A/N: So I'd like to thank everybody who has reviewed, favourited or put on story alert this story. I sometimes think my "thank-yous" at the beginnings of chapters come out a bit insincere (though they're not) but I really do want to say how grateful I am to everyone who has shown any support for me writing this story, whether that's a review or not. I joined tumblr today (my username's silvestria plug plug) mainly for the purpose of self-promotion, but I didn't really think I'd actually, you know, succeed at that! However, I posted a preview quote for this chapter and within a couple of hours two people had liked it! Seriously, it makes me feel so loved. Thank you to every one of you. Whether you leave a three paragraph long review or whether you don't make any acknowledgement that you've read the story at all but are just an anonymous hit on my stats page, I am so honestly grateful and humbled by the fact that people are enjoying what I'm writing. Thank you particularly, as always, to OrangeShipper who has been a wonderful sounding post, constantly encouraging, and almost as enthusiastic as me about this chapter!

Having said that, I wonder if you will still feel that way after this mammoth two-chapters-in-one chapter! It's seriously weird. I mean, I've always known (and been looking forward to writing) the content of this chapter but it's far stranger on paper than in my head.

This will probably be the last update for a while as I'm going off to university to do a masters next week and my writing time will be severely curtailed. Of course I won't abandon this story, but updates may be even less frequent than they already are. Please put it on story alert if you don't check back regularly and please don't forget me!

Finally, I hope you enjoy Season Two - and see you on the other side! :) I can't help noticing (and perhaps you will in this chapter) that judging from certain spoilers that have been released, there are aspects of the way characters' relationships appear to be going to develop in S02 that might be quite similar to their development in CP, however different the contexts. If that does turn out to be the case, I will endeavour not to be overly influenced by S02, though that may not be possible. I've had this plot planned down to almost the last detail for months and months and months so any coincidence in characterisation is just that - coincidence!

Chapter Twelve: A Dream of Thee

Matthew had a lot to think about.

His conversation with Lord Grantham had put the idea of marriage to Sybil into his head for the first time; that is, the first time he had consciously been forced to consider it. He had to admit now that the idea was out in the open that only a reluctance to confront the possibility had kept him from acknowledging it to himself previously. Sybil, he had been quite sure, was only interested in him as a cousin, as someone who was willing to talk to her about university and could recommend books to her. The idea of her having a crush on him was inconceivable. Was he to be passed from Crawley sister to Crawley sister while Cousin Cora stirred the fire like the infernal Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice? It was absurd. First Edith with her old churches, then Mary with – well, best not to dwell on Mary, and now Lord Grantham was intimating that he ought to either marry Sybil or give up her company entirely! His initial reaction was to feel that this was dreadfully unfair on them both and on their friendly relationship, and to resist it as much as possible.

Other less comfortable thoughts would intrude, however. Over the past few weeks Sybil had been spending more and more time with him. Her smiles were brighter, her ease in his company increasing from their first rather awkward meeting that day in Ripon and, if he was honest with himself, the more time they spent together the less they discussed the things they were supposed to be discussing. Oh, Oxford was mentioned and Sybil never turned up at Crawley House without having a specific question for him, but they were beginning to look a lot like excuses, and their conversations quickly moved onto other topics. Sybil was very curious about what Matthew was doing on the estate and her quick approval of and interest in his work on the cottages and other improvements for the Downton tenants flattered his ego. So unlike- but he was not going to think about that. Often she lingered so long with him that his mother would return home from the hospital and they would all take tea together before Matthew would walk Sybil back to the Abbey. Here too, she showed a selfless appreciation of Isobel's work and expressed an admiration for the nursing profession that was a refreshing contrast to the veiled scorn and snobbery coming from the rest of her family.

Sybil was easy to talk to. Matthew liked her, liked the fact that she fit so well into his life at Crawley House with his mother, liked the fact that she made no secret of the fact that she liked him. There was no second guessing her, no wondering if she meant what she said, no unpicking riddles. But there was a great gulf between liking and any warmer emotion and Matthew, with his careful, analytic lawyer's mind, knew better than to confuse the two. He was not passionately in love with Sybil. It was sometimes difficult to tell when one was actually in love with a person, and indeed Matthew had had so little experience with women that he was not entirely sure he would recognize it if he felt it, but he thought he could tell when he was not in love easily enough. At least... He did not yearn for Sybil. There was a strange, aching, uncomfortable feeling of desire that he lacked when he was with her and, if forced to put it so baldly, he appreciated its lack. Nevertheless, he also appreciated the sparkle of her dark eyes, the spirit of her graceful but energetic movements, the trimness of her figure. Who would not? he thought defensively, yet it was not until his cousin had brought it up with him that he considered her in this way explicitly.

