Her knees buckled and Fanny sank to the cold marble floor, still giggling under her uneasy breath – which she struggled to catch.

"What is going on here?" demanded Mrs. Norris.

Tom arched an eyebrow, as if it say he thought it quite obvious. Perhaps the poor old thing was becoming confused, however. They did say that happened in the later years of life – Edmund had told him once about an old woman, a Mrs. Bates, whose unmarried spinster daughter had to practically bellow everything at her to be heard at all, making a parson's visits very awkward indeed. (He did not realise, of course, he'd quite recently met the granddaughter and niece of these very women.)

All right, then, if Aunt Norris desired an explanation, he'd give it his best.

Clearing his throat, Tom pointed at his wife. "Fanny fell down, madam."

Mrs. Norris stared at him uncomprehendingly.

Right. Perhaps he could make it a bit more simple, if such was truly required of him. "I..." He made a spinning motion with his index finger, demonstrating. "Then she proceeded to go, er, boom."

Fanny's shoulders shook – tears streamed down her face as she struggled not to look at Tom and make it worse. She couldn't recall the last time she'd laughed like this, the last time she'd been unable to stop herself.

"Don't be impertinent with me, young man," snapped Mrs. Norris, reaching up and straightening her lace cap. "Do you take me for an imbecile?"

His mouth fell open. "I take you for nothing of the sort, aunt."

"Good." She stepped nearer to Fanny, eyes narrowed. "Heaven preserve us! Has she been drinking?" And here poor, accused Fanny hadn't had a drop (though Tom was another matter entirely – there was currently, as it happened, a quarter-emptied silver flask concealed in his greatcoat breast pocket – but his aunt would never blame him, not when she could blame his wife instead). "Stop that obscene noise at once. Your behaviour is a discredit to this entire family, and it's very ungrateful of you. Very ungrateful indeed, considering what you owe to us all."

Shamed, she tried to oblige, lolling her head to the side; she tried to muffle the sound emanating from her, but it would not be muffled until it had run its course.

"Come, Fanny" – Tom had mercy on her, grasping her under the elbows and lifting her up – "I'll take you upstairs to change for tea."

"Tom," Mrs. Norris called after them, "before I forget, I must inform you that I have something to tell you at tea – a surprise."

Fanny collapsed into the velvet chair by the fireplace, blinking groggily into the unlit grate, still light-headed.

Kneeling beside the chair, Tom unlaced her riding boots then removed them. She gave a little sigh of satisfaction as he rubbed her ankles through the silken fabric of her stockings.

After about half a minute, one of Tom's hands began sliding upwards, over her calf, past her knee, pushing up and rumpling her skirt and under-things – it stopped at the garter holding the stockings in place at the thigh.

Fanny's eyes closed partway. She watched him from under her eyelashes. His overall countenance was intense, but the corners of his mouth were curled merrily. She felt him pluck at the garter and had something of an idea he was deliberately making work of it so he could keep his hand there longer. His pressing fingertips caressed her inner thigh and he pulled himself nearer so he could lean forward, against her and against the chair cushion.

He was close enough that if she bent over slightly she could kiss him. And she did, moaning softly and pressing one of her hands against his chest. Her other hand played at the knot in his cravat.

His hand slipped back down. Her petticoats tumbled untidily back into place.

Fanny pulled away, letting go of him. Her eyelashes fluttered in confusion. "You've stopped."

"I haven't," said Tom, bringing his other hand up, plucking at the remaining garter. "You've got two stockings – two legs – remember?"

"Tom" – her voice was shaky now – "I..."

"God," he moaned. "Fanny, tell me you want this to happen now as much as I do."

"Yes." Even after everything, Fanny found she could hardly refuse him, could hardly bear to make him unhappy – besides, it was the truth, or very near. If she did not want him quite so desperately in that moment as he wanted her, if her decidedly more passive desire was not so quickly raked up into a burning passion as all that, the fact remained she was nonetheless stirred, nonetheless flattered.

And she had missed him.

Yes, she had missed him very, very much.

"Yes?" He was beaming. "You don't mind missing our tea with the others, then?"

