A/N: Here we are again! :) Happy Monday!

I need to say a great big blanket thank you to every lovely person who's taken the time to discuss this fic with me, and for each review as I find them so thought-provoking, and all of it is helping me along enormously - you're all darlings!

And special thanks as always to EOlivet for her encouragement and polish!

With that... enjoy!

Chapter Five

When Matthew caught a glimpse of Mary out of the train's small window, he had to look twice to be sure that it was her through the spiralling smoke that threatened to obscure her and the clinging darkness of the winter evening. His heart leapt into his throat, and he stood up so quickly that for a moment he felt dizzy, and had to put his hand out to steady himself. The entire day long, he'd thought of nothing but her… He'd sailed through every appointment, every client, every file with a smile on his face, paying the barest amount of attention to it as he allowed his mind to dwell on the woman who'd delighted his dreams during the night. He'd thought about it, long and hard… his body trembling at the memory of her touch, her warm moans of passion against his neck, the softness of her skin where they met…

How could he possibly live his life without her? The very thought was impossible, when she pervaded every fibre of his being, his heart, his soul. She could not deny their connection… and it was right that they should be together, for her own sake, that she might have the life and the title she was due. She challenged him, she made him smile, made him think… and he wondered how no-one seemed to appreciate her, not as she deserved to be appreciated, so far as he could observe at least. Not her father, not her mother who seemed to believe her a commodity to marry off to the nearest or highest bidder, oh the idea made him so angry! Mary deserved more than that; she deserved someone who was interested in her and her opinions and ideas and what she had to say, for he found her intelligent and witty and sharp… qualities which his appreciation of had only grown the more time he had spent with her. And above all that there was a passion, a fire in her, that seemed to outshine those around her into pale comparison, which seemed to be ignored or belittled or simply unnoticed.

He loved her, and the more he had thought of her the more he had grown determined that there was no-one else he could wish for a wife. He wanted to marry her, and he could only hope and pray that his feelings were returned. But after their passion of the day before… how could they not be? What objection could she hold to him now? Unless she viewed him only as a… plaything, or a toy, but he could not believe that to be true. He knew the way her eyes sparkled prettily when he smiled, how she leaned towards him as he talked, her little intake of breath when he made some observation or comment that pricked her interest. No, he was very sure that she liked him, she enjoyed his company, he could not doubt now that she found him desirable… What objection could she have?

Well, he knew that. And that had plagued him too, chasing round and round his mind in endless circles without a satisfactory answer. Despite everything she might admire in him, and everything he might offer her, she was still Lady Mary Crawley. Matthew was very well aware that he could not yet provide her with the life she was accustomed to, not for many years yet. Could she overlook that, for him? He wasn't sure, yet, but… oh, he must ask! And if she couldn't then he would wait; he would wait as many years as it took if they could only carry on as they were and be promised to each other for that one day, one day, when she would be ready to take him as her husband.

Whatever it took, Matthew was sure as he stepped off the train with a wide, welcoming smile, that one day… Mary would be ready to become his wife. As he walked towards her, seeing her eyes glittering in the darkness, his heart raced at the thought that she'd come to meet him – had she been thinking of him all day, as he had of her?

"Hello!" he greeted her brightly, feeling his face warm from the depth of his smile. But she didn't return it. In fact… there was a coldness in her expression, one he hadn't seen for a long time, now. A frown glanced across his features before he smiled again, a little more gently, this time. Everything within him ached to reach out to her, but he did not. "Were you waiting for me?" he asked shyly.

"Yes, I was," Mary replied without warmth or affection. She barely even looked at him. Waiting until he'd collected his bicycle (she glared uncharitably at it), she made sure to walk on the other side of it to him; a physical barrier to match the one between them she felt in her heart. Everything about his gentle, endearing manner stoked her anger and injustice at his actions. His voice, that invoked memories and feelings that only stung now…

"Not long, I hope," he said softly. "It's horribly cold and dark! But I'm so glad you –"

"Mama has instructed me to accompany the hunt tomorrow, you know." Her interruption was sharp, and still she stared at the ground just in front of their feet. The erratic squeak of Matthew's bicycle tyre was driving her to distraction and filling her with an unreasonable rage against him. Unnerved by her manner, Matthew frowned.

