Author's Notes: Hi all! I went through my past story file and found this. It's not completed, but there are well-over 100 pages of it, so I decided that before I went back to the Cantata series. I thought I would finish this one. I've always found the idea that Edith is secretly Lady Rosamund's bastard child interesting, so this is my take on it.
General Warnings: Because this story is set during the early part of the 20th century, be prepared to occasionally run into period typical ableism, racism, sexism, lack of good mental health care or the concept thereof, common childcare concepts we find appalling, classism, and victim blaming. Not to mention different concepts of things like consent. I will try and post specific warnings per chapter!
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and plot in this work belongs to the BBC, Julian Fellows, the wonderful actors, and actresses who brought Downton Abbey to life, and a number of other people. This work is produced for entertainment only and no profit is made.
Specific Warnings: Original Child Characters & Crawley Family Dynamics.
SPECIAL THANKS go to the Classicist, who has built a wonderful fanon family for Anthony. Diana, her husband and children, as well as Anthony's parents belong entirely to her.
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"You're sure you'll be alright alone?"
"Blessedly," Mary's assurance was delivered sharply, but her expression softened as she spoke to her sister in the early hours of the morning, "don't worry about me. Everything shall be handled at the clinic, and then I'll go home and face Mama and Papa."
"I don't envy you that." Edith allowed, pulling a face.
"I don't envy you repeated days of long train rides with your other little sister."
"I don't envy you explaining to Sybil why we didn't take her with us."
"You've… you have a point."
"How nice to actually win one against you!"
"Well, enjoy it," Mary sniffed archly, "one is all you get."
Edith watched Mary get into the car and acknowledged that, somehow, they'd become sisters. She wasn't sure they'd ever been before. They'd been unhappy cousins at best.
"Now do we go?"
"Now we go and catch our train." Edith allowed and turned and smiled. "Barrow?"
Shopping had been put off entirely until Paris. It was decided after some going over of the few things that they'd brought to London, that they could make the trip as-is. Edith's fears that they'd be detained for a week or so getting Mary settled were unnecessary. The clinic was a blessedly efficient thing and Edith was perfectly happy to give Mary her privacy.
She just wished she didn't feel so awful about everything else. She should have spent yesterday fretting about her hair and her dress and then had her first real dinner with Anthony. He hadn't said anything, of course, but he'd made a point of inviting her to Strallan House. He'd wanted her to see his London house, like he had shown her Loxley. It was – it was the clearest possible declaration of intent from a man she felt so very strongly about.
She wasn't sure what. She cared a great deal. She hoped dearly. She wanted to spend more time with Sir Anthony and the idea of being married to him was lovely, but she knew not to rush. That was what a courtship was for! The problem was that now hers was utterly disrupted.
If he even wants to carry on with it after this.
"What's wrong? Edith? Edie!"
Edith jumped as she looked down at her sister and flushed, realizing she'd fallen into a brown study and Addie looked upset.
"Miss Kavanaugh, Miss Adelaide, the car is here to take you to the station."
Barrow stepped forward, his shoulders back, wearing the casual traveling attire he'd brought with him to go to Brighton. He hadn't brought formal traveling clothing and he'd only brought a day suit in livery. Why would he need anything else? Originally, they had all been going on a four-day trip, and his duties for the duration were best described as pint-sized chaos management.
"Thomas stop being so formal."
"But I'm your butler now, Miss Adelaide. It's important to keep up appearances."
Adelaide shot the tall man a look of betrayal and it was clear he was fighting laughter at her expense. She glared back. He looked wounded. Edith held in a laugh as she watched Addie cave and then go back to fussing at him as Barrow picked up the weighty suitcase and his own small carpet bag. That was their only luggage.
For the moment. Edith perked up. If there was one thing she was pleased by, it was the knowledge of how overboard she'd gone in terms of financial planning. The clinic hadn't been anything like as expensive as she'd feared. Which left her with a very tidy sum to not only fund the trip but also fund some shopping. She'd put most of it back in the bank, using a nearby branch, and had decided that – for once – she was going to act like the heiress everyone was now gossiping about.
It would also provide a nice distraction from Mary. They'd talked about it and agreed that a week at the Ritz in Paris would put Edith right in the middle of a lot of people they knew or knew of. Edith kind of dreaded the society of it, but she knew Mary was correct. Just being there and letting it be known that Mary was at the exclusive spa she'd passed that bit of bribery onto would be valuable to Mary's reputation.
Between our griefs last year and everything else, we both just needed a holiday. Edith and Mary had rehearsed some of the excuses. Mary, of course, is always in the center of things. So, I treated my sister to a holiday in France. Sybil was too young, of course, but a month at the spa shall do Mary nothing but good. As for me, after so much quiet a little bit of light and gaiety can only improve things, don't you agree?
Edith was going to restrict the gaiety as much as was reasonable while still being in the thick of things for a little while. One week wouldn't be so bad. Then they'd be off by train, stopping in quiet little towns along the way, until they met up with Klaus Bauer and his mother in Salzburg and settled into their comfortable townhouse for a good long visit. Barrow had seen the right letters and messages off and she'd already heard back from Professor Bauer. Onkle Klaus was a bit confused about the change in plans, but just as happy to stop having to try and chivy his mother to make up her mind. Apparently, she'd still been changing dates and locations in France right up until he'd gotten her first telegram.
"You know, I thought France still had wolves but apparently there are only some and they're up in the mountains and hide from people." Addie was settled comfortably across from Edith in their train compartment, reading her book and frowning. "I mean, I thought there were more wolves in general. You said the Continent was wild, but there's hardly anything but foxes and badgers anywhere!"
"I said the Continent was wilder than Britain, not that it was wild like the Great White North, Addie."
"Still, I mean, they don't have bears or anything like a Mountain Lion. This says that there used to be real lions around the Mediterranean. What happened to them?"
"I imagine no few of them ended up on the sharp end of a Gladiator's spear in the Colosseum."
"That's in Italy."
"Mmhmm."
"There's a lot of things like that in Italy."
"It's where Rome was, so yes."
"I thought Rome was all over the place?"
"I meant the city, not the empire." Edith laughed. "Though we could probably find some good Roman things here in France, on our way, if you wanted. I know we'll pass close to at least a couple of aqueducts."
"I don't know."
"Well, think about it."
"Paris has museums."
"We'll see them. That's why we're staying there a whole week."
"I thought we were staying because we have to do more shopping. Daddy would say we don't need so many clothes, or this fancy."
"Daddy also would have said we didn't need them in Maryland. This is Paris."
Addie made a face and buried her nose back in her book.
"Ooh, there's a chapter on extinct animals. Like mammoths!"
"What else?"
"Horses and sabertoothed tigers and all sorts of things."
Edith breathed a sigh of relief as Addie was once more absorbed in her book. Too nervous to read, Edith went over things in her mind. Mary was, thank God, taken care of. She'd linger at the clinic for the month of prescribed treatment. After that, she'd transfer to the spa she was supposed to actually be at and make sure to be seen. None of that was Edith's problem.
Reaching into her handbag she took out her purse. She'd already made and sent on a few lists with Barrow. He was taking care of the details of their accommodations and researching modistes and the like. What she wanted now, was a better plan for the trip to Salzburg.