Her chest rose and fell shakily as she bent over further, ignoring her sore abdomen, and pressed her mouth to his ear. "I'll race you to the bed."

The truth was, she did not feel very much like racing – she was already winded, the emotional intensity of the day coupled with the riding and spinning earlier having somewhat depleted her less than bountiful energy as it was – but she rather suspected Tom, impulsive and gladdened by her willingness, might be inclined to take her right there on the chair, if he did not pull her down beside the fireplace with some vague intention of pleasuring her on the floor.

He'd told her once before to remember he was only a man, to have some mercy on him, and she'd never forgotten it.

The large canopied bed, she suspected, would be a great deal more practical and comfortable for them both. It had served them well enough the last time, though that felt like forever ago.

Grinning, Tom kissed her cheek, then took off running.

She pulled herself unsteadily to her feet, breathing heavily, the stocking only partially removed from her other leg making her foot spark as she dragged it across the carpet.

Grasping her by the arms as soon as she arrived within his reach, Tom swung her onto the bed and rolled on top of her. "I won."

Fanny turned her head away, sighing. "Yes...you did..." she panted, meek and sweet and matter-of-fact, getting the words out between long, dragging breaths. "I let you."

The sitting room doors opened with a slight bang, followed by the shrill cry of Mrs. Norris admonishing what sounded to be grumbling workmen of some sort to have a care for the walls or else she'd report them to Sir Thomas.

"Aye, very good, madam – where do you want this?"

"What the hell?" Tom – half-clothed at best – bolted upright and, flinging the canopy aside, jumped out of bed and threw on his dressing-gown.

"Tom?" called his aunt, scanning the somewhat untidy room with increasingly narrowed eyes. "Tom?"

Tom stepped from his bedroom to the sitting room just in time to see the workmen carrying a tall long-case clock with an unnerving engraving of a very beaky-looking hawk carved around the top.

"What's all this, then?" He tied his dressing-gown more securely and folded his arms across his chest.

"If you had come down for tea," said Mrs. Norris, rather pertly, "you would know that I purchased a new sitting room clock, as a gift for your homecoming."

"I don't need a clock," said Tom, incredulous. "There's already one on the mantelpiece. The ticking of one clock is soothing – nobody even notices that – two, no doubt slightly out of rhythm with each other, is madness inducing."

"My dear boy, what are you doing in your dressing-gown in the middle of the day?" asked Mrs. Norris, as if she'd heard nothing he'd just said. Very probably, she hadn't – Mrs. Norris had a most remarkable talent for hearing and seeing only what she wished to.

"Being that it's well after tea, it's hardly the middle of the–" He stopped to snap his fingers at the two men who'd begun to set the clock to rights against the wall across from the door. "Oi, there's no need for that. If you'd be so good, take the blasted thing back where it–"

One of the workmen sniffed and, once he'd shifted the clock upright and gotten its weight off himself, wiped his rather grimy nose on his sleeve. "Eh? What's that, sir?"

Tom cursed under his breath.

That was when Mrs. Norris noticed the silk stocking on the floor in front of the chair by the fireplace. She would have been pleased to see the grate unlit, for economic reasons, if only Fanny alone had been in residence and if the day hadn't been unseasonably warm, but she derived no pleasure from it as things stood.

"Why does your wife leave her garments tossed about this way?" she demanded, picking it up and placing it on the clingy velvet arm of the chair. "That's no manner in which to treat an expensive gift for which your very generous father footed the bill, you know – a talk ought to be had with Fanny about it. It's most disagreeable, her flippant behaviour towards such valuables! Where is that girl?"

"In bed, aunt," said Tom, pointedly.

"At this hour?" She sounded scandalised, rather than comprehending as he'd wished. "Whatever is she thinking of? Is she ill?"

"Yes," Tom lied, waving at the workmen. "Gravely. And I'm going back to see to her, so if you wouldn't all mind, get out."

"Stuff and nonsense," huffed Mrs. Norris, mouth puckering in distaste. "She was perfectly fine earlier, laughing like an inebriated madwoman and flinging herself to the floor – it was all that unbecoming spinning and hysteria which did the mischief, if you ask me."

