There's a minor injury in this chapter. There's no blood involved, but if you're squeamish, you might want to peek through your fingers. And I'm not a medical professional, so if it happens to someone you know, please don't rely on the instructions in this chapter to fix it!

The third time Mary saw Tom naked – well, partially naked – they'd known each other for over a decade, and he'd become one of the most important people in her life.

They'd had a busy week in the office and when Saturday rolled around, it was nice to relax and enjoy the improvement in the weather.

As a treat for the children, they'd decided to picnic outside in the grounds that afternoon, with Mrs Patmore preparing a most delicious selection of sandwiches, a pork pie and several sweet treats. Sybbie and George were in their element, loving the opportunity to spend time playing with their respective parents outside in the garden. Tom had his jacket off, Mary had her shoes off, both of them running around and chasing the children, and it was during one of these little bouts of rough-housing that the incident happened.

Tom was chasing the children claiming to be a tickle monster while Mary laughingly cut off their escape. He pounced on Sybbie, scooping her up into his arms, trying to tickle her as she shrieked with delight.

George charged at Tom, barrelling into the back of his thighs, catching him unawares, and Tom fell backwards, still holding Sybbie. He contorted in mid-air, thrusting his daughter out to prevent her from hurting herself as they fell. But while Sybbie landed like a cat, Tom did not, instead thumping to the ground in an awkward, twisted heap of limbs. He groaned in pain and when Mary came running towards him, she could see that something was badly wrong.

She dropped to her knees beside him, frantically looking him over. 'Tom? Tom!' she cried in concern, reaching out to touch him.

Tom shook his head, flinching away from her then groaning again, his face sheet white.

'Daddy?' Sybbie said uncertainly, coming to stand beside her father, her eyes wide and worried. 'Are you all right?'

'F-fine, darlin',' Tom gritted out, then moaned deep and low, sounding like a cow in labour.

'You are not fine,' Mary scolded, her hands hovering above him. 'Where does it hurt? Tell me.'

'My… my shoulder,' he managed to say.

George edged closer to Mary, eyeing his uncle nervously. 'Mummy? Is… is Uncle Tom dying?'

'Dying?' Sybbie cried, tears trembling on her eyelashes as she shot forward and grabbed hold of Tom's arm, shaking him. 'Daddy, you're not dying, are you?'

Tom bellowed again as the movement ground his injured shoulder into the grass below him. The noise level instantly increased as Sybbie started screaming and George began to cry.

'Nobody's dying,' Mary said firmly, raising her voice above the hubbub. 'Nobody is dying! Sybbie! SYBBIE! Listen to me, Daddy is not dying!'

She took hold of her niece by the arms and gave her a little shake to get her to look at her. 'He's not dying, but he needs our help, all right?'

Sybbie stopped screaming and took a deep, juddering breath, blinking her tears away. 'What can I do, Aunt Mary? How can I help him?' she asked, bravely.

'I need you to run and find Barrow. Tell him Daddy is hurt and we need his help then bring him back here. Can you do that?'

Sybbie nodded.

'Good girl. Then go! Run!'

Sybbie took off, running like the wind, already shouting for Thomas.

Mary turned her attention back to Tom as George hovered nervously nearby.

'Right, let's try and get you sitting up,' she said, gently laying her hand on his right shoulder, which didn't appear to be giving him any trouble. 'Can you try moving onto your back?'

Tom gritted his teeth and rolled slowly onto his back, still clutching his left shoulder.

'Good, that's good,' Mary said encouragingly, inwardly fretting about the grey colour of his face. 'Now, is it just your shoulder that hurts or do you have pain elsewhere too?'

Tom closed his eyes and took stock of his injuries. 'I think it's just my shoulder.'

'Right, well, that's good, that's good. At least we've got an idea of what we're dealing with,' Mary said, rising to her feet to move and kneel behind him. 'I'm going to help you sit up but tell me if I'm hurting you.'

Tom nodded and gritted his teeth again as, between them, they managed to get him into a sitting position.

