Chapter 5

...

The Victoria Gates

Hyde Park

1886

...

Suddenly, Sybil was pulled back to reality by a man's voice that came from somewhere beside her.

"I take it that this was your first", he said with a thick accent, an accent that she couldn't quite place.

Without looking, Sybil could hear a smile in the tone of his voice and immediately felt her cheeks flush in defence.

Surely she hadn't looked so out of place that he could have so easily determined such a thing!

She whirled around quickly, preparing to adopt the no nonsense scowl of her grandmother and eldest sister.

However, instead of being on the receiving end of a smirk like she had expected, Sybil was met with the sight of a man about her own age, if not a few years her senior...a man with dark blonde hair and a kind but somewhat cheeky smile.

That and a pair of the brightest blue eyes that she had ever seen.


As soon as the words had left his mouth, it seemed as though the young man must have noticed how his comment had sounded to Sybil.

Awkwardly he scratched the back of his neck, not quite meeting her eye.

"I'm sorry", he amended genuinely." I didn't mean it like that."

Sybil felt a rush of heat in her neck and cheeks as she inadvertently looked him up and down, noticing for the first time just how handsome a man he was

...more handsome, in her opinion, than any gentleman had business being.

Again, she found herself—almost as a means of distraction from the way his eyes seemed to linger- unable to place his accent...only noting that it was a soft, lilting brogue; a sound that, even though she would never admit to it aloud, she would happily listen to all day.

The thought made her cheeks only redden further.

Slowly, Sybil felt her adopted scowl vanish and she gave him a kind and forgiving smile.

After all, she wasn't one to hold grudges and it was clear that the whole situation had simply been a misunderstanding.

"It's quite alright...", she managed to squeak, sounding and feeling almost comically unlike herself.

Gracelessly they stood opposite one another for a moment, both feeling as though they should start moving on with their day, but for some reason not wanting too...

He glanced up at her properly and Sybil felt her flush deepen under his penetrating blue gaze.

'For goodness sake', she thought, internally berating herself for her silly behaviour. 'You have seen handsome men before!

Sybil tried fixing him with a teasing smirk.

It was an action that she hoped would cover up her earlier embarrassing bashfulness.

(Never mind how she was still in the act of willing her cheeks to return to their natural colour.)

"...but even so I must ask, what gave me away?"

The man smiled, a smile that reached his eyes and caused her heart to pick up it's pace until she could feel it thumping hard against the thick material of her tightly laced corset.

Oh golly, what was happening to her!—This was real life not an Austen or Bronte novel!

"To be honest; I saw the look on your face when Ms Fawcett was talking, it reminded me of how I felt the first time I attended a protest back at home."

Despite the initial foreign and tingling sensations that were gushing around and wreaking havoc in the pit of her stomach, Sybil looked up at him, suddenly feeling intrigue alongside attraction.

Aside from Gwen, she had never spoken to another person who was interested in the same liberal politics as herself...evidently people like that didn't tend to frequent the Yorkshire homes of the British aristocracy or the ballrooms of their London residences.

But right now, she found herself standing opposite a man who attended both protests and suffragist rallies...that seemed rather like someone with whom she could happily spend time chatting with.

Suddenly, Sybil found herself all the more tempted to stay than she had before.

"Do you do this often?"

"What?", the young man laughed, giving her a hint of that cheeky grin she had noticed almost immediately about him.

His eyes flashed in amusement, clearly having bested his own initial awkwardness as well.

"You mean, do I usually go around making an arse of myself by accidentally insulting pretty lasses who I've never met before?...God I hope not."

Going by the slightly sheepish look on his face, it was clear that the compliment had unconsciously slipped out, but he didn't seem to regret it...on the contrary, he looked rather pleased with himself.

Sybil couldn't help the slight giggle that escaped her lips.

It wasn't that she hadn't heard such things from gentlemen before...but she never had heard it with such openness and sincerity.

His words made her toes curl in her shoes and caused her body to flood with warmth all over again.