Train schedules, Edith decided, I need specific train schedules. She jotted that down quickly. As she was making a list of all of the various clothing and personal items needed by herself and Addie for the trip, Barrow slipped back into the compartment. Sharp gray eyes met hers and, to Edith's surprise, she didn't feel her hackles creeping up. Growing up Edith had never grown to trust the servants, not naturally, not the way that Mary and Sybil did. In Maryland, well, it had been easier with fewer servants, but it still felt uncomfortable. As if they saw too much and were just waiting to use it against them. In this case?
"Barrow?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
Edith cast an eye towards where her sister had fallen asleep sprawled out with her book and held in a smirk. Addie never could stay awake on a moving train. Reaching out, she retrieved the book and spread her coat out over her sleeping sister, then she slid to the side on her own seat and gestured for Barrow to take a seat beside her. Surprise flickered over his face, but Edith missed it as she arranged her skirt and handbag.
"I wanted to thank you." Edith whispered, making sure not to wake her sister as the taller man leaned down towards her.
"It's nothing any butler wouldn't do for the family, ma'am."
He really is awfully smug, Edie noted in amusement, but shook her head in response.
"Not for arranging the trip. I know that's just part of your duties… I mean, well, thank you for everything else." She gestures towards the sleeping child across from them. "For being Addie's friend. She so desperately needed one, you see and, well, that was never your job. So, well, thank you."
To Edith's surprise an actual blush began to spread across the footman-turned-butler's handsome face. His perfect, chilly, poise got a varnish of awkwardness. Unintentionally, Edith dimpled at him.
"Don't tell me it wasn't anything anyone else wouldn't have done, either. It doesn't matter because you were the one who she could trust, and you stepped up when needed."
"Well, I – she's just a kid."
"Kindness is easy when everyone expects it." Edith finally found her words, dredged up from memory. "It's an entirely different thing when it's unexpected and undeserved."
A strange look passed briefly across the man's face, then, to her surprise, he nodded.
"It… it is. I'll give you that. You're welcome, Miss Edith, and Miss Adelaide is more than welcome, and she did deserve it."
Edith nodded and, for a few moments, silence fell comfortably as they both looked out the window at the rolling French countryside. Then curiosity compelled her attention back to the new – and only – servant in her household. Which did remind her…
"We're going to need a general maid, I think, and I still haven't found a lady's maid." Edith huffed. Barrow frowned at her.
"Forgive me if I'm overstepping, ma'am, but were you really advertising? Her ladyship seemed to think you weren't."
"Mama – the countess – I mean." Edith made a face and brushed the trouble with titles in their family away with a hand. "Lady Grantham doesn't want to face the fact that I'm not interested in taking a maid with no experience and no references and maids with good references and good experiences aren't eager for a job with a woman with my scandalous past."
"No offense, ma'am, but I doubt the French would consider you much of a scandal. Why not hire here?"
"I don't know anyone here."
"You barely knew anyone in England." The butler seemed to realize he may have overstepped, no doubt after spending ages not watching what he said around her sister. He cleared his throat. "Ma'am."
Edith grinned and, suddenly feeling more comfortable than she had since Mary had crashed her trip to London, shook her head.
"Don't worry about private informality, Barrow. Our house – Daddy's house, I mean – in Annapolis was not what you would consider remotely formal."
"Things are different in America?"
"Things were different for Daddy and Miss Katherine."
Barrow's curiosity was blatantly obvious as those almost reptilian eyes flickered towards her sleeping sister and back.
"That would be Miss Addie's mother?"
Edith swallowed around a lump in her throat.
"Yes."
"The actress?"
"And singer, yes. Katherine Bauer did a bit of opera, in her youth, along with the stage. Mainly Shakespeare." Edith let the memories flow back, bittersweet like expensive chocolate. "She never quite lost that bohemian manner – and Daddy would have been quite put out with anyone who suggested he wasn't the same man who'd gotten into trouble in the dusty saloons of his youth."
"Was he a cowboy, then?"
Edith grinned.
"No, just Texan, but he had… I think you would have liked him. He loathed small talk and putting on airs. He'd do it for business, sometimes, but he didn't want it in his house. We only had a handful of servants and Addie and I were expected to cook. I even learned to iron!"
The butler's crooked smile and the way he raised his eyebrows spoke volumes for how amusing the man found the idea of one of the earl's daughters' ironing.
"And, yes, I burned the seat out of a pair of trousers before I learned how to do it properly, and had to wear a burnt frock to church a few times as well."
Barrow, relaxing slightly just as Edith had, leant forward and lowered his voice, eyes bright.
"Did your father really threaten the earl?"
"What?"
"There was a letter." Barrow replied eagerly. "It came just after you left. A solicitor brought it and I heard Carson telling Mrs. Hughes that he'd threatened to take a shotgun to Lord Grantham if he ever showed up on his doorstep."
Edith opened her mouth, then closed it. Guilt and amusement and love and grief tangled up in her for a minute. She hadn't known that her Daddy had threatened the man who'd raised her with solicitors, scandal, or a shotgun. She hadn't known a great many things about the upheaval that proceeded her crossing the Atlantic.
"I don't know, Barrow, but… it sounds like Daddy." Edith swallowed thickly and offered a tremulous smile. "He really was possessive… and terribly overprotective."
"Seems kind of sideways, if you don't mind me saying?"
"Hm?"
Edith watched the way that the other man sat, looking at her sideways as he spoke. Testing the ground, she thought. For a moment, she weighed weather she minded the overly familiar address. Edith decided that, at that moment, she preferred it. She was entirely finished with secrets, at least those she could avoid, and the rigid distinctions of class bred them all too often. Barrow had already shown himself trustworthy; at this point, the best thing to do was to trust that.
"Mr. Kavanaugh, ma'am. He didn't want you or Miss Addie out in society, but he was fine with you going to college or her swimming in the Chesapeake Bay and catching frogs and snakes and what-have-you."
"Barrow, are you telling me that you haven't enjoyed your various forays into the study of nature?"
Edith had seen the long-suffering look that the man had put on after the now-infamous Frog Census of Downton. Her sister's desire to get amphibian population data had come from a conversation with Sir Anthony, but it had led to the then-footman having to scour ponds with Edith's little sister in a pair of ill-fitting, borrowed, waders. The eternally spotless, put-together fellow hadn't seemed to get as much enjoyment out of it as her sister had. According to Anna, William had been salty for days not to have been chosen for the outing, and Thomas had – for once – been on the younger footman's side.
"I would never tell you that."
Edith covered up her mouth to stifle a chuckle at the brutal sarcasm in the man's brief, lackluster, response.
"Well, that's good, because I can guarantee you that she won't be satisfied with plant pressings when we get out of Paris."
The martyred look that followed quickly shifted to one of cunning.
"With Downton understaffed and all, our household could probably use with a footman as well as a maid, ma'am."
"We're a small household, Thomas, even with our new duties I'm sure you'll have time to help Addie. She'd be brokenhearted if you didn't."
Edith enjoyed the rather exasperated look the man was trying to hide more than she wanted to admit. Better you out frog hunting than me, Thomas Barrow.
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Thomas Barrow seethed inside even as part of him exalted the day. Their arrival at Paris was exquisitely timed and executed. He'd made every arrangement necessary and his first real foray into buttling was perfection itself.