We didn't, thought Tom, quite irritated by this point.

"She ought to be dragged up and made to attend and sit quietly for a few minutes – she'd be well at once, and none of this sorry trick of lounging in bed."

Tom took his aunt's arm and began to lead her to the door. "You know what, Aunt Norris? You're right – I'll tell her as much myself, soon as you leave."

"Leave?" echoed Mrs. Norris, aghast. "I cannot leave – there are workmen here."

"Take them with you," said Tom.

"And what's more, Mrs. Grant and Mr. Crawford are coming over to dine with us this evening – Miss Crawford won't be able to make it, as somebody had to stay with Dr. Grant, who had a nervous upset, and Mrs. Grant hasn't had the chance to dine out in near to a month."

"Fascinating," said Tom, as if it were anything but.

In Tom's opinion, Dr. Grant ranked extremely low in importance in any conversation, given his private belief the man was quite the apoplectic manner of disagreeable fellow and would give himself a heart-attack one of these days and simply pop off, and they'd have wasted valuable time discussing him. It had happened with Uncle Norris as well, though he'd been slightly less prone to fits of rage – one, it seemed, learned to hold it in and repress negative emotion when you were married to such a wife as he'd had. Aunt Norris hadn't stood for that sort of thing, and such was not entirely to her discredit.

At any rate, it was one of the consoling thoughts Tom allowed himself regarding what he'd taken of Edmund's living with his gambling – it wasn't as if the man who'd gotten it was going to live very long.

"Don't you think Miss Crawford a most agreeable, giving woman, Tom?" sighed Mrs. Norris. "Always thinking of others before herself."

"Hmm," said Tom, his tone noncommittal, though that certainly wasn't how he would have described Mary – he recognised a thoroughly selfish person when he was acquainted with them, as they do say it takes one to know one.

"Would that Fanny could learn from her manners – well, at least they are much in each other's company now, some good may yet come of it."

"As you like." Tom tried taking her arm again, but was brushed off, his wrist slapped away.

"You need to be downstairs, the both of you – dressed and ready to greet the company – we're receiving them in five and twenty minutes in the drawing-room and I would have you already there and waiting well before they arrive."

And supper wasn't for a while yet, which meant pleasant conversation. Tom winced at the thought, his stomach turning. Henry Crawford was an all right sort of gentleman, really, agreeable and decent, and as Mr. Yates would no doubt be there, too, unless his father and Aunt Norris found some way of excluding him, they should get on quite well, the three of them, perhaps even playing at cards after supper. But, as of the moment, anything which prevented him from returning to his cosy bed and wife was a most unbearable evil. What cared he for Mr. Crawford or supper or the rest of the party downstairs, when he could, instead, enjoy the company of a beautiful, currently unclothed woman?

"Give us five minutes," Tom pleaded, near whimpering – he was much too wound up. "I'm begging you."

"I expect you both in less than that – I won't have the guests feel slighted."

"Ugggggggggghhhh," Tom groaned, throwing up his hands. "Damn the guests!"

"Thomas Bertram! You shall learn to mind your tongue – you're not too big yet for me to take a switch to, young man."

Aunt Norris had never actually taken a switch to Tom in his life, but it did not help matters that both workmen had stopped fussing over the creepy clock and halted in a half-murmured argument they'd been having (they could not agree, it seemed, on how to wind it) in the background to stare at him at his aunt's exclamation, looking – the pair of them – quite convinced she was in earnest, and rather more eager than not to see the threat enacted.

He sighed dramatically. "We'll be down directly – straight-faced and miserable as you clearly desire us to be – just leave us to dress."

Although she could not hear all which was said, Mrs. Norris' voice had a natural way of carrying disagreeably and Fanny, from where she sat on the bed under the canopy, heard enough that, when Tom reappeared looking sullen, she had a general idea of what had taken place.

"Family are much more disagreeable than horses, you know," he muttered. "They go where you ask, pack themselves up in their stables when they're not needed, and all they want for it is a carrot."