'There, that wasn't so bad, was it?' she said soothingly, even as she saw that quite clearly something was very wrong with his left shoulder. It looked strange, sort of square instead of rounded.

She shuffled up closer behind him, reaching around him to unknot his tie.

'What are you doing?' Tom asked in surprise, looking down at her fingers.

'I'm going to take your tie and waistcoat off. Barrow might need to examine you and it might help if you're not wearing so many layers.'

Tom turned his head to shoot a glance at her over his uninjured shoulder, but he didn't say anything, and he didn't try to stop her, so Mary continued to pull his tie off and then shuffled around in front of him to undo each button of his waistcoat until it hung open.

'Right, good shoulder first,' she said encouragingly, pulling on the waistcoat and helping him manoeuvre his good arm out of the armhole. 'Perfect. Now, I can just slide the rest of it down your bad arm without you having to move too much.'

Mary gently tugged the waistcoat down the dead weight of his left arm, smiling at him when she succeeded in removing it completely.

'There. Well done,' she said, looking up at him.

He looked back at her, his eyes clouded with pain but there was something else in there too, something indecipherable.

Beside them, George spied Thomas and Sybbie running across the lawn, the underbutler carrying a first aid kit.

'Barrow! Barrow! I broke Uncle Tom!' he shouted as he set off running to meet them.

'The cavalry's here,' Mary murmured to Tom, giving him another smile and shifting to one side to make room for Barrow.

'God help me when Thomas Barrow is the cavalry,' he muttered back, giving her a small smile too, even if his was more pain-filled.

Barrow arrived with the two children in tow and sank to his knees in front of Tom, setting the first aid kit down beside him.

'Right, then, Mr Branson, what is it you've gone and done to yourself?' he said, the wartime medic reappearing before them.

'It's his shoulder,' Mary said, helpfully. 'His left shoulder.'

'I fell on it,' Tom added.

'Right, well, let me take a look at it. Do you mind if I take your shirt off, sir?'

Tom shot a glance at Mary and then looked back at Thomas. 'Um, is that entirely necessary? It's just that, well, I don't have an undershirt on today. It was too warm this morning.'

'It would help me to assess the damage. I think I know what's wrong with it, but I'd like to see it properly just to be sure,' Barrow said, with a shrug. 'I'm sure Lady Mary could close her eyes if you're shy, but unless you're hiding a third nipple under there, I'm sure you haven't got anything she hasn't seen before.'

'What's a nipple?' George asked, curiously.

'Oh, don't be silly, Tom. Let Barrow take your shirt off,' Mary said, absolutely determined not to close her eyes like some blushing virgin.

Tom sent her another look then sighed. 'All right.'

George tugged on Mary's sleeve. 'What's a nipple, Mummy?'

'It's nothing, George.'

'But it must be because Barrow said it,' George persisted.

Mary looked at the underbutler in annoyance.

Thomas glanced at her as he set to work, his professional valet's fingers making quick work of the buttons on Tom's shirt.

'You'll see in a minute, Master George,' he said, calmly.

He eased the first sleeve off Tom's uninjured shoulder, much as Mary had done with his waistcoat, then worked slowly and gently around his other shoulder until Tom was sitting there naked from the waist up.

Now, all talk and thoughts of nipples faded as it became very obvious that Tom's shoulder was out of place. The children stared wide-eyed at the lump under Tom's skin in front of his shoulder, with Sybbie stretching out a hand to touch it.

'No, Miss Sybbie, don't touch him; you might hurt him,' Thomas said, gently but firmly pushing the child's hand away.

Sybbie snatched her hand back and tucked it behind her, still staring at her father. 'Daddy, your shoulder looks all funny.'

'Does it, poppet? Because it certainly doesn't feel very funny,' Tom said, gritting his teeth again even as he made his weak joke.

'You've dislocated your shoulder, Mr Branson. I'm going to have to pop it back in. It's going to hurt while I do that, but once it's back in, the pain will lessen,' Thomas said, pulling Tom's attention back to him.