The Misses Kavanaugh arrived at the Ritz in Paris with the perfect discretion of exactly the off-hour that they should, in a modest cab, and their check-in was expedited by his presence. Swept up to their room, the ladies had twenty minutes to refresh themselves and then the first of two modistes arrives to pay a "house" call at their suite. After that, Barrow saw Miss Edith into the only walking dress she had brought that was even close to appropriate for her social status and Miss Addie was badgered into the same.
Then the show was on.
Barrow could live for this, he decided, as he donned the proper black waistcoat and suit he'd be wearing for daily work in his new job. Normally, he'd have had to buy that himself, but apparently Mr. Kavanaugh had been of the opinion that servants – like soldiers – should not pay for their "kit". As such, Lady Edith had supplied the required funds when he'd called ahead with his measurements to have something already sitting around at a good shop altered to fit him. Whether luck, Parisian fashion, or his own impeccable physique – Thomas was giving credit to the latter – it had been waiting for him at the famed hotel and fit him flawlessly.
"Miss Kavanaugh has a keen interest in music." Barrow addressed the sternly arrogant concierge behind the counter and slid a neatly written list in French towards the man, a couple of brightly colored French bills tucked into it. "While June isn't the best season for it, I'd think Paris could keep a lady's attention in any season?"
"The French," The older man smirked beneath his thin mustache as he took the list and the bills, his frosty demeanor visibly shifting at the tip. "do not make a habit of disappointing ladies, monsieur, and we have always had the very best of relationships with our brothers in révolution across the ocean, have we not?"
"I don't make it a habit to speak for the French. What kind of tickets can we get?"
"A wise choice for an Englishman." The concierge murmured, smirking back at him and nodding once, efficiently, over the list. "I shall make inquiries and present them to you for the ladies' benefit. Be sure to make it clear that our establishment prides itself on seeing guests fully satisfied by their experiences here."
"Oui." Thomas offered one-fifth of his current French vocabulary and turned towards the elevator.
Lady Edith, Thomas reflected with a sharp-edged fondness he hadn't expected, has grown up.
He'd never cared much for the shy, awkward, difficult fifteen-year-old he'd known the Lady Edith Crawley to be. After all this, though… Thomas was willing to say he'd been wrong. Or, no, not wrong. Time had done its work and Thomas figured it just showed that the quality didn't often have any.
America, clearly, had been the making of her. Miss Edith Kavanaugh was a better person by his estimation. Look at how she took care of her sister and the fact that she didn't have time for Lady Mary's picking at her, more often than not. Not that there's anything wrong with getting your own back.
Personally, Thomas would have laughed in Lady Mary's face and gone right to the Earl in Edith's place, but that wasn't his problem, was it? The whole massive fandango had left him with enough rope to finally pull himself up. Thomas couldn't help thinking over the entire thing with acres of smugness. Bates could have his lordship and all his problems and clothes. He'd stepped right over valeting and was in as sweet a spot as he figured any butler had ever gotten into. Now all he had to do was figure out a way to let it be known back at Downton that the Kavanaugh household paid better than the Crawleys did. He couldn't wait to see old Carson's face at that!
And you're safer than you've ever been a day in your life, as long as you stick with the little one. A whisper at the back of Thomas' mind forced him to hold back a shiver. Remember? There's nothing wrong with it, is there? Not in that little girl's eyes. If you can stick around for a few more years she'll be old enough and able to afford her own household, and you can step away from Miss Edith and whoever she marries and breathe freely. Not yet, though, the kid's too young, but her own beloved brother was an invert. She won't turn you in.
If they even went back to England.
Barrow didn't really dare think about that, but it was on his mind. Nobody liked homosexuals, but it wasn't illegal in France. He might bet beat up for it, but he wouldn't get hung or arrested and sent to prison. Everyone like him he'd ever known had had a pipe dream of some little flat in Paris, or a cottage in the countryside, and he'd heard tell of nightclubs and all manner of things. People gathering and not worrying about a police raid…
It bore thinking about. If he could arrange things right… Well, he had other things to worry about now. Notably your own damned problem with an otherwise perfectly executed plan…
"Do we have to be all fancy, Edith?"
Thomas stifled a smirk at the sound of Addie's slightly muffled complaint as the elevator door opened and the few well-dressed ladies and gentlemen clustered about the foyer turned their eyes towards the intricate door. Stepping forward, he offered a shallow bow and his arm.
"Miss Kavanaugh, Miss Adelaide, your taxi awaits. I've made the shopping arrangements you wished and everything should be ready when you've arrived."
"Thank you, Thomas, I simply cannot believe what happened to our luggage in transit." It was definitely her Crawley blood that put that exasperated, better-than-thou look on Miss Edith's face beneath the wide brim of her hat as she took his arm and let him escort her towards the door with Addie swept up behind them like a lace-trimmed duckling.
"Yes, I've taken the liberty of having a new set called in. It should be waiting for us when we return."
"Excellent, Barrow, thank you." They glided out to the waiting taxi and he handed the lady in, well-aware that there were numerous ears listening. "Where to first?"
"The Rue de la Paix, madam, followed by le Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and then I must ask if you plan to dine in your rooms or would you care to go out this evening?"
"Can we please stay inside, Edith? You promised I could finish my book…"
"I don't know, darling, I think you deserve a treat. Don't you want to have dinner with me at one of the hotel restaurants? If we can get our wardrobe situation sorted out quickly enough, I think you've earned a chance to have dinner with the grownups."
Thomas shut the door with a flourish and climbed into the passenger's seat. Before he did, however, he caught a pair of dark eyes watching him from a corner and started. Nicholas Stewart, located unobtrusively behind a column on a nearby façade, dipped his hat to the newly minted butler and offered up the barest hint of an expectant smirk. The nearly forgotten seething came roaring back.
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"Well, Stewart?"
"I've got him over a barrel and the man doesn't like it a bit, sir."
Anthony climbed out of the bath and applied the towel his valet applied him to his face and hair with enough force to muffle his response into unintelligibility. His own room at the Ritz was smaller and far less grand than the suite that Miss Edith had taken out and he was left utterly flummoxed by her choices.
"What I mean is, sir, Barrow may have been eager to climb the ladder, but he skipped one too many rungs." The younger man explained as he took the towel back and handed his employer his plain white cotton pants. "He has all of the requisite organizational skills, but none of the experience or connections required for what he has to do now. The man had no idea where fashionable ladies in Paris shopped, let alone who to speak to in order to get last minute orders put in, or the way that one commissions clothing quickly."
"Just as he had no idea who to lean on in order to make the initial travel arrangements."
"As such, he has to rely on our connections instead." Stewart nodded. "I provided him with lists and he, after some arm twisting, gave up the ladies' itinerary."
Anthony restrained an ungentlemanlike snort.
"You mean he tried and failed to send us around the mulberry bush and, that failing, admitted to what is now clearly going to be public knowledge."
"Just so, sir."
Anthony nodded, chewing his bottom lip as he accepted various articles of clothing and dressed with his valet's assistance. His mind turned over all he knew. It was, as before, vastly unsatisfactory.
