"Well, you look like the cat that got the cream," Cyn said as Edith walked into her office the next morning.

"Do I?" As she spoke, Edith shrugged off her jacket and hung it off, trying to smooth out her smile. Anthony had walked her to the corner of the street, and kissed her cheek in farewell. "Have a wonderful day, darling," he'd said. She could still feel his mouth on her skin. Heavens, she hadn't realised how difficult it was going to be to concentrate, going into work the morning after a night spent with him.

"Yes, you do," insisted Cyn. "It's positively obscene. So spill. Now."

Edith tried an incredulous laugh. "I have no earthly idea what you mean."

Cynthia narrowed her eyes. "All right - keep your secrets, if you like."

Edith's face split into a wide, helpless grin, almost as if she could not hold it back any longer. "Cyn," she said seriously, leaning over the desk, "he's divine."

"What would you say," Edith asked Anthony that evening, "to dinner with my sub-editors, here, tomorrow night?"

Anthony looked up over his glasses, from where he was rummaging through the record collection. "I'd say… will they approve?"

Edith gave him an old-fashioned look, and came to kiss him. "Of course they will. I told Cynthia flat that you're perfect, and she can't wait to meet you." She drew back. "And Geoffrey adores Cyn - he'll follow her lead."

When Anthony did not reply, she chewed her lip. "Or… is it too soon?" Easy enough to be sincere and open in his love when it was just they two together, but perhaps Anthony would not wish to be so open in the company of others, especially when they were not married, nor even engaged. That frown was back on his face - the anxious crease between his brows that was so familiar to her, that meant he was worrying over her.

Still: "No. Not too soon for me." His hand settled on her hip, stroking through her dress. "Do they know... about what happened at Locksley?"

Edith twined her arms around his neck, melting anew that he could be at once so confident and so shy. "Darling, honestly, these days, hardly anyone cares. Besides, Cynthia's divorced - she's got no room to talk."

"Perhaps." He kissed her forehead. "I… just don't want anyone to… think any less of you."

Edith stroked his hair. "I've made my choice - and I've chosen you. No one else matters."

When Edith answered the door to Anthony the next evening, she still had an apron tied around her waist and her hair in a scarf. Lovelier than ever. "Oh good," she smiled, kissing his cheek, "you can stir the gravy for me while I do my hair."

He quirked an eyebrow. "All right." As she sashayed towards the bedroom, he called after her, "On the strict understanding that I'm an amateur and can't be trusted in the slightest…!"

Fortunately, when Edith returned to the kitchen some fifteen minutes later, hair released from its pin curls and swept up into a passable set of victory rolls, Anthony had not spilt so much of a drop of gravy, or set the kitchen on fire. She sighed happily and hugged him from behind. "Thank you," Edith murmured against his back.

Anthony twisted his head over his shoulder and frowned down at what he could see of her. "Whatever for?"

"Oh, for… humouring me. I know you don't particularly like entertaining, but - "

The ringing of the doorbell interrupted her. Anthony shuffled out of her hold, kissed her forehead quickly and twitched his bow-tie straight. "I'll get that, shall I?"

A moment later, and Edith heard the sounds of people being admitted into the hallway, the rustling of fabric as coats were removed and hung up, and Anthony greeting their guests:

"Good evening - Miss Gilchrist and Mr Tremaine?"

Edith strained her ears for the reply as she reached for the oven gloves. "Oh, call us Cynthia and Geoffrey, please." Classic Cyn, so jolly and informal.

"Then I must be Anthony. Do come through - can I offer you a drink?"

"Rather!" Geoffrey, that time. 'Never look a gift glass in the mouth', that's your motto, isn't it?

"Jolly good. Edith's just about to serve dinner, she'll be through in a moment." It all sounded so domestic.

Thoroughly lovely! Edith, taking the pork out of the oven, beamed.

Dinner was very convivial. The fact that none of the diners had seen roast pork in almost two years made up for any deficiencies in Edith's culinary skills, and Anthony kept everyone's glasses generously topped up with red wine he'd brought up with him from Locksley. Edith and Cynthia were discussing the front cover of the next edition of the magazine; Anthony and Geoffrey, like all old soldiers, had fallen into the bad habit of comparing notes - and then: "Picked up a load of shrapnel at Dunkirk," Geoffrey said, slapping his leg. "You?"

Dead silence for a moment - Cynthia and Edith stared, frozen, at each other - and then Anthony said, in quite normal tones, "Oh, slight disagreement with a Boche officer at Amiens in '18. He suggested I might like to go and meet my Maker and, ah, I wasn't terribly keen. As you might imagine."

Edith found his hand under the table and squeezed. Are you alright?

Anthony squeezed back, caught her eye, and gave the briefest of nods. Cynthia, across the table, caught the look and inwardly raised her eyebrows.

Brightly, Edith looked around at the cleared plates. "Right! Can we manage pudding, do you think? It's a sort of baked blackberry pie thing and cream. Well, mock cream, but one can't have everything."

As she and Geoffrey collected their coats at the end of the evening, Cyn kissed Edith's cheek. "Thank you for a lovely evening, darling." And then, quieter, in Edith's ear, "You were absolutely right. Utterly divine."

Anthony kissed her shoulder as they shut the door. "Well, that was a lovely evening."

"I'm glad you thought so. Cynthia and Geoffrey… are very dear friends." She laced their fingers together. It had been something of a relief, this evening - seeing how naturally Anthony slotted into her life as it stood just now, as if he had always been there. It made her more certain than ever that they were doing the right thing, taking up with other again.