Tom nodded. 'Just do it.'

'Lady Mary, you might want to hold the children's hands,' Thomas said, looking over at Mary.

She nodded, gesturing for George and Sybbie to come to her. 'Come here, children.'

They ran to her, and she cupped their heads, turning their faces into her shoulders.

'Right, are you ready?' Thomas asked, turning back to Tom.

'Yes. Do it,' Tom said, gritting his teeth again.

Thomas took hold of his injured arm, tucking the upper arm close to his torso and holding his forearm straight out in front of him.

'Tell me when you feel resistance,' he said to Tom, then pushed gently against his upper arm rotating it and pushing the forearm outwards.

'Ahhhh, now,' Tom hissed, his face creased in pain.

'Right. Now keep your upper body as still as you can,' Thomas said, concentrating on what he was doing as he moved the upper arm forward.

Finally, he pulled his patient's forearm forward, Tom grunting in pain. Mary watched in fascination as Thomas rotated the bone until the lump under Tom's skin disappeared as the ball joint of his shoulder popped back into place.

'There. That's back in. It should start to hurt less now. It will ache for a while, so I'll get you some pain powders to help with that and a salve to rub into the muscles around it. You'll have to wear a sling for a few weeks too,' Thomas said, running his fingers over the skin around Tom's shoulder, palpating the muscles gently.

'Thank you, Thomas,' Tom said gratefully, blowing out a relieved breath. 'That feels so much better.'

'No more rough-housing for a while with these two young hooligans,' Thomas said, grinning at the children as they peeked out from Mary's shoulders. 'If you two need a piggyback, you come and find me instead, all right?'

George nodded solemnly.

'Thank you for saving my daddy, Thomas,' Sybbie said, rushing towards the underbutler and flinging her arms around his neck.

Thomas looked taken aback for a moment then slid his arms around the little girl, hugging her back. 'You are very welcome, Miss Sybbie, although I think saving him might be over-egging the pudding a bit.'

She pulled back and plopped a kiss on his cheek before letting go of him and turning to hug Tom, who awkwardly wrapped his right arm around her.

'I'm so glad you didn't die, Daddy!'

'So am I,' Tom said, brushing a kiss on her brow.

'Oh, he wasn't in any danger of dying, Miss Sybbie. He was just in a lot of pain,' Thomas said, anxious to reassure the child.

'That's what I said,' Mary observed, 'but nobody listens to me.'

'Mr Carson will have a heart attack if you go back into the Abbey half-dressed, sir, and I think we could all do without any more medical dramas today, don't you? Why don't you children come over here and help me look through the first aid kit for a bandage while we leave your daddy to put his shirt back on,' Thomas said, pushing to his feet and moving some yards away. The children followed him like he was the Pied Piper, leaving Mary alone with Tom.

She turned her eyes on him, appreciatively taking note of the broad planes of his chest, maybe not as defined as it had been when she'd first seen it just over a decade ago, but still muscular enough. The fuzz of hair on his chest looked darker, but then he wasn't standing in sun-dappled, sparkling water today. And that trail of hair down the centre of his torso she remembered so well was surprisingly enticing as it arrowed down beneath the waistband of his trousers.

She blinked as her mind suddenly filled with thoughts of pushing him back down onto the grass and running her hands all over his chest and perhaps exploring where that trail went. She swallowed hard, pushing those images away, and dragged her eyes up to meet his, hoping her lustful thoughts weren't reflected on her face.

'Do you need some help?' she asked, pleased to note her voice was steady.

Tom flexed his left shoulder, moving it cautiously. 'I think I'm all right,' he said, picking up his shirt and threading his left arm carefully into the sleeve.

'I'm so sorry about George knocking you over.'

'Oh, no, no, it was an accident, it wasn't his fault,' Tom said, shrugging his good shoulder into his shirt.

Mary found her eyes drawn back to his torso, watching as he buttoned the shirt from the bottom up and feeling strangely sad and disappointed when his chest and its dusting of hair disappeared beneath white cotton.