They'd arrived in Paris hours behind Edith and her little sister, as was to be expected. Anthony had felt an obligation to at least check on Lady Mary, as she was the one with the more immediate and obvious complaint. Given the notorious secrecy that surrounded the clinic, that had been something of a challenge, but in the end, Anthony was satisfied. Lady Mary Crawley was located in the considerable safety that the isolation of the clinic provided and receiving treatment of some kind.
Anthony wished the young lady no harm or embarrassment, but he was pleased to hand her off as someone else's problem. He'd sent Diana a simply encoded telegram, trusting Archie to manage the simple diplomatic cypher, and he and Stewart had headed to Paris. Where he had found further confusion.
"The way I see it, there are two possibilities here, Stewart." Anthony finally breathed out, allowing the other man to straighten the tie he had just knotted and looking down to catch the nod and watchful eyes of his valet and friend. "One is – one I do not much care for."
"Sir?"
"Lady Edith is… has perhaps discovered that she does not enjoy the quiet, country life so much as she thought. She is young. P-perhaps she's just eager for the lights and entertainment of Paris and the fashionable life that her inheritance can provide her. There are… well, Paris has more to offer in terms of gaiety than Yorkshire."
He could feel the pity in the other man's eyes and absolutely avoided them. It went unspoken that Paris also offered appropriate suitors who were not more than twice Edith's age and boring as sawdust besides.
"I would think almost any other theory likely, sir. The young lady does not strike me as overly interested in fashion, excepting an appreciation for a nice frock and jewelry now and then." Stewart reached down for the brush and began to tend Anthony's shoulders. "Miss Edith strikes me as someone with rather better taste than that."
"Thank you, Stewart."
"Quite, sir. I assume that the other possibility regards the likely misfortunes of her situation?"
"It's entirely likely she's been brought here for some kind of blackmail and is making herself seen to either decrease her vulnerability or somehow play into the hands of whatever cad's threatening her." Anthony crackled his knuckles, the old rugby gesture unnoticed as he thought on the subject. "I need more information, Stewart! If only she would have trusted me at Diana's!"
"She is very young, sir."
"Yes, and it's hardly as if her family has instilled trustworthiness into her, now is it?" Anthony grumbled. "A veritable bloody mess that the whole lot of them made… I still cannot comprehend it. To simply give up your child, not once, but twice by two separate parents…"
Anthony shook his head sharply and straightened his cuffs after Stewart got the lapis cufflinks settled.
"Right, well, once more into the breech?" Anthony muttered and squared his shoulders to accept the top hat and coat his valet offered him with studied solemnity. "I'll leave Barrow to you. You're sure the ladies are where he said?"
"Yes, sir, I checked. Last night they took a tray in their room, but they've managed to update their wardrobes with a few things that were on-hand and ready for alteration in the shops. Inquiries and a few bribes made their way down so no-one would comment about a girl of ten having dinner at the Vendôme."
"And our time?"
"Precise as a pin, sir."
"Right, on with it then." Anthony settled the glossy black hat atop his head and the coat around his shoulders. He might only be going downstairs, but some formalities were best observed.
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"Well, this is an unexpected pleasure, Rosamund. I was beginning to wonder if you'd lost the Dower House address, or perhaps forgotten which stop the Downton Station was located on."
"Mama now is no time to be flippant!"
Lady Rosamund Painswick looked nearly unchanged from the last time her mother had seen her. A year before Lady Violet had enjoyed the questionable pleasure of an entirely mundane Christmas. One where her daughter joined her son's household, gifts were exchanged, dinners were by turns gregarious, awkward, and mind-numbingly staid, and everyone acted as if Rosamund wasn't going on as if none of the tragedies of the last half-decade had ever happened.
"And when, precisely, is the proper time?" Violet sipped her tea calmly and then raised her eyebrows slightly. "Perhaps when addressing the distress and misery of your own offspring when they discover they are such in the worst possible manner?"
Lady Rosamund glared at her mother before, to Lady Violet's shock, the mask of arrogance, impertinence, and suborn gaiety fell away entirely. For the first time in five years, Violet saw her daughter as something other than the inimitable Lady Rosamund of London Society. All of the iron – Violet's gift to her daughter, no doubt – that she'd mustered to braze out the shame of discovery melting away and leaving rust and ruin in its stead.
"Mama, I'm fully aware that I could have handled matters far better than I did. I realize that, but I cannot and will not take it back. What I want to know now is what precisely is going on?"
"With what? I am afraid I am not a repository of world events. One would suggest a library or newspaper archive, if that is your interest."
"Mother."
"Really, Rosamund." Violet put down her cup with an agitated clink and glared at her daughter. "I like to think of myself as a tolerant woman."
Her daughter's look of exasperated outrage was all she could have hoped. Violet, of course, went on over it as if a yacht breaching the paltriest of waves.
"Despite my incredible patience and forbearance, however, I find that I cannot sit here and listen to you express concern for Edith after you effectively abandoned your child twice during your lifetime."
"Mother, what else would you have had me do? Leave Marmaduke for Zachary? Send the entire family into the worst sort of scandal?" Rosamund asked and Violet frowned.
"I would have had your brother and I trust me." Violet replied, her tone tired and her voice now lowered. Leaning forward and putting a hand on her daughter's wrist, Violet frowned. "I would shudder to think that we ever become one of those wretchedly saccharine families that acts as though we bare our souls to each other, or nonsense of that sort. However, the fact remains that I had hoped my children knew and know that they might come to me when they need help and guidance."
"Why, so you could tell me how dreadfully foolish I was?" Rosamund asked, looking for all the world as if she were a clotheshorse built of pride with her weariness hung about it in lank, dripping folds. "Mama, I loved Duke, you know I did. We just – we had some dreadful problems, starting off. We made mistakes. Surely you and Papa did the same. I know about his dancer, and I know what's in Dover as well, even if Robert never caught on."
Violet looked aside and wondered if it was possible to go through life without one's children ever realizing how very human one was. It was dreadfully inconvenient. Then again, she hadn't had illusions about life being anything but a trial in a terribly long time, had she?
Violet pushed the old remembered warmth of a voice with a rolling Russian accent from her mind. Warm hands and a passionate, ready, mind were not her lot in life. She was nothing but grateful for having her mistake unmade before it destroyed her life. Could she blame her children for attempting to engineer their own salvation without her?
"Your father and I had an excellent marriage and understanding. Miss Genevieve had the exceptional good sense never to make waves, nor expect more for her son than he was meant to receive in life." Violet breathed out. "I feel no ill-will to the woman or her son. I understand he runs a perfectly nice electrical business these days."
"So I'd heard, Mama." Rosamund looked at her cautiously. "So you feel no need to lecture me further for my 'regrettable affair'?"
"I still believe that it was a poorly thought out and ill-advised response to your husband's straying. Men are like that sometimes, Rosamund, and – as you saw – it is usually a lack of communication on our part that precipitates it."
"It was nothing of the sort, Mama!"
Violet started violently at the sharp, rising tone of her daughter's voice. Rosamund had been, up to that point, almost blasé about Edith's origins. The sharp, angry, retort was divergent enough that Violet did not remonstrate her daughter for her tone. Instead, in a rare moment, Violet Crawley's voice gentled and the hand she laid on Rosamund's wrist was soft and comforting.
