For a wonder, Edith realized as she and Michael sat down to their welcome home luncheon at Downton, everyone seemed determined to be upbeat and pleasant and not take her to task for the things that they had argued about in letter and over the telephone for the last year. She had almost decided against going to Downton, because they were in the middle of moving back to London, but Michael and Aunt Rosamunde had changed her mind. We're going to live in London now, Michael had said as they walked down the gangplank to the docks of London, and your family comes to London all the time, and you've missed them all so much. Aunt Rosamunde had agreed and added that Edith might find her parents much more forgiving than she expected.

So far, that was proving accurate. Her mother had taken baby Marigold into her arms and not said one word about Marigold being born just eight months after the wedding. Her father had also been pleasant, delighted to see her and the baby, and if he seemed a little stern to Michael, he mellowed a bit at hearing that they were going to resume living in England. Matthew hadn't approved of the relationship, she knew that from Michael, but aside from chiding her for worrying the family, he had moved past it quite easily. He had still been in the throes of his grief, it was more of a surprise that her absence was even noticed but she had taken it as a good sign that he religiously wrote her chummy letters about the family. He looked much better as well. He had been too thin and careworn when she left. Now he looked better, more healthy, even talking about Mary without wincing or lapsing into melancholy. Sybil likewise was better. Bright and cheery and laughing with cousin Rose about some silly party Rose had been invited to, and including Michael in the luncheon conversation.

"It sounds like," Edith said carefully as the servants took away the plates, "everyone has been very busy since I left. Is there anything planned for this afternoon and evening?" She assumed her mother would want to talk and get reacquainted and hear all of their plans in London.

"I thought I'd give Michael a tour of the estate," Robert said magnanimously, as though he was granting a great favor. Of course, Edith realized, in his mind he was. He was treating Michael the way he would a new son in law, despite the awkwardness of the marriage.

"Rose and I were going to get started on the Christmas planning," Cora said pleasantly. "You should join us, Edith. You were always so clever with decorating."

In other words, she wasn't being asked but Edith nodded agreement. She did enjoy it and she suspected her mother had saved the planning for her as something they could do together. And something that wouldn't be a reminder of Mary. Even just two years after, she could still see the hurt in her mother's eyes. It was lucky, Edith thought as she looked at her smiling younger sister, that it wasn't Sybil. Mary was the eldest but Sybil was her mother's favorite. It would have broken her mother if it had been Sybil. Sybil's letters made that clear, that and how it had been almost a blessing that Rose was wild but willing to be tamed. It had given Cora the distraction she needed from her grief. "That sounds lovely, Mama. Sybil, will you be joining us?"

"Actually," Matthew chimed in, looking suddenly flush, "I was going to a book reading in Ripon this afternoon, and I thought… that Sybil might like to join me."

Sybil also blushed and looked down at her hands. "I think that would be quite nice, Matthew. Is this the author you were telling me about?"

"Yes." Matthew looked even more hesitant. "If you like, we can have dinner at La Rue, that new French restaurant that is so desperate to get a contract for our cheese."

Sybil laughed. "We could make sure they're worthy. And Edith, that would let you and Michael have some time with Mama and Papa. Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Edith assured. But suddenly, with both Matthew and Sybil looking painfully embarrassed while the rest of the family beamed with pleasure, she was suddenly filled with questions. Across the table, Michael's eyes twinkled at her and she knew he was thinking the same thing she was.

She was further intrigued by the fact that both Matthew and Sybil took pains to change into outfits that were a bit fancy for a day in Ripon. She held her tongue until they were driving away towards the train station in Matthew's convertible to turn to Rose and say, "So what is going on here?"

Rose and Cora both began giggling as they pulled her into the parlor. "We think," Rose said in a conspiratorial stage whisper, "That Matthew and Sybil might have developed affection for each other and we are trying to encourage it."

"Really?" Edith took a seat as she considered it. She looked at her mother. "You haven't mentioned this in your letters, Mama."

Cora hesitated. "It's like saying your birthday wish after you blow out the candles, Edith. If you talk about it, it doesn't come true."

"Do you want it to be true?" Edith asked. She could see that Rose was simply taken by the romantic notion of two people finding love after tragedy. Edith understood the appeal, she felt it herself, that and the joy in knowing something good would come of the twin tragedies. "They're such different people… they married such different people." Although the more it rolled around in her head, the more she saw it. Matthew married a strong willed woman who he could cherish but also respect and spar with intellectually. And Sybil married a man who wasn't afraid of work, and who wasn't afraid of what people thought, a man that would love and honor her regardless of her status. She nodded suddenly, and smiled at Cora. "I see the possibility but… "

"You worry there's too much against it," Cora agreed. "So do I, but I take today as a good sign." Her mother frowned slightly. "You're not against it, are you, Edith?"

Edith shook her head, pleased that her mother was asking and glad to tell the truth. "If it's what they want, then I want it too. They both deserve more happiness than what they've received, Mama. If I have learned nothing from my own marriage, it's how happy it makes me to have Michael and Marigold in my life." And she wondered if she could have borne the tragedies Sybil and Matthew had faced. That her parents had faced. "Mama… I am sorry, you know. About leaving without a word when everything was still so freshly awful. I was selfish."

Her mother shook her head and smiled. "I wish your father and I could have attended the wedding, and I won't lie, I was angry about your decision… at the time. But I think in a way, it was a jolt we all needed, and I think you made the right decision. I liked Michael when we met, and I think I rather like that he'd go to such lengths to be with you. That said, he is divorced and you two may find that difficult, even in London. I trust you've thought about that."

It was, Edith realized, so odd to realize her mother did pay attention to her.

0o0o0o0

Matthew kept his eyes on the road and on the speedometer. It hadn't occurred to him, until it was too late that Sybil hadn't, since Tom's accident, been terribly fond of car rides. The ride to the train station had been fine, but it had also been daylight. Now it was evening, dark and cloudy without even a moon to provide light. It was a night like the night Tom Branson had died and he worried that he had, in his typical way, managed to blunder unintentionally by inviting Sybil to a nice event and dinner and then shoved reminders of poor Tom in her face. It was right up there with insulting Mary and tripping poor Lavinia, he thought worriedly as he glanced at her strained face.

"Turn right at the crossroads," she said suddenly. "I know it's not on the way. I want to see something, if you don't mind."

"All right," he said easily, turning the car down the dirt road. It led up a hill and at the top, he saw that the road led into a small valley. It was one of the estate's tenancies, a farmstead that had sat fallow under Jenkins but that Tom and he had improved and gotten working again.

"Stop here, for a moment," Sybil said, her tone oddly bright. She pointed at the farmstead, at the glowing lamps inside. "Who lives there now?"

"A family named Taylor," Matthew dredged it up from memory. "A nice house but not great land for farming and the Taylors keep sheep for their livelihood so it's a good use of a tenancy that was hard to keep people in." He glanced at her. "Why does this interest you?"

"Oh…" Sybil smiled sadly. "A small regret. Tom was always grateful that Papa let us move in after he had to leave Ireland but it touched his pride that he didn't provide a home for me and the coming child. He was saving his salary as the estate manager so he could offer to buy a farm cottage on the estate for us and this is the place we were going to ask Papa to sell to us. Because it was a nice house and Tom wouldn't be farming so the estate would lose nothing. Papa would have given it to us if I'd asked but Tom insisted that he have the money in hand to offer." She sighed. "I regret I didn't push him to make the offer sooner. Papa wouldn't have required a big down payment and we could have had that time together as a family in our own home. But when I balance that with how it would have hurt Tom to ask Papa for a favor… This might shock you, Matthew, but Tom respected Papa a great deal and wanted to prove to him that he was capable of taking care of me and the baby. So we waited… and it never happened and I regret that. Even though we were very happy, I wish he'd had that moment of pride. That's what I regret. It's good though, to see a family in that house. Does that make sense?"

Matthew nodded. "It does." He gave her a small smile of his own. "I wanted something very similar. I wanted Mary and I to live in our own home for a bit. In York or maybe London. I thought it would be good for the two of us to live alone as a couple, to do things as a couple with our own place before I had to live in Downton." He took a deep breath and let it out. "I never wanted or expected to become an earl. I won't shirk the duty when it comes but it wasn't what I planned for my life. I would have liked a little time on our own. But… I also know that if I had pressed harder, I could have gotten my way and in retrospect, knowing how it ended, I'm glad Mary and I lived where she wanted to live. It seems so silly now." He paused. It was awkward, because Sybil was a friend and he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to chance something more, but it felt right to share. "My regret, my real regret, is that we didn't marry in 1914. I let my pride get in the way. I thought she was hesitating because she was worried I wouldn't be earl." He chuckled suddenly and looked at Sybil. "I'm not so sentimental in my memories of Mary that I can rule that out entirely, but what she was really worried about was Kemal." A thought struck him and he raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, Sybil… did you know about Kemal?"

As he said it, he almost cursed. This is why Mary always laughed at you, he told himself, because you pick the oddest, most awkward things to talk about. The point of asking Sybil to dinner was to see if his romantic notions were just in his head and here they were, sitting in the dark looking at the house Sybil had planned to live in with her husband, discussing how his wife killed a man in her bed. "I… I'm sorry. It occurs to me how awkward this is."

"Oh Matthew," Sybil said, her eyes twinkling. She started giggling. "I was thinking the same thing… that we had just had a lovely unchaperoned evening where I think we're both realizing that there could be something between us… and I am ruining it by detouring to the cottage Tom and I once thought about living in… And then you make it ten times worse by bringing up your endless engagement with Mary and Kemal's unfortunate end. " Her giggling increased. "We're talking about Kemal! Kemal the Turk and how he died in Mary's bed and how Anna and Mama had to carry his body back to his room so no one would know!"

"I thought…" He started to laugh himself, feeling a sort of release from the tension of being together. "I thought it was Bates that helped them. I can't… I can't even picture your mother…" His laughing increased. "We shouldn't be laughing," he said finally, between chuckles. "He blackmailed her, and she was afraid to tell me and that's the bigger reason she hesitated. She was so frightened the night she told me, that I'd reject her…"

"Then you shouldn't blame yourself," Sybil said after a long moment. "For the first proposal not working, at least not entirely. If Mary ever made a mistake, it was in thinking you wouldn't take her side in that mess. And yes, to answer your question, I knew about Kemal. I think the only one who didn't know about Kemal is poor Carson." She reached over and took his hand, squeezing it gently. "Are we chasing something that isn't here, Matthew?"

"I… I don't know…" he admitted. Then, despite his fear, he leaned over and kissed her on the lips. She didn't pull away, in fact she met him eagerly, and for one long, delicious moment, they kissed with pure abandon.

Then she pulled away, a slight smile still on her lips. "We are chasing something real, Matthew. Do you agree?"

"Yes," he said, just a bit breathless from surprise. "But we should take this slowly." Because he was certain his thoughts were an utter whirlwind.

"Yes," she agreed. Then she laughed. "With one caveat. I'm not Mary, and there's no Kemal in my past. This won't be easy for either of us, but we're different people. It took both of us years and years and a war to marry the first time. Everyone will point and laugh if it takes us that long again to make a decision. We both need time to think… but I think we can do a little better this time around, don't you?"

"I think that's fair," he agreed. He turned the car on. "We should get home. I suspect your parents are likely already worried about us. And I'll need to speak to Robert… about us." That was a conversation he was already dreading. His hands clenched the wheel of the car.

"You needn't look so worried," Sybil said, still smiling. "He's been quite nice to poor Michael who swept his second daughter off to Germany, and I heard he was quite nice to his eldest's beau as well."

"I suppose," he laughed, "that you're quite right but I do need some time to gather my thoughts We haven't even talked about… so many things."

As much as it worried him, taking the next few steps, Matthew had to admit, it had been far too long since he had felt so happy.