Inheritance

by QuestionableRelevance

I've always been fascinated by the fandom theory that Edith Crawley is actually Lady Rosamund's illigitimate daughter. This is my take on that in my usual verbose, meandering style. Now Rated M, for Marriage (and the things married people do).

9. Chapter 9

Author's Notes: Edith and Anthony aren't that great at fighting with each other. Barrow isn't sure if that's good or bad for him. Featuring Stewart's questionable sense of humor and cast-iron stomach. Guest starring Mary Crawley's pride and its noble efforts to sabotage her at every turn.

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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June 1913

When Edith was sixteen, after she'd had nearly a year to settle into her new home and family in Annapolis, she'd had her first real fight with her father. She hadn't argued with Zachary Kavanaugh before, though she hadn't always agreed with him. Then again, she'd never dared argue in Downton at that point, either. Everything, especially the affection and love that the Kavanaughs had for her, felt far too fragile to risk.

Then she'd started to get letters from Patrick.

Edith had been floored that her cousin would write to her. He'd written to her before, of course. She was, without a doubt, the most prolific correspondent in the Crawley family. As such, why wouldn't she write Patrick? It had been expected, and perhaps out of everyone in her family, Patrick had been kindest to her in an absentminded sort of way.

One of the many differences between Zachary Kavanaugh and Robert Crawley was a matter of volume. Edith's father had never hesitated to make noise when he wanted to, and his voice was a deep, booming thing when he raised it. The thing was, Zachary Kavanaugh raised his voice to get attention. He raised his voice because he needed to raise it. He raised his voice after making the calculated decision that he'd get more out of the situation because he was being loud about it. The earl of Grantham merely got louder the more agitated he became.

If you really got her Daddy mad, Edith had found out, he got quieter. Somehow it had been all the worse for it as he rumbled at her like distant thunder, making her strain to hear every word. That dreadful sense of failure, that fear of rejection, had haunted her but she just couldn't stay silent. She'd never been able to ignore it when she was slighted and hurt and whether it was struggling for acknowledgement in Downton or the sudden need to dig her heels in and tell her father she would continue writing her cousin, she'd been simply unable to give up.

To her surprise, nothing had changed. They'd argued and he'd sent her to her room. Then, to her wonder, she'd come down to dinner and everything had carried on just like it was supposed to. They ate dinner and, after the whole family sat in the parlor of the evening, her father pressed a kiss to her forehead and she walked upstairs to bed, utterly confused. They'd argued two more times over the next days, no less fiercely, and it had slowly dawned on her:

Her father wasn't going to stop loving her because he disagreed with her. He might prevent her from posting her letters. He might seize Patrick's letters. He might argue with her extensively, but he wouldn't punish her by withdrawing all signs of affection from his address and her company. Her brothers wouldn't reject her for it. Even Katherine, her stepmother had been quietly supportive.

In the end, Edith had been forced to admit that her father was right. Patrick was only interested in her probable inheritance. He was not family the way he should be, and he certainly was nothing like a proper, decent suitor. The reality of who was right and who was wrong paled beside the greater reality of what a family was supposed to be like, and that love was not a synonym for obedience.

That doesn't make it any less terrifying to put it to the test now…

"Addie, why don't you go downstairs and apologize to Barrow like we spoke about earlier? Mademoiselle Jeanne can show you down."

"Yes, Edith." Addie made her exit quickly, having been itching to move since she woke up that morning. She paused as she followed the hotel's loaner maid out the door. "I'll be right back, Sir Anthony."

"I won't go anywhere, Miss Addie." The Baronet's smile was as fond as always, but Edith fancied there was a hint of unease in his somewhat stiff posture and knew her own hackles were a bit up.

She tried to smooth them. It didn't work. Finally, she awkwardly clasped her hands and just did what her Daddy would have wanted her to do: said what she meant and dealt with whatever that got her.

"Anthony, I can't say what it means to me that – that no matter the situation, I have your support." Edith let out a sharp breath. "That said, I can't say that I'm not… disturbed that you essentially chased me to Paris, without my knowledge, and – and suborned my servant in the process."

There, she'd gotten it out and it even sounded reasonable.

"Of course, you're upset, Edith – Miss Edith, and I understand that. I do apologize, and I admit that in hindsight I clearly overstepped but you know why I felt I had to chase after you the way that I did."

"You thought I was being blackmailed."

"Yes!" He took a step closer to her, hovering a little awkwardly mid-movement and raised and then lowered his hands with the same awkwardness she'd always found an endearing mirror of her own moments. "The thing is, well, I didn't know if the decisions that you were making were your own. If you were in terrible trouble, or Lady Mary had brought you into some, I – I hope you would understand that my feelings and my -my intentions are such that I could hardly call myself a gentleman were I not to act somehow."

"My hopes mirror your intentions."

There was a moment's pause and Edith felt her heart lurch as her eyes locked with his. His were so bright and warm, and in that moment, happy, that she felt all of her carefully organized arguments and the various worries and needs of the night evaporating like water from a hot pan. Which wouldn't do at all. Edith would later, firmly, blame the lack of sleep, her extremely valid concerns, and her inherited Crawley propensity for the ridiculous for what came out of her mouth next.

"Oh, that is simply not fair!"

"What?" Anthony, who'd been leaning towards her slightly, jumped in place. "Pardon?"

"Your eyes." Edith flapped a hand at him.

"My…?"

"They're entirely too blue and you keep looking at me with them and you need to stop because I'm cross with you! Or I should be cross with you!"

"I-."

"And you utterly deserve it!" Edith went on, reaching out to poke him in the center of his gray waistcoat, his watchchain and fobs jingling as he twitched in response. "I have every right to take you properly to task for your behavior!"

"I – well, yes, I can admit-."

"So, you just – and you're too tall."

Sir Anthony Strallan was staring at her helplessly now, but Edith's temper was up, her nerves were down, and she knew she had a limited time until her sister was back. With all of that combined she pointed imperiously at a chair.

"Sit down!"

He all but fell into it, staring up at her with those terribly blue eyes wide as her hands found her hips and she unconsciously adopted the pose that had naturally evolved when she'd discovered that her brothers, despite their gender and numerical superiority, couldn't actually win most arguments with her if she really set herself to the task. She patted her skirt pockets and removed a small paper.

"Is – did you make a list of what you were angry at me about, Edith?"

"Yes, Now do sit there and listen to it."

"Yes, ma'am."

She looked up from the list to shoot him a narrow-eyed look, but his expression was innocence itself.

"First, I'm aware that the gap between our ages mean that you have more experience than me and know more of the world, but you're chasing after me shows a disdain for my decisions that worries me. I – I've had two fathers in my life. I love them dearly, but I don't need another. I just don't know what to think about the way you ignored my express wishes."

Edith kept her eyes fixed on the list and didn't see the way that the amusement that had been twinkling in Sir Anthony's eyes a moment before extinguished very suddenly at her words.

"Secondly, do you have any idea the trouble you've caused me or how you overstepped by bringing Mr. Branagh into this?"

"Pardon?"

"When I told you that Addie's grandmother was the reason for the trip, and Mr. Banagh was who told me, you called on him."

"Well – I, yes. It was the most obvious way to ascertain… I mean, Edith, you were distressed and we both knew you were not telling me the truth. His was the most obvious break in communication to investigate to determine where the blackmail was coming from."

"Anthony!" Edith couldn't keep the exasperation out of her tone. "I was not being blackmailed!"

"Well, I know that now, but I hardly did then."

The perfectly logical response did not reassure Edith's actual worries. Before she could clarify, there was a soft scuffle at the door and the hasty knock of the maid. It gave them just enough time to try and rearrange their expressions into something bland as Addie scampered in through the door.

"Thomas said everything's fine and he's getting our trains and hotels and things worked out, but he wanted to know if Sir Anthony was coming with us to Onkle Klaus'. Oh, and he got the concert tickets for tonight. Am I going or staying since I'm on punishment?"

Edith saw Sir Anthony pale a little but refused to meet his eyes. She was used to her sister blurting out a stream of information all at once. She merely sat comfortably and raised her eyebrows at her sister, who sighed and sat like a proper prim young lady on the stool in front of the piano and patted down her somewhat ruffled plaits. Then Edith turned to the hotel maid and, politely, requested tea and some light refreshments in French. Once the maid had curtsied and left, she turned back to her sister and the somewhat tense baronet.

"As you and Thomas are both on punishment for misleading me, you will sit out the concert with him and you'll work out just how much the trip to see Omma is going to cost from the day we leave Paris to the day we're back at Downton."

"Oh."

Edith refused to be moved by the melting disappointment of a ten-year-old sibling looking at yet more mathematics that had to be done. Beside her, she noted that Anthony looked troubled. Edith fought with guilt and annoyance and wished she knew what she felt. She did know that she wasn't going to argue with him in front of her little sister. It would only tarnish all of them, and Addie was already beginning to look between the two adults in the room with clear discomfort.

"Now then, Sir Anthony, I don't want to hold you here. Someone is about to engage in some very rigorous piano practice."