Thinking about Sybil in this way felt wrong and forbidden in a vague and indefinable way. She was so young and innocent, not even "out" in society yet (whatever that really meant). Matthew was quite sure she was innocent. If she came to visit him more often than she should, if she talked about him to her father enough to worry him, then he was convinced she was unaware of the impression she was giving and was not doing it out of any attempt to entrap him. No. Sybil was made of simpler stuff than her sisters. If she took him to see an old church, he thought with a rueful smile, it would be because she thought he might like to see an old church. And herein lay her attraction. Still, it made it difficult to judge of her feelings.

Matthew was inclined not to do anything for the moment. He was by nature a patient man and unless action was absolutely, definitely required, he could not see the point of pushing a point and upsetting the delicate and pleasant equilibrium which was his relationship with Sybil. Robert's warning had been enough to make him aware of a potential issue, but so long as he observed no real evidence in Sybil herself of desperate love for him and carefully measured his own behaviour towards her, he could not see any reason to put an end to their intercourse.

But marriage! That was an equally drastic step in the other direction. Ignoring for the moment the thorny question of Sybil's feelings, not to mention his own, there was the issue of marriage in and of itself. Did he want to marry? On the one hand, Matthew saw no immediate need to do so. He had a comfortable home and professional life and he was not restless to change his situation. On the other hand, he had always intended to marry at some point, the idea of having a wife to come home to and share his life with was a romantic ideal that he had dreamed of frequently in years past (though not, strangely enough, so much recently) and, in an abstract way, he had always thought he would rather enjoy being a father. He was now twenty-six, many of his friends and colleagues in the legal profession were now married and extolled the virtues of their situation in (nearly) every letter and, much as he loved and appreciated his mother, there were naturally some aspects of domestic bliss that she could not provide. Moreover, ever since he had first understood his relationship to the Earl, there was the pressing sense that he really ought to marry. If he was Cousin Robert's heir, then it was no more than his duty to provide himself with an heir. But perversely, turning marriage into a duty made him less enthusiastic to embrace it and actively to look for a wife as in the back of his mind he knew he ought to be doing. If he was searching for a future bride, then that was now inseparable from a future Earl seeking a suitable Countess. It made the whole thing rather less romantic and it had made his situation with regards to Mary even more tricky than it would naturally have been. Perhaps this feeling of obligation could explain why his rosy-tinted fantasies of a wife had somewhat dried up when he had come to Downton. It was a more comfortable reason than any other.

Still, there was no hurry. Perhaps in time something might develop with Sybil, perhaps it might not. After all, she was relatively close to Mary (the thought gave him an unpleasant twinge) and now that she was gone, he was the only young person in the neighbourhood apart from Edith. There was no need to read too much into her enjoyment of his company. No doubt Matthew's decision to do nothing would have carried and nothing in fact would have been done if it were not for a strange coincidence of Sybil receiving three letters of great interest on the same day.

It was a Friday and Sybil had never got so much post before. There was a a reply to the letter Sybil had sent several weeks ago to Grace Beresford at Cambridge, there was a postcard from Mary in Rome, and finally there was a longer letter from Gwen, which she immediately slipped under her plate and put aside to read in private.

Mary's postcard, a grainy black-and-white view of the Coliseum, the back filled with her small, neat, sloping hand was the quickest to read.

Dear all,

Granny, our American friends, and I are enjoying ourselves a great deal in Rome. We have been to all the principal sights, not to mention sites, and I grow almost weary of distinguishing between Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. We have procured for us a most helpful and knowledgeable guide in the form of a little Neapolitan aristocrat, named Sciarpa (to be distinguished, mind, from the Baron Scarpia of the opera we saw the other week). Granny would encourage me to marry him while I have the chance but I would prefer to have more than a week's acquaintance before I commit myself for life. Nevertheless, he is amusing enough and tells us many stories of how all the best remains were looted by the English in the eighteenth century and if we want to see them we had best return to England and pay a visit to Lord So & So's country pile in –shire. By the by, did you ever discover precisely where the fourth Earl picked up those trinkets? Weather is good for October though it rained the day we went to the Vatican.

All love,

Mary

This note was significantly longer and more cheerful than any they had received so far, even if it contained tantalisingly little about what she truly thought about anything behind the polished and witty style. The mention of Sciarpa, however, caused ripples along the breakfast table.

"I dare say he's not even a real aristocrat!" said Edith bitterly. She could not help thinking that, nice as Sir Anthony Strallan and drives around the local countryside in his car were, a charming Italian showing her round some of the ancient wonders of the world under a clear Mediterranean sky might be even nicer.

"Oh, Edith, don't spoil it!" retorted Sybil. "I think it's terribly exciting. I wonder if she will marry him. She could live in a wonderful Italian palace surrounded by cypresses and fountains and have children called Marco and Francesca and we could all visit her!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Sybil!" snapped Edith.

The Earl and Countess exchanged glances.

"Your mother seems to approve of him," said Cora with a frown. "That must be a good thing, I'd think?" She did not sound entirely convinced.

"Perhaps. I shall write to her and find out what is really going on. We'll never get anything sensible out of Mary herself."