"Well", she answered brightly, feeling rather bold. "You've met me now, haven't you? My name is Sybil Crawley."

For some reason she found herself omitting her title. There was something rather enticing about just being 'Sybil Crawley' rather than 'Lady Sybil' or the 'youngest daughter of the Earl of Grantham'...even if was in the eyes of only one person.

"Tom Branson", he replied, offering her a cock-sure smile that was, in equal parts, both flirty and playful.

She found herself liking it...liking it very much.

'What a strange way to be feeling, especially about a perfect stranger', Sybil thought, biting her lip as she caught herself, once again, taking in the sight of the man before her-this time slightly more unabashedly than she originally had.

Looking at Tom was rather like looking directly at the sun, the more she told herself not to do it, the more she found herself desperately wanting to.

Sybil wondered what her family would make of such an interaction, a young man and woman initiating a conversation, forgoing the customary formal introduction and without any chaperone present.

What a scandal!

She could almost hear her father's spluttered protests and see her grandmother's stern frown at the mere notion of an encounter like that.

But all of her doubts were silenced by Tom's next question, a question that she had never been asked before without it being paired closely with either a sigh of affectionate exasperation or a condescending smirk...Neither of which she received from the sincere-eyed young man standing mere feet in front of her.

"So you support women's rights?", Tom asked, apparently eager to make conversation.

She couldn't help but note how his eyes never seemed to leave her own and even though the were surrounded by people either on their way home from the rally or simply just out for a stroll in the afternoon sunlight, the atmosphere between the pair of them felt intimate, electric, compelling.

They may as well have been alone...

Sybil felt herself smiling, smiling freely under his attentive gaze...and found herself just as eager to continue talking to Tom.

"Yes, I suppose I do."


Tom felt lightheaded and dizzy, like he'd been repeatedly clobbered over the head.

...and it was all because of her.

As absolutely bizarre as it may sound (and believe you and me, he knew it sounded bizarre...), from the moment he had first accidentally met her, it had seemed as though Sybil Crawley had said one thing and he another...and suddenly, Tom had found himself wanting their conversation to go on forever.

He could only imagine his brother Kieran's merciless eye roll at such a hopelessly romantic notion, not to mention how his friend Seamus would tease him senseless if he were to so much as mumble a heartfelt confession about any woman (let alone a woman he barely knew) aloud.

Tom found himself increasingly and increasingly unwilling to look away from her, his gaze was constantly drawn back to...her face, her eyes, her smile, her lips...like a moth was always inextricably drawn back to a flame.

He found himself talking...more than he knew he ought to be (after all, his mother had often accused him of having twice as much a gift of the gab than was good for anyone) but Sybil didn't seem to mind, in fact she was just as much of a chatterbox as he was!

It was another thing he added to the rapidly growing list of thing that he liked about Sybil Crawley.

"So you're a politician!", she declared, evidently quite impressed. "That must be ever so exciting"

Tom felt a swell of pride at her words.

He had only just told her, when she asked what he did, about his recent election into The Irish Parliamentary Party and how he had made a name for himself at home in Ireland after getting involved in the farming community's protests against rent racking.

...and to his surprise not only was she impressed, but she seemed to agree with his views, despite how he had originally considered his beliefs to be so entwined with his upbringing in Ireland.

She was political, open minded and believed as strongly in fairness and justice as he did...and Tom felt totally, completely and utterly drunk on her.

Sybil seemed interested, sympathetic and eventually upset by the stories he told her of the poverty, the tragedy, the oppression and the pain of his homeland-stories that inevitably lead to her understanding his reasons to be here in London, here with the rest of the IPP to fight Ireland's corner in parliament.

She agreed with him! She understood!

It was a comradery he had never expected to feel with a young English woman.

After a while, Tom found herself smiling sheepishly at Sybil. "I'm sorry, love", he said, eventually realising how long he must have been talking for. "I promise that I don't mean to wear you out."