"Then explain to me what it was, darling."
The younger woman looked away, sighed, and then turned her eyes to the fire flickering on the grate. Though it was June, the night had turned chilly. Both women were wearing shawls over their evening attire as they sat in the salon after dinner. Violet had dismissed the dower house servants, trusting that – finally – her daughter might actually speak.
"Marmaduke thought I was barren." Rosamund smoothed her hands over her thighs, toying momentarily with the lace upon the front of her gown, then glaring into the flames in remembered anger and grief. "We'd been married three years and there – there was no sign of any child. So I agreed and went to a specialist, but nothing could be found wrong with me, either. All required… natural cycles… were regular. I felt fine, and we'd certainly fulfilled our marital duty with proper enthusiasm."
Violet waited patiently and was rewarded when her daughter sighed and looked away into the shadows at the corners of the room.
"We tried… several things that were suggested, but two more years passed with nothing. I – I began to suspect that the fault didn't lie with me after talking with one specialist. When we spoke to Duke, however, he – he became absolutely furious."
"Arithmetic is far from my favorite subject, but I cannot help but notice that directly coincides with the summer you spent her with your little brother at the Abbey."
"As much as I like Cora, Mama, I felt no need to move in for four months to get to know Robert's young bride." Rosamund swallowed. "He spent the entire time carrying on, but you know that. Everyone did. He hid nothing."
"And so you sought to teach him a lesson."
"Honestly, by that point, I just wanted to prove him right."
Violet blinked.
"About… a child?"
"I was dreadfully foolish, and entirely cruel." The redheaded woman sighed and reached up, unhooking the glorious dangling diamond earrings she'd been wearing and holding them in her hands, watching them glitter. "Did you know Zachary had just buried his wife? He was so beside himself that his doctor sent him abroad for a travel cure. He couldn't bare to be parted from his sons, so he had them with him with their nurses – not that it mattered, he'd just… walk about his hotel, a baby on his hip, as if it was the most normal thing."
"Yes, well, for the level of society he was born into, it likely was." Violet took a bracing breath and pressed on. "So you… saw him as what? Proven breeding stock?"
"Yes, and a wonderful way to twit my husband. Duke liked him, you see."
"Really?"
"Zachary was ever so brilliant with money, and brash, and – well, it matters little. I knew Duke liked him, I knew it would hurt Duke, and I wanted to prove there was nothing wrong with me. Using Zachary Kavanaugh accomplished all of that."
"Do you have any idea of the risk you were taking?"
"Not nearly so much as you believe, Mama."
"Painswick could have put you aside in a trice."
"And Zachary thought I was already all but divorced and wanted to marry me afterward, Mama. Even if it blew up in my face entirely, I wouldn't have been ruined past recovery. Or at least past survival." Rosamund looked back at her and Violet's heart wrenched at the exhausted pain in her expression. "The most terrible part of all of my idiocy was that I still loved my husband and – though I couldn't see it at the time – he loved me as well."
"Then the reconciliation?"
"Entirely legitimate. I meant to rub his face in my pregnancy and Duke just… he just took me in his arms and cried about it. We apologized and talked it all through and – and that was that. I went back home, refused to see Zachary again, he returned to America and we agreed to start again properly and we did. You know how happy we were."
"Yes, and I'm glad for it Rosamund, but I could hardly say that was that. There was a child involved; surely you haven't forgotten."
"Not at all, but it remained that Edith wasn't my husband's child." Rosamund huffed and stood, pacing awkwardly before the fire. "He'd finally gone to see someone and the specialist had assured him that with more diet and exercise everything would be fine and – and as long as we paid attention to details and such, we'd have a child in a year or two."
"Excepting the one you were currently carrying."
"By then Cora was pregnant as well and – and Duke and I sat down with Robert and worked it all out. The timing was perfect and it was a good plan, Mama." Rosamund looked up, sharply. "Had Cora and Robert's poor son not been stillborn they would have claimed Edith as his twin. As it was, nobody questioned her birth for an instant and everyone believed that the stress I'd been through for the last year had been why I had to take rest in the country. There wasn't a whisper of scandal. Can you look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't have advised me to do the same?"
"Not for a moment." Violet replied crisply. "What I would have advised you to do comes in some fifteen years later. Rosamund, I understand and do not even disagree with the measures that you and your brother took to guard this family and assure Edith a proper place in it. What I take issue with is ruining a perfectly kept secret for no discernable reason!"
"Mama-."
"No, Rosamund, Robert and I have been silent for five years-."
"Hardly silent."
"We have obeyed your refusal to discuss the matter, then." Violet looked at her daughter sharply. "I no longer feel the need to do so. Rosamund why did you write that dreadful man?"
"Because I believed his entire family had just died Mama!"
Violet lowered her brows and sat back, like a cobra flaring its hood.
"I beg your pardon?"
"One of my friends, who knew about the old affair called on me. It was in the paper in Baltimore." Rosamund finally lowered herself back into her seat. "'Mr. Zachary Kavanaugh, sole survivor of a boating accident, his wife and three children dead!' I read it right there in bold typeset and – and all I could think of was how much Zachary had adored those boys and how… I was weak, Mama, and in a moment of weakness I wrote him to tell him that he wasn't without family."
"I never heard a word breathed about such an action and clearly his sons could hardly have died in a boating accident twice in the span of six years."
"They didn't, it was more of Hurst's yellow journalism at work. It was another chap from Annapolis named Kavanaugh who didn't have enough money to make for a good headline." Rosamund sighed. "By the time the retraction was printed I'd already sent the telegram and Zachary had that solicitor at Downton out for Robert's blood, and then it all got – got terribly out of hand, or so Robert says."
"What your brother doesn't say is that it all came out over the dinner table, Mary said the most wretchedly cruel things I have ever heard, and Robert laid down the most foolish ultimatum I have ever heard in my life." Violet's accent was sharper than broken glass as she tapped one of her fingers against the arm of her chair. "None of which would have happened had you not acted so foolishly."
"I find it rather rich you can act dismayed over Mary's cruelty when it never troubled you before, Mama, or when you so neatly ignore mine. I did spend three months utterly toying with a heartbroken widower, used and then discarded the same man, and hid the fact that he had a daughter from him for more than a decade. Yet, somehow, my being honest is worth a scolding?"
"Your honesty did far more damage than your lies, Rosamund."
"And yet, from all reports, Edith was happier as Zachary's bastard than she ever was as Robert's daughter."
"Children are rather foolish in matters of happiness."
"Aren't we all?"
"I have been practical in all matters pertaining to my feelings since before you were born, Rosamund."
"It's a wonder you have any feelings left, Mama."
Violet sniffed rather than dignifying that with an answer. Rosamund, however, had rallied past her momentary misery. Violet considered it a misfortune. Her daughter being willing to listen was a rarity and she might have actually made some kind of progress had she had a bit more time to work with her in a more malleable state.
"I'm not here about the past, however, I am here about Edith's future." Rosamund glared. "What is this I hear about her being squired about by Sir Anthony Strallan, or her and Mary taking some sort of unsupervised trip to the Continent?"
"I don't know what you've heard, Rosamund, but I have precisely the information you need to resolve the information."
"I've very glad to hear that, mother."
"I suggest you listen to it, as I will not repeat myself."