"Oh? I thought you rather enjoyed hunting." The slightest edge of wary hardness hung upon his tone at the memory of that conversation.

"I do," Mary shrugged. "But I don't enjoy being made to do it, whether I'd like to or not. As if what I wanted didn't matter, or how I felt."

"Of course it matters," Matthew said quietly.

"Does it? Not to Mama, apparently. Whether it be hunting or husbands, she shows little interest in my opinions."

Matthew's heart fluttered. "But – we both know you won't marry anyone you don't want to." He glanced unsurely at her, but her expression was hard and empty.

"No. I won't."

"Well, then," Matthew exhaled nervously, breath swirling visibly out in a little cloud. "If you're settled on that score… Perhaps hunting –"

"Would you?" Mary suddenly turned, and looked at him sharply.

"What?"

"Come with us tomorrow. If I wanted you to."

Matthew found himself utterly thrown by the request, and the bitterness behind it. He couldn't understand why she was being so cold, why everything she said felt like a dig, or a test. His lips parted and closed ineffectually for a moment or two.

"I – can't, I'm afraid tomorrow I'm already committed to –"

"Oh! Yes, how silly of me," Mary tossed her head angrily, refusing to look at him. "You're spending the day alone with Edith. Which naturally is far more important than –"

He couldn't understand her anger, and he spluttered in his own defence.

"Edith – asked if I'd like to see the churches in the area, and I would, so I accepted her offer…"

"And it never occurred to you to mention it, when we were together?" she whirled on him. "You were with me and you didn't think to –"

"I didn't think it was important!" Matthew exclaimed, frustration rising in his chest. "I didn't – think you'd be interested in old churches and – I thought it kind of her to offer!"

Mary sneered contemptuously. "And you really suppose Edith is interested in them, do you?"

"But why else would she –"

"For heaven's sake, Matthew! You cannot be so short-sighted. Don't you imagine Edith would relish the chance to be Countess if you gave her the slightest encouragement?"

"Encouragement?" he balked at her, unable to believe the depth of her accusation. "I can't imagine what encouragement you think I'd give Edith! Not after what we've – done, Mary…"

She turned on him. "Can't I? Is it any different, to accept Edith's invitation to a church than mine to an old folly of a temple? Would you do the same with her there as you did with me?" All her anger and worry spilled out in a vicious, hurtful attack that caused Matthew to pale in horror, visible even in the moonlight.

"My God, Mary!" he shouted, indignation colouring his expression that twisted into hurt. Everything he'd thought and hoped for seemed to be crashing down around him and crushing him with its weight under her raging accusations. He simply could not understand, how… How her attitude could be so turned, how she could believe such terrible things of him; and he felt a flame of injustice and anger at it. "How can you possibly say that, how – can you even think it of me?"

"I don't know!" she answered coldly, before flinging another dart at him. "Have you given me any reason to think otherwise? Or are we all the same to you, we daughters. Perhaps you will turn your attentions to Sybil next; though heaven knows she understands less of these things than Edith or I so if you do please –"

"Good Lord, stop!" His expression was a mask of bitter rage and shock. Every word from her lips stabbed at him, wounded him, more painfully than he'd imagined possible from words alone. Remembering at the last moment their very public situation as they walked through the village, despite the evening hour, he reined in his fury as best he could and lowered his voice to an angry hiss. "You must realise how ridiculous what you're saying is! You're – jealous!"

"Jealous!" Mary scoffed; though it angered her to suspect that that was exactly what she felt. "Of Edith? You must be joking. Anyway I couldn't care less what you do together. I only thought you should come on the hunt tomorrow, if you intend to be any sort of a proper Earl one day at all."

Matthew bristled with frustration at her deflection, and his lips pressed into a hard line, his steps quicker and more forceful as if he were trying to distance himself from her, but she kept pace.

"I can't throw her over," he snapped ungraciously, the leather of his gloves flexing over his tightened knuckles as he gripped his handlebars fiercely. He didn't want to, not now. It wasn't that he had any great desire to spend time with Edith over anything else, but he certainly wasn't going to change their plans for such irrational reasoning as Mary was flinging at him! He would not give her the satisfaction. "And your father isn't joining the hunt; so I will take my cues on learning my role from him if you don't mind, and not from you."

"Oh do what you like, Matthew, it hardly matters to me." Mary folded her arms tightly against the cold and glared into the darkness, shivering not only from the cold. Matthew's harsh, bitter laugh speared into her chest.

"Doesn't it? Then forgive me for wondering why you've waited in the dark and the cold to press me on the matter. Or was it only to insult me, and accuse me of things you know very well are – shameful, Mary!" His breath whipped out in little flurrying clouds into the evening in his anger. His skin trembled, and burned, and he could not process the crush of disappointment and frustration that rose as hot bile in his throat. "I thought we were past that; far past it," he muttered.

She flung her arms in a helpless gesture of agitation, her voice loud and sharp. "Apparently not! I waited to – give you a chance to explain yourself but –"

"I don't owe you any explanation for my actions!" he shouted; actions which he knew to be perfectly innocent, perfectly harmless, so far as he was concerned – he should not have to justify himself! Perhaps he was being unreasonable; the possibility pricked in his mind but so was she, and he was so furious at her accusations that he could not help it. "Particularly actions which you – claim not to care about in any case!"

Mary was tripping over her own arguments and the awareness only angered her further, and incensed her frustration with Matthew for pulling her up on it. She could not be so weak as to indulge him with her fears; not more directly than she had already tried, and instead of reassuring her of them he had turned on her. Had she been so utterly wrong about him? She turned and pierced him with an icy frown.

"No, I suppose you're right. If we are truly nothing to each other then there's no explanation required at all."

Matthew's lips parted wordlessly at the harsh stab of her words. How cruelly she could cut him! Nothing to each other? His gut was a twisted wreckage of pain and hurt, to find the hopes he'd cherished through the night and day so irrevocably trampled on.

"For God's sake, Mary…" he muttered desperately; pleading with her on some level though he could not lower himself to apologise or to forgive her.

For a moment she held his unrelenting gaze. She wondered, for the briefest spell, if they might kiss each other. It seemed to be how their arguments usually resolved themselves, she thought bitterly. But not this time. The very thought of his touch and his lips and his skin made her tremble with distaste. They stood, locked in a silent, wordless battle of wills until she snapped the contact in what felt like a physical blow, looking past his shoulder to see the lights of Crawley House glowing softly just behind him. Thank God.

"I must be going," she said quickly, still not looking at him. "I do hope you enjoy yourself tomorrow –"

"Mary, it's dark and it's freezing…" Matthew riled at her insincerity, but still it could not entirely overtake his sense. "You must let me –"

"No." Her eyes whipped to his, now; daring him to challenge her. He was nothing to her, and she would not accept his charity, his assistance, his hand… Nothing. "I'm perfectly capable of walking to my home by myself. Goodbye, Cousin Matthew."

He stared after her as she stalked into the icy darkness, stirring with an even sharper cold than he had felt as they walked at her absence. But the cold mingled with the heat of his rage, that speared hotter at the coldness of her parting brush-off. It stormed within his chest, and he longed for a release – to run after her, to punch something, to shout and yell or kiss her… No, no, not that… But instead all he could do was slam his bicycle against the garden wall with unnecessary force, and swing the door open so fiercely that the hinges squealed in protest as he stamped into the house.

Making his way to the dimly lit sitting room, glad of the shadows to mask his anguish that must be scrawled upon his features, he sank into his usual chair and flipped open a novel on his lap with a great deal more vigour than usual. It wasn't long before his mother wandered in, and he was glad of the distraction from his spiralling thoughts of Mary. But when it became quickly apparent that his mother's source of conversation was tomorrow's arrangements, he let out a heavy sigh, unnoticed by Isobel.

"You remember we're dining there tomorrow evening," she peered at the letter in her hands, and Matthew looked up, with as disinterested an expression as he could muster. "There are two young men staying, so you won't be so outnumbered for once!"

"What men?" he asked testily, fidgeting a little warily. Napier, he'd known about… Had Mary anticipated their argument and invited another, simply to rile him further? He wouldn't put it past her, not now. He tried desperately to cool his simmering bitterness and listen patiently to his mother's answer as she held her glasses to her eyes and squinted in the dim light.

"Uh… A Turkish diplomat called something I can't read and… Lord Branksome's 'charming son', who's to be flung at Mary, presumably!" she announced with a faint air of self-righteousness.

Matthew pursed his lips together, his brow creasing gently as he frowned thoughtfully at his book.

"When it comes to Cousin Mary, she's quite capable of doing her own flinging, I assure you."

How well he knew it, he thought bitterly, relieved when his mother took his comment wryly and laughed.

By the time Mary had reached the Abbey, she was in no mood at all for dinner and excused herself with a terrible headache. Thankfully her mother was only too eager to oblige her, wanting her to be fit and ready to dazzle her companions the next day. Winter evenings, she decided as Anna brought her up a tray, were absolutely intolerable. She picked at her food, lacking any sort of appetite, and paced restlessly up and down her bedroom trying her very hardest not to think of Matthew. Every time she thought of him only served to incense her hatred of him. She hated him, she loathed him, she could quite happily never see him again in her life… The inescapable fact that he would always, inevitably be a part of her life was unspeakably unfair, and Mary crawled under her covers weeping bitter tears into her cool pillow.

She hated him and she hated herself for having given herself so easily to him, for having believed him, all those times he'd smiled at her and talked to her as nobody else had, how he'd… touched her, worshipped her, loved her as nobody else had and made her truly believe for the first time in her life that she really, really mattered to someone... To him. But now his adamant refusal to back down on the matter of Edith, the scathing way he'd accused her of jealousy, of being ridiculous, childish, even… had shocked her and hurt her more than she would ever care to admit. He did not understand her, and she could not understand him, and she wished so very fervently once more that he'd never bothered to barge in on their lives at all.

She awoke in the cold light of morning with fresh resolve.

Matthew would not hold power over her any more. He did not, he should not. She owed him nothing, no loyalty, no commitment… and if he was so foolish as to believe she did, that they must be tied somehow by what they had done together (she shuddered to think of it, and riled against the latent memories of pleasure) – well, she would show him wrong.

Perched securely and familiarly atop of Diamond, Mary felt her confidence settle itself again. Perhaps this wasn't such a terrible thing to be made to do, after all – rather this than sitting in the drawing room with her thoughts left to dwell on her sister and her lover all day. The thrill, the exhilaration of a hard ride would calm her and ready her to face him, and to show him that she couldn't care a jot for him.

"Oh wait a minute," she drawled in bored tones to Lynch, "here's Mr. Napier." Instantly her face lit into a breathtaking smile. She could do this, she could pretend, play this part – just for a day. Just enough. "I was beginning to give up on you – we're moving off!" she teased him, her voice dripping with charm.

Evelyn droned on about horses and grooms and difficulties, and Mary smiled and laughed at all the appropriate moments, even making a wry quip about their Turkish companion.

"Don't worry about Kemal," Evelyn smiled confidently. "He knows what he's doing on a horse."

"Well where is he?" She looked around. It couldn't hurt to have two gentlemen fawning over her, certainly not.

"Fussing! He's rather a dandy."

Mary chuckled dryly. "Well, I can see him now. A funny little foreigner with a wide, toothy grin and hair reeking of pomade." They shared a little smile, a little laugh, and she felt her confidence rise a little higher. So far, so good.

"I wouldn't quite say that… Here he is now." Evelyn smiled, and nodded to their side, where Mary politely turned her gaze with a wide, ready smile perfectly in place.

The smile dropped helplessly from her lips as the handsome Turk eased up beside them, lifting his hat in greeting with a disarming smile.

"Lady Mary Crawley, I presume!"

Mary had to remind herself to breathe. For he was… so very, very unlike – in fact, almost the complete opposite of – Matthew. Perfect, she thought to herself with a tentative smile.

"You presume right!"

Her heart fluttered as she began to think that things may very well go even better than she had hoped.

TBC

A/N: Thanks so much for reading :) I feel it's probably prudent to reassure you here that this fic will, ultimately, have a happy ending. It will. Promise. Yep. As always I'm so intrigued to know what you thought, and your feedback always makes my day! Thank you!