Short update, but I wanted to share with you. The next chapter is going to be longer and will delve into Anna's past, something I know we all wonder about (Fellowes!). Thank you for all the wonderful reviews—it means so much.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, pinky promise.
In the early morning light, Anna's bruises bloomed painfully bright across her cheekbone. She covered it as best she could.
Funny, she had always said she wouldn't use powder. It wasn't so scandalous nowadays, not like the rouge Mrs. Patmore nearly smacked off Ivy's face. Even Lady Mary wore it; though not anymore. She only wore it for Mr. Crawley.
John had always told her she was too beautiful to need any touching up; she would smack him across the arm and call him a silly beggar, and ask just what he was up to. Then he would pull her, giggling, into his arms. So strong, even after all those years away from the army.
Her reflection appeared in front of her again, severe and aged. The sun glinted across the mirror and sparks burst across her eyelids, the metal table burning her cheek like a firebrand. She was on the floor, fighting with all the determination she had honed over the years. It was no use.
Then she was left, dirtied and crumpled, on the floor. A little wingless bird.
She was so tired. Her mind only knew how to flutter between the thoughts that carved away at her heart and the most mundane of menial tasks, nothing in between. She wondered how long she could keep this up; she had to. For John. For Mrs. Hughes. For the woman that came to a big estate kilometers away from home, worked harder than she knew she could, stood by a man who didn't know his own worth, and broke him out of prison. For the woman she wouldn't be again.
She dropped her head as she walked towards the door, trying to collect herself before facing the breakfast table.
She came down the stairs to the servants' hall as she had a million times, in another life.
It was almost like he was in prison again, Anna realized. Wanting to touch him but not being able to; before, it had been the guard separating them. Now, that awful fear that lined the insides of her ribs and clenched at her heart at the worst times. The fear that she would mistake John's touch for his.
She had never felt something like this before, something that bowed her shoulders and forced her into the veil of shadows, as Mrs. Hughes called it. A place where words were screamed at her, sometimes in Green's voice and sometimes her own, words like slut and traitor and unworthy and weak.
When she looked up, John was at the foot of the stairs. She prayed then that he wouldn't do this every morning from now on, now that she was in the house. Seeing the love in his eyes, realizing what she would have to do to drive him away, to keep him safe, might just be the death of her.