"What Edie means is that you like Shubert, so you shouldn't have to hear me butcher it."

"Nonsense, I'm sure your playing is delightful, Miss Addie, at least from what I've heard of it." Anthony replied instantly in his sweet way, then paused. "But, er, that is to say I don't want to overstay my welcome?"

"That would be entirely impossible, Sir Anthony." Edith recalled herself to appropriate, respectful, titles and offered as genuine a smile as she could as the tea things arrived and she pointed Addie towards the keyboard, the pile of sheet music atop the instrument, and the reality of a day spent on both rest and punishment.

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Dearest Brother [-stop-]

Happy to inform you all well in Yorkshire. [-stop-] Our Friends fully informed. [-stop-] The Old Horror seems to think the Young Horror may be saved with the distraction of an elopement. [-stop-] Starting rumors to support runaway match. [-stop-] YOURS. [-stop-]

Regards, Mrs. Diana Chetwood [-stop-]

P.S. Not my fault, just cypher this time. Regards, THAT ONE'S poor husband. [-stop-]

Nicholas Stewart stood in the servant's stairwell and blew out a slow breath as he, again, read the telegram in his hand. He'd already decrypted the simple cypher, though he'd hand the original in his pocket to Sir Anthony along with his own quickly jotted out translation. Looking down at the message he, once again, wondered how exactly his employer's normally sedate life had come to this. Occasional diplomatic interruptions aside, this wasn't exactly all in a day's work for Stewart under normal circumstances.

"Something wrong, Mr. Stewart?"

While Stewart weighed the benefit of returning the sarcasm in Thomas Barrow's tone and decided against it. Turning, he observed the taller man leaning against the wall a few steps above him and smoking a thin French cigarette. Weighing his options and his own mission to keep an eye on the man, he decided to throw down a little grease and see who slipped.

"No, just wondering at the Crawley family propensity for complication and dramatics. May I ask if one can underestimate it?"

"Anything short of total insanity is an underestimation in that house."

"Ah."

"Got some news from home, then?"

"Yes."

Stewart then pocketed the note and walked up the stairs past the other man, who scowled as he did so.

"Not inclined to share, then?"

"I'm sure you'll hear of it directly, given the trust that Miss Edith obviously places in you."

"Then he'll be sharing this with her? Well, that's a turn around."

So that's his game, then…

"I don't imagine that anyone here imagines life to be a game but yourself, Mr. Barrow."

The gray eyes narrowed at him and Stewart tilted his head to the side. Barrow smirked nastily.

"Has Miss Edith gotten back to you yet about your part in our travel plans yet?"

"I'm sure she will be this evening."

"Isn't that what you said last evening? Yet, here we are, no word on whether or not her beau is going to be invited." Barrow leaned back and blew a smoke ring down at Stewart; the acrid tang of it burning his nostrils. "Can't anticipate these modern girls, can you? Then again, I suppose a man of Sir Anthony's years could easily seem overbearing to a girl used to university and having her own money and whatnot."

Yes, go ahead and gloat. Like that's never bit a man on the ass before, Barrow.

Stewart turned towards the other man and, with an unmistakable deliberateness in a man known for his lack of expression, smiled broadly at Thomas Barrow. Then he carried on, silently. Behind him, Barrow aggressively stamped out what was left of his gasper. Stewart listened to the rough scrape of the man's smooth leather soles and noted that, as vices went, vindictiveness wasn't the easiest one to get a grip on. In this case, however, it would have to do.

Now all he needed to puzzle out was how to hand that blasted telegram to Sir Anthony without the baronet suffering some sort of aneurism. Fine ending to a fine day, that…

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"Oh, for the love of all that's great and small in God's creation!" Anthony burst out after his first frantic readthrough of the telegram that his valet had just handed to him.

Stewart made a nearly inaudible sympathetic noise from where he stood off to the side and Anthony threw himself down into one of the room's chairs to read the blasted thing again.

"Did you – yes, of course you did. Stewart!"

"Yes, sir?"

"Stewart, what in the – why would that wicked old woman – what is she even thinking?"

"I imagine she is thinking of the Crawley name."

"She's thinking of protecting Lady Mary at all costs, as they've done for that girl her whole life!" Anthony burst out and then stood up to pace across the fine rug in the center of the room.

He needed to move. Several circuits complete, he journeyed to the window. Staring out of it at the city of Paris as it stretched in its broad Napoleonic avenues outwards from the hotel. Looking back at the telegram he shook his head.

"Stewart, this is ridiculous!"

"Very much so, sir."

"I – you think it's ridiculous that Miss Edith and I might marry?"

The words, and their inherent worry, tore themselves from his mouth even as they ran rather contrary to his thoughts. He was tempted to try and look down at his lips to see what they were about. His sense of the ridiculous, thankfully, didn't stretch quite that far. Stewart's raised eyebrow suggested he did not agree.

"I was referring to the willingness of the Crawley family to set itself on fire for Lady Mary while ignoring that the girl is made of petrol."

"Ah, yes…" Anthony huffed out a breath and squinted down at a pigeon before turning back and lowering himself into a chair, tugging at his pajama shirt. He should be getting dressed… he glared back at the telegram.

"It's just so preposterous the way they act! As if society is utterly blind to the girl's behavior."

Stewart frowned and Anthony realized the problem and waved a hand, gesturing for his valet to sit across from him so they could speak properly.

"I don't mean her current unfortunate predicament. For once, this is a misery that Lady Mary isn't and shouldn't be remotely held responsible for. Whatever her behavior, I sincerely hope she recovers from not only her, erm, indisposition but also the greater injury that caused it."

"Very much agreed, sir. May I ask the specific problem, then?"

"I'm… I'm just rather irritable about the whole Crawley family's misplaced certainty Lady Mary shall marry well, I suppose." He pulled a face. "They were quite lucky that Evelyn Napier was so interested in the first place, but you'd think from the way that they act that she had a hundred suitors of the best sort."

Stewart cocked his head to the side and Anthony elaborated willingly, more grateful than ever that the faithful friend across from him was willing to be listen as he worked out his thoughts aloud so often.

"Grantham's daughters have no dowries of which to speak. Downton itself isn't the most prosperous estate in Yorkshire, and the more he resists modernization the more expensive it shall be to right things down the line. While they do have good connections, those are largely fading due to the simple passage of time as Robert and his mother grow older and fewer and fewer of their friends and relatives are active in the government."

Anthony raised his hands and began ticking points off on his fingers as if on a list.

"The lack of money is the most serious issue. Almost all of the aristocracy is feeling the pinch right now. That means that they're looking to deepen the coffers through marriage, something not as readily done as it was a generation ago."

"The heiresses of America are realizing that their own millionaires are more stable bets than the aristocracy."

"Exactly, and the daughters of our nobles are realizing that they can't eat caviar off of a title." Anthony sighed. "Lady Mary wants it all, but all she has to offer in return is herself and her family's faded connections. She was never going to manage a grand society marriage."

From an entirely coldblooded perspective, Anthony reflected, Lady Mary should have leapt for Evelyn Napier. The man's family was comfortably wealthy, and he could support his title and plan to pass it and his fully modernized estate down onto his children with far fewer worries than Lord Grantham would hand his off to Mr. Matthew Crawley with. Napier himself was a cheerful, friendly, kindhearted man who'd make a husband tolerant of Lady Mary's sharp edges and frequent defensive unkindness.

"Lady Mary may have had her share of admirers, but she's only had two serious suitors." Anthony went on. "Evelyn Napier was the only one who has maintained an interest for the entire stretch of time since her debut."

Stewart frowned.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the other fellow American?"

"Some young fellow in steel." Anthony nodded. "He only chased her for a few weeks before he turned his attention to that lovely redheaded girl, what was her name?"

"No idea, sir, it was just the one party, wasn't it?"

"Yes, one of Claudia's, everyone was there. They got engaged soon after and were looking for passage back to America."

"I heard they were on the Titanic."

"Sometimes I think that ship's done more damage to my extended acquaintance than the entire Boer war." The baronet rubbed a hand over his face and glared back at the telegram helplessly. "That's not the worst of it."

"No, sir."

"The worst of it is that it makes sense." Anthony groaned, standing to pace again. "Stewart, the old dragon is right."

"Sir?"

"Oh, not about Lady Mary's reputation. Contrary to panic, as long as the story that Lady Mary is at that spa holds, they'll be fine. The trail is well-covered and it's not like a backroom abortionist is going to spread rumors from the East End. Despite their deep concern, Lady Mary's reputation is likely quite safe unless someone blunders about and reveals it all out of panic."

Stewart nodded in understanding.

"Miss Edith is another matter."

"As unfair as it is, through no fault of her own, Edith's reputation is always going to be blighted and fragile because of her origins." Anthony scowled out the window and shook his head. "Her being here in Paris, even though everything she's doing is innocent, will be taken entirely the wrong way. She might feel she can brazen through it, and maybe she could, but I don't trust for a moment that Robert or the rest of her family might not panic and hurt her trying to mitigate it."

"How?"