"Of course."
Gathering herself, Violet leaned forward fully aware that she would likely spend another year seeing nothing of her only daughter once she said it.
"When you walked away from Edith last time, darling, it became none of your business, and so it shall remain until Edith says otherwise."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
In the end, Matthew didn't leave to rescue Mary quite as unencumbered as he had thought he would. Despite his early agitation over the matter, he had reason to be grateful.
"I concede to your argument, Anna, there is certain information that a woman and a servant can get that a man cannot."
The tiny blonde maid offered him a tense smile as she climbed up on the bars of the hastily procured bicycle. Trains served well enough for close transport, but a motor was too bulky, expensive, and inconvenient to be quickly acquired. Matthew's normal form of individual transport still made for the best and least conspicuous option.
"Steady?"
"Entirely, sir."
"Good, off we get then!" Matthew straightened the bicycle, kicked off, and put his legs and back into it.
He'd been tucked behind an unkempt stand of hedge and willow near the bend of a small stream where two deep irrigation ditches converged. It was a good quarter mile off from the seaside spa that his research had directed him to, but it served the most noble and necessary purpose of keeping him out of sight. Matthew had already enjoyed the unique and unpleasant experience of having an orderly throw him out of a building and onto his behind once that day; he had no desire to revisit it.
"Holding on well?"
"Oh, yes, I used to do this all the time with Elsbeth when she worked at the Abbey two years ago!" Anna managed to perch perfectly balanced upon the handlebars with the virtue of experience.
"What did you find out?"
After the regrettable orderly incident, Matthew had bowed to the maid's insistence she be allowed to try her own hand. She'd already weaseled her way along by claiming that, if the girls had split up, Mary would need a chaperone. Further, she'd claimed that it wasn't right for either Edith or Mary to be out without a maid and that Matthew, being a bachelor himself, wasn't a proper person to send on the errand at all – cousin or not.
"It worked just as I said it would, Mr. Crawley." Anna insisted as Matthew pedaled them along at great speed. "We should head back to the train station. We're nearly fifty miles off where we should be."
"They told you? Just like that?"
Matthew may have been slightly outraged, but he told himself he didn't sound like it. As a solicitor he had total control of his intonation and rhetoric. Yes, of course he did.
"I told you, sir, that a lady's maid is granted access that a gentleman just doesn't understand." Anna insisted, turning to look at him and making the bike bobble just slightly. "All I had to say was that I was delayed seeing to the lady's luggage and ask for directions to have it sent from the station and, with acting a touch confused and young, well, the matron got quite motherly about it."
"And she told you where Mary is?"
"She did, Mr. Crawley. Lady Mary is at another spa, up the coast a ways and a little inland. It's only for ladies, so it might be best if you let me go in there alone as well. You could stay in town and I could report back to you, you know, with anything I might find out."
So far Matthew Crawley had not make an astonishingly skillful knight in shining armor. Unknowingly he'd utterly missed a telegram from Downton that would have provided a great deal of essential information, courtesy of Sir Anthony. Then he'd ended up tossed out on his rear-end when he'd finally located the spa where Mary was supposed to be safely taking a rest cure for stress and exhaustion. The gentleman in question simply had no experience ferreting out runaway individuals or searching out obscure information that did not pertain to legal questions.
Let it not be said, however, that Matthew Crawley was not a skilled and perceptive man. One thing he was good at was knowing a lie when he was told one. Another thing he was good at, was getting the truth. Gently touching the brakes and bracing his feet as the bicycle began to glide to a stop, Matthew began to put both skills into play.
"Is something wrong, Mr. Crawley? Why are we stopping?"
Anna's nervousness displayed itself in the white-knuckled grip she kept on the handlebars; something she hadn't felt necessary while they were speeding back to town and the railway station.
"My left shoe is a bit loose, Anna, I need to manage it."
Anna instantly relaxed, and Matthew listened to the sound of her modulated exhalation of relief and watched the barely visible lines near her mouth flattening out as he brought the bicycle to a complete stop and Anna hopped off as he swung his leg over. He propped the bicycle up against a half-crumbled section of stone wall and knelt to retie his shoelaces.
"Though it would be very nice if you would tell me whatever it is you're not telling me while I do it."
"I – pardon? Mr. Crawley, I'm not sure what you mean?"
Matthew kept his eyes fixed on the task of properly lacing and tying his shoes, as if it wasn't something he'd mastered in the nursery.
"I'm sorry I wasn't clear." He looked up, but didn't stand or loom and kept his face open and kind. Anna wasn't the kind of woman who you loomed over; intimidation wouldn't work. She was stubborn, loyalty itself, and – from what Mary said – utterly reliable.
This called for another strategy.
"Anna, I know you're protecting Mary. Probably better than anyone knows, considering what you helped conceal only a few months ago. No-one could ask for a better friend than you have been."
Anna looked, if anything, more panicked. Time to take a longer route, then. Side roads could be a person's friend, if you knew the main thoroughfare was blocked.
"Anna, I'm not going to ask you to break Mary's confidence. I'm only going to ask that you not make a confusing, dangerous, situation more dangerous for everyone involved. Especially Mary."
Anna took a step back, fidgeted to the side, and rubbed her hands together, her callouses rasping softly in the warm June air. Some bird Matthew wasn't familiar with raised its voice in song from a nearby clump of bushes. He waited patiently.
"I know you care about Lady Mary deeply, Mr. Crawley, and she cares about you even if she's not very good at showing it yet." Anna lowered her voice and looked him right in the eye, her posture leaning forward as if she yearned to be understood and believed. "I believe you're trying to help, but there's just some things a man doesn't understand."
"I'm sure you're right, Anna, but that doesn't mean that we can't try or that we won't surprise you if given the chance."
"I know you think so, sir, but some things men just – just don't have to deal with."
A terrible suspicion dawned on Matthew and several excellent strategies were derailed as he stood up and leant forward, nearly upsetting the bicycle in the process.
"Anna, is – is Mary pregnant?"
It was almost too horrible to imagine. The idea that Mary – he loved her. It was hard enough imagining her in some other man's arms, giving way to lust… but Matthew wasn't a hypocrite. He'd had women of his own, and a few of them had been… less ladies than they should have been. Most had been, in fact, for the year or two at university he'd had where he'd been living with all the advantages of adulthood and none of the maturity. His mind and heart were firmly at war over the whole thing, but both rebelled at the idea that Mary was in such a dire situation.
Anna visibly winced at his words and Matthew took a step back and raised his hand to cover his mouth in horror at what he saw as confirmation. Anna, seeing this, misinterpreted the internal struggle he was facing as disgust. Loyal to a fault, she immediately leapt to defend her lady. Matthew would later note that Anna would make a better knight in shining armor than he did.
"You can't blame her for that, sir. Nobody's got a bit of control over how that happens and it's not like anyone sits back and explains it to a girl properly, either!" Anna countered, her voice low and filled with a furious compassion. "Lady Mary talked to me and didn't even properly understand what a man and a woman did until he was doing it to her, and it's not like that – that beast gave her much…"
Anna covered her mouth in horror at her own lack of restraint. Matthew was already stepping forward, however, and he raised his hands until he saw her flinch. Then, in a wave of the compassion that so defined him, he did something that Anna had never seen a man do before. Ignoring the dust that got on his trousers and the gulf that existed between their social positions, Matthew knelt in the dust on the roadside and took both Anna's hands in his own.
