Downton, Summer 1924

The fourth time Mary saw Tom completely naked was the first time he knew she'd seen him.

Over the last few years, Tom had taken to using the house assigned to the agent – empty since Jarvis quit the role in 1920 and Tom took over – as an alternative base when he was on the other side of the estate. Mary had become used to looking for him there when he wasn't at the office.

Today, she knew he'd had an appointment with Mr Drewe to discuss the pigs. It was a duty that would have fallen to her had she not been otherwise engaged in Ripon. On her return, she spied Tom's car outside the agent's house through the trees on her way to the office and asked Stark to drop her there instead.

Once inside, however, Tom was nowhere to be seen.

'Tom?' Mary called, sticking her head in the kitchen. Nothing. No sign of him except for his hat on the table.

'Tom?' she tried again, looking in the parlour and then in the study and finally in the dining room, all with the same result.

She walked to the bottom of the stairs and peered up them, opening her mouth to call his name again, then gasped loudly as a very naked Tom strolled across the landing in carefree fashion, vigorously towelling his hair dry.

He snatched the towel off his head at the sound of her gasp, glanced down the stairs, then started and flushed scarlet – not just his face, Mary noted with great interest – as he realised he had a visitor and who that visitor was.

Mary stared up at him, unable to drag her eyes away, the light from the window on the landing giving her rather a good view of his impressive manhood, swinging free in the breeze.

'Mary!' Tom yelped, frantically wrapping the rather small towel around his waist, desperately trying to cover his privates. 'What are you doing here?'

'Looking for you. Although I confess, I didn't expect to see quite so much of you,' she replied, still staring quite brazenly up at him. 'Why on earth are you naked?'

Her expression changed as a truly horrible thought occurred to her. 'Oh, God, have you got a woman up there?'

'What?! No!'

'Oh, Lord, you have, haven't you? Oh, Tom, I'm… I'm so sorry!' Mary rambled, feeling completely gut-punched at the thought that there might also be a naked woman upstairs and she had inadvertently stumbled into Tom's afternoon of passion with his secret lover.

'There's no woman up here, Mary!' he squawked, the red flush on his chest and face intensifying.

She stared up at him, relieved but confused. 'Then why are you naked?'

'Because… because… look, can we perhaps talk about this when I'm not naked?' he gabbled, crossing his arms protectively over his chest like an Egyptian mummy and then hastily grabbing for the towel again as it began to slip from his hips.

'Oh, yes, yes, of course. You go and…' Mary wafted her hand at him, '…and I'll go and put the kettle on, shall I?'

'Yes, you do that,' Tom muttered, disappearing in a blur of flushed skin and white cotton towel.

He reappeared downstairs ten minutes later fully dressed and buttoned up, his damp hair swept back from his face. He busied himself fussing with the teacups Mary had pulled out of the cupboard, studiously avoiding looking at her.

'Are you just never going to look at me again?' Mary asked in amusement. 'Because I don't think that's a sustainable course of action.'

'I'm a touch embarrassed, Mary!'

'Well, there's absolutely no need to be. It's not like I've never seen a naked man before. And you have nothing to be ashamed of from what I saw. Nothing at all. In fact, now I know why Sybil was so happy and smiley all the time,' she said with a teasing grin.

Tom shot her a shocked look, blushing rather fetchingly. 'What are you doing here? I thought you were in Ripon this afternoon.'

'I was but I spotted your car on the way back and decided to ask Stark to drop me here.'

'You might have knocked,' he said, embarrassment making him tetchy.

'I never knock,' Mary replied, blithely. 'Mind you, I'm usually with you when I'm here, so I suppose there's never been any need before. Besides, would you have even heard me if I had knocked?'

'Maybe, maybe not, but at least I might have been forewarned that I had a visitor.'

Mary pressed her lips together then glanced up at him from under her lashes. 'Do you always wander about this place naked when I'm not here?'

'No, of course, I don't!' he said, indignantly. 'I'd had a bath.'

'Why on earth did you have a bath in the middle of the day?' Mary asked, curiously.

'Because some of the pigs escaped at Yew Tree Farm and Mr Drewe and I spent a great deal of time wrangling them back into the pen. It was quite a muddy old business. I was caked from head to foot, so it seemed like a good idea to come here and clean myself up.'

'Ah, the pigs. Tricky little blighters sometimes, aren't they?' she said, nodding her head sagely. 'Well, I suppose that makes sense. No point squelching all the way back to the Abbey when this place is so much closer.'

'That's precisely what I thought,' Tom said, picking up the teapot and pouring an experimental splash into her cup to see if the tea had brewed.

'Although I would have thought it would have been sensible to take your clothes into the bathroom with you,' Mary observed, pulling her cup of tea towards her when he'd filled it up and pouring a splash of milk in it. 'It seems quite avant-garde to be walking through the house without a stitch on.'

'Well, I didn't expect to have an audience, did I?' he responded, a bit of heat to his words.

'How did it feel?' Mary asked, curiously.

Tom frowned at her. 'How did what feel?'

'Walking around naked like that.'

'Um, well, it's quite… freeing, I suppose,' he said, actually giving some thought to her question. 'Up at the Abbey, the only space I have that is completely my own is my bedroom, whereas here, I don't have to think about other people.'

'No, I suppose not,' Mary said, thoughtfully.