"Send her off, for one, while things 'quiet down'." Anthony frowned at the thought. "If she comes back and the rumors that she had some wild trip to Paris are bad enough, they've relatives in Scotland and the States. Either could work and would be a convenient way of passing the attention and approbation further from their precious eldest and back towards the daughter that they already proved meant less to them once."

Stewart considered this silently and carefully, as he always considered everything, and then stood.

"Sir, are you afraid she would agree to be… punished socially in Mary's place?"

"No." Anthony winced. "Yes…"

Understanding lit his valet's face and he nodded. Stewart also, bless him, didn't voice Anthony's actual fear. That under pressure from the family she'd just been accepted back into she might, well, accept him without her heart being in it.

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Edith truly was feeling better. Not quite as secure as she'd hoped and there was still this buried kernel of doubt inside her, but she was ruthlessly suppressing it. Despite the fact that she'd been attempting to balance getting her sister to rest properly with punishing her for her dishonesty, Edith had to admit that she'd failed at discipline again the day before. Sir Anthony had stayed with them most of the day and it had been lovely.

Edith, like Katherine before her, was always the stern enforcer when it came to Adelaide's piano lessons. Her little sister drug her feet – or rather, her fingers – whenever she was put in front of the instrument and had for the last four or so years. A frustrating turn-around since Edith's little sister had been introduced to the instrument at two-years-old by her mother and had shown a reasonable amount of interest in it until the year before her mother's death.

Edith had attributed it Katherine's death, at first, or rather the sickness that proceeded it and its inevitable conclusion. Music had been how Edith had connected to her stepmother. Katherine was the first person who'd really and truly supported Edith's interest and encouraged her to not only play because it was 'properly ladylike', but because she enjoyed it. She was the first to push for Edith to get better lessons and to provide real guidance and Edith, though she'd yet to demonstrate it in Yorkshire, knew she'd improved a great deal in the last five years.

You just don't want to have to listen to how much Mary's singing's improved or get a 'that's nice, dear' from everyone.

Edith pushed aside the negative little voice at the back of her head. It wasn't about her. Music had been Katherine Kavanaugh's passion, and the thought of simply letting Addie abandon that felt like a betrayal of the woman who'd accepted her so unconditionally into her family. So, Edith had carried on and, where she'd failed in terms of other forms of discipline, never yet failed in enforcing piano practice despite Addie's contempt for it.

She'd had no idea that Sir Anthony played more than a few polite airs! She'd been surprised and charmed by the sight of the rather towering, if shy, baronet settling beside her little sister on a hastily procured footstool and joining her in her practice. Of course, that meant she had to as well. They'd both played for him on the Mauretania, of course, but… this was different.

You know him better now, Edith told herself, and he's not just a kind neighbor being a gentleman on finding you were traveling alone. She flushed at the thought of it, but wasn't it the truth? Oh, she'd daydreamed about it and she and Sybil had laughed over it, and she'd certainly believed it, but this was something else. This, Edith admitted, was comprehension.

Anthony spent the entire day with them. He didn't visit over a meal or keep it to a barely polite hour. They weren't separated by the space generated when one concentrated on driving. Edith simply sat back and let him stay and watched in a kind of terrified delight as she realized that this was what being married to Anthony Strallan might be like

There would be days of Anthony teasing both Edith and her little sister into enjoying piano practice and even persuading Edith to let her sister play a little ragtime, even if Granny would say it was vulgar. He would tell stories about his mother and coax Addie into telling of hers and, despite the vast gulf in their ages, there would be another little moment of closeness as they shared what it was like to miss a mother that they'd been very close to.

Edith would work through her correspondence and Anthony would work through his, silently and happily, with Addie doing sums in the background and grousing about it until made to stop and focus properly. Edith would have support in doing so, even! They had always talked so much when they were together, making use of every minute allotted by a mostly-proper courtship. Now Edith learned she could share silence with him. She even learned to take some amusement out of the less-than-perfect aspects as it became clear over luncheon that Sir Anthony Strallan could become just as distracted by matters of natural science as her ten-year-old sister and carry right on discussing the dissection of a stillborn two-headed calf born on the home farm twenty years before even as the tarts were set out.

Edith should have known something was about to go rather wrong.

"I don't know if I've mentioned it, but you look absolutely ravishing this evening." The tall baronet offered as he tucked her against his side in the cab and they headed to the theater. Then, after a moment, cleared his throat and rambled. "Not that you aren't always the very definition of lovliness, sweet on-Miss Edith. What I mean is-."

"Thank you, Sir Anthony, I've always thought you looked especially handsome in white-tie." Edith replied teasingly and dared to squeeze his elbow as she turned to look out the window at the lights of Paris. "Though I'm happy to say I'm done with shopping for this trip. I've had quite enough of it."

"A pity. I was hoping to take you and Miss Addie to a few bookshops and such I favored from a student holiday I took here."

"Oh, I wouldn't say no to that sort of shopping. I mean clothing and hats and gloves and – and I never expected to say this but I'm quite shopped out!" Edith laughed sheepishly and he smiled back at her crookedly.

"Miss Adelaide will be the spirit of relief itself when she hears."

Edith huffed out a laugh and shook her head slightly. Her diadem caught the light and sent glimmering sparks dancing over the roof of the car.

"Oh, I'm sure. Thank you for finding a zoo for her tomorrow, by the way."

"You're entirely welcome. I truly am looking forward to it. I…" To her surprise his voice dropped and his expression turned deeply earnest. "I want you to know that I'm in no way false, Edith. Not in anything I've said or done with you or your sister. I delight in your company and no-one could ask for a sweeter child than Adelaide."

"Even though I've spoiled her rotten."

"She's no worse than Diana was at that age."

"Your sister is something to aspire to, so I'll take that as a compliment."

"I'm almost certain I meant it as one."

Edith laughed slightly and looked back out the window, sighing a little.

"I say, are you quite alright? If you don't feel up to the concert-."

"No, no, I won't stay in Paris for a week and not see at least one concert – and Barrow's got us tickets to the ballet tomorrow and I'm sure Addie will enjoy that. She does love dancing."

"Oh?"

"Yes, Jamie and Adrian used to indulge her terribly with it whenever they were home. I'd play and they'd swing her all around the sitting room." Edith felt the same bittersweet anger she always did when she thought of her brothers and swallowed, tamping it down again. "That's another thing I need to be doing and I'm not."

"Pardon?"

"Oh, just, you know how it is."

"I-."

"Le Philharmonie de Paris, monsieur et mademoiselle."

Whatever Anthony had been about to say to her was cut off by the sound of the cab driver announcing their arrival. Simultaneously, a liveried man stepped forward to open the door with a flourish. Edith was left to feel a ruffling wave of excitement as Anthony stepped out of the cab, stood up to his full height, and stooped slightly to offer her his hand. Smiling quite despite herself, and sure she looked like quite the silly little country girl next to the mavens of Paris, she set her fingers in his, slipped her legs from the motor, and stood up in the glittering darkness of the Paris night.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Edith was loveliness itself. If she'd been a creature of fire and shadow, some fey and dangerous goddess, that fight night he'd seen her in one of her new Parisian gowns at the disastrous dinner, with that incident two days in the past Anthony had to say that this dress cast that first into insignificance. He let his eyes skate over her again, just in pursuit of a more perfect inquiry you understand.

"Do you like it?"

"Quite obviously."

She smiled at him, a becoming flush creeping over her nose, and turned away to hide slightly behind her fan as the climbed the sweeping stairs and made their way through the usual tranquil flurry of French washing about their ears like a happy foreign sea. Everyone, of course, was watching everyone else. That's what an evening out in Paris was for.

Well, Old Chap, you're not making such a bad showing of it, are you? At least not in the company you keep. Anthony knew, Stewart's excellent attention to his turn-out aside, that he was a distinctly dull penny next to the brightness of his companion. The baronet was entirely satisfied with that. Edith, of course, could have passed for some pagan goddess rising from a churning sea.

"How in the world did you get that dress in a matter of days?" Anthony lowered his head to ask as they passed through the crowd, trading a nod or a word in French as they went. "I ask, you see, because I fully expect you to wear it to at least one dinner party at my sister's house so she can pitch a throw pillow at me and demand to know why I didn't get her one."

Edith looked left and right briefly and lowered her voice.

"The modiste was just desperate to sell it, and it fit like a dream. She just had to take it in a nip in the back." The strawberry blonde whispered. "Some louche maharaja ordered it for his favorite mistress while visiting, but caught her with another man and left the city without the mistress or the dress. Don't tell Granny."

Putting on his most serious expression, Anthony crossed his heart.

"Anthony?"

Standing and turning, he felt his eyes go wide as they fastened on the figure of a woman he hadn't seen since before the angel standing next to him had been born.

"Lisette?"

Lisette Arnaud Babineaux, née Mercier, had been something of a beauty in her younger days. In her thirties, when Anthony had known her, she had been a statuesque, handsome brunette with bedroom eyes and the kind of sensual confidence designed to set a naive English boy aflame. Now, nearer to sixty than to fifty, she was not an unhandsome woman. She was, however, far past the bloom of youth to the point that it left Anthony blinking in surprise.