"Anna, please believe me when I say – when I tell you that Mary's happiness means everything to me. Far more than I even realized until it was so at risk." Matthew swallowed around a breath heavy with bile. "Did Pamuk force himself on Mary?"
Lady Grantham doesn't think so. Mary spoke to her mother, didn't she? Cora helped her carry the body! So did Anna, though and… God, what do I know? What is going on in this world?
"Yes." Anna's answer was absolute and unforgiving, her blue eyes hard and anguished. "Lady Mary thinks that just because she didn't send him away and some of it didn't feel miserable, it means she wanted it, but that's a load of rubbish and her feeling guilty because she's expected to. It weren't her fault and she wasn't asking for it just by showing him some attention. You don't ask for it by doing anything but saying the words, and she told him to leave before he went and threatened her."
"Threatened her?"
"He said that if she screamed he'd tell everyone she invited him, shrug it off, and she'd be ruined!" Anna hissed, now turning the tables and gripping his hands so tightly her short nails dug into his fingers. "Mr. Crawley, men don't even know. You get away with so much and it's always our fault! How's it blackmail and a crime when some soiled dove threatens to shame an MP if he won't give her money he owes her, but not a crime when a man like Pamuk threatens a lady like that?"
"I imagine I could give you a very competent and profoundly legal answer regarding society control and the responsibilities of a legal system to reflect and uphold the rules of a moral society." Matthew gritted his teeth as he stood up, his world tipping on its axis again in less than three days. "But, frankly, I don't want to. It should be legal, and no man who acts like that can call himself a man. He's an animal and a base, sick one at that!"
Anna's expression wavered for a moment, and then a relieved smile split her face.
"Well said, Mr. Crawley."
Matthew swallowed and took her hands again.
"Anna, I – I won't make any decisions for Mary and I cannot and will not judge her, but I can't stand the thought of her doing something she'll regret. Or that she'll hurt herself. We need to get to that clinic right away."
"Of course, sir."
"And I'm not sitting back and letting you handle things."
"Mr. Crawley-."
"Mary doesn't deserve to be alone, hiding this, as if she has something to be ashamed of. She doesn't, and – and any help she needs I am here to give. I won't have her thinking otherwise."
"But-."
"Come on, up you go." Matthew chivied her back onto the handlebars. "If we hurry, we can get there by tea time."
Anna, though clearly distressed, was wise enough to keep her mouth shut as Matthew vaulted back onto the bicycle and put the thing into motion. The maid was far too busy trying to hang on anyway, as he threw every ounce of muscle he had into moving the thing.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
It turned out that a hotel such as the Ritz would have a skilled French maid – whose French accent and citizenship were not affectations – show up to your room to dress you for the evening and make sure your hair was just so. They would even put on just the barest touch of make-up to give your cheeks and lips the proper glow and make your eyes bright.
Edith had grown to true womanhood in the house of a father who insisted that make-up was for soiled doves and loose women, and who felt a lady's maid was a bit of an extravagance unnecessary for an unmarried girl. She stared at her reflection quite shocked by it as the sturdy matron who'd swept into the room put the finishing touches on her hair and slid the delicate diadem into her hair.
Nowhere near the intricacy or worth of the full tiara she owned, the little diadem was a much quieter ornament. Her father had given it to her the first Christmas she spent in Annapolis. Nothing more than a little arch of small diamonds caught in a lacework of golden wire, the pretty little thing had seemed perfect for two or three dinners at Diana's home in London.
"I've just realized I have been wearing that entirely wrong for five years." Edith muttered to herself, and the matron chuckled softly, and answered in her heavily accented English.
"This is why a lady must have professional help, yes?" Marguerite stepped back, her hands coming to rest comfortably on her voluminous hips as she took in the full effect of her handiwork with clear pride. "Will there be anything else, mademoiselle?"
"No – I, no." Edith swallowed. "Merci beaucoup."
The matronly maid swept out of her bedroom and proceeded out of the suite with the great mantle of success draped over her shoulders. Edith just took a moment to look in the mirror at the intricate vanity provided by the opulent hotel. She wondered what in the world she was doing.
The dress had come off of one of the most graceful women Edith had ever seen before that day. The mannequin had been of similar coloring to herself, though bolder, brighter, and prettier in every way. Edith hadn't thought for a moment that it would look half so well on herself, and she could hear her father clearing his throat (both of them in fact) at the cut and drape of the fabric on the extremely fashionable and very French gown. She'd simply needed clothing and that included evening clothing. She wanted clothing that would be noticed for once, and it had seemed… well, eye-catching on that lovely young woman walking about with her long legs and professional grace. So, why not?
Edith slowly stood, never taking her eyes off the mirror. Then the door opened simultaneously with the rapid tap of knuckles on wood and Addie swept in.
"See, Edith, I told you I'd let them curl my hair if we could go to the zoo tomorrow! I even let her put extra ribbons in it and am wearing the frilliest frock and – ooh, you look like a proper grown up!"
The spell broke and Edith burst out laughing, turning around to plant her fists on her hips and look down at her little sister with narrowed eyes.
"Well, thank you ever so much!" Edith rolled her eyes playfully and reached out to tug on one of the liver-red ringlets hanging down her sister's back. "I'll have you know that I'm twenty-years-old. I am a proper grown up!"
"Well, yes, but now you look like one."
Edith couldn't argue that so she deflected instead.
"And you look like a lace snow cone." Edith teased, stepping to the side. "Was that dress so frilly when we bought it?"
"I think they added more lace when our backs were turned."
The sheer disgust in her sister's voice drew another laugh from her and Edith looked down at her in amused delight. Adelaide's dress was a very pretty thing, being white and composed of several layers and draped flounces of lace that formed a skirt, and then a robin's egg blue satin sash at the waist, before yet more lace made up the little cap sleeves and bodice. As thin as Addie was, she was just adorably drowned in lace. With her hair curled and tied back from her face with another matching blue satin bow, and a gold and diamond cross around her neck, her little sister really did look like a picture book princess rather than her normal troublesome self.
"I think you're right." Edith agreed and then stood up and fetched her little beaded handbag. "Well, there's no sense whatsoever in getting all dressed up for nothing. Shall we go down to dinner?"
Her little sister lit up at the special treat, never before offered in so formal a setting, and nodded enthusiastically before she composed herself with all of the solemnity the special event required.
"Yes, please, Edith."
Edith collected up her silk wrap, silly as it seemed to wear such a thing just to go downstairs in the hotel, and held her head appropriately high as Barrow held open the suite door and she exited holding her sister's hand, the stole threaded through her elbows.
The hallway and the elevator was relatively empty, but Edith blushed a bit when she passed two well-set up gentleman near her own age who gave her a second look in passing. Keeping her head forward, she barely nodded in acknowledgement of their tipped hats and felt a moment's relief in the privacy of the elevator with no-one but Addie to observe her. Not that Addie was overly concerned; she wanted to ask the elevator attendant if she could push the buttons. Edith fretted privately over the rank betrayal of the universe: being stared at remained as painful as being ignored.
