She is as good as her word. He isn't in the bath ten minutes when the door opens to reveal her carrying a cup of tea. She smiles shyly as she hands it to him, as their fingertips touch.

He is groggy, lulled by the warm water, and he gives her a nod and a sort of half-grunt in thanks as he wraps his hands around the teacup.

She giggles. "It's back to bed for you, young man." Her eyes are alight with joy and perhaps just a touch of mischief.

"I've got to go to the market today," he protests. "Get some food in."

"I'll go," she tells him. "You should rest; your eyelids are already at half mast."

"I can't let you do that! What sort of host would I be?"

She is clearly amused. "But you're not my host! You're my …" Suddenly she goes serious, and her eyes display all of the same uncertainty that's been playing havoc in his mind. "Anyway," she continues, trying to preserve a bit of dignity, "anyway. I will go; just give me your list. And you should rest."

He closes his eyes, leaning his head against the back of the tub. "If you insist, but we'll go together." He waits for her to challenge him, but no provocation is forthcoming. "Say, Isobel," he calls to her as she's turning to leave. She looks back at him over her shoulder. "Stay, would you please?"

Her eyes grow large at his request. He can see the thought as it passes across them. This is … intimate. He watches as she crosses back to him, kneeling down beside the tub.

"Alright?" he asks. His eyes remain trained on hers.

"Mm," she affirms. "I was just thinking … you really are letting me all the way in. It's quite remarkable."

"How's that?"

"Your heart is a very precious commodity. That's not me speaking about the whole of humankind; I'm talking about you, your heart in particular. Don't think for a moment that all you've done is lost on me." She studies the rim of the tub momentarily. "Your trust is something I don't deserve at all, and yet …" Her eyes glisten at the outer corners. She reaches into the bath, beneath the water, for his hand, weaving her fingers through his and bringing them to rest over his heart.

Will there ever come a time when he is not dumbfounded by the fact that she's touching him? He thinks not. Hopes not.

"You guard your heart very closely," she continues. "In all the years we've known each other, there's never been a woman, has there?"

"No."

"And why is that, Richard?"

"What are you on about, love? Hmm?"

"What is this, Richard? Us? What does it mean to you?"

He rolls his eyes, panicking on the inside. "Isobel, I—"

"I presume I'm the first woman —at least, in a very long time— to sit with you in the bath. I'm right, aren't I?"

"Aye."

"This isn't casual, in your mind. Is it?"

"No, it's not. I'm … Look, Isobel …" He is flustered. This has got to happen, but that doesn't make it any less awkward.

"I'm not going to hurt you, darling. Not on purpose; not anymore. If I do, you'll tell me, and I'll put it right. Alright?"

He nods.

She moves back behind his line of sight, and he wonders why until he hears a splash, then feels the wet warmth of the flannel on his scalp. His ears register the sound of the shampoo bottle being opened, and then he feels her hands in his hair. Nobody's done this for him since his mam when he was a wee lad. "Perhaps this is better. You talk; I'll listen. You don't have to look at me."

Does she ever know him! He nods, relaxes as she rubs the lather into his hair, and begins. "There was an … attraction straightaway when we met. I'd be blind not to have noticed. But I knew that you'd lost your husband and it was clear that you were still very much his wife, so it was nothing I'd have brought to your attention. No offence, but I'd always thought that the notion of love at first sight was a construct of women." He pauses here, knowingly, and she says nothing but huffs audibly. "Working together, it wasn't long before I'd seen you from all sides. I learned you could be headstrong, and stubborn, and meddlesome. Even so, I still felt for you. Worried about you. I liked who I was better when you were around. It's not like I'd had much experience with which to compare it, but I was sure it was love before you'd been a year in Downton." He falls silent, melting under her touch, and obliges when she asks him to lean back so that she can rinse the shampoo.

"But you couldn't have known then that we … that this …" She falters. He's not the only one having difficulty getting his head round the new developments between them. "You could have been happy, Richard. All this time. You could have found someone to share your life with—"

"Bah!" He dismisses the notion with a sort of growl. "What would've been the point?"

He can feel her hesitate. Her hands alight on his shoulders. "What do you mean?" Her next words come as a whisper. "You deserve happiness, Richard."

He reaches for her hand, tugs on it. She scoots forward so that she can see his face.

"It doesn't matter, Isobel, because I've found it now." He reaches up to her as she leans down. She lets him kiss her, going in for another when he ends the first. Then he continues:

"Nothing else would have come close. I'd have wasted my own time as well as some other poor soul's. Besides, I did have you. Perhaps not in the ways I'd hoped. But I was happy; getting to work alongside you, visiting you at Crawley House. I wouldn't change it for anything."

"No?" She sounds genuinely surprised.

