A/N: Thanks for all the support. I am really trying to write more often. There are probably 10-15 chapters left. I am not quite sure. I have to map this last bit out but I would like to finish this before the new year. For that reason, I recommend (and so does Downtonlove who sent me a wonderful PM about this very topic) that if you really love this story, since it has taken a long time for me to write, for you to start from the beginning at chapter one because I think and so does Downtonlove, that it gives you a fuller view of the story, obviously. Right now, it seems that Matthew is the saint but it hasn't always been this way. I've worked really hard to redeem both Mary and Matthew and they've worked hard as well. So I do implore you, if you love the story to read it from the beginning. Furthermore, I want to be clear, Mary loved Mack. She put off marrying him, afraid of being hurt but Mack was necessary in Mary's story. He taught her a lot about herself and he was not a placeholder for Matthew since she never wanted that in the first place. If Mack did not matter, then Mary would not be in the conundrum she is now. Thanks to LalaKate for her support and rants ;) And also to oneithersideoftheriverlie for her support and her brief cameo in this chapter which I'm sure she will spot.
Chapter Thirty Five
Mary holds Cate, walking the room, back and forth, back and forth, while Declan lounges on the couch, claiming he is much too old for a nap, though his eyes droop. Meanwhile, next to the little boy, Matthew holds Abby, curled into his chest, the only one of the three truly and deeply asleep. It's as Mary is shushing and comforting a fretful Cate that she murmurs to Matthew, "I've decided," she pauses when Cate let's out a squawk, which briefly startles Dec from his light sleep, the boy too old for naps, now asleep. Mary goes on walking, though Matthew hold his tongue–keeping himself from asking: do you think we could do this? Have three children and take care of them? But after all, they are. They can.
"I've decided," Mary repeats in hushed tones. "I'll go with you in two days time."
She shocks him so completely that Declan's lolling head against his arm and Abby's drool on his neck don't register. "You have?"
She smiles gently at him, for she is always letting him down easy. At least they came this far, where they let one another down easily instead of cruelly. "You seemed so confident that I would say yes."
"Just as you seemed confident you would say no," he retorts.
She smiles again, as Cate blows bubbles against her shoulder. "I do have some terms though."
"Of course you do," he laughs quietly. "Well, make them known." If his arms were free, and if she wasn't holding a baby, he would throw her in the air until she would be forced to laugh. He's realized, only since their shared time in Ireland, that a laugh could be garnered out of Mary, if one worked hard enough. The hard shell is only that–a shell.
"I want a proper hotel in Liverpool, before we take the train, just us two for at least a full day and night." She raises her eyebrow at him. "Before I must go back to being my father's daughter and we are forced to sneak around."
He is disappointed–but of course, he is used to that, just as she was, he supposes not so very long ago. She grew used to disappointment in him as well. It is not all he wishes for and yet is more than he expects so his mouth quirks in a smile. "So there will be sneaking around then? At Downton Abbey?"
She tolls her eyes. "Please God, yes." Then she grows suddenly serious, her brown eyes intense and piercing. "And a hotel for us in liverpool. That's the most important part of the negotiation."
"Is that what this is then?" he asks her, grinning. Though it's all a bit painful too, because he doesn't want a negotiation. He wants her to love him. But of course, it is his own fault that she no longer feels safe enough to admit such feelings. "A negotiation?"
"Don't gloat," she murmurs. "It isn't becoming. And just because you are having your way."
But I am not having my way, Matthew nearly says. You won't be my wife; you won't wear my ring; you won't rock my babies to sleep.
"I only wonder–" Both Cate and Mary let out a sigh in tandem. "I only wonder how I will bear to say goodbye to the children and Sybil and Tom. They've been so wonderful to me, you see."
"I know," Matthew replies seriously recognizing that she is telling him just what she is giving up to go with him. I'm leaving behind a great deal for you, though she would never admit this aloud. This isn't easy; we are too old for games.
He promises himself then and there never to play with her heart ever agin, no matter what the stakes. "So we'll have a hotel in liverpool, a whole day and night."
She's right about the hotel. Besides the luxury of just the two of them in a hotel room, she is right. It will be a transition from this domestic life before they both return to Downton Abbey and all it's rules, where she, as she says, will be her father's daughter, and they will be lucky to be able to touch as more than cousins once a month, if not less. She is smart, in the saddest of ways. She knows how to let herself down easy, as well as him, and he wishes, oh he wishes, she isn't quite so good at letting herself down.
Let me make it up to you.
But of course, he realizes, as Declan begins to snore delicately, that he is one of the people, perhaps the biggest offender, in teaching her how to lower her expectations, how to soften blows she can see coming from a kilometer away. His love for her is new, just as he is. But in the past, his love poisoned just as often as it showed her kindness, though she could never predict which it would be, so she cannot expect her hand to be caressed instead of bitten. She must be prepared for both.
Poor darling.
"You can trust me, Mary," he tells her as earnestly as possible.
After a moment, she nods. But he can tell she doesn't believe him. And when he considers the years since they danced–the show that flopped–he sees no reason she should be giving him a chance at all, even a small one, like a hotel room in liverpool.
"But I don't want to say goodbye to Auntie Mary," Declan whines, hiding behind Sybil's skirt.
"Remember, darling," Mary says, bending down to his level. "Remember how we talked about this last night cuddled in the bed, how I have to go back to Grandpapa and Grandmama, how I'll see you in the summer and show you the ponies–"
"How I will get to sweep in the big bed because I am big now." He walks towards her but scrunches his nose. "But I'll have to share with the girls."
Mary takes his little hands in her own. "Well, I'm a girl and you shared the room with me."
He laughs and Matthew sees Mary wince quickly before she smiles again. "Silly! You're not a girl. You're an Auntie."
"I am that," Mary says. Sybil turns away with tears in her own eyes, not wanting either her sister or her son to see them. For the first time, Matthew feels guilty. "I'll always be that. No matter where I am."
"I know that." The boy folds himself into Mary's arms. Suddenly, he is comforting Mary. "Don't worry, Auntie Mary. I'll see you in the summer and we'll look at the ponies."
Mary squeezes her eyes shut to keep the tears at bay, Matthew is sure. "That's right." Her voice voice catches. "The ponies. And remember, you're a darling and I love you."
"I'll remember," Declan speaks into her shoulder. "And I'll tell the girls for you, too."
Mary embraces him all the more tightly and kisses his carmel colored hair. "You are the best, Dec."
Declan laughs, looking just like his father. "'Course I am, Auntie Mary."
They don't speak on the ship. It isn't as if she is angry, only pensive, as far as he can tell. It is hard to say whether she is thinking of the past–of the quiet goodbye between sisters, neither willing to show too much emotion, until Sybil thew her arms around her sister murmuring, oh, I will miss you so, Mary, and the matching somber faces of Dec and Tom–or of the future, of Downton, and of her parents.
But once, with bits of her hair blowing in the wind, she turned to him and smiled, reaching to touch his hand briefly. So she did not blame him. She is not angry. Sometimes it is so hard to tell what she is thinking and feeling and sometimes still there are moments where he reads her as if she is his favorite book, already memorized. She is always changing, morphing, keeping herself safe, apart.
Who are you?
They check into the hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Crawley. She jokes out of the side of her mouth, before she signs the register, that, "For once, I'm glad we're cousins too." He coughs to cover a laugh.
Once in the room, she is restless, rubbing her hands together, walking towards the window. He doesn't know what she is thinking of at all now. Perhaps she is a bit uncertain. He wishes he knew how to soothe a woman who never admits that something is wrong.
"So it's started then," Mary says at last, walking towards Matthew. "The strangeness, the nervousness. I hardly know how to touch you. I was afraid this would happen–"
He takes her hand and presses it to his heart. "Like this. You touch me like this."
She smiles at him, softly, letting them both down gently this time. "I don't want to think about tomorrow right now. And I don't want to think about what we left behind either." She takes a step closer. "I only..." She stops.
He pulls her into an embrace, her cheek to his chest. "Then let's just be here. In this hotel in Liverpool, as you so wisely negotiated."
She leans back in his arms. "So you finally admit it. I am the wise one."
His hands slip up her arms, caress her shoulders, then cup her cheeks. "I don't remember ever saying otherwise."
"Someone's rewriting history," Mary whispers against his lips. They kiss, their lips pressing softly, then opening tentatively.
"Who?" he murmurs into her mouth, his fingers curling into her hair, mussing it up a bit. "Surely not me."
"Never you," she replies, and leans in, her arms around his waist, tightening confidentially, her lips deepening against his. She is more insistent, certain now. They are on even footing once again, even as she rises on the tips of her toes to wind herself around him.
By the time it grows dark, they are languid together, naked beneath a sheet. She presses a kiss to the skin of his chest. He caresses her bare back with his fingertips. "You wore this cream dress to dinner one night..."
He feels her smile against her chest. "I don't know which dress you're referring to."
"I'll remind you," he tells her, sitting up while she remains on her stomach. He traces lines against her back. "There were sheer sleeves that came diagonally here." She shivers. "And the back came to here, just below this beauty mark here." He leans forward and kisses that mark now–his–and lingers there until she kicks her feet a little against the bed, wiggling. He would like to tell her how much he loved this beauty mark but he is afraid he will tell her he loves more than just the beauty mark.
"And what was the front like?" He hears the smile in her voice as he rolls her over and the sheet slides away.
"Well as I said, the sleeves were sheer," he murmurs against her collar bone.
"And how were they cut?" she asks, a bit breathless, bare to him in the moonlight.
"Like this." He drags his tongue up and over her shoulder and then down again, taking her breast into his mouth.
"I'm sure," she breathes heavily. "I'm actually certain that the bodice wasn't so low."
"Your memory cannot be depended on." He replies as she arches towards him, his hand trailing down over her belly.
She gasps.
Later, he awakens, very aware that she did not sleep. "Aren't you tired?"
She lifts her head, her dark hair hanging loose, the pins somewhere lost in the bed. "No," she murmurs. She strokes a foot down his calf with familiarity. "I just–"
"Mary?" he asks. She looks lost to him, as if she left for somewhere else, somewhere else he cannot go. And then a second later, she returns, smile blooming across her face.
"I don't want to sleep," she admits, sidling up to him, skin cool against his.
"Your damned toes are freezing," he tells her, helping her up his body by the elbows before they kiss, opening his mouth to hers. She drugs him with her kisses, lingering over little bites along his lips, soothing them with the slickness of her tongue. Her mind is narrowed in on a goal and she is keen to achieve it.
"I'm not cold." She strokes her hands down his sides and then lower, rolling on top of him. "And if you are cold, then I am doing something wrong." She grins and he tries to capture this image of her, naked, belonging to him, her dark hair over her shoulders, her eyes molten and warmed to his. He doesn't know when he will see her like this again, when their time at Downton will allow it, if she will not give in and marry him. The weight of that threatens to consume him but he won't let it, not now.
He laughs but he can't really catch his breath. "You're not doing it wrong."
"No," she admits, lifting her head, her eyelashes fluttering. "We are so good at this."
They are.
A/N: Please, your thoughts!