Still tall, Lisette had become one of those women who, in pursuit of lost youth, attempted to starve themselves into beauty. Where she'd once had the kind of pigeon-breasted figure so loved by her generation, she was now rail thin beneath her ruthlessly tightened corset. A profusion of lace, slightly out of fashion, cascaded from a neck swathed in pearls to hide the looseness of the flesh there.

Her bone structure was still lovely, if seamed and her eyes were bright. That did not, however, cloak the fact that the creases and wrinkles in her face had become canyons lined with excessive powder or that the rouge was seeping up into the lines above her lips. Beside her was the man Anthony knew he'd been replaced by all those years ago; her second husband, the banker from Brussels. As Anthony took in the "one who'd gotten away" he realized, with some chagrin, that she wasn't even looking at him any longer. Instead, her eyes were fixated on the young blonde upon his arm.

The gown Lisette was wearing was nice, but it was modest as no gown he'd ever seen her in had been years before. The dress of a matron, it was a touch out of fashion with its heavily pouched, overly lacy, fronting, and its severe mustard colored satin skirt. Even the profusion of jewels she wore so proudly was a tad overdone. She stood before him a ship in its final days, trying to hide the rust spots and dents in its hull with an ever-thickening layer of paint.

Edith's gown was the work of art he'd acknowledged it to be, and he knew Lisette could see the same. Those flashing coffee eyes traced up from the trailing hem and train of the gown to red-gold crown of Edith's hair.

The orientalist concoction was daring itself. Cutting across and only just properly obscuring her decolletage the sweep of gathered white silk crept around to lay across the joint of her arm and shoulder indolently, exposing the full breadth of her neck and shoulder. On the other side a mirrored drape fell further still, hanging over the rim of the gown and trailing down her side and back in an offhand elegance. Down her back, forgotten, more of the white silk tumbled and fell in rumpled Grecian gatherings. From just beneath the tight band of embroidered and beaded, midnight blue satin that held her bust in check, the skirts swept downward in gatherings of pleated midnight and electric blue intermixed with thin swags and folds of white silk. Praxiteles' Athena would have wept.

Even Edith's minimal jewelry only served to emphasize her youth and the glory of the gown. The modest little gold fillet with its tiny sparkling diamonds sat sweetly amidst her artfully arranged curls, emphasizing the youthful glow of her aristocratic features and the golden brightness of her eyes. At her throat a single strand of white pearls hung, neat and unassuming, drawing eyes to the perfect dip in her throat, the sweeping wings of her collarbone, and lower still to fuller treasures.

In short, Anthony Crawley found himself facing his very first broken heart with an aristocratic beauty half his age on his arm, right when Lisette was staring her own fading years down with bared teeth. Mama, Papa, forgive me… Anthony sent a sheepish apology towards heaven and then, well, knowing he should be a better man… gloated a little.

"Lisette, what a surprise!" Anthony turned and looked down into Edith's curious eyes and, consciously and with a flare of well-hidden guilt, dropped the "miss" he kept forgetting to add to her name quite intentionally. "Edith, may I introduce you to Madame Lisette Arnaud Babineaux? She's Dr. Mercier's sister."

"Quel plaisir de rencontrer une si belle jeune femme."

"Enchanté de vous rencontrer, madame."

"Ah, what a fine accent for an Englishwoman!" Lisette smiled, her lips turning up into a smile that was entirely French. "Anthony, your daughter is quite lovely."

"Thank you, though I'm afraid I don't have the honor of being Sir Anthony's family." Edith stepped in, and Anthony suddenly had the feeling he'd swam out a little far from shore as he felt Edith's grip on his elbow tighten and something in her expression shifted. "I am pleased to have met, you, though! Dr. Mercier did mention he had an older sister, and you are just as I imagined you – and your husband?"

Babineaux was actually shorter than his wife, and a shade on the portly side of things. His broad face was warm and friendly, however, and his brownish-green eyes lively with amusement. Stepping forward, the man bowed down to tease Edith's gloved fingers with his mustache.

"Vincente Babineaux, at your service, mademoiselle." He offered up pleasantly, nodding his head towards Anthony. "And a pleasure to meet you as well, Sir Anthony. My brother-in-law has spoken very highly of you. When he mentioned that you were in town, Lisette said we must come to the symphony, as you were sure to be here for at least one night's performance, with your love of music."

"Anthony's wonderful with music. He spent most of the day coaxing my younger sister into enjoying her piano lessons." Edith smiled brilliantly and turned up to look at him with the sort of playful fondness that left his mouth dry. "Which rather defeated the purpose of using them as a punishment but was still utterly darling."

"Mon Dieu!" The rotund fellow laughed, his tone jolly even as his wife's expression soured. "Share your secrets! Lisette could never do a thing with her stepchildren. I did my best, of course, but in the end it was I and the nannies sorting things out and my enchanting wife left to content herself with her social duties."

"Chérie, I'm sure the performance is due to start. Let us not hold our friends any further."

"Yes, of course, but it was very nice to meet you."

"And you as well."

And with that final scrape of verbal swords crossing, Anthony found himself neatly extracted from the drama he'd rather naughtily commenced. Placidly, he led Edith through the crowd, noting no few speculative and jealous eyes cast upon her and sliding his free hand over where hers rested on his elbow as he escorted them to their box for the evening. As he settled Edith into her chair and sat down in his own beside her, he felt the smooth material of her gloves' fingertips against his wrist and leant over so she could speak to him behind the screen of her fan.

"So, Sir Anthony, do you intend to rub me in the face of all of your old lovers?"

"I – er – well, she wasn't – That is - you – um…"

Anthony suddenly had a great deal of sympathy for animals who gnawed their feet off to escape traps. Then his eyes fixed on the edge of the fan and he realized it was vibrating. Turning his eyes back to Edith's, he found the brandy-brown gaze narrowed with amusement and realized she was silently laughing at him. His own sense of humor caught up and, sheepishly, he grinned down at her and whispered back.

"I'm sorry. It was caddish of me, but when I saw her… it rather just happened."

"Oh, don't worry, it's a relief in a way."

"That I, er…"

Anthony wasn't even sure what he was thinking, let alone what he was about to say. Sensing catastrophe, he bit down on his own tongue to prevent it from damning him. Edith patted his wrist.

"To know you're not actually a saint."

"Ah."

He blinked down at where the orchestra sat below them, the lights dimming as the conductor took his position. Gently and slowly, he turned his hand to take hers. She moved it from his wrist and slid her fingers into his.

"I'm afraid I'm nothing near so fine as that, Edith. I'm… really just a rather silly old farmer, just as everyone says I am. If she was shocked by anything, it's the fact that you're entirely too delightful a being to be out and about with a sad old codger like me."

"Oh, listen to you! Stop looking for sympathy, you're not even fifty yet."

"Closer than not."

"And still doing loads better than Lord Grantham."

"Oh, I would deny that."

"You haven't seen him on a day out at the hunt or trapsing around Downton. He hasn't half your energy."

"Well, yes, but I-."

"Oh, hush. I had fun. She looked terribly unpleasant, anyway."

"She was someone else once. We all are when we're young." Anthony mused, then held back a wince as he realized that was a terribly condescending thing to say to someone who was indeed still young and no doubt considering the twenty-five-year gulf between their ages.

Her earlier words rushed back and all of the safety and sense of belonging their time since together threatened to tumble away. Was he taking advantage of her? Did he show her proper respect or had he just… rushed in and not trusted her? She didn't trust you either, old man, nobody did precisely the right thing here. Such is life.

"Will you tell me about it?"

"Sometime, yes."

His words seemed weak even in his own ears. He looked down. She'd lowered the fan. The light in her eyes had dimmed. Anthony curled his hand around hers just a bit more tightly, then realized he was doing it, and loosened his grip in shame. What right have you to hold onto her? To hold her back? She surprised him by threading their fingers together more firmly and dropping her voice.

"Did she break your heart?"

"I – rather." Anthony winced at the admission and her thumb traced gently over the webbing between his own thumb and hand, prompting a shiver at the feel of her warmth through the silk of her glove. "But, well, it was for the best. I was young and foolish and her regard was never what I tricked myself into believing it was. As for my heart? Maud put it back together for me, you know, and now…"

And now I've found you, but by God, I don't deserve you. What if I've ruined it all? I can't blame you if I have. To think, this morning you read that telegram and were beside yourself thinking she might agree to marry you because she was told to! Now you're terrified she won't have you at all. A fine mess you are… never satisfied by anything.

"And now." She agreed softly and, for just a moment, Anthony was seized by the wild urge to lean down and kiss her, all of the eyes of Parisian society be damned.

Instead, both of their heads snapped around as the soul-swept majesty of Mozart's forty-first symphony filled the air around them.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thomas Barrow hated admitting he was wrong, but that didn't mean he couldn't.

"Daisy's got all of the sense that God gave midges, but-."

"Do you mean she has the collective sense of all of God's midges, or the sense of a single midge?"