Anthony seemed to be mulling something else over, however. At length, he offered: "I… didn't realise Geoffrey had been wounded, too."

"Well, it hasn't held him back." In a softer, slightly apologetic voice, Edith admitted, "He's got no tact whatsoever. Are you…?"

"Fine, honestly." To her surprise, he was smiling - crookedly, faintly, but still smiling. "That's… the first time that… that anyone's been so casual about asking that question, you know. No 'poor old thing, whatever happened?' It was… rather fine."

"You're going to miss your train if you don't get your skates on," Edith commented as Anthony wandered, mostly dressed, into the kitchen. In fairness, he was much further forward with the process than she was - sitting at the table in her nightie and half-open dressing gown as she was.

Anthony was frowning, and looking about him as he did so, and at her words he hmmed in absent-minded agreement. "Yes… haven't seen a cufflink about, have you? I've misplaced one." At Edith's shake of the head, he grimaced. "Damn. Stewart'll have my hide."

"It'll turn up," she consoled him. "I'll keep an eye out - can't have gone far. Have you time for another cup of tea, before you go, do you think?"

He shook his head. "I wish I did, but you're right - I ought to be going."

Edith rose and tied his tie for him, before reeling him in for a kiss. "And you haven't reconsidered the whole 'living in delicious sin' idea?"

"Afraid not. Don't suppose you've reconsidered the whole 'respectable wedded bliss' idea?"

She smiled against his cheek. "Afraid not. Telephone when you get home? I'll be at the office. And I'll have to come up to Locksley to put the finishing touches on the article in the next week or so, so I could make a weekend of it, if you liked?"

"Lady Edith," he tutted in mock reproof, "whatever are you suggesting?"

"Are you sure you want to go out for dinner?" Edith asked Marigold. "I know it's my birthday, but you're looking so tired, my sweet one…"

Marigold looked as if she'd barely slept in the last month, in fact - there wasn't enough powder in the world to cover up those sorts of dark circles, certainly not in wartime, anyway. And when she smiled, it was a fragile, shaky thing - mock, like everything else in this bloody war. Still, she shook her shoulders straight at her mother's offer and made an effort to look more cheerful. "Absolutely sure. I'm fine. It's just doing all those long shifts indoors, that's all."

"Well, now you've got a week's leave, you can get some proper rest." Edith kissed the top of her head, just as the telephone started to ring. "Oh, drat. That'll be Geoffrey - he said he'd telephone to confirm the proofs were ready for the printer. I shan't be two ticks." As she turned for the office, Edith asked, over her shoulder, "Can you fetch my jacket? It's on the bed, darling."

"Of course."

Her mother's bedroom was such a comforting place, Marigold had always found. Even now, when the rest of the world seemed to be going to hell by the most direct route, the neatness of Edith Crawley's boudoir was a constant. The bed with the neatly turned down quilt, the dressing table with its carefully curated collection of scent bottles and pots of face-cream, the single book on the bedside table… everything was just as she remembered from her childhood. Marigold smiled, and there was a shadow more of warmth in it than there had been earlier.

As she picked up the jacket, her foot knocked against something small, that made a metallic ringing sound against her heel. Bending, she picked up the item before she had properly realised what it was: a man's cufflink.

Even more unfortunately, it was a man's cufflink that she recognised.

The last time she and James had had dinner together, before everything had exploded so spectacularly, she'd gone to meet him at Strallan House, and his uncle had been there. They'd shaken hands, exchanged small talk - and he'd been wearing those cufflinks, with the family crest on them.

Marigold's stomach lurched sickly and the smile vanished. Oh. So that was what Mother was doing. Inviting men back to the flat to -

"Marigold, darling?" Mother called from the hallway. "Are you coming?"

She swallowed. "Y-yes, Mother. S-sorry." She paused for a moment longer, staring down at the little bit of metal - and then shoved it firmly into her pocket.

"There's an Assistant Section Officer Crawley on the telephone for you, sir."

Jim rose a little unsteadily from his chair by the window, feeling his father's eyes burn uncomfortably into the back of his neck as he did so. "Thank you, Jane," he smiled at the housemaid - the last remaining one of the bunch. "Did she - say why she was telephoning?"

"No, sir."

His father chuckled. "See, old chap? Told you she'd come around eventually. Let this be a lesson to you about being a bloody idiot, hmm?"

James shook his head. "Somehow, I don't think that's what's going on here…"

In the study, he picked up the telephone, taking a deep, apprehensive breath as he did so. "Marigold! To what do I owe the - ?"

"This isn't a social call," she interrupted coldly. "I'm only telephoning to tell you to tell your uncle to stay away from my mother."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard perfectly well." She took a shuddering intake of breath. "I don't want him sniffing around her. He's already broken her heart once and I won't let him do it again. So pretend you're a decent person for five minutes and warn him off."

"Marigold - "

"I don't appreciate being spoken to so informally. Not by you, in any case." She paused. "Well? Can I rely on you to fix this?"

Jim reached up and brushed one bandaged hand through his hair. "I'm… not entirely sure that I want to." At least one of us is happy. And it's taken them so long… "He is my uncle, after all - I've no right to be telling him how to behave. He wouldn't like it. And besides, if they're happy, if they lo- "

"If you don't," Marigold threatened, "then I will. And he'll like that even less, I promise."

He shrugged. "Well, you must do as you wish. But I shan't be assisting you. I'm sorry, but there it is."

"Damn you, James Chetwood," she cursed. "Damn you."