"Well of course I'd love to have been … like this, then. But it's not that our friendship was second best. I dunno, Isobel. I'm making an awful hash of this—"

"No, you're not! It's lovely. For what it's worth, I knew that I loved you by the start of the War. As you well said, I was still so much Reginald's wife up to that point. Very much in denial." She huffs again, this time barely audible. He wouldn't have caught it but for his longtime familiarity with the rhythm of her breathing. She dips the flannel into the water again, runs the flannel over his shoulders and down his back. "The time I wasted," she tuts. "Reg didn't want me to mourn for him so long." She chuckles mirthlessly. "He didn't want it at all. But after what we had, how could I not have done? Do you know … I knew, aged ten, that I would marry him. It was only a matter of time. I loved him before I knew what it was."

He is surprised by how much she's revealing, but he doesn't say anything, just keeps listening. Her touch is slowly dissolving him. It is bliss, unadulterated.

"At first, when I realised I was in love with you, I was afraid that it would be a betrayal of Reg and of our marriage. Later, after I reconciled the fact that I could love you and always love him, I still felt that wouldn't be fair to you." She pauses, and he can hear her thinking. "You'll be glad to know that I've learnt I was wrong."

"Indeed," he affirms, grinning at her. She leans in and kisses him, and he deepens it before she can pull away. Sweet, sweet, sweet. When they do break apart, whilst they're still face-to-face, he tells her, "You know I've half a mind to pull you in here with me."

She laughs. He'll never not be fascinated by the sound of it. "You think you know a person …" she starts to say with a peculiar smile and a tiny shake of her head.

"Go on," he prompts her.

She follows the contours of his collarbones with the flannel. He's never been looked at with the fire he sees in her eyes. He burns for her.

"You're a very … ardent lover. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Much to the contrary." She trails off, looking away as she thinks. "Lovers," she practically whispers. "That's what we are now, Richard. I don't mean to suggest for a moment that it isn't good enough, but …" A very long pause, her uncertainty palpable. After all I've done, will he accept the way I feel? Her voice quivers as she tells him, "You're so much more than that to me."

"This is a longer conversation, isn't it?" He hears the question neither one of them dares voice.

Where do you see this going?

"Yes, I'm afraid it is."

There is no doubt in his mind: the time that he'd long since stopped believing would ever come, is strangely, impossibly, suddenly upon him.

He could not feel less prepared.

oOo

Mid-afternoon, sat on the bench in his back garden, they pick up where they left off.

"Sunday tomorrow. Good day for a lie-in," he says, trying to be casual. His knuckles lightly graze hers where their hands rest side-by-side.

"Is it? Not going to church then?"

He shrugs. "I suppose it depends."

"Depends upon what?"

He looks at her pointedly. "Are you staying tonight?"

She raises her eyebrows. "Is that an invitation?"

He could use some work on his approach, he reckons, his shoulders sagging a bit. "In my head, I'd already told you that I want you to feel free to come and go as you please."

"Alright." She smiles and squeezes his hand. "It's sounding better already. Go on."

"Isobel, I can't tell you what to do. I can only say that if I had my way, you'd never leave. Your being here feels like … Never mind, you'll laugh."

"I will not!" She looks a little hurt.

"I didn't mean it as a slight. Only that I'm embarrassing myself. I seem to be a soppy old sod when it comes to my thoughts of you."

"I think they're lovely. When you can be arsed to share them, that is."

His mouth drops open. Nothing she says should take him by surprise anymore, but she's so much less formal with him now than ever she's been in past. More comfortable. At least, he hopes that's the case. He forgets she comes from Manchester, that her upbringing and his own were not much different. That all of her airs and graces were part of an act, a façade. With the veneer of the aristocracy stripped away, she's so human. So wonderfully real. He'd seen so many glimpses over the years of the face behind the mask. Now, with no inheritance to fight for, the mask has long since crumbled into dust.

"Well, that's me put in my place, innit?" comes his rejoinder, and he nudges her with his elbow.

She gives him the side-eye and giggles.

"Well, somebody's got to do!" She's still smiling, but her eyes turn more serious. "You know, you're the most remarkable man, Richard, but you're a hell of a hard read. If I'd known …" she starts to say, and then shakes her head. "Oh, never mind. What was it you thought I'd laugh at you for?"

He studies her a moment before answering. "If you promise not to …" he says with a dubious look.

The expression with which she answers him could only be described as murderous.

He holds up his hands in surrender. "If I didn't get a rise out of you now and then, how would you know I cared?"*

She rolls her eyes.

"Alright, alright. I'll be good now." In truth he doesn't know what's got into him. She brings out a side of him that he'd long forgot about, a playful, impish streak he's never employed with a woman before. "I was going to say: now you're here it's rather like, 'God's in His heaven; all's right with the world.'"**

"That's beautiful, Richard. Who on earth would laugh at you for that?" she murmurs, linking her fingers through his own. She raises their joined hands and holds the back of his against her cheek. "Tell me what you want."