Thomas Barrow hated nothing as much as having to do it with an audience. He shot the darkest possible look at the valet currently sitting with himself and Adelaide and quietly cursed the existence of bookish baronets and their servants. He had been happy enough to "keep an eye on" Addie while her sister and Sir Anthony went to the symphony. He liked spending time with the moppet and it was his best route to job security. He had not required company.

His disappointment that his attempt to sow some discord between Miss Edith and Sir Anthony had apparently failed hadn't made his day any better. He'd been a bit pleased, seeing his efforts go far enough that the elder Kavanaugh hadn't outwardly told him to include the man in their travel plans. He had been less pleased to see that the man was still entirely welcome around his employers. Strallan had spent the entire day with them twice now, and they only had three more days in Paris!

Now? Barrow had assumed he'd get at least a good evening out of it. Addie looked better, for one, and was back on the simpler diet that Mrs. Patmore had worked out for her back at Downton. She was also writing down what she ate and the amounts in a little leather journal she'd been given. One that Thomas had to admit seemed to be a help already, as the book meant that even Addie had to admit it when she'd simply eaten far too little.

For the moment? A good meal of roast chicken and the proper trimmings was set out. Addie was mostly nibbling on some chicken breast and a bit of rice, but he noted she was eating a decent enough amount by her standards. The sparkling cider that had been brought up as a treat since Addie was not attending the symphony with the adults, was also pretty damned good.

It would have been far better if Addie hadn't been tricked into "hosting a special guest".

As it was, Nicholas Stewart had arrived at Miss Edith's behest and become the thorn in his side that Barrow knew him to be. The only problem was getting rid of someone that Addie already liked. Especially when he hadn't done anything wrong beyond get on Thomas' last nerve.

"I can't imagine that midges have much sense collectively or individually, Mr. Stewart." Addie giggled into her cider and, after a moment's consideration and the decision that the valet wouldn't snitch, went on with the conversation she'd started about the other servants at Downton. Since they were all being honest now. "Mr. Carson doesn't like Americans, though. He's said the worst things!"

"Oh?"

"Usually, it's a compliment that isn't." Addie complained to the swarthy man as Thomas got a second plate full of roast onions, carrots, and potatoes and tore the last leg off the chicken. "He said I should look towards Lady Grantham for, 'how an American can be a perfect lady despite the implicit handicap'."

"And," Thomas added just to stir the pot, "there's his opinion about baseball."

"You don't like baseball either, Thomas."

"No, but I don't go on and say things about it to you, do I?"

"Sometimes, but we're friends. I hardly asked for Mr. Carson's opinion." Addie huffed, then turned to Mrs. Stewart. "We still haven't found my baseball bat. I've tried to buy another one, but there's none to be had. I mean, if we can get pineapples from Hawaii, why can't we get a baseball bat from Kentucky? It makes no sense."

For the barest second Thomas Barrow exchanged amused glances with Stewart over the girl's head, then he recalled himself and flattened his amused expression into nothingness. Yes, it was funny that Lady Edith was frustrating her sister's every effort to come by a baseball bat. No, he wasn't going to share that joke with the interloper. Actually, when things were a bit more secure he might get his own back a little by seeing to it that Addie got her baseball bat. Something to consider for the long run…

"Have you considered cricket?"

"Crickets are fishing bait, not a sport."

"Hey now." Barrow reached out and poke her shoulder and she reached out and swatted at his hand. "Just because you didn't have the best introduction to the sport-."

"Worst afternoon outside ever." She turned towards Stewart. "What do you like, Mr. Stewart?"

"I've always been partial to rugby."

"Tom the driver likes rugby too, and football. English football, I mean, though he'd probably say it was Irish. Does anyone actually know who invented it?"

"It's a matter of some debate." Stewart offered delicately and Thomas snorted and snagged another roll.

"There've been wars fought over less."

"Well, that's not very bright, to fight over something like that." She wrinkled her nose and went on. "I don't mind football, actually. Picking a team is very serious, however, and I don't know enough about Britain to decide yet."

"I've always been partial to Bradford City."

"I'm sure they're very good, but my great grandpapa was Irish, and I have to consider those teams too, you know, and that makes it more complicated. Lord Grantham was offended."

"I would think he'd be more understanding on the concept of family loyalty."

"Me too." Addie looked troubled, glancing between the adults. "I thought he'd be horrid, did you know? After he kept Edie from us for so long and lied to her and didn't treat her like his other daughters. Now that I've met him, he's, well, he's wrong sometimes but he seems to do his best and he's rather nice and not what I expected at all."

Barrow was torn in that moment. On one hand, his hindbrain was screaming at him to take advantage of this. Miss Edith was writing back to the man and while he knew he'd been honest with the woman, who knew what Lord Grantham would write back? He was hardly secure. He needed to improve his position and anything that drove a wedge between Miss Edith and her sister, and the extended family meant more chance of him keeping his new place.

On the other hand? Thomas Barrow looked down at Addie's face. Thin, as she always was, but still a bit too pale even after a day of rest and a day of the warm June sun in Paris. Their eyes were almost the same color, Thomas realized suddenly, separated only by the tint of blue hers had and his lacked. The child looked up at him, her eyes catching his, and he realized she'd never hesitated to look him in the eyes. Not when she first tripped down in the Grantham House Kitchen. Not when she'd found out his greatest secret. Not when she'd told him that there was no more wrong with him than her dead brother.

"I think he wants to try, even if he mucks it up." Thomas agreed. "Same with Lady Grantham. She went through making him talk to some psychologist, after all. Lady Mary? Not sure of her but at least she owes you and Miss Edith now. You can use that. Lady Sybil's a kid not much better than you, moppet, but I can't say I know any of them. I worked for them, nothing else."

"Sybil's going to debut soon." Addie disagreed. "That's rather grown up."

Thomas scowled at the bland and expressionless way that Stewart was drinking his tea and tried to think of the most uncomfortable subject possible to start discussing. The other man beat him to it.

"Sir Anthony said that you're going looking for books tomorrow?"

"Really?" Addie lit up, thoroughly distracted, though even Barrow felt that for the better.

Stewart nodded solemnly.

"I want to find one about veterinary diseases. Especially for horses. Edith talked and said that I can start riding when we get back, but I have to prove I'm good enough to earn my own horse. I can't just have one straight away."

"That seems fair."

"It is. I'm going to see if I can work her up to a cat, too, and maybe a bird, once I get my puppy and the horse." Addie enthused. "All sorts of things go wrong with a horse's digestion, you know."

"Not really," Stewart said before Thomas could firmly turn talk away from anything disgusting Addie might stumble onto if left to her own devices, as she just had. "could you tell me more?"

Splitting his glare between his full plate and Stewart's placid face, Thomas Barrow reflected on a perfectly good free dinner, ruined, and plotted revenge as he watched the Canadian cheerfully eat his way through a second helping while engaging a curious ten-year-old girl in a thirty-seven-minute-long discussion on how horse shit was made and the importance of the various consistencies.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Edith felt as if something painfully out of joint was finally sliding into place at the concert. His fingers and hand were warm wrapped around hers, and the music was like nothing she'd ever heard. The sheer delight of it all felt as if a weight she hadn't even known she was carrying was being lifted. She felt like she was floating.

Her lingering doubts about Barrow were balanced out by her trust in his affection for her sister. Her slight concern was further tempered by the fact that she'd agreed with Anthony that, this time at least, Addie was going to have two watchdogs for the evening. Edith didn't even feel guilty for it, as Mr. Stewart was more than willing to oblige, rather than be put out by the task as many men would be, and Addie had liked Anthony's valet since she'd first met him on the ship.

She was still, deep under her skin, a little worried about how he'd followed her to Paris, but less because him and more because of herself. She didn't want to think of that, however, and so she put it away. As Edith did so, the night seemed perfect. Like the sort of thing that happened to someone else.

Then again, it was Paris. They whispered to whisper, and even the gossip sounded sophisticated. What did the French care if she was a love child? To them, her past was like her money, an additional source of drama and passion. Everyone and everything in Paris was part of the stage setting for the drama that was life, and Edith felt none of the hostility and constant snubbing she'd received in the States or in Britain at times. Tonight she wasn't plain, she wasn't a bastard, and she wasn't forgotten. Tonight, she was a beautiful young woman in a slightly scandalous dress, on the arm of the most intelligent, charming, and kind man in existence.

That was, of course, the moment when it would go terribly wrong. She'd barely gotten in the door to the suite, still smiling after the kiss that Anthony had pressed to her hand, when Barrow handed her a telegram sealed in an envelope.

Miss Edith Kavanaugh [-stop-]

I was concerned to find that you had lied to myself and Sir Anthony about Mrs. Bauer's injury. [-stop-] I am more concerned by your flagrant disregard for the proper forms, your reputation, and Miss Adelaide's. [-stop-] I had considered you too mature for running off at the drop of the hat, and to Paris. [-stop-]

I do not know what or how your maternal family is involved, Miss Kavanaugh, but I have my suspicions it is at your expense. [-stop-] The Earl and his wife had reassured me that you and your sister would be safest in their care until you reached your majority. [-stop-] I am no longer convinced they are not the negative influence your father feared they would be. [-stop-] Until you are twenty-one I have a duty to yourself and your sister that extends beyond the trust, as does Mr. Carmichael. [-stop-] Proceed to the Prof. Bauer's residence. [-stop-] When you return to England, we must discuss your behavior. [-stop-] I expect, as your father would expect, you to behave in a manner that reflects well on your character and Adelaide's future. [-stop-]

Mr. Edward Branaugh,

Of Branagh, Murdock, Fythe, and Long

Arundel St., Temple, London

"Miss Edith, is everything alright?"

