In many ways, having Tom back at Downton was worse than when he'd been in Boston. If Mary thought she'd been miserable then when he was so far away, she was wrong. That was nothing compared to the misery she faced every day now.

He was here in the flesh, but he wasn't the man she'd known so intimately before he went away. Gone was the easy camaraderie they'd shared. There were no illicit trips between bedrooms, no snatched moments in the office or anywhere else. Tom made no mention of the positively indecent correspondence they'd maintained over the last five months. In fact, he acted as if they'd never been lovers at all.

Often, it felt like when she entered a room, he left it. And if he stayed, he was polite and completely unobjectionable, but it was like he was a ghost of the man she'd known before. She strongly suspected he was avoiding situations where they might be alone, denying her any opportunity to talk to him privately. Mary didn't understand it and didn't know what to do about it. She only knew it was breaking her heart.

The days following his unexpected reappearance were a whirlwind of activity, which in some ways helped Mary try to carefully push aside her confusion and her bruised heart.

Two days after Tom returned, Henry Talbot, the race car driver she'd met at Brancaster, turned up unexpectedly for dinner with his aunt, Lady Shackleton. Henry was tall, handsome, charming, and quite obviously interested in her. His attentions gave her a much-needed boost, so she did what she always did with men who were attracted to her – she flirted with him.

Part of her hoped it might give Tom a jolt to see her flirt with another man, but to her chagrin, he barely seemed to notice. In fact, he and Henry got on like a house on fire, bonding over their shared love of cars. When Henry offered Mary his card and extended an invitation for her to call him when she was in London, Mary accepted it. Tom, she noted sourly, didn't bat an eyelid.

The next day when Mr and Mrs Harding came to lunch to talk to Edith and Rosamund about being trustees for a girls' school, Mary felt an intense surge of anger when she saw Tom talking familiarly with Mrs Harding, their heads close together. It crossed her mind that maybe, being a local girl, Mrs Harding was a former flame of Tom's and jealousy twisted hot and sour in her stomach.

When Barrow rather slyly revealed Gwen Harding had been a maid at Downton Abbey some years before, Mary's first thought was that she was right, and that Tom and Mrs Harding had been lovers when they were both downstairs. But then Gwen told how Sybil had changed her life with her kindness.

Mary's heart ached as she saw the mixture of pride, pain and sorrow on Tom's face as Mrs Harding listed all the things Sybil had quietly done for her. The reminder of Sybil's kind and generous nature left her feeling simultaneously desperately proud of her darling sister and thoroughly ashamed of her own mean-spirited assumptions and searing jealousy. This is why he doesn't love me, she thought, miserably. He loved the best of us and now she's gone, and nobody can replace her, least of all me. She'd been a fool to ever think otherwise.

Mary sat next to Anna's bed, sharing tea and sandwiches with her maid.

Anna was as white as a sheet, lying in one of Rosamund's guest bedrooms with her legs propped up on a stack of pillows following the quick operation that had prompted their mad dash to London. She'd protested at being housed in a room normally used by one of the family, but Mary wouldn't hear of her climbing all the stairs to the servants' quarters in her condition.

'Will you be all right if I go out tonight?' Mary asked, finding it slightly peculiar to be asking her maid's permission to go out to dinner.

'Of course, I will, milady. Are you going anywhere nice?'

Mary looked down at her teacup. 'I'm going to dinner with Mr Talbot.'

Anna gave her a keen look. 'Mr Talbot?'

'Yes. He asked me to telephone him when I was in London, so I did.'

Anna glanced at the bedroom door, double checking it was closed. 'But what about Mr Branson?'

'What about him?' Mary said, flatly, avoiding Anna's eyes.

'I thought now he's back, you and he…'

Mary shook her head, looking straight at her maid. 'No, you were wrong, Anna. He doesn't love me.'

'Oh, milady. I'm so sorry. That must have been painful to hear.'

'Well, he hasn't said it in so many words, but he's… well, he's been avoiding me ever since he got back.'

'Avoiding you?'

'Yes. We've barely spoken since he's been back. Not unless it's been about land management or farm tenants or the blessed pigs.'

'Maybe he hasn't had a chance to speak to you properly. He has only been back a few days.'

'Oh, Anna, he's had plenty of opportunity to seek me out. He could have come to my room any night since he's been back, and he hasn't. It's quite clear he doesn't want to resume our arrangement.'

Anna regarded her mistress steadily, her eyes large in her pale face. 'And have you been to his room to speak to him?'

'No, of course not.'

'Then perhaps it's a question of cross purposes. Perhaps he's been waiting for you to say something about your relationship.'

Mary considered that briefly then dismissed it just as quickly. 'I don't believe so. He said he couldn't go on as he was before he went to Boston.'

'When did he say that?'

'The day after he got back.'

'And was he talking about the two of you when he said it?'

'Not as such. It was more of a sweeping statement about what he wanted to do with his life if he's to stay at Downton.'

'Oh, milady,' Anna huffed out a fond but exasperated sigh. 'I might be speaking out of turn here and you'll have to forgive me if I sound impertinent, but I would really like to take the pair of you and bang your heads together.'

Mary looked at Anna, startled. 'What on earth do you mean?'

'I mean you should talk to him properly before giving up on him. I was in that car to York last night too.'

'What are you talking about? Nothing happened in the car.'

'Didn't it? Even as distracted as I was, I could see the tension between you and Mr Branson. And he spent more time looking at you in the mirror than he did looking at the road. If I didn't know he was such a good driver, I'd have been terrified out of my mind.'

'Really?'

'Really. I'm surprised you didn't notice, what with all the times you were looking at him,' Anna said, with a knowing smile.

Mary mulled that over.

Anna reached for her mistress' hand, clasping it. 'Maybe you're both misreading the signals. Because I would swear on the life of this baby inside me that that man loves you. And I know you love him. The least you owe yourself is a proper conversation before you give up on him.'

'Perhaps you're right.'

'I am right.'

Mary looked at Anna in surprise. 'Well, aren't you the confident one. I don't know how you can be so sure.'

Anna cast another quick glance at the bedroom door before answering. 'Milady, Mr Branson spent seven months having a clandestine affair with you then another five months writing you dirty letters. I'm absolutely sure he won't simply throw you over without so much as a by-your-leave now he's back. Talk to him. You'll see.'

Mary gazed, wide-eyed, at Anna, wondering if maybe, just maybe, her maid might have a point.