Then the elevator doors opened and she took Addie's hand and stepped out into the beautiful marble confines of the grand foyer. As she did, a gentleman standing nearby turned, his black evening coat swirling slightly around him as he drew the top hat from his head politely and inclined his shoulders in her direction from considerable height. Edith's first reaction was instantaneous, involuntary, and proceeded thought.
"Sir Anthony!" Addie squealed in surprise and quit Edith's hand entirely to dart forward and reached out for the baronet. "Oh, are you my surprise?"
Addie's actual surprise, Edith thought dully as she looked up into the painfully handsome face looking down at her sister and watched his eyes widen as he beheld her, was the fact that Klaus Bauer was even now picking out a puppy for his niece.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Anthony had gone over this moment a dozen times in his mind. He had twice that many planned approaches. All were focused around being firm but gentle, and coaxing Edith into a position where she felt safe enough to trust him to help her. All strategic thought, in fact all thought, abandoned Anthony Strallan's skull cheerfully and took to twittering, blathering flight the moment he beheld her.
Dear God in Heaven, save me.
Anthony dearly hoped those words had stayed within his skull while all else fled it, because they lodged in his brain the moment he turned from Addie's delighted greeting to observe her older sister. For the first second he was entirely occupied by the real and unfeigned delight on her face when she saw him. Then he had cause to worry as it faded to alarm at his presence. After that?
After that, Anthony Strallan looked down.
He wanted it said for posterity's sake that he'd thought Edith a beautiful young lady in every single thing she'd worn. She looked fetching in the blouses and skirts she favored. She was darling in the pale pinks, peaches, and yellows she often wore for day dresses. Her evening dresses were graceful and sweet.
All of her clothing, however, had a certain modesty to it. It reflected, he was certain, both her earlier childhood as the least favorite and often demeaned child in the Downton nursery and the standards of dress imposed by a loving but overbearing father. Even the newer dresses purchased in London were such that Lady Grantham had probably felt a well of parental approval and relief in seeing her daughter's restrained and careful tastes remained intact despite her separation from the family.
The dress that Edith Crawley was wearing was not demure, nor was it tawdry. Instead, it was seductive elegance done as only the French ever managed. An underdress of shot silk shifted between rich saffron and gold with every movement. Unbroken by lace or embroidery, running from shoulder straps rather then proper sleeves, down to her ankles and a swirling, dramatic, train, it was as if the perfect porcelain of her face rose from a column of fire, and was crowned again in flames in the perfect pile of curls haloing her head.
Nor was that were the beguilement ended. Anthony struggled and failed to keep his eyes policed when they fell into the perfect creamy valley of her cleavage. Unlike her other gowns, which gave only the barest teasing hint of such, the low square neckline of the fiery gown left nothing to doubt. Just as he'd imagined (which meant more than he was comfortable admitting to) Edith had a wonderful bosom.
Draped artfully over her upper arms and shoulders, and then cascading down from where it was secured beneath her bust to flare out behind her in a train of its own, sheer black chiffon dusted with jet and gold sequins and tiny red glass beads took the plain underdress from strikingly unornamented to a work of art. All of it served as the perfect frame for what he considered the finest sculptural work of femininity that Anthony had seen in his life. He rather desperately wished he was wearing his tweeds, as the trousers were not nearly so snug.
"Sir Anthony!" Adelaide's squeak of delight derailed his errant thoughts, thank you, God. "Oh, are you my surprise?"
"Of course!" Anthony offered back playfully and bowed low to kiss the fingers beneath the short white gloves that the little girl was wearing. "I hope you're pleasantly surprised?"
"The best!"
Addie's unrestrained happiness was, at least, heartening. He'd feared that the money she'd badgered her agent for meant that she was also drawn into, or at least aware of, whatever dangerous situation had Edith acting so oddly. It was clear from the child's enthusiasm, however, that she was unworried.
"Sir Anthony, I – you…" Edith stuttered slightly, biting her lip and Anthony noted that something had been done with subtle powders about her eyes and cheeks and that it, well, it looked quite… well.
"You look beautiful tonight, Miss Edith." He carefully offered his hand to her and waited. Like a butterfly, her gloved fingers settled reluctantly upon the very tips of his own. Sliding his hand downwards to better grip hers, he raised her fingers to his lips and kissed then gently. "I hope you can forgive the intrusion?"
"Always."
Her response was resoundingly weak, but she didn't protest as he got her tucked into his arm firmly and settled Addie into his other elbow with a wink.
"Shall we go into dinner, then? I have a table reserved for us." Desperate to set Edith more at ease and quite in the habit of it anyway, he cast a sideways look at the younger of the two ladies he was escorting. "I trust, with such a special treat, we'll clean our plate this evening?"
Adelaide looked a touch put out, but rallied with all of the solemn maturity the situation called for.
"Yes, Sir Anthony, of course I will."
"Very good, I shall hold you to that!" Edith had rallied enough to respond to her sister with a smile, but sent him a questioning, nervous look from beneath her lashes. "I'm sure we'll all have a lovely evening, just as planned."
Anthony accepted then, with the stoic finality of a man well aware of his oncoming doom, that he was in a spot of trouble. As it went? Better him than her.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Author's Notes: Okay, here we are! First things first, to answer some questions from my lovely guest reviewers.
Character Ages:
Anthony: 45 closing in on 46
Edith: 19 and then, by chapter three, 20 years old.
Diana: mid-thirties.
Addie: 10, will be 11 in January of 1914.
I'm sorry about any confusion about the ages. This story has gone through several revisions. In the first draft it started after WW1 and featured an Edith who was 25 years old and a 50-year-old Anthony. I decided I'd rather scrap that and do more exploration of an earlier storyline and haven't quite gotten all of the age references sorted out. I am very bad at seeing errors in my writing. My brain tends to edit things before my word processor does. This is also how I occasionally end up putting "Mrs. Hudson" instead of "Mrs. Hughes". Too much Sherlock Holmes.
Second thing – Remember, not everyone is operating on full disclosure here. Anthony has managed to puzzle out what is likely wrong with Mary. He already knew Pamuk was promiscuous. Mary was flirting with Pamuk and is now off to a very private clinic known for treating STDs for the wealthy and Edith and Mary went to quite a bit of trouble to hide this (unfortunately, Anthony is good at finding information and the girls are not experienced at hiding it). That's a logical deduction on his part.
Anthony's decision that the girls taking out so much money meaning they're being blackmailed also makes sense, but we know that the money Edith took out was for this trip and the money Addie took out entirely separate.
Anna was confided in by Mary, who was convinced she was pregnant. Anna believed Mary and assisted her in finding a source for a backroom abortion. Her assumption is that something had gone wrong enough that Mary was sent for more advanced medical care and she's worried sick. Hence her insisting she go with Matthew and managing to work her way into the trip. Matthew? Has no reason to doubt Anna and is now worried even more.
Mary? Is enduring embarrassing and painful colloidal silver treatments to cure her current complaint. She has no idea that, after she and Edith came up with their "perfect plan", she's only going to get about 3 days peace before the LAST PERSON ON EARTH she'd have wanted to know, crashes into her discrete treatment facility.
That's about where we stand now! Next chapter will probably occur sometime next week, but by sheer luck I got a lot of writing time today.