He looked up at her as he tucked the tails into his trousers. 'I hope that wasn't too uncouth of me to be so inappropriately attired in your presence.'

She smiled. 'Oh, don't worry about it, Tom. I think even Granny would have agreed this was one occasion where the rules of etiquette needed to be bent. And I will admit that I quite enjoyed the view.'

Tom lifted his eyes to meet hers in surprise, a blush suffusing his cheeks. 'Did you?'

'Yes, I did. You have a very nice physique. Very pleasing to the eye,' Mary said steadily, feeling quite bold saying such a thing to him, but something inside her driving her to do so.

She held out his waistcoat then sat there watching him put it on and button it, thinking how long it had been since she'd watched a man either dress or undress. As she watched Tom's fingers working, she felt a strange longing in the pit of her stomach.

Tom didn't bother with his tie pushing it into his pocket and leaving the top few buttons of his shirt open.

Mary found herself gazing at that small patch of skin, usually hidden from her view, and felt her mouth go slightly dry. Unnerved, she looked up to meet Tom's eyes again. He gazed back at her saying nothing.

'Are you all right?' she asked, softly. 'I hate to see you in pain like that.'

He nodded. 'I'm all right. A bit sore maybe, but I'll be fine.'

'You need to look after that shoulder. I need you fighting fit.'

'Do you?' he said, his voice low.

Mary felt something tugging deep inside her, something she couldn't completely identify, a feeling not entirely unfamiliar but new when it came to Tom.

'Yes. I do.'

'Then I'll be sure to look after it however Thomas tells me,' he said, keeping his eyes on her.

'Be sure you do,' she murmured, holding his gaze and not doing anything to break this odd connection that had suddenly sparked into life between them.

'Right, this should do for a sling for the time being,' Thomas said, bustling in between them, making quick work of fashioning a sling from the bandage in the first aid kit and putting Tom's left arm in it. 'We've got a proper one back at the house, so I'll dig that out for you. You'll have to wear it for a few weeks. And you might want to go and see Dr Clarkson, so he can check whether there's any interior damage to your shoulder.'

'Yes, Sergeant Barrow,' Tom said dutifully, keeping his face straight.

Thomas narrowed his eyes at him then decided to let it slide.

'Daddy, shall we go and tell Donk and Granny what's happened?' Sybbie said, coming up beside her father and taking hold of his good hand. 'I'm sure they'd like to know. We can show them your sling.'

'Why not, poppet? I think we should probably go inside now anyway,' Tom said, smiling down at her. 'You lead the way.'

Sybbie set off, keeping firm hold of his hand, reluctant to let him go.

'Uncle Tom, if we put a patch over your eye and we make a hook for your bad hand, you could look like a pirate,' George observed, merrily bouncing along beside them and attempting an impression of a pirate. 'Oooo, arrrrrrrr!'

Mary looked over at Thomas, who was beginning to pack up their picnic things. 'Thank you for coming to our aid, Barrow.'

'That's all right, milady. Miss Sybbie was so upset. I'd not leave her in a state like that.'

'Was it entirely necessary to remove Mr Branson's shirt?' she asked, thinking how inappropriate it would have been had she been the one to dislocate her shoulder.

Thomas looked over at her with a small smirk playing around his lips. 'Well, it may not have been strictly necessary, but sometimes there's no reason why a good deed can't have its perks.'

Mary stared at him with her mouth open then let out a small, surprised laugh. 'Barrow! You are shameless!'

'Maybe we could keep that just between you and me, milady. Our little secret. After all, what Mr Branson doesn't know can't hurt him.'

Mary saw Tom's bare chest again in her mind's eye and knew it was an image she would return to again and again, perhaps when she was in her big, lonely bed at night.

'Very well,' she said, primly, 'I shan't tell Mr Branson, but only because you did him such a good turn. But don't go making a habit of it.'

'Chance would be a fine thing,' Thomas muttered under his breath as he followed Lady Mary back to the house.