Edith felt numb. The pins and needles had vanished from her hand, where Anthony had kissed the back of her white glove. She was dimly aware of gray eating at the edges of her vision. The lovely dinner, the refreshments from intermission, curdled in her stomach.

"Miss Edith?"

She jumped, wobbling on the heels of her embroidered pumps as she whipped her head around to look up into Barrow's concerned face. Her voice jumped and cracked as she answered, unconsciously pressing the telegram to her chest to hide it in shame.

"Yes?"

"I – Miss Edith, what's wrong?"

"I – it's -it's not. There is no problem, Barrow. Thank you for – for everything you've done this evening. Is Addie asleep?"

Oh, God. They were sharing a room. Edith normally didn't mind, and, frankly, felt a little safer traveling if she could keep her sister right there with her. Now, though? Now there was no way that she could stumble into that room with her little sister. The maid's room. Oh, thank God it's empty.

"Yes, she's been off to bed for hours. Ate a decent bit of chicken and rice at dinner and didn't feel off afterward." He reeled off from months of practice, but stared at her with knowing, narrowed, gray eyes. "Miss Edith, was the telegram from Lord Grantham?"

"No." Edith replied and swallowed. "And, even if it was, I will not penalize you for anything you were honest to me about. I want you to know that. When I said you could make a new start of things, I meant it."

"Of course, ma'am, thank you. It's just – you don't look well."

"What every girl longs to hear, Mr. Barrow." Edith forced a smile. "You're dismissed for the evening. Thank you for looking after Addie. When we get home…"

Edith tried to push herself to speak. She needed to finish her thought. That when they got home, they'd have to see about expanding the household a little. She really did need a lady's maid, and they really needed a household maid to help Barrow trade off on duties with Addie, though those would lighten after Addie was in school in the fall.

She couldn't do it. Not with the telegram clutched to her chest. Not with a reality she'd been able to push aside so completely roaring forward to bellow in her face like some angry lion.

"Of course, ma'am. If there's nothing else?"

"No, Barrow, nothing."

As he shut the door on himself for the evening Edith turned the lock and, trembling, stumbled into the small maid's room off to the side of the sitting room. Fumbling for the lamp, she all but fell onto the bed, sitting and staring down at the paper in her hands again. She didn't even bother to take her gloves off as, with growing panic, she read the letter again. All of the carefully buried or repressed worries she'd spent the last year refusing to allow herself to buckle under began to break free at once.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He'd read the telegram. Of course, he'd read the telegram. Barrow wasn't an idiot and he liked advanced warning.

He'd gotten rid of Stewart and Addie had gone to bed quietly for once, having apparently had her fill of disgusting zoological discussion for the evening and been satisfied with it. Barrow liked the moppet, but he really wouldn't have objected if she'd been a touch girlier. At least where bodily functions were concerned.

After that he'd been rung from downstairs that there was a telegram waiting for Miss Kavanaugh from London. Well, he'd figured it was Grantham rushing to tattle on him. So, he'd gotten himself a hot cup of tea and steamed the thing open.

What he'd found was, possibly, worse than Lord Grantham. Barrow was worried what Miss Edith would do. There was no arguing that. She could rescind her good grace and destroy him with a single word and the only thing he saw stopping it was how fond a ten-year-old girl was of his company. It was infuriating.

It was also…

For the first time in his bloody life he had people who were angrier about his lying and his stealing than his being bent. He was an invert, for Christ's sake! It was illegal and immoral and as far as he knew nobody'd ever stood up and argued with heaven about his sort. He could understand how Addie got that way – she was a child and you could teach anybody anything if you got to them young. Wasn't that how people learned to hate them in the first place? Her sister, however, she had no damned reason to help him.

Only reason she's got is she wants to. That she knows what it's like to be hated for no damned good reason. To have people look down on her for something she can't help.

None of the two realities – the distrust and trust – that Barrow kept swinging between in his head mattered if Miss Edith Kavanaugh's situation itself changed. Why the hell hadn't he thought about her age? Twenty-one was an adult in Britain and the States. That might not have mattered a damned bit when they sent some thirteen-year-old blue collar boy like him off to work himself to the bone for the quality, but you can damned well count on it being important when there was money involved and in a woman's hands.

One thing was for sure. If some solicitor stepped in there was no way in the blue bloody blazes anyone with his history would be kept on. You could bet the pleasant Mr. Branagh would stop being so pleasant if he thought he had to "put his foot down" for the "sake of his responsibilities". At that point? Neither of the girls were at Downton and he'd be flat out of any job.

On top of that? Barrow could see what would happen. Miss Edith may have acted like she was sure as silver, but she wasn't. Underneath all that "modern confidence", she was stretched thin and had been since she got to Britain. Likewise, Addie's progress rested on her feeling secure in the middle of her world going up in flames and where would that sense of rightness go if the sister taking care of her had the rug pulled out from under her?

For once, Barrow's sense of self-preservation and his sense of honor, damaged and limping as the thing was, were in total agreement. Bitter as it was, he turned from Miss Edith Kavanaugh's door and lengthened his stride as he hit the servant's corridor and the stairs beyond it. He might not like it, but he knew what he had to do.

"Barrow?"

Barrow looked down at where Stewart had answered the door to the baronet's room and blew out a breath through his teeth.

"We've got a problem."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Anthony looked down at where Edith had answered the door to her suite, her expression torn and her eyes damp and red from tears and his heart lurched. What in the name of Heaven was going wrong now?

"A-anthony?"

"Edith, Barrow told me you were terribly upset by a telegram – are you alright?"

"I – no, no I'm not."

Edith stepped back and Anthony followed her into the dim sitting room. She retreated towards a small open door, paused, and pointed at the other door with a shake of her head. Anthony understood immediately. Addie was, of course, sleeping behind that door and it wouldn't do to wake her up. Of course, that presented a whole host of other problems.

Anthony was all too painfully aware that what he was doing was not appropriate and was, in fact, part of a series of such choices. His Papa would have had a fit if he'd found out he was alone in a hotel room, at night no less, with an unmarried young lady he'd been courting! His mother would have at the very least raised an eyebrow, though she'd have been more understanding of his need to help.

Going with the principle that it was a shame to drown in shallow water, Anthony gently nudged Edith back into the maid's room and shut the door, flushing even as he did so. He justified it to himself as, well, he really couldn't but she looked so terribly upset. She'd been crying, her eyes were red, and the black kohl around her eyes was terribly smudged. Several traces of it were apparent on her white silk gloves.

"What's wrong? Was it from Dowton?"

What's the old dragon done now? Or worse, Robert's said something stupidly callous in trying to be kind, hasn't he?

"No-no."

"Edith-."

"Anthony why did you have to call on my solicitor of all people!" Edith finally burst out in a furiously miserable whisper.

"Your-."

"Branaugh!" She thrust a piece of rumpled paper at him. "Here just – just read this!"

Anthony did as asked. It made unhappy reading On one hand; he was forced to admit that he'd shared the man's concerns. On the other, he was upset that someone he'd taken to be so sensible had sent such a high-handed and upsetting message. Finally, a purely logical part of his brain was rather of the opinion that Branagh wasn't wrong about Edith being drawn into disaster after disaster by her family's bad example.

"Well?" Edith demanded, standing up and wrapping her arms around herself as she paced the tiny room, forcing Anthony's back against the door.

"I – Edith, I had no idea. Does he really have the authority interfere with your guardianship?"

"My guardianship? No, Daddy made sure that was written in stone. He wasn't going to have us split up." Edith turned to him and her expression tore at his heart; all misery and anger and a terrible guilt he couldn't fathom. "My life? My life, however, he and Carmichael can still tear that to shreds for the next eight months!"

Anthony's heart twisted, but before he could think of what he cold possibly say, Edith was going on, her voice still quiet but her tone growing remarkably more distressed with every word.

"I'm not yet twenty-one, Anthony, do you have any idea what that means?" Edith answered her own question, scoffing loudly. "Of course, you don't, you're a man! Even if you're all but a child you're allowed to run all about the continent on university trips and it's part of your education. If a lady so much as dares to wear trousers or puts a toe outside without three well-armed and respectable matrons watching her every move, well, the whole world knows just what sort of rubbish she must be, don't they?"

"Edith-." Anthony attempted to interject, appalled at the sheer self-loathing suddenly filling the young woman's tone.

"Do you have any idea the things they said about me at university?" She demanded. "In one breath I was a bastard and so I must be morally deficient. So, it made perfect sense that I'd gotten my grades on my back – oh, but everyone knew Daddy paid to get me in and get me all those special privileges in the first place! So that's two answers and one question, but it's not like social niceties have to make sense, is it?"