'Well, not usually anyway. I don't usually take my clothes off or have a bath when anyone else is here.'

'No, I suppose you don't,' Mary said, sipping her tea and looking at him over the rim of her cup. 'You know, sometimes I feel like even my bedroom isn't a private space, not really.'

Tom cocked his head looking back at her. 'Because you have Anna in there so much, do you mean?'

'Yes. Don't get me wrong, Anna is a treasure, but if I wanted to walk around my room naked, I'd have a limited window in which to do so.' Mary tilted her head, looking wistful. 'It sounds rather delicious to be able to walk around naked whenever you want to.'

Tom chuckled. 'Well, you can always come here and walk around naked should the urge take you.'

Mary stared at him, her heart beginning to race, and he flushed, coughing slightly to cover his embarrassment at the way that sounded.

'Er, I mean, when I'm not here, obviously. Obviously, that's what I mean. I didn't mean I would be here watching you… or… um, anything.' Tom trailed off, mortified at the way that had all come out.

They sat staring at each other in silence for a moment, Mary thinking about walking around the agent's house naked with him watching her, Tom trying not to think about her walking around the agent's house naked.

Eventually, Tom shifted his eyes to his teacup and raised it to take a swallow of tea.

'Um, did you really think I had a woman here?'

'The thought crossed my mind, yes' Mary replied, recalling the sick feeling in the pit in her stomach she'd had when she'd thought perhaps he wasn't alone.

'Who did you think it was?' Tom asked, curiously.

'I don't know,' Mary said, honestly. 'Would you tell me if you had a paramour?'

Tom hesitated. 'I… well, I hadn't really thought about it because it's never been an issue.'

Mary gazed at him, strange feelings fluttering around inside her.

'Don't you think it's interesting?' she said, her voice low.

'What?'

'That my first thought when I saw you were naked was that you must be having sex with someone.'

Tom swallowed, catching his lower lip between his teeth. 'I wasn't.'

'No.'

Silence reigned for a minute or so.

'Have you?' Mary asked, her heart in her mouth. 'Since Sybil.'

Tom stared at her, the tension in the air ratcheting up. 'Once,' he said eventually.

Mary nodded her head, even as jealousy twisted inside her. 'Who was she?'

'It doesn't matter. It was a mistake. I was drunk and she… it meant nothing.'

Mary nodded again. 'Do you miss it? Sex, I mean, not her, not your mystery woman.'

Tom hesitated, knowing they were in dangerous territory. 'Yes.'

'So do I,' she said, quietly.

They stared at each other in silence, each powerfully aware of the other.

'Have you?' Tom asked finally, his gaze intense. 'Since Matthew.'

Mary shook her head, her eyes locked on his. 'No.'

Tom said nothing, gazing back at her.

'But I'd like to. I'm ready to,' she said, her voice no more than an intimate whisper. 'With the right man. With someone I trust.'

'And have you found him? This trustworthy man?' Tom asked, his voice also barely more than a murmur.

'I don't know. Maybe,' Mary replied, her blood thrumming through her veins, desire pooling in her stomach as she held Tom's gaze.

The shrill blare of Tom's telephone wrenched them unceremoniously out of the charged moment, making them both jump.

Tom rose and went to the study to answer it. Mary listened to his voice talking to whoever was on the other end of the telephone and took a moment to compose herself, shocked by the intensity of the moment they'd shared and the depth of desire she'd felt.

Tom reappeared in the kitchen doorway. 'That was Robert. Apparently, there's some drama with Cora and the Dowager and he needs you to come and help him referee the situation.'

Mary huffed out a small, disbelieving laugh. 'Me? Honestly, I think he's been hitting the bottle too much if he thinks I'll be any help as a referee. He's better off asking you. You've had far more practice.'

'Well, I suppose we'd better go,' Tom said, clearing the cups off the table and putting them in the sink.

'Yes, I suppose we should,' Mary said, eyeing him thoughtfully.

Tom turned to her and hesitated before speaking. 'You won't tell anyone you saw me naked, will you?'

Mary smiled. 'No, I won't. I shall keep that image to myself.'

'Thank you. I wouldn't want anyone to think I'm taking advantage of having this house or that I'm behaving louchely.'

'Louchely?' Mary repeated, cocking an eyebrow.

'Er, yes,' he said, his cheeks pinking up.

Mary shrugged, trying not to think back to him naked on the landing. 'Well, I'd behave as louchely as I pleased if I were you, Tom. It's rightfully your house, so if you want to walk around it naked, you have every right to do so.'

'It's yours, too,' Tom said, looking directly at her. 'It's the agent's house, and you're the joint agent. So, you have as much right as I do to walk around it naked.'

Mary stared at him, butterflies fluttering around in her stomach. 'I suppose I do.'

'I'm just saying. Putting it out there,' he said, his voice dipping low. 'Should you want to.'

Mary nodded, slowly. 'Maybe I will one of these days. Just to see how it feels.'

They stared at each other, again surrounded by a charged silence. Once more, Tom was the one to break it.

'Right, well. I suppose we'd better go. Before the two Lady Granthams have each other's eyes out,' he said, picking up his hat.

Mary rose to lead the way out of the kitchen, feeling that something had shifted between her and Tom this afternoon, something that had perhaps been inching its way into being for some time now.