Sybil, however, had Gwen's letter to read later, and it shed far more light on the situation not that she had any intention of sharing it with her parents. Gwen wrote in detail of the impressions she had received of Count Sciarpa on those occasions she had accompanied her mistresses into society and what she had picked up from Lady Mary in passing. The Count, she said, was a handsome man who really should not be considering how short he was, with agreeable manners but she got no impression of warmth from him. She did not think he really cared about other people; he certainly never showed her any solicitude at any rate. However, she admitted that many men were like that towards servants and that it was not her place to judge him. ("Oh, Gwen!" murmured Sybil with a fond shake of her head.) Still, Lady Mary seemed happier to spend time with him than she did with Miss Bowen who was, Gwen said, a lovely girl but not very similar to her Ladyship, and they very often laughed about things nobody else understood. He was very clever and might do for her very well in the end, she concluded prosaically, the subject of the letter then turning to the dowager Countess' health and increasing exhaustion as the trip progressed.

Sybil then turned to her final letter and opened it with fingers that almost trembled. She had saved the best till last for a letter from a lady who was actually studying at university was worth even more than Gwen's correspondence at this time.

Naturally such high expectations must be disappointed and to a suitably great extent. Grace's letter was measured, sympathetic and showed evidence of a clever mind but it was not so very encouraging as Sybil had hoped. She read it through three times, walked discontented from room to room, worked herself into something of a state and eventually, as soon as she deemed it late enough, walked to the village to see Matthew, reflecting rather sensibly in the midst of her deep sense of disappointment that he would be the best person to advise her in this situation and that she was really desperate for any company before she made herself even more miserable.

He had only just got in from work when Sybil was announced and Molesley took their coats at the same time. Matthew followed her into the drawing room and waved her informally to her usual seat. But Sybil did not sit down. She continued to wander restlessly up and down, her fingers dancing lightly over the mantelpiece, the tops of the flowers on the side table and along the row of books on the shelves.

"Whatever is the matter?" cried Matthew anxiously when she showed no signs of settling.

She bit her lip and paused in front of him before pulling Grace's letter from her pocket and holding it out to him.

"Here, read this. You'll think I'm over-reacting, I'm sure, but..." She trailed off and shrugged.

Matthew frowned, took the letter and after a moment's hesitation read it. Then he handed it back to her.

He licked his lips and said carefully, "And you find it disappointing?"

"Yes!" it burst from her. "Wouldn't you if you were me? I don't want to be an academic or a school teacher, Matthew! I don't want to study women's subjects like English or History! And I don't want to spend three years receiving lower marks than men doing the same course just because I'm a woman and not allowed to be a proper member of the university."

"I don't remember seeing any of that when I was at Oxford."

"Were there any women studying law?"

"No, but-"

"Well then."

Matthew looked down and Sybil continued bitterly, "I want to go to university so that I can gain knowledge I can use in the real world, so that I can have all the opportunities a man would have. What on earth is the point of it if I will only be laughed at? They will wonder why I'm doing it in the first place since I do not have to earn my money teaching village children their alphabet at the end of it!"

"You are hard on Miss Beresford, Sybil. Is teaching so dishonourable a profession?"

"No! Of course it isn't. I don't think that at all." She bit her lip then shrugged angrily. "I thought she had nobler ambitions, that's all! To have this opportunity... but really it's no opportunity at all. And as for me – I might as well get married!"

Matthew blinked nervously at this sudden change of subject. He felt he was treading on thin ice but tried to keep the atmosphere light. "And is marriage an equally dishonourable state then?"

His teasing fell flat.

"It needn't be," she replied, finally flinging herself into her chair opposite him. "If the husband respects his wife's rights to her own life and opinions and if he supports the women's movement then I suppose it could be tolerable."

"Yes. Yes, I suppose it would be."

Sybil laughed suddenly but without humour. "You know what Branson said to me a while ago, Matthew?" He shook his head. "He said if I wanted to change lives then I should give up all these ideas of university and marry a rich man and use money and power that way. I thought it was a ridiculous notion at the time, but perhaps he was right. I'm never going to succeed on my own. I need a man, just as every other woman in the world does. Don't you see? I've been living in a fantasy world thinking I can change things and that the world itself is changing."

Matthew blinked rather helplessly. "I really don't think you should take this so much to heart, Sybil. There are little set-backs in every enterprise and you simply have to keep going. Anyway, you're wrong, aren't you?" He ventured a hopeful smile. "The world is changing. Thirty years ago you would not have been able to study at Oxford at all. Change takes time, Cousin, and I would hate for you to give up like this simply because you might not succeed immediately and in every respect. It might be tough for you at university but that's no reason for not trying, is it?"

She smiled fondly. "No... Oh, Matthew, you are a dear to try to persuade me, and I know I should listen to you, but I can't... Not now. Because this letter only makes me think of everything else. Mama thinks it's a wild goose chase, Papa doesn't take me seriously and I know Granny disapproves terribly! Maybe they are right after all. What am I fit for, what are any of us girls fit for, but marriage?"