Anthony sucked in a breath, ready to argue, when he suddenly realized he shouldn't. Instead, despite what it cost him, he bit his tongue and listened. Once before he'd watched this young woman fall apart. Then it had been seeing her struggling with her sister and the massive responsibility that caring for her entailed while they were "trapped" together on an ocean liner. It had been at that moment, listening to her honestly laying out her fears, that Anthony had seen what an incredibly brave young woman whose acquaintance he had made.

"As if Branagh or Carmichael have any idea or care of what it really takes to live our lives. Addie is just coming back to herself. You didn't even see the worst of it. Our whole family died in three years, Anthony! First Katherine, then in nine days we'd buried Papa and both our brothers and do you think she could handle that? Do you think anyone could? Of course she had tantrums and was miserable and it took everything I had just to get up in the morning and face her and face myself and I know I'm not good enough but I've done my best and it's not like anyone else cared half enough to do more than offer a pat on the back!" Edith huffed in a rough breath pressing her hand over her mouth. "You were the only one who… who helped and… and now…"

"And now I've gone and made things worse trying to help further."

"No, yes, I don't… It's all my own fault."

Finally, she broke down, and though she turned her back on him and the sight of her in tears tore at his heart, Anthony reached out knowing that this was better. Just thinking of the year that the poor girl had had… His poor darling… It was wrong and he shouldn't, but what good was propriety doing at the moment? He wound his arms around her gently, giving her room to pull away if she wanted, and turned her towards his chest.

"Edith, sweet one, it is not your fault."

"Yes, it is. I've gone about it all wrong, even you said so!"

"How?"

"That – that I should have called Papa and Mama and told Mary to stop trying to hide it all from them. Instead I helped her and now I'm here in Paris and I don't even want to be, and I thought it was so fine for one night, but look at it all fall apart and I don't know what I was thinking I could manage it. I can't even manage myself!"

"Pish and tosh. You've got the world on your shoulders and the ants crawling on the thing want to tell you how to carry it." Anthony took a deep breath of her hair, smelling the amber and jasmine of an unfamiliar Parisian perfume and the distant whiff of lavender from her soap. "Darling, shh."

"Don't you shush me!"

Poor choice of words, old man!

"No, of course not, I don't mean it that way." Anthony hastened to clarify. "I mean, stop speaking so ill of yourself. You may not have made the best choice, but you made the best choice with what you had available. I imagine that if you so much as breathed a word of your parents Lady Mary would have fallen apart in panic."

"She was all but falling apart as it was, and can you blame her? She was sick and she couldn't even see a proper doctor in our own country without the world judging her!"

"No, I don't blame her a bit for that. For being cruel to you, that I do blame her for, but for what others have done to her? Of that she is innocent and deserves nothing but kindness." He dared to press his lips to her hair. "Edith, you deserve nothing less than kindness."

"But he's right. It could – it could all reflect horribly on Addie and it's my responsibility to protect her."

"And you are. I remind you that, had you not brought her here, she'd never had met Dr. Mercier and you'd have probably had to refer her to some specialist without a legion of difficult children and a scientific background."

"And?"

"And they'd have vexed her as badly as all the others and your sister would not be trying to handle her condition rather as she is now. Instead she'd still be rebelling against the very idea of food."

Edith sniffed, but didn't contradict him. Instead, in a barely audible voice, he heard her go on.

"It's not just…"

"Just what, sweet one?"

"I feel like I've just – just failed at everything."

"Such as?"

"Oh, Addie, yes, but… I know you think I'm foolish for trusting Barrow."

"It's never foolish to be kind." Anthony countered, but honesty compelled him to add. "I just fear he's unworthy of your kindness."

"Everyone is, until you give them a chance." Edith argued softly into the material of his white waistcoat, and it struck Anthony as a bit ludicrous they were still both dressed for an evening out. "I'm a bastard because they say so. He's a bastard because they made him one. I'd like to – to give him a chance to unmake their mistakes, if you know what I mean."

"I do, I just worry, you know."

"I do. It…" She tore her eyes up to look at him, her gaze dark in the single lit lamp of the small room. "You know we shouldn't be alone in here?"

"I'll add it to the long list of mistakes I've made in my life." He held her. "I don't think I shall try to pretend it's a regret. What's wrong, Edith."

"I…"

There was a pause and, on it, hung an entire future. When she spoke, he had to strain to hear it.

"I don't know if I'm making any of the right choices."

"Such as?"

"Addie I'm more sure of now, but… Papa, Lord Grantham I mean, asked me not to write anything and try to publish it. He felt that, well, with everything going on when I returned it would be too much of the wrong kind of attention."

Oh, I knew you'd done something. Anthony felt a little vindicated. He also felt a little exasperated.

"That was nearly three months ago, and the fact is that anytime you enter the public eye even slightly they're going to dredge up your past. It's a simple, if sad, reality."

"I know, but it made sense at the time. I did just want to be left alone to settle."

"And?"

"And – and Mama and Granny were so bent on talking about your age. As if I can't count!" Edith looked up at him, exasperated. "I'm well aware of how old you are, Anthony and how old I'm not, and everything in between. I don't care, you never treat me as if I'm less than you. At least-."

"At least not until I rushed off after you and used my superior experience to follow you to Paris and manipulate your only servant."

"Yes, that."

"I am sorry, Edith. Please believe me when I say I only did it out of fear for your safety."

"I know, and I know I should have just told you when we were at Diana's." Edith whispered, tucking her head into his neck, her breath hot across the thin stretch of skin between collar and neck. "I – I like to think that if I had you'd have understood and, and helped us even with Mary so upset."

"I would have." Anthony agreed instantly, voice soft. "Though Lady Mary might have done something even more foolish when I pointed out that your parents had to know. Which they do now."

"Yes, and at least we'll all be able to deal with it as one now. It never was going to be as tidy as we wanted."

"Life seldom is." Anthony was painfully aware, now, of how bare her shoulders were beneath the press of his jacket sleeves as he held her against his chest. "In the name of honesty, I should tell you I received a telegram of my own today."

"Oh no, from Branagh?"

"No, from Diana, regarding your grandmother."

"… I was wrong, there are more ominous correspondences."

Anthony snorted out a laugh and then, sheepishly, bit his lip. Edith's expression grew alarmed.

"Anthony, you're scaring me, what's she done now."

"Well, apparently she's determined that you were right all along and a distraction is the best way to save Mary's reputation."

"I shudder to think."

"She's, er, implying heavily to others that she suspects we're eloping."

Edith craned her neck backwards to stare at him. Anthony felt an automatic, awkwardly apologetic, half-smile twist over his lips. She blinked at him. He blinked back. She buried her face in his chest and her shoulders began to shake.

"Oh, Edie, forgive me. I'm so sorry that-."

A choked giggle drifted to his ears and Anthony wasn't sure whether he was relieved or offended.

"I – you had me worried it was something dreadful!" She weakly smacked his chest and pulled back, looking up at him with an expression that suggested the kind of helpless amusement only the emotionally exhausted ever felt. "I was afraid she was trying to marry me off to one of Lord Merton's awful sons or something of the sort!"

"Oh, well – you wouldn't mind eloping?" Anthony stared, shocked. "With me?"

"I'd rather have a proper wedding and a decent engagement. If for nothing else, to show everyone who's ever said anything rotten about me up a bit. Petty as it is."

"Oh, I don't think it's petty."

"Besides, I don't want to encourage Addie's hasty streak."

"Pardon?"

"Anthony, you can see what my baby sister is like at ten." The blonde shot him a droll look. "I want you to imagine the handful she's going to be in five years."

Truth be told, Anthony had imagined himself as officially part of the girls' little family quite a bit and for longer than he felt wise. He'd wanted to be a father so badly and for so long, and while he was aware that Adelaide Kavanaugh had had a father she'd loved dearly and he couldn't just step into Zachary Kavanaugh's shoes… the thought of her running about Loxley, into everything, and wanting to follow him everywhere about the Home Farm and pester his tenants about their livestock… It had been a lovely image and it still was.

Imagining himself and Edith trying to handle her little sister's not inconsiderable masterful streak, her sometimes sharp tongue, and her various stubborn tendencies when she had grown into the kind of girl who fancied dancing and boys the same way she did a good amphibian pond survey… was daunting. Anthony found himself chuckling helplessly.

"Oh dear…"

"Addie would absolutely elope."

"She really would." Anthony agreed, amused and horrified by the idea. "We absolutely cannot encourage that."
"No, we mustn't!"

"That said I – I – sweet one, forgive me for the world's least romantic proposal, but am I to take it from your response that you wouldn't… object to being my wife?"

Oh, it was difficult to meet her eyes then, but when she looked up and met his they were bright and warm and everything he'd hoped to see there was swimming in their dark depths.

"No, I wouldn't." Edith sniffed and then stepped back, smoothing her skirt. Anthony took a moment to admire her figure in that wonderful dress. She looked up and a hint of that wonderful, bright spirit was back. "That said, Anthony – Sir Anthony, and it's struck me we've just given up on being proper, haven't we?"