Fanny smiled. "Perhaps we should try giving Aunt Norris a carrot." She had heard, if little enough else, quite clearly, the remark about Mary Crawford and felt its sting, which made her slightly barbed in temper, despite her angelic smile. "She might leave us alone sometimes."

Tom chuckled darkly. "God have mercy on me! Supper, just now, when I least feel like it, when we've only just made up, with Mr. Crawford" – Fanny winced, but he did not notice, or else he thought it was in sympathy to himself, wholly unaware of the attentions Henry often gave Fanny which made her feel such keen discomfort – "why could my aunt not deliver me into the hands of bandits and have it over with? Death would be quick. Whereas, supper, my pretty little mouse" – and he reached over and patted her cheek, brushing away a stray curl – "is slow and agonising. Upon my word, this whole family is trying to crush the very life out of me!"

"Tom," she sighed, not without affection. "Don't you think you're being a little dramatic? It is only supper, and we have to eat sometime."

"What, me?" exclaimed Tom, dragging open the canopy. "Dramatic? Never." He placed a clean shirt and waistcoat – a watch-chain still attacked to the pocket – on the bed with jangling plop. "Come on, get up, we've quite missed our chance – get up, dress in haste, before Aunt Norris drags us down by the ears, kicking and screaming – love, I'm afraid, is dead for the time being."

Henry Crawford was astonished by the change he witnessed in Fanny that evening.

Could this be the same timid, cold little thing he had been trying – largely in vain – to get to warm to him all these weeks? Her cheeks, rather than pallid with illness, were almost rosy – certainly they were flushed, but it did not seem to be a fever's flush.

Before supper, as they all sat in the drawing-room together, while Henry politely pretended to listen to everyone discuss what a dreadful pity it was Mary had been unable to join them and how they wished Dr. Grant the speediest of recoveries from whatever ailment he currently wrestled with (he resisted the urge to tell them if it proved fatal, it would be the first time in history a man ever died of not having a goose – or was it a pheasant? – at his table when he desired it, dressed to his exact specification), he silently observed Fanny's altered manner.

Mrs. Bertram had eyes for no one apart from her newly returned husband and was constantly alight with a distinct happiness of countenance whenever he sat beside her or glanced at her or made some comment in her direction – this, remarkably, despite the fact that Tom seemed to be most out of humour.

How one could be out of sorts with a beauty smiling at you, Henry couldn't fathom.

He certainly doesn't deserve her, he thought, but such is the case with most rich husbands who marry very pretty women.

There was one moment of shared affection when both husband and wife smiled simultaneously; their hands – concealed by the porcelain mustard pot of a tea set Susan Price had just put out for Lady Bertram, when the maid-servant failed to do so to her liking – linked together by their hooked little fingers.

Tom's left eye twitched in a near-wink.

"I am glad Susan is here to set things to rights whenever the poor servants are confused as to my wishes." Lady Bertram patted Susan's hand. "She always knows what I want before I have to utter a word. Dearest, dearest Susie – I shall never be able to do without her again. Isn't Susan the dearest child who ever lived?"

Julia looked a bit wounded, and Mrs. Norris was heated on her behalf, but it didn't matter too greatly at that moment what either of them had to say, for the question had been directed at Henry.

"Indeed," said he, perhaps too sweetly, "Susan Price is a good little girl. The most agreeable little girl who ever was at Mansfield."

The manner in which he said 'little girl' offended Julia, who switched sides and immediately removed herself to sit next to Susan and seemed determined to show her cousin every civility simply to spite him.

Henry was not concerned with her. He'd seen, from the corner of his eye, when he could just spare it from being entirely fixed on Mrs. Bertram, the way Mr. Yates doted on the poor misfit Bertram sister. Truly, he expected to hear of an engagement between the awkward pair any day. Yates had only the fact that he was an Honourable to his credit, and Julia had only the distinction of being the daughter of a baronet – and the somewhat favoured sister of a future baronet, of course – to booster her appeal; were they not made for one another?

Even now, the duped, enraptured Mr. Yates was watching Julia attend to Susan with an open, doting expression that clearly said he thought her the most generous and lovely of women.