"You really mustn't talk like this!" cried Matthew, really becoming worried. Sybil was always so optimistic, so determined, so strong. But perhaps it was the nature of those with the most buoyant self-belief to plunge the most deeply into despondency whenever they received even the slightest knock.

He pondered what to say next. He felt that to continue to argue with her while she was in this mood would be unprofitable and frustrating. Perhaps he could point out that she would surely excel in whatever she chose to do and that if that was marriage, he felt sure that she would make some man very happy, that in many ways he could not imagine a better or more affectionate wife. Before he could say anything of the sort, however, she spoke again. She was staring into the distance, frowning.

"You know, Matthew," she said abruptly and though there had been a silence, it felt like an interruption, "Look at Mary! She has always felt constrained by our life, she has always wished things might have been different, but she has resigned herself, and now I think she is the happier of the two of us. Isn't it better not to have any hope of getting what you want than wanting something only to realise that you can't have it?"

"I-" said Matthew swallowing, thrown by this sudden mention of Mary, particularly unwelcome in the context.

"She's always accepted the fact that her role is to marry well though goodness knows she's not always been happy about it. Mama's despaired sometimes." Suddenly she stopped as if vaguely aware without being quite sure why that this might not be the best topic to pursue with Matthew. She blushed. "Well, she will be married eventually to someone and I suppose she will be content."

Matthew found his tongue. "That seems likely," he managed to say in a perfectly normal voice.

"Anyway, Granny thinks she should marry this Italian which I suppose was the point of sending her abroad in the first place."

There seemed to be a sudden stillness in the room. Matthew became strangely aware of the ticking of the clock and the thump of his own heart beat. He raised his head.

"What Italian?"

Sybil looked at him properly for the first time since she had arrived. Sciarpa had been the principal topic of discussion all day up at the Abbey and she had forgotten that the gossip would not have reached as far as the village.

"I got a postcard from Mary today," she explained. "She is being courted by an Italian aristocrat it appears. He's very clever, she says, and you know what Mary's like about that sort of thing. Granny approves too so perhaps something will actually come of it this time."

Matthew did not feel the atmosphere get any lighter. The idea of Mary married abroad to a clever, rich young man who quite possibly possessed the dark, Mediterranean complexion that she had seemed to find so attractive when that unfortunate Turkish diplomat had stayed at any rate – it was only too plausible. Something inside of him burned, he did not want to know, yet he found himself continuing to question her.

"How should you like it if she did marry him?"

"I don't know really without meeting Sciarpa himself, but I wonder sometimes whether Mary might be better off somewhere else. She might have more freedom in Italy and I do think she likes it out there judging from her letters."

By which she meant: judging from Gwen'sletters.

"I'm glad she is happy," replied Matthew after a few moments in which he quickly came to the conclusion that he was glad she was happy because he could not think of a decent reason why he should not be.

"And we shall all go out to Italy to see her!" Sybil finished, looking a bit more positive.

No, thought Matthew suddenly and heavily. He did not want to go to Italy to see Mary and her caro sposo. In fact, he was pretty sure he did not want to see her ever again. She had as good as told him to his face that he was incapable of love; the thought of her entertaining different feelings for a man who appeared in his mind's eye to be the spitting image of Kemal Pamuk (simply because both were foreign) was painful. Better that she should be out of sight and that he never thought about her. He was truly happier that way. Realising this, he determined to let go of this futile, long-dead dream of her once and for all. So he leaned forwards and smiled warmly at Sybil and said firmly, "Yes, it would be lovely if we could!"

She smiled back at him but then sighed. "You see, Matthew, that is what I should be like! I don't think I can though. When I think of my mother's life – I couldn't! Always drinking tea, never allowed to have opinions of my own, just sitting around reading novels..."

Matthew could not help laughing and reached out a hand to her instinctively. "Sybil! You don't have to turn into your mother if you don't want to. And to be fair to Cousin Cora, I don't think she would appreciate her life being described in quite those terms."

Sybil's lips twitched and she admitted the absurdity. "No, perhaps not! But even so, can you imagine Papa being happy if Mama went off and joined the suffrage movement in London? He would claim it would bring Downton into disrepute and would forbid it and she wouldn't like to go against him."

"Not everyone shares your father's particularly high ideals of the aristocracy or," he added a bit guiltily, "they might have different ways of showing it."

"Like you!" she shot back, her eyes bright and clear.

He opened his mouth and then closed it.

"Yes."

Matthew had not realised just how close to her he had become during their conversation. She was sitting forward in her chair, he was sitting forward in his and their hands seemed to dangle between them, fingers almost but not quite touching. He moistened his lips and abruptly stood up, pacing over to the window. Sybil followed him with her eyes.

"Do you ever think about marriage, Matthew? I never considered it much before but it must be very hard for you, suddenly having to take Downton into consideration when choosing a wife. Of course you don't have to but I think you would."

