I had no intention of extending this fic, but I was asked to and a couple of seconds of performance from Brendan Coyle gave me ample material. There may be a third if I see more to make me write.

John Bates limped out of Mrs. Hughes office. Even his good leg was shaking as he put his weight on it. He was breathing hard, but he kept walking, forbidding his leg to fail. The comforting normality of the kitchen sounds receded behind him, Mrs. Hughe's words growing louder in his head every stride.

He stopped and leant against a wall once he was far enough away from the activity to feel that he would not be discovered. He didn't want anyone to see him at this moment, not even Anna.

Anna. Poor, sweet Anna, how had he not seen it? How had he not known? And to think he'd half suspected her of adultery half an hour before, since Mrs. Hughe's mention of a baby. Adultery! How could he have thought that Anna, his Anna, could have ever…

His Anna. What she'd suffered, and suffered in silence… He'd failed her, completely and utterly. He'd been absent when she'd needed him, with no better excuse than listening to a song. Cripple though he may be, anyone would think twice about attacking two where they'd thought to find one. He should have gone down with her, made sure she was alright. She'd have tended him in sickness, he should have been willing to do the same, they'd sworn as much. In sickness or in health. He raised one hand to his face.

Why hadn't he seen it? He was no stranger to… this, or to what it did to the women who were used so. It had happened often enough in the wars. When a camp was taken, the Boer women within had been used with impunity. Most officers had dealt harshly with any soldiers caught in the act, many lamenting that they could no longer flay the skin from their men's backs for it, but it didn't keep some from taking the risk. He'd seen more than one soldier pulled off a screaming, sobbing Boer girl and tied to a gun wheel. You could tell those girls afterwards. They were the ones that fled solitude and seemed to crave it, that flinched away from passing hands, that refused to look at anyone. The ones, at a word, that behaved as Anna had for the past month.

How had he even thought to believe her? A single fall could never have put all those marks on her head and chaffed both her hands, and probably done more she hadn't let him see. The man who'd… must have thrown her to the ground, at least once, and hit her in the face to subdue her. She must have screamed. Anna was as gentle a creature as he'd ever known, but she must have fought for all she was worth, and screamed as long as she had breath, hoping someone would hear her. But nobody came. And her dress, the fall could never have damaged it beyond repair. Anna had been a lady's maid for years, she was good at her job. That man, that animal, must have torn it from her body in pieces.

That man. A stranger who'd forced the door, then waited to force Anna. Coward. To break in to a house by night and wait like a leopard in the dark… He must have known about the concert, that the kitchen would be deserted. How? It didn't matter. What mattered was what he had done. The blackguard had violated Anna. If John ever found him, there would be nowhere on earth he could run.

But for now, he hadn't found the man. For now, all he could do was go to Anna as soon as she returned and make right with her, or try to. She might not want him anywhere near her, if the scars on her mind and body were still too raw. But he had to let her know that he would be there if she wanted him to be.