As for Fanny...

Good heavens!

Could Henry ever have really thought her incapable of feeling?

See how she attended to her Mr. Bertram, now he was with her once again! Such attentions, such admiration... It would be something, if he was not mistaken, to be a man fortunate enough to have love like that given from such a girl. To be loved by Fanny Bertram was not an impossibility, but a glory – one beyond compare – to be basked in!

How could he ever have supposed her heartless? How? Such a woman as she! He'd had her wrong from the start, lovely, heavenly creature she now proved herself.

At the start of supper, once the tea had been drank and Sir Thomas himself arrived fresh from his study to join them, there was some fuss over seating. Tom wanted to sit beside Fanny (Henry could not blame him, could not fault him for having such a desire) while Mrs. Norris, in turn, argued it ruined the whole sitting arrangement and threw the entire table off-balance for the party, and didn't he know he couldn't sit next to his wife.

"You don't see your father sitting next to your mother, do you?" sighed Mrs. Norris.

"Sir Thomas does not like to be seated on my left," murmured Lady Bertram to her empty plate. "I have a terrible twitch in that arm and can strike him with my elbow if I don't mind myself. It is especially bad when it rains, you know."

"Such fuss over nothing at all." Mrs. Norris pointed to the chair across from Fanny. "Sit there, for pity's sake, and do try to stop being quarrelsome with an aunt who loves you better than anyone. You've been out of sorts with me all day."

It was Henry, by no design of anyone in particular, who ended up being seated beside Fanny, but – though her shoulders tensed as he pulled out the chair – she mostly failed to notice, keeping her gaze across the table at Tom.

Tom ate the first two courses of the meal with record speed, then announced, quite suddenly, he needed to be instantly excused because the light from outside was near-gone and he'd only just remembered he'd promised to show Fanny something in the stables. "We were in such a great hurry to go riding this morning, it completely slipped my mind."

"Yes," said Fanny, who had hardly touched her food beyond moving it from one side of the plate to the other with her silverware. "That is, he did say..." Her voice quavered. Lying with ease was not among her natural gifts, clearly. "Yes. And I daresay I cannot be so ungrateful to all my husband, and his family" – her eyes flittered over to Mrs. Norris for a fraction of a second – "have done for me to not do as he asks."

Sir Thomas was confused. "The light isn't near-gone, Tom – it's all gone. It's not late enough in the year for the sun to remain out at this hour."

"I'll take a lantern," blurted Tom.

"Surely it can wait until tomorrow," protested his father, uncertainly. "Whatever it is?"

Strangely, it was Tom's mother who seemed, for all that she was usually groggy and inattentive, to grasp an ulterior motive might be in place here. "No," said Lady Bertram, slowly, her eyes drifting from Fanny to Tom in an unusually clear-sighted manner. "I think, Sir Thomas, it cannot wait until tomorrow."

"Thank you, Mother! I shan't forget your generosity." Tom was cheerful; his morose manner from the drawing-room was quite gone now. "Come, Fanny. The sooner we go, the sooner we'll..." He paused. "Er, be gone."

"He'll burn down the stables!" protested Mrs. Norris, unheeded. "Not to mention the expense of using the lantern when there's still..." She clenched her teeth together. "Nobody minds what I have to say, even when it's of great use to them." She shook out her napkin emphatically. "I leave it to this party's conscience, that is all I'm saying on the matter. Goodness knows I never interfere with what is not my own concern, but it is the responsibility of an elder to speak out against the folly of young persons now and again."

"It's empty," said Fanny, looking about the stall Tom had led her to, seeing nothing but fresh hay and a halter hanging from a hook on the back of the door.

"So it is." He scratched the back of his head. "It would seem I completely forgot the groom has the horse out for a night ride."

"The groom you pay?" teased Fanny.

"Could be that groom," he said with forced airiness. "Could be one of my father's. Who can say one way or the other?" He knelt to set the lantern down beside a straw pile and, as he stood back up, he wrapped his arms around Fanny's waist, pulling her close. "But, I think, wife, you're missing the important thing."