"I've been thinking about it a lot recently as it happens," he replied abruptly, not liking to admit just how accurate her assessment of his character was.

"Why?" she asked and there was something in her tone that made him turn around and frown. "Are you planning to get married?"

She was looking at him, wide-eyed and curious and very earnest and he crossed the room back to her.

"What if I was?"

"I don't understand. Are you?"

Something was driving him on, something reckless and exciting that he had not felt for a long time. He crouched down next to her and looked at her very intensely.

"How would you feel if I did decide to marry?"

Her eyes flickered warily across his face, trying to work him out. She rested her hands on the arms of the chair almost as if she was about to stand up, holding herself in readiness for quick movement.

"It would depend on who your bride was, of course, but I'm sure I'd like whoever you picked." She smiled at him, a bit confused, her cheeks faintly pink.

He moistened his lips again, a nervous twitch. His eyes glanced down to her hand on the chair – slim, ungloved, pale – and he took it gently.

"Even yourself?" he asked breathlessly, with a bashful half-smile.

"Matthew, what - ? Please, be more explicit."

"I'd like you to marry me, Sybil."

Her lips parted and she stared at him in astonishment. Colour began to flood her cheeks.

"Me? Are you – are you quite serious?" Her tone was wondering but strong and confident all the same. "I don't know what to say!"

Matthew's position was becoming distinctly uncomfortable, not withstanding the emotional charge of the moment. He shuffled backwards, sat down on his chair again which he pulled forwards and took her hand again.

He held her gaze. "Yes, I'm perfectly serious. Sybil, you're -" he swallowed, "you are lovely and intelligent and – and any man would be lucky to have you as their wife and more than that, you would be, you will be a wonderful countess. And I don't mean drinking tea and reading novels, I mean doing what you want; taking an active part in running the estate – you already do and I'd love to have you by my side because frankly, Sybil, sometimes it all terrifies me – and going to rallies and supporting the women's rights movement. Please, I want you to do those things."

"Oh..." A strange expression that Matthew had not seen before on her crossed her face. It was more hopeful than anything she had shown so far that afternoon but softer than her usual look. She shifted a little in her chair. "You want-"

"I want you to be you!" He tightened his hold on her hand and smiled slightly. "Isn't that the most important thing that anyone can be?"

"I suppose so, yes, but this is all so sudden, Matthew!"

"Take your time," he implored her. "I know this is a very big decision for you, but I really, truly would like to marry you, and when you have decided what you want-"

She frowned suddenly and interrupted him and as she did so she turned her hand over and returned his clasp. "No, I don't need to think about it. I want to marry you."

He blinked. "You do?"

It was all so sudden, he had not expected her to – well, he had not expected to ask her in the first place. It seemed very strange to hear her say the words.

She giggled, a reassuringly normal Sybil response. "You did just ask me, didn't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I did."

They stared at each other. Matthew could not quite believe what had just happened and yet he could not be sorry for it for her eyes were a very lovely dark brown and her hand was warm in his and he really thought this was a very good idea. Lord Grantham would be delighted, his mother would be pleased, Sybil would be able to live the kind of life she wanted to and as for himself, well, he thought he could get used to her rather easily.

He stood up still holding her hand. She rose too. He didn't know what to say but when she bit her lip and looked down and gave another little nervous laugh, he acted completely on instinct and stepped forward. He brushed away a strand of long dark hair that had strayed onto her cheek and then leaned towards her and kissed her.

She gave a little gasp of surprise and then stood perfectly still. Her lips were soft and yielding. Matthew entwined their fingers together as a pleasant warmth spread through him, his heart thudding nervously in his chest. Gently, tentatively she responded to him, her movement barely perceptible.

He pulled back after a moment and they both opened their eyes. Sybil's were very wide. She licked her lips, blushing.

"I've never-"

"I know."

He smiled tremulously and brushed her cheek again with his hand. He wondered if he could kiss her again; it was pleasant. Before he could, however, the front door was heard opening; his mother was home. Sybil gasped and pulled her hand out of his just as Isobel opened the drawing room door and stopped on the threshold to see the two of standing stiffly in the middle of the room, a foot apart and expressions of astonishment and embarrassment on both their faces.

Matthew tried to recover first. He closed his mouth and glanced briefly across to Sybil.

"Hello!" said Isobel, looking curiously between them. "How are you, Sybil?"

She opened her mouth to reply and then hesitated and looked towards Matthew. He realised with a queer tremor that this would now become a natural sequence of events. He would be her husband and she would look up to him, however equal their relationship could be in other respects. She was so young! He felt himself beginning to panic.

"Am I interrupting anything?" asked Isobel.

Matthew shook his head quickly and then blurted out without any further thought, "Sybil and I are engaged!"

Isobel was extremely surprised but not as much as Matthew had expected. Later that evening when Sybil had left she told him that his attentions had not gone unnoticed by her and that this outcome was only shocking in how quickly things had progressed.