Sybil shook her head, still seeming as sincerely interested as she had earlier. "Don't be silly, Tom", she assured him, her cheeks a little pink —'perhaps, he thought, it was to do with him calling her love, but he couldn't be fully sure —. "There's nothing nicer than talking to someone who's passionate about their beliefs."

Tom tilted his head, looking down at her questioningly.

It struck him then how little he knew about her, and how much more he wanted to know.

"What about yourself then, your passions...", Tom asked, curious to know what brought her to Hyde Park today-this woman whom he felt so unexplainably drawn to, both intellectually and physically but barely knew. "How did your interest in politics come about?"

At this, he was rewarded with a discreet smile, a smile that set Sybil's blue eyes alight with mischief and, subsequently, made him feel rather hot under the collar

...God Lord, he knew that he could end up making a total fool of himself if only it meant he would see more of her smile.

A smile that was both challenging and endearing as it wreaked havoc in his mind and heart.

"I came upon a copy of Ms Wollstoncraft's Vindication of Rights for Women when I was fifteen...", Sybil told him with a grin, as though this were some illicit secret that few others were privy to."...and my poor Papa rues the day it opened my head to politics."

Tom chuckled, adding rebellious to the growing list of things he knew about Sybil Crawley.

Vaguely he wondered what her father would make of him, but set that thought quickly aside.

"So I assume he doesn't know you're here then?"

"You would assume right", Sybil replied, biting her lip as though selecting her next words carefully. She seemed hesitant to say what next came out of her mouth, and Tom found himself hanging on her words. "Papa does mean well but...I think he would explode at the idea of my being here."

"Here at a rally or here with an Irishman?", Tom asked the question lightheartedly and with a smile, but he knew she could see the seriousness hidden in his eyes.

"Both probably."

Her reply was honest. He may not know her very well yet but that much was apparent.

Sybil glanced up at him with a smile that reassured him, it told him that she was anything but sorry for how her day had turned out.

And slowly, Tom felt himself relax and return the sentiment until he too was grinning like an eejit.

Her family may not approve, but she seemed to like him as much as he liked her!

"I'll see you again, won't I?"

"I'll make sure of it."


Note on Irish Slang:

eejit: a more endearing and far less harsh way of saying 'idiot'. Meant usually in a lighthearted/teasing fashion.


A little bit of history:

In the wake of the Irish famine, many thousands of Irish peasant farmers and labourers either died or left the country. Those who remained waged a decades long campaign for better rights for tenant farmers and ultimately for land re-distribution.

This period, known as the "Land War" in Ireland, had a nationalist as well as a socialist element. The reason for this was that the land-owning class in Ireland, since the period of the 17th century Plantations of Ireland, had been composed of Protestant settlers, originally from England, who had a British identity. The Irish (Roman Catholic) population widely believed that the land had been unjustly taken from their ancestors and given to this Protestant Ascendancy during the English conquest of the country.

The Irish National Land League, was formed to defend the interests of tenant farmers, at first demanding the "Three Fs" – Fair rent, Free sale and Fixity of tenure. Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, such as Michael Davitt, were prominent among the leadership of this movement and organised protests and arranged the boycotting of Protestant Landlords. When they saw its potential for popular mobilisation, nationalist leaders such as Charles Stewart Parnell also became involved.

Rent Racking: Historically rack-rent has often been a term of protest used to denote an unjustly excessive rent (the word "rack" evoking the medieval torture device), usually one paid by a tenant farmer. In Ulster in the 1700s, "... landlords were able to 'auction off' leases to the highest bidders. That practice, known as 'rack renting', forced renters to bid more than they could afford to pay."


Author's Notes: I hope you guys enjoyed that! Let me know what you thought in the reviews. This chapter was a particularly hard one to write (and is my longest so far), so I really would love as much feedback as you guys have time to give. I would really really appreciate it :)

Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed so far, it means so much and is the best motivation!

Anyways, I hope you all have a really lovely weekend.

Thanks again,

Pearlydewdrop xx