"Mmm? And what's that?"

"We're completely alone and not expected back with the supper company for several minutes."

"You cannot be in earnest?" she laughed.

"I most certainly can be."

"We're in the stables."

"Yes, we are."

"It smells of horse."

"Yes, it does, rather, now that you bring it to mind, though that is generally what stables smell of."

"If you could have borne waiting until after supper and cards, we'd be in a bed."

"Yes, you're not wrong, I grant you, Fanny, but all the same..."

When Mr. and Mrs. Bertram returned to the house, slinking into the drawing-room where three different games of cards were currently in progress and slumping down on sofa side by side, they gave an air of being rather winded. Tom's hair was rumpled and Fanny's was askew with two plaits loosened. They were both slightly glassy-eyed with evident exhaustion.

"Did you run back here all the way from the stables?" asked Julia, in a tone of scandalised astonishment, looking up from her hand to stare at them in surprise.

"Right," said Tom, yawning indolently as he stretched an arm over the back of the sofa. "That's it. Running, what."

Edmund, rolling his eyes at his brother's painfully obvious indiscretion, set down his wineglass and – coming to stand by the side of the sofa where Fanny lolled – whispered, "You've got a bit of straw in your hair, cousin." He quietly removed it, once Julia had shrugged and returned to her current occupation, blithely accusing Mr. Yates of cheating so as to throw the game in her favour, and was no longer watching her brother and sister-in-law.

The long-case clock Mrs. Norris had gifted Tom chimed – every bit as unrhythmically and madness-inducing as he'd predicted, he proved quite the Nostradamus in this particular scenario – loudly, rumbling the floorboards all the way from his sitting room into the bedroom.

Luckily, the mattress was thick and it was little felt by the contented couple.

In actuality, Fanny felt the ensuing rumble a bit more strongly than Tom, as she was more naturally of the sort who can feel a pea through a mattress while her husband would scarcely have felt a carriage wheel put in the same place under most circumstances. It was probably his privately held resentment towards the clock arriving, it's ghastly timing, which – coupled with the fact that it was in poor taste, rather leaning towards the downright ugly and offending his artistic preference for beauty – made him more keen to feel, despite himself, and be made cross by it.

"What if," mumbled Tom, gone pensive, "I chopped it into firewood and made it look like an accident?"

Fanny lifted her head from his chest and shook it tenderly. "She'd know."

He ran his thumb lovingly along the crease of her furrowed brow. "You're probably right." With a low groan, he drew his knees up and Fanny, hands folded, rested her chin on one of his kneecaps, still looking at him. "What is it, Fanny?"

"I don't know how to ask..."

"We have no secrets," Tom reminded her. "You may ask me anything you like."

"Your portrait," she whispered, cheeks colouring. "The one you were..."

"Mmm," he grunted, uncertainly, wondering if he were about to be scolded.

"Were you... When you finished..." She halted, swallowed, then began again. "Were you pleased with the end result?"

"My commissioner cared a great deal for it, or he would not have paid me or parted with me, I think."

"But did you like it?" insisted Fanny, with a boldness she did not entirely feel.

It did not occur to him to lie. "I did, actually – it was some of my best work."

"I am proud of your talents, you know," Fanny told him. "Even if I don't approve of what you used them for. I-I'm proud of you."

Tom felt a rush of warmth run through his entire body. "Thank you." She never would know, he expected, how much her saying that really meant to him.

"Did you sign it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"The portrait."

"Oh. Still that? Yes." There was a hint of pride in his voice. "Yes, I did. But you needn't worry, no one in our social circles will ever see it" – or, that is, he thought to himself, admit to seeing it – "as it hangs in a house of ill-repute."

"I wish I– That is, I should like–" She stopped, unable to go on – because she was not certain. She could not wish, nor like, to see the end result of his efforts when the preliminary sketches alone had distressed her so, when the thought of them still pricked at her soul if she dwelt too long on the memory, and yet...

And yet...

She hoped Tom understood her meaning, even so.

And perhaps he did, a little.

A/N: Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.