"I couldn't tell whether you were good friends or if there was something more to it than that." She shook her head. "I thought you would wait till after her season at least. What in the world made you propose now? I had no idea you were contemplating it."

Matthew could only shrug rather helplessly. "I suppose it seemed like the right time."

Even he did not find this a particularly satisfactory answer and Isobel pursed her lips. "You are quite sure about this, my dear?"

He glared at her, not at all appreciating the doubt in her voice.

"Of course I am!" he snapped. "And I'm going over to Downton tomorrow to tell Cousin Robert."

"You mean, to ask his permission," corrected his mother gently. "You know Sybil cannot marry without his consent."

Matthew was trying to go to bed. He paused again a few more steps up the stairs. "Yes, I know, Mother. That's what I meant."

He wished her goodnight and closed his bedroom door behind him with relief. When he had got up that morning he had had no idea that his life would have changed so radically by the evening and he felt exhausted by everything that had happened. Engaged to Sybil. He could hardly believe it. As he passively allowed Molesley to undress him, too lost in thought to talk much, he looked around his familiar room. Would they live here still? He supposed so. Would she share his room? Yes, of course, he wouldn't have it any other way. He tried to imagine the room with a more feminine touch. A hint of perfume, a wisp of gauzy material... He could almost picture it, almost smell a whiff of something fresh and complex in the air, before he realised that he was not sure that he had ever really noticed Sybil's perfume. He dismissed Molesley rather abruptly, got himself a glass of water and decided that the best thing he could do was go to bed and get a good night's sleep before his interview with Robert.

Therefore it came as rather a surprise to him when he found himself waking up several hours later fully dressed in his work clothes on the plush red sofa of the Downton library. He blinked in confusion and pushed himself up into a sitting position. The room was dark and warm, illuminated by muted lamps and flickering candles and was silent save for the occasional crackle of the fire. What the devil was he doing at Downton at this time of night? His eye caught the bed pull on the wall, fluttering as if it had been pulled or moved by an invisible wind and he turned on the sofa to look around the room.

He realised with a jolt that was not really surprise but more close to inevitability that he was not alone. Standing directly in front of him, glowing in an ivory gown only a shade paler than her skin, was Mary. He had not seen her in so long and his mouth fell open as he gazed at her. She was just as he remembered seeing her, long gloves encasing slender arms, her sleeves the barest gossamer covering, a three-pendant necklace nestling on her throat, soft waves of chestnut hair pinned up...

"So you've finally woken up, I see!" she said, and the sound of her familiar, low, smooth, cultured voice sent a shock through him.

"I didn't realise I'd been asleep. I'm sorry. It was very rude of me."

She shrugged lightly. "You mustn't let it trouble you."

He stood up, shoved his hands in his pockets and walked a few steps in no particular direction. She still remained motionless with her hands by her sides, following his progress with her eyes alone. It was rather unnerving.

"Mary," he said eventually, stopping just a few paces in front of her, "am I here for a particular reason?"

"I really can't imagine."

He met her eye, saw a gold glint deep within the brown, the reflection of the fire.

"I wish I could think of something I could do to help! I feel so useless."

She sighed and turned away from him for the first time since he had woken up then walked to one of the windows and looked out. The red curtains were drawn and a ghostly sliver of a moon poured its rays through the glass turning her hair black and her dress and skin an even paler white.

Matthew noticed her back, the way the dress dipped down exposing her skin. He found himself walking towards her as if pulled by the invisible string of his longing for her. He stopped a hair breath behind her and she sighed again before finally replying, "There's nothing you can do."

He felt tremendously sorry for her then and simply tremendously sorry. The gauze on her shoulders rose and fell with her breaths. He raised his hand and, as a fast moving cloud scudded across the night sky and briefly covered the moon, laid his palm flat on the smooth skin of her back. He hardly dared to breathe. She shivered and her head fell forwards a little, exposing the back of her neck, the golden chain of her necklace and a few strands of hair that had escaped from her headdress. He leaned forward, his hand still resting on her back, and breathed in a hint of perfume, fresh and complex.

"The wind is over the ocean tonight," she observed suddenly and he lifted his head. "I am afraid that it will not be easy to bring her back."

Matthew blinked and nodded in comprehension. "Of course. But it would still be worth making the attempt, wouldn't it?" he murmured, lowering his head again.

"You can try, if you like."

"Then that," he breathed heavily, "will be my consolation prize."

He inhaled her again and pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, lingering there. She laughed softly, a light rustling that he felt all through him. Mary's arm curved up and her hand caressed his cheek. He closed his eyes feeling almost dizzy and kissed her skin again. She let out a breath that was almost a moan and he felt a stab of overwhelming desire shoot through him. How had he resisted her this long? How had he denied himself? He began to rub little patterns on her back and trailed his lips along her jaw. She sighed yet again and shifted, turning around against the window. His hand stayed on her back so that she ended up effectively in his arms yet their bodies were still held just inches apart. Their eyes met. Matthew hardly dared breathe and she seemed equally affected. He raised a trembling hand to brush against her porcelain cheek, observing for the first time a smattering of tiny, faint freckles, the imperfection only adding to her perfection. He leaned towards her and as he did so there was a sudden rush of cold air, a howl of whirling wind and the strong tangy smell of the sea.

