A/N: I'll make it quick. I'm hard at work finishing this story up. Make sure to vote in the Highclere Awards and thank you again for the nominations. I appreciate you all so much and thank you for the support through this final push. xo, LDI
Chapter Forty
Matthew doesn't remember sleeping. He doesn't remember walking home in a mixture of glee and a bit of fear over the strange edge in Robert's voice after Mary agreed to be his wife with a drugging kiss and a certain type of awe. He stumbled dizzily from Downton, feeling drunk, fell fully clothed into bed. Just as he closed his eyes, he imagined a world where Mary slept next to him.
When he wakes this morning, without remembering sleeping, he imagines her head on the pillow beside his own, her eyes opening, her smile crawling lazily across her face, his hands reaching for her hip, sliding along the arch in her back just because they can. The incredible thing is that he can imagine it now; he is allowed to imagine it. They only need to figure out the Robert situation which shouldn't be so difficult, not after so many years of Robert wanting this exact outcome. Matthew rises, the sun on his face, before reaches across the sheets for the invisible Mary when the very real Mary is a walk away.
"Matthew," his mother murmurs as he comes down the stairs. "You were very late last night."
He grins. He cannot help it. He feels very young and hopeful in a way that makes him puff out his chest. "Mary and I are getting married."
"Pardon?" his mother asks, setting her morning tea aside.
"I know it seems impossible but Mary and I are getting married," he repeats. He doesn't mind. He's been repeating it in his own head over and over again so that he will believe it himself.
Her lips tremble for only a moment before they firm again. "Oh, Matthew." She is perhaps the only other person in the world who knows what this means to him, who stood by him while he made honorable choices and dishonorable choices, all the while only wanting Mary. She stood in front of him when he carried Mary's stockings, belonging to her barely deceased husband, who told him: Be careful there, who loved him when he found it difficult to look at his own reflection.
"I must be off." He lowers his head and scratches the back of his neck. "There might be some trouble with Robert."
He finds this to be an understatement when he enters Downton Abbey. He can year a muted yelling through the walls before Carson steps in front of him. "Mr. Crawley," Carson nods solemnly. "I'm afraid Lord Grantham made it clear that this morning your presence–"
"Carson." Matthew meets the man's eye. He knows what Carson means to Mary. "I love her."
Carson raises his eyebrows at that. There is more yelling coming through the walls.
"We're going to be married and if Robert's angry with her," Mathew tells the man earnestly. "Then he is angry with me too."
Carson let's out a sigh and steps slightly to the left so that Matthew can pass by, but barely. Matthew opens the door to the parlor; Mