A/N: So, seriously, your comments have been overwhelming. You've been AMAZING! This story has been in my head for so long that I am excited to finally write it. I want to answer a couple of common questions quickly though. Grace will continue. Most likely, (but I cannot say with 100% certainty) there will be a chapter up this weekend. Secondly, like I said at the beginning of chapter one, there will be no adultery in this story but it will have a happy ending. I know those things see incongruous at this point but trust me? I've had this story in my head for months! I hate movies with sad endings. And I'm not playing coy either. A happy ending means Matthew and Mary together without adultery. But right now, that seems impossible and I get it. But my job is to show you how it happens and it will happen without adultery. Thirdly, Lavinia will have a voice in this story. She will not be a cardboard character. I promise. Give her a bit of time. She's not as brazen as our Mary. Finally, I knew some people were not going to like Matthew or even disagree with how I portrayed him. It's okay. I cannot defend him. But I think Matthew is not perfect. He married Lavinia, knowingly made a huge mistake. He's living in the consequences and he's Matthew so yes, he did the honorable thing but he's a bit naive. I don't think he expected it to be this hard doing the honorable thing. It's only going to get harder. Also the formatting is off in Matthew's letter. I couldn't show the strike throughs. Consider everything crossed out but the bold parts. So Mary can still read what he has crossed out. Does that make sense?

Chapter Three

Dear Mary,

Your letter was completely

I cannot say

To express my feelings over your letter

I found your letter to be completely disturbing, from the detached tone to the signature of cousin. You are too smart for your own good. I told you a long time ago not to play games with me. I am not so stupid that I cannot tell what you are doing. You have always been good at playing hot and cold, Lady Mary, haven't you? I'm sure Mr. Pamuk could attest to that.

How could you leave without saying goodbye to me? Who are you? Where is the Mary who held the bowl as I was sick and pushed me around the grounds and anchored me to a world I wanted no part of? Where is the Mary I danced with? Where is my stick?

I don't know how to be without you near. I know I shouldn't say it. I've drunk too much and I am so angry at you. So, so, so, angry. Mary, what were you thinking? Not just the leaving. But Mr. Pamuk. Announcing it that way. Are you proud? Most of all. Most of all, I am angry that you did not tell me so long ago. I would not have been happy to hear the news about the woman I intended to marry. But we might have been happy now.

I have drunk too muchh. I've spilled on this paper and I do nott even care. I do not even even care. I do nott care about you at all.

I really think you must be a wrretched person. Something inside you must be wrong. I think you're a life ruiner.

MC

"You're awfully quiet."

Mary is at a party filled with young people, people her age, as Grandmother terms them. She forces Mary to go to every picnic, every silly American party where young men and women mill around and laugh together without a care in the world. She isn't friends with these people. Grandmother is friends with their parents, their grandparents. They are all so god awful rich and love showing it off. They talk about money constantly. They wear pink too often. There are girls showing bits of their ankles. Chaperones are always scarce. They are expected to laugh and joke and have fun and when one of the men (the boys) pulls a hair pin out of a woman's (a girl's) hair, she laughs as she threatens, "Oh, I'm going to get you, Tommy." She bites her lip and pretends to pout and then runs after him when he teases her with it.

Mary is always apart from them, standing on the edge, watching cooly, sometimes with a glass of champagne in her hand. Some of the girls try to include her but their giggles are shrill and Mary has never been a giggler. They've already given up on her. To be honest, they never liked her to begin with–a gorgeous girl to compete with, a mysterious accent, her stillness.

Today it is a picnic and Mary is standing in the shade alone, cupping her elbows, trying not to think about the letter she received that morning–the scratchy handwriting, the uneven lines, the piercing words. She wanted to sob. Her body convulsed as if she was sobbing but no tears came. She promised herself. She promised herself that his wedding day would be the last day she cried over him. So she only crumpled the letter into a ball.

Something must be wrong with you.

The boys have taken off their jackets and are playing some sport with a ball. The girls are on blankets, sunning themselves and giggling. A few have taken off their shoes. Mary thinks she is alone in the shade (she has no intention of turning brown) until she hears: "You're awfully quiet."

He is tall with dark hair, lean but confident. The first impression Mary has of him is that he is so comfortable with himself–his tanned skin, eyes the color of Diamond after a good run, shirtsleeves rolled up, and a grin that reveals dimples. He is so comfortable in his own body, his own self.

She is suddenly aware that she...is not. Hers is the body of a life ruiner.

"We always try to get up the nerve to talk to talk to you at these things, you know," he continues, hands in his pockets, smiling. "And today, I told the fellows that I was going to speak to you. They didn't believe me," he adds ruefully.

"It's nice to know I've been talked about," Mary replies dryly. "And that my personality is so unapproachable."

"I think it's the accent. Everything sounds so serious." His smile widens. She raises her eyebrow at him. "That was a joke," he clarifies. He waits a moment for her response and when there isn't one, he kicks at the grass a bit. "I'm very charming, you know. People tell me all the time it gets me into trouble."

"Really." There is not a question mark at the end of her reply.

He laughs a little at her, shaking his head. "For example, here I am, trying to get a smile out of a girl, maybe a tiny laugh out of you." He winks. "You're trouble. I can tell these things."

She has had one glass of champagne and it is hot outside in the summer air. "You're right." The words roll off her tongue, the first time she hasn't thought carefully through before speaking them aloud upon coming to this godforsaken country. "I'm actually a life ruiner."

He raises both his eyebrows comically. "My life seems to be perfectly fine."

"Oh, just wait," she assures him. His arms are very tan, revealed by those rolled up shirtsleeves. "If you talk to me long enough, I'll ruin your life."

"I think you're wrong," he announces. The man just doesn't stop grinning. He reminds her a bit of one of Papa's dogs, a puppy. "I think I'll make you laugh before you ruin my life."

"It's a bet then," she replies flippantly.

He sticks out his hand. "Mackenzie."

"Mackenzie?" she asks, leaving his hand in the air alone.

"Are you really going to make fun of me when one of your country's most beloved characters is named Fitzwilliam Darcy?" he retorts, his eyes dancing, his hand still extended. "And it's Mack. To my friends. Are we friends?"

"I suppose we are," she says slowly, reaching out to take his hand. "Since we've made a bet. I'm–"

"Lady Mary Crawley," he interrupts gently. He does not release her hand. "I know. I've made it my business to eavesdrop and find out."

"That's not very polite," she responds, untangling her hand.

He takes a step closer and his grin becomes less silly and more gentle. There is still plenty of space separating them but it alarms Mary nonetheless. She is a life ruiner.

"I had to know you. When I saw you." His words make her blush, even though she doesn't care about this Mack character at all. She is done with romance. She is not good at it. She is a life ruiner and she is done ruining lives. Especially with an American. God.

"Mister..." she begins.

"Uh oh." The smile is back and this time it's a bit sly. "I didn't tell you my last name. However will you address me in such a formal manner without my last name?"

"Sir–"

"See, you're much to good at this," he laughs. "But if I insist that you call me Mack? What then? How would you do it in jolly England?"

"To a man who approached me at a party?" she asks. She doesn't know why or how they are still even talking.

"Yes. How would you do it? If I say, I insist you call me Mack." She finally realizes that his silliness and his attractive features are completely disarming, that they've been talking for several minutes now, that she told him she was a life ruiner (for god's sake?).

At the same time, it is a game and she would rather play than think of the letter crumpled in her room at Grandmother's. "I would say, Sir, forgive me if I have given you the impression that we are of intimate acquaintance. It would be inappropriate to address you as such."

He throws back his head and laughs. And laughs. And laughs. "Fancy," he is finally able to reply and she finds, against her will, really, a smile creeping across her face. "Uh oh." He takes her hand. "We better get you out of this heat, you life ruiner, you. You're smiling. Something terrible must be wrong with you."

She stops smiling. "Laughing at someone is just as impolite as eavesdropping."

"Lady Mary." His face turns serious. "I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you."

"You're very tenacious," she sighs. For the second time, she untangles their hands. She forgot he was holding onto her.

"So my professors have always said. And precocious. I'm precocious," he smiles again. "Do you like ice cream?" he asks suddenly and out of the blue.

"Not particularly," she replies, looking up at the sky.

"You don't particularly like ice cream?" he cries. "Stay right here." He takes her shoulders in his tan hands as if he is holding in place before he turns away.

He returns with a cone of green ice cream and chocolate chips. He tells her it's mint chocolate chip and that she has to taste it. When she argues, he argues back...with a smile on his face, of course. He practically (gently though) shoves the ice cream in her face, holding the cone, his arms tan, his shirtsleeves rolled up and she finds herself leaning forward and opening her mouth to taste it. She tries to be discrete but she is suddenly aware that she is using her mouth and tongue, with his hand holding the cone. But he doesn't watch her mouth. In his own way, he is polite. She laughs when he says, "You liked it, didn't you? You just don't want to admit it! Stubborn English girl" and nudges the cone closer to her mouth she takes another bite. Because he is right. She does like it.

His friends put their jackets on and the ladies shake off their blankets but he walks with her slowly, as they share the ice cream cone between them, passing it back and forth (it's so intimate and yet he makes it so silly that she laughs). Once, upon passing it, she trips a bit in the grass (Mary, tripping!) and lands a bit of green ice cream on his shirt. "Well, you haven't ruined my life but you've ruined my shirt," he exclaims in laughter and she shouldn't laugh but she does. She does. When they've finished it and he's told her she has ice cream on her nose (she thinks he is joking and is mortified to find that he is not) and he laughs with her some more, he tells her his last name Banks-Duncan and that his family makes that ice cream and sells it across the country.

"Well it's a good thing I said I liked it," she replies cooly. He laughs some more. He is always laughing

"You made a joke. My life is complete."

He walks her to Grandmother's car and takes her hand, in lieu of the chauffeur, to help her inside. "I'll see you again," he promises. And it is no surprise that he is smiling when he says it.

What is surprising is that as the car drives away, Mary lifts a hand to her cold lips and finds they are curved, that her grin is wide and foolish. But she doesn't feel foolish. She feels...

It takes her so long to think of the word.

Happy.

Mary sends a telegram to Matthew's office the next day:

You ought to be ashamed of yourself STOP Do not write again STOP Just STOP

As she leaves the building, she does not feel empty or as if she has lost something She remembers ice cream and the sound of her own laughter. She does not feel much like laughing now. But the sound of it, knowing that she could, that she is capable, is more than enough. It is more than enough.

More.

A/N: So, Mack. What are your thoughts? I don't want to give you mine because I don't want to influence you. But try and give him a fair shot, even though we all are M/M forever. Right now, Matthew is not at his best. But what do you think? What about Matthew's letter? (Bummer about the format) And Mary laughing? And her telegram?