Mary was pulled back flush against the open window and Matthew had to grab her arms to prevent her from being sucked out into the vortex of the storm outside. The sea crashed on the walls of the house and threw up spray into the room. Matthew's senses were assailed but all he could concentrate on was Mary: the paleness of her skin in the moonlight, the way her dress fluttered, the glint of her necklace and earrings, how the wind was loosening her hair from its chignon, the warmth and depth of her beautiful brown eyes. Her rosy lips parted and Matthew, bracing himself against the wall with one foot, pulled her towards him. It seemed to take forever to bring them together, the distance lengthening the more he pulled her until he realised he was not pulling her at all but that they were falling out of the window.

As soon as he realised this he panicked and she was torn from him. He caught sight of her beneath him: her arms were outstretched, her hair loose and floating around her and her red dress sometimes billowing, sometimes twisted round her legs. Matthew was falling a few feet above her and he reached out to her.

"Mary!" he shouted but his voice was lost in the wind.

She stretched her arms back to him but they were too far apart and Matthew presently lost sight of her save the odd gleam of gold embroidery or flash of red as she tumbled through the sky. Driving rain blinded him, hitting his body and his face and he struggled to right himself as he fell, struggled to clutch at something that wasn't there, struggled to see or hear anything other than the elements and the surging sea rushing closer and closer below him.

Then it was over. He sucked in a panicky breath, looked around one last time for Mary before he crashed through the waves and was sucked under into freezing cold water. His chest was tight, his eyes pressed shut and for a moment there was nothing but swirling confusion and blackness and dreadful, dreadful panic. He was going to die. There was no escape. This was undoubtedly the end. Still, with one final, desperate effort just as felt his lungs burn with the effort of holding his breath, he pushed his arms down and kicked and somehow his head managed to break the surface of the water.

He took deep shuddering breaths and only when he had stopped coughing and gasping and thrashing around did he open his eyes and look around. The seascape was completely different to when he had gone under. The weather had completely changed. He was bobbing up and down in a calm, azure blue sea under a cloudless sky and a brilliant, hot, midday sun. He blinked and raised one dripping arm to shield his eyes from the almost unpleasantly prickly, metallic glare. There was sea as far as he could see. Just... sea. He was lost. No Downton Abbey, no nothing. Just sea.

Suddenly the eerie silence was broken by the sharp call of a solitary seagull, a white speck against the different blues of sky and sea and he looked up and followed its progress until he had turned around to face the opposite direction. Squinting, he thought he could make out a dark speck on the horizon, something projecting out of the water. As he became aware of it, he was filled with a sense of urgency and dread and he knew that he absolutely had to reach whatever it was.

He found he was no longer wearing his shoes and socks, nor the jacket and tie of earlier. Freed from these encumbrances, he kicked his legs out and with a frown of determination set off as fast as he could in the front crawl.

From where he had started the black speck had seemed miles and miles off but whenever Matthew looked up he seemed to be gaining on it very rapidly. It was a rock, a single rock in the midst of the ocean and... Matthew stopped swimming and trod water for a moment, catching his breath and staring hard into the harsh light; there was something else, some material fluttering against the rock, red material.

He put his head down and redoubled his efforts, his chest tight and his breath coming in short gasps that were not due to the exertion of the swimming alone. Soon he drew alongside the rock and looked up. He was quite unsurprised to see that the red material had belonged to Mary's dress, now ripped and torn beyond all repair. She herself, he noted with concern though again no surprise, was uncomfortably perched on a jagged outcrop of the rock, her arms stretched either side of her and manacled to it in iron chains. She looked as fed up as could be expected in the situation and sighed heavily when she saw him in the water below.

"Oh, it's you," she said, her disgruntled voice sounding loud in this perfect, disturbing stillness.

Matthew quirked his lips at her as he tried to find footings in the rock to lift himself out of the water. It was covered in barnacles and he scraped his hands and feet several times before he managed to get a proper grip.

"Sorry about that," he responded breathlessly.

He heaved himself out of the sea, water streaming from his sodden shirt and his trousers and clung to the rock just below her. Now that he could catch his breath, he could look at her properly: take in the flesh tantalisingly visible where her dress was torn, and the way her chest rose and fell as she... looked at him? He raised his eyes to hers and saw that much as she wished to maintain the appearance of indifference, she was taking in his appearance as keenly as he was taking in hers. A coil of heat sprang up in him at the realisation that the one thing more delectable than Mary herself was Mary wanting him.

With renewed energy and purpose, he clambered higher on the rock until he was on the same level as her. Her chest rose and fell more rapidly and her eyes flickered all over his face as he came closer and closer. He was going to kiss her, he was going to – But he had forgotten the chains.