"Yes, rather, sweet one."

"Well, we'll go on with it, then, no point now. Anyway, as I was saying, I am not counting that as your proposal I hope you understand. I fully expect you to come up with a better one."

Grinning, Anthony nodded.

"Oh, I absolutely agree, Edie. My darling girl, you definitely deserve better."

"Very good. Then we'll agree to – to reconvene later."

"Yes, and… if wouldn't be too presumptuous again." Anthony hesitated and then offered softly. "Why don't I write Mr. Branagh. I'm the one who alarmed him so badly, after all. Let me be the one to calm him down."

"I – well, you did start it." Edith sighed and shook her head. "I just don't want to have to spend eight months on some farm in Wales being watched by some glaring matron and not allowed to write anyone."

"It won't happen."

"Well, if nothing else, the conservatorship ends when I'm twenty-one or married so there is still elopement!"

"Let's not give the dowager the satisfaction."

"Too right!"

Warmed to his marrow and filled with relief that so much had been cleared up by mere words, Anthony sent a prayer of thanks to heaven that – for the second time in his life – he'd found a woman with home he could talk. Taking both her still-gloved hands in his, he lifted her fingers to her lips in sequence and kissed both of her hands twice.

"I should really go, and you, my darling, really need to get at least one decent night's sleep this week."

"Yes, I…" Edith flushed. "Anthony?"

"Yes, sweet one?"

"Would you like to come to Salzburg with Addie and I? Officially I mean, as invited guests."

Anthony felt relief unwind in his chest as he smiled crookedly down at her.

"I would be entirely delighted, Miss Kavanaugh."

And, after several failed attempts on his part, Anthony Strallan found he finally got his kiss as Edith rose up onto her toes, and balanced both her hands on his chest to lean up and press her lips to his. Wrapping his arms around her, he returned the gesture with all the careful enthusiasm in his soul.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

An extended brunch was going on in the Kavanaugh's suite. Keeping a hostile eye on Stewart, who'd elected himself to assist in serving, and a watchful eye on the suite's assigned French Maid, who mostly seemed to be darting about and reordering things for the laundry service to pick up, Thomas Barrow reflected that life had a certain give and take to it.

Early that morning, when he'd first been rung for, Miss Edith had specified that he needed to work with the annoying Canadian as Sir Anthony would be headed east with them. That was a loss. On the other hand, she'd also calmly and honestly told him that he'd have the afternoon and evening off to do as he pleased. She'd even said it with an emphasis that, in a rare turn of events, pasted some color onto Barrow's cheeks as he'd realized she really meant what she said about him having a night or two to "enjoy Paris".

He still couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea of having an employer who knew and… well, who would not at all hate him for what he was. That said, he prided himself on being the sort of man who took advantage of such opportunities. So, he'd begun to ask around a bit more cautiously and found a sous chef whose advice – and company – was more promising. He had a lot to look forward to.

Now? Barrow served tea, coffee, and a variety of pastries as they plotted an attack on the booksellers of Paris.

"We'll not be able to take that much with us on the trains."

"Oh, that's why you have it shipped back to Yorkshire." The baronet assured both younger women with the air of an experienced bibliophile. "I've got a company, we'll just handle everything together."

"That makes sense, but if we get anything on chemistry I want to take it with us." Addie offered. "Onkle Klaus will want to read it."

"Does he read English?"

"Yes, and speaks it very well, but Omma doesn't speak English at all or read it."

"I'm sure it won't give either of you two any problems. I'm the one who keeps telling everyone that I'm boring, rather than saying I'm bored."

Addie immediately started giggling.

"That's not the best one! Edie keeps saying-."

"Addie!"

The little imp ducked beneath her sister's hand, grinning, and went on.

"She keeps saying gute nackt instead of gute nacht!"

Sir Anthony Strallan proceeded to inhale, and then cough up, a chunk of paine au raisin. Beside him, Stewart's lips just visibly twitched. Miss Edith was distinctly pink.

"It's – it's a very easy mistake to make, Addie."

Thomas caught the girl's eye as she giggled and she grinned and explained.

"Gute nacht means 'good night' but gute nackt means 'good naked'!"

"Addie!"

Thomas fought a grin as any professional butler would and went about refreshing everyone's beverage.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You know, the treatment itself is enough like torture, I don't need him to add to it."

"I know, my lady."

"Oh, Anna, what am I going to do?" Mary murmured to herself as she lay, chained to the bed by the need to be immobile to let the treatment burn its way to curing her.

Anna couldn't alleviate her discomfort or send Matthew back to Yorkshire, but she'd done what she could and Mary would always be grateful for that. Her hands were manicured, her hair was properly arranged, and while she was still wearing the cotton smocks provided by the clinic, Anna had sweet talked the laundress into using a touch of proper perfume when doing just her things. Now, some of horrid smells of the place were at least a little softened by the scent of orange blossoms and irises.

"You'll go on, ma'am. It's all we can ever do when it goes badly wrong like this."

Mary turned to look at her maid and felt a wave of appreciation for the other woman. Without trampling over their places in the world, Anna had still managed to be more of a, well, a friend than Mary had ever had. She'd tried to delay Matthew. She'd come to warn Mary. Now, she was doing all she could to take care of her and provide some dignity to this sad little place.

More importantly, however, Anna had trusted Mary.

"I think it only fair, my lady, that I have some of your secrets so – so you should have some of mine."

So, Mary knew now that she was part of perhaps the largest unspoken social club in the world. Women used and hurt by men and then blamed for it weren't rare. They weren't some unspoken segment of the population, dirty and remote.

"Then it's not just me."

"No, my lady, it's never just you. It'd almost be a relief if it was, wouldn't it?"

So, Mary had found out that, in her youth, Mrs. Patmore had lost a good position because a French Chef couldn't keep his hands to himself. That had been how she'd come to Downton, and Mary got a certain vicious pleasure in knowing that the French Chef had lost a finger to young Miss Patmore's knife skills for his troubles.

Even Mrs. Hughes, Mary learned from Anna, had endured her own unwanted attentions in her youth. Their kind and resolute housekeeper had, apparently, once hit a man over the head with a coal shuttle as a young lady.

"But those are just the stories you share. You never tell the others about the ones you didn't win… but we all know."

Mary found an entire world that went on, silently, between women that girls were not invited into. Girls were meant to be innocent and protected. Ignorant. Women, though? Mary was realizing that they talked to each other and that she cold find some comfort there. Perhaps not in the harsh fangs of her social equals, but with Anna and Edith and a few others… she could… afford to trust, just a little.

"You're right, Anna, it's just galling. I don't know why he couldn't just mind his own business!"

"He loves you, my lady."

"He doesn't even know me. We'd barely walked out." Mary pointed out ruthlessly. "It wasn't even at the point of an understanding."

"No, my lady, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know what he feels." Anna hesitated. "Do you?"

"I know I feel trapped and sick in this place." Mary gritted out, then smoothed her voice. "Anna, don't you ever just wish you could decide?"

"Decide what?"

"Oh, anything. What you're going to do. Where you're going to go. Not, not to ask where you're going or what you're doing, just to decide for yourself and do it, I mean."

Anna smiled at her a little crookedly.

"I already did that, my lady, when I went to work at Downton."

"Well, yes, but I'm not exactly looking for a career." Mary made a face. "That's rather the problem. At my level of society one either shocks everyone by finding a job or they find a husband."

"And you don't want a job."

"What would I do?"

"What do you want to do?"

"That would be the problem question, wouldn't it?" Mary's bitterness bled out in a sigh and she looked at the clock. "He'll be here soon."

"Yes, he will."

Mary looked down at her hands, smooth and graceful with freshly polished nails.

"He can't keep coming to visit. People will start to suspect something. People could ask questions."

Mary turned her hands over. Her palms were smooth. Anna's were so calloused you could hear them rasp together.

What did she want?

"I want a title, Anna, and a house I can call my own and run on my own." Mary finally spoke, her voice quiet and sure in the room. "I'm tired of owing everything I am to someone else."

"Won't you still do that if you're married?"

"Yes, but it will at least be my choice." Mary breathed out and looked around the walls of her miserable little room. "I never want to be inside a place like this ever again."

Anna quietly absorbed what she was saying and, very carefully, asked a question that Mary had known was coming.

"Can't you get those things by marrying Mr. Matthew?"

"Yes," Mary agreed, her voice soft, "but they wouldn't be mine anymore, would they?"

"Wouldn't they? I mean, be as much yours as the things you'd get from any husband."

Mary shook her head.

"No, because I'd always feel like I still got them from Mama, Papa, and Granny. After all, they've all but arranged him to come rushing in here like a knight in shining armor. Shouldn't I just be grateful for it? Besides it would, it would be difficult spending forever in Downton and never having it be mine except by a technicality."

"I can see how that might be hard."

Even as, somewhere inside her, a small voice protested, Mary's independence held sway. Her pride reigned over all of it. So, when Mary spoke, it was at the latter's command.

"I want a new start, Anna, I just don't know where to find it."