"You said I was more than a lover to you. I think by now you've an inkling that you're far more than a lover to me as well. I want you here with me, Isobel, but I don't ever want to make you feel like a bit on the side."

That smile again, almost bashful. Captivating, her chocolate-coloured eyes blinking at him from underneath her lashes. Lord.

"Thank you," she whispers, lifting his hand to her lips. His skin tingles where her mouth touches him.

"Are— have— … Have you given any thought to where you'll live, now that the exam is behind you?" He stammers, his heart fluttering. This is it, thisisit, thisisit!

"You mean you don't relish the thought of Mrs. Gubbins*** spreading gossip up and down the high street?" She says it as a joke, but he can read the brittle edge behind the front. "I'm paid up through the end of the month. I was going to give her next month's rent the beginning of the week. Why do you ask?"

"Because I want us to have the freedom to be together without worry. I know that, if I asked, you'd tell me you don't care what anyone thinks or says, but we both know deep down that isn't true. I want you to walk with your head held high, proud of yourself and your life." He rises from his seat and kneels on the ground at her feet, drawing a shaky breath. Oh, God, oh, God! It's now or never. "I know that I owe you a real proposal this time, but Isobel … marry me. Wake up next to me every morning. Let me lay you down every night. I love you, all that you are and all you've been. Let's not waste another day."

"Oh, my God," she whispers, her hands grasping at his shoulders. "Oh, my God!" Her trembling fingers twist the fabric of his shirt. Their eyes meet and hold.

"Isobel?" he prompts her, sniffing back tears.

"Yes!" she whispers, getting to her knees, meeting him where he is. "Yes, Richard, yes! My God, yes!" She throws her arms around him, crushing him against her body. He holds on tight; she's shaking, laughing and crying and so is he. All of the years, the regrets and missteps and the raw, gaping wounds have led them here. The moment is so sacred he expects the heavens to rend themselves before their eyes.

When the tears stop falling and the trembling breaths cease, she lifts his chin, stroking his cheek with her thumb, and kisses him. Softly, slowly, a kiss he will call up perfectly from memory in the years to come. He feels the words she wants him to hear. I love you, my darling. No matter how wrong I've been, I love you.

When the kiss breaks, he backs up far enough to see her face and smooths her hair. She swipes at her tears with a watery smile.

"Look at you," she breathes, tracing her thumbs over his lips, his cheekbones. "Beautiful." It feels to him like a title of honour. "Perhaps we ought to get up off the ground. I won't speak for you, but my knees aren't what they once were." That's Isobel; ever the practical one.

He gets up first, then offers her a hand, and when she is on her feet he gathers her up, lifting her off the ground and spinning them round. She throws her head back, laughing, and his mouth latches onto the satin skin of her neck. The light is ethereal on her face, her hair, and if she were twenty years old she could not be more stunning than she is here and now.

"I love you," he whispers, lips at her temple, feeling her smile.

She laughs; she sobs. She clutches at him. "I love you," she chokes, broken and beautiful.

oOo

He had wondered briefly how it was even possible to move forward following such a moment. It feels like time ought to have stood still for them, but the birds are still singing and the afternoon shadows are lengthening. All around them life carries on.

She, on the other hand, has taken it in stride. "I'll need some things," she tells him as she stands before the bedroom mirror, pinning her hair into place, "if I'm to stay over again. And we must get to the market before it shuts." He catches her eye in the reflection and she turns towards him. "Sorry," she says with a special, private smile. "Have I killed your notion of romance?"

"No, not quite," he answers, "but it does feel strange, moving on like nothing's changed."

She crosses to him, straightening his bow tie (he manages to keep himself from kissing her. Just). "I think you'll soon find that's the beauty of love. We can't stop the world turning, but we can build our own secret hideaway in the midst. Do you know that Reggie and I delivered babies when we should have been on honeymoon? It didn't stop us, mind, from enjoying our evenings like it was only we two in all the world." She throws a smile at him over her shoulder as she makes her way down the stairs, continuing to talk to him. "You've really never had anything like this before, have you?"

"Don't make fun of me." He nearly pouts.

As he reaches the bottom step, she turns and takes both his hands in her own. "I never would! Only it seems so unlikely. You're quite the catch."

He flushes to the roots of his hair. "It isn't as if I was a monk!"

She raises an eyebrow. "Oh no, quite! You … Well …" She stops herself, a hand flying up to cover her mouth.

"No, no, madam. You started this; now finish." He holds her waist loosely. Their banter is a balm to his soul.

"Well, not that I'm an expert by any stretch, but you certainly know your way around—"

"Right," he interrupts her. "That's it." Taking advantage of his hold on her, he tickles her at the base of her rib cage. She shrieks with laughter and makes a show of trying to twist out of his grasp. She quickly abandons the effort and attacks his mouth instead. "Mmm …" he gets out between kisses, "It's a good job … you're so … bloody irresistible." Giving in, he moulds his body to hers and kisses her until they're both breathless. He stands back to watch her, lips swollen and chest heaving, looking utterly debauched. He grins in satisfaction at having got her that way.

"Oh! Look at him!" She pretends offence. "So smug. Reckon you're something, do you?" Her face cracks, her shoulders shaking with poorly-restrained laughter. "That's because you are," she whispers hotly, pressing close once again.

"Conversations for another time, young lady," he tells her, stealing one last, thorough kiss. "Promise I'll tell you all there is to tell. Though it isn't much."

"How lucky for me then," she says, and means it.

oOo

They take his car into town; it'll be easier that way to get the food home. He lets her off at the top of the high street, saying he's got to duck in someplace quickly and he'll meet her in the market. As he pulls up alongside the rectory he hopes she won't be cross with him later. His intention is not to rush her or to insist that they marry with the church's blessing. He just wants her to feel they have options.

He talks with the vicar, whom he knows in passing. Asks about whether they can circumvent the banns and is advised they'll need a special licence. Can it really be come by so easily, he enquires, and is met with the assurance that their working hours alone should secure them one, no trouble. He walks away with a spring in his step.

In the market he spies her chatting to a woman he recognises as the proprietress of the florist's, her case in one hand; a market basket in the other. His stomach sinks. What was he thinking? Of course she'd have her case along; she'd just come from gathering her things at the guesthouse. He rushes to relieve her of the burden, then realises he's just blown any cover they might have had, and done so spectacularly. He never was good at lying. He breaks into a cold sweat and can't focus on what she's saying to him. Thankfully she's already gathered most of the items on his list and in fairly short order they're walking back to the car.

"Just a moment," she says as he's about to throw the motor into gear. "You're white as a sheet. We're not going anywhere until you talk to me."

His hands drop from the steering wheel into his lap. "I may have got a little ahead of myself this afternoon," he admits.

"Alright." She sounds apprehensive. "Go on."

"In my exuberance to speak with the vicar …" He only gets that far before she opens her mouth, and he's sure that what she means to say is something along the lines of, 'You did what?' He holds up a hand to silence her (at which she looks none too pleased) and goes on:

"Firstly, I was inconsiderate in leaving you to carry your case. But what's more, I let you walk out of the guesthouse and carry it through the market … and then I took it from you and stashed it in the boot in full view of heaven-knows-whom."

"I'm still waiting to hear what unforgivable sin you've committed." She appears perplexed and more than a little irritated.

"Isobel, don't you see? Perhaps your friend from the flower shop won't stick her nose in where it doesn't belong, but even if she doesn't say anything, everyone will know you're having it away with the surgeon you work for!"

"Oh, Richard." Her expression moves swiftly to one of pity. "I'm not 'having it away' with anyone! You're going to be my husband and I've no desire to hide it. What are you worried about?"

"Your reputation, Isobel. You worked so hard for what you've got now. You're worth a great deal to the hospital, but all it would take is for the right person to get the wrong end of the stick; you being the new girl in town and all, and a widow no less. You're a target, love. I hate to say it, but it's the truth."

As his anxiety ratchets higher and higher still, hers evaporates before his eyes. "Darling," she breathes, grasping his hand and pulling it to her lips. She smiles softly against his knuckles as she kisses them. "Dear, darling man. Take me home so that we can talk privately, yes?"

He doesn't understand, but he loves the implications. His cottage, her home. "Yes, alright." She wraps their fingers together and he doesn't fight it.

Only after they are inside, the food put away and her case delivered to the bedroom, does she turn to him, taking his hand and directing him to the couch. She sits down only once he has done, waiting to speak until he has taken her outstretched hands in his own.

"Richard, it speaks volumes about your love for me that you're so serious about defending my honour. However much I may want you to be wrong about the chances of our liaison jeopardising my position at the hospital, you're right. The thing is … I chose wrongly once already. I'll never do that again. I enjoy my work, but I don't need it. Whereas you …" She makes certain he is looking her in the eyes before she continues. "I can't go on without you. There's no question. And whilst I'd rather the board learn of it firsthand from us, if they find out by other means then let them. I want them to know. I love you … before anything else."

*My dad has always said this to me. "If I didn't tease you once in a while, you wouldn't think I liked you!"

**From Pippa Passes, by Robert Browning. A favorite quote of my mother's.

***I'm borrowing the name of a dour proprietress from Bill Bryson's account of his first visit to the UK, Notes from a Small Island. A favorite book of mine for a very long time, it is responsible for sparking my Anglophilia.