"Here," he muttered, "I have to get these off you."

"I suppose you had!" She raised a supercilious eyebrow, dominating him even when at her most vulnerable.

Matthew pressed his lips together and drew out of his pocket a knife. He began to saw at the restraints with great vigour but little success. He could feel Mary's eyes burning into his back and the effort was making him build up a sweat. His discomfort grew along with his frustration and his desire for her. She was too close! Her body brushed against his every time he moved and she did not help him focus by giving the odd little squirm as she tried to release herself from the pains of bondage.

He bit his lip hard and continued to mechanically push and pull the knife across the metal until he sawed too hard and the knife slipped off the manacle and nicked her skin, releasing a tiny bubble of scarlet blood, bright and vivid againt her pale skin.

"Ah!" she cried pulling back in pain and closing her eyes a second before her expression returned to its usual calmness.

"What is this useless thing?" he complained more to himself than her.

She answered anyway. "It's a butter knife. You do know what a butter knife is, don't you, Matthew? It's one of the knives we use at dinner to-"

"I know what a butter knife is!" he snapped, glaring at the offensive instrument before tossing it over his shoulder into the sea.

She laughed cruelly. "Matthew, you are such a dull boy! You can't even break an entail; what made you think you would be able to release me from these fetters?"

He flushed and raised his head to glare at her but he met her eye instead and her lips parted and her chest heaved, a piece of damaged red fabric sliding off her shoulder. He inched onto the same ledge she was on and stood up straight, but that meant he was standing very close to her. Their bare feet almost touched, water running off his shirt dripped onto her legs and he could feel heat radiating from her. Swallowing, he lowered his gaze darkly to her lips and leaned forwards, finally allowing his body to cover hers, and kissed her.

She sighed into his mouth, a beautiful sensation, and pushed herself as far away from the rock as she could with her constraints. Her breasts rubbed against his chest eliciting a groan from him as he tilted his head to deepen the kiss. His fingers tangled in her loose hair that, despite the salt and wind, remained silken smooth in his hands and he cupped the back of her neck to pull her closer. Under his wet clothes, he burned for her, tense and coiled with expectation and need.

Then her arms were around him too, mysteriously freed, and she was flush against him and he felt himself falling backwards until he hit the softness of his bed, his stomach clenching and unclenching with a soaring feeling that felt far better than the sea-sickness that it nearly resembled. He did not break the kiss nor did her arms unlock from round his neck. She was on top of him, sliding and squirming all over his body and his hands were on her bare back and her waist and her breasts and her hips where only shreds of that beautiful, red dress remained and she hissed and moaned and bit down on his lip and he groaned and it was all too much and he needed-

He needed to wake up.

With a supreme effort, Matthew forced his eyes open and they met the dark canopy of his bed at Crawley House. He was drenched in sweat, out of breath, and the sheets were tangled round his legs in a horrible mess. However, it was not his acute physical discomfort that made him sit up and stare blankly across the room in horror. Already the details of the dream were disappearing but the sensations remained and he was filled with a dull, sinking feeling of terrible inevitability.

He might be engaged to the lovely Lady Sybil Crawley but he was utterly fascinated by, besotted, obsessed with Mary.

Many hundreds of miles away from Downton Village another dreamer awoke with a start from a much less pleasant slumber. Unlike Matthew, Mary had had this dream before; not dream, nightmare. No, nightmare suggested fantasy. Call it rather memory. She recognized the start of it now and was even able to pull herself out of it before its deadly climax. Not that that helped much. That was the problem with memories: they followed one out of sleep.

She reacted with practised efficiency. She sat up, pushing away from her mind the physical weight she could feel on her chest, ignoring the stinging mix of pain and pleasure between her legs. She reached out automatically for the water on her bedside table and sipped it slowly. She took deep breaths, counting the seconds before releasing them as she had taught herself to do a long time ago alone in the darkness. Finally, when the trembling had stopped, she swung herself out of bed, stood up on the cool, marble floor and padded barefoot to the window. She fiddled with catch, eventually pulling it open and letting in a fresh gust of cold air. She shivered in her nightdress, the tear she had not brushed away freezing on her cheek, and she unhooked the shutters to push them away from her with only a small creak.

In front of her lay the city of Rome. It slumbered, even its traffic noise quiet now, very few lights breaking up the hulking shadows of bell towers, domes and of course the slopes of the seven hills themselves. It was beautiful. As Mary stood there and calmed herself down the bells of some great church began to chime, three heavy chimes for three o'clock in the morning. There were no bells like this in England and normally it filled her with pleasure to realise how foreign this country was in so many ways. Now, however, she was only aware of one thing, that however far she went, it was impossible to run away from herself.

A/N: Please don't flame me please don't flame me please don't flame me! (No, really! :S) It's important character development and remember, it's only half way through the story! Anything could happen!

*runs away embarrassed at having somehow managed to write bondage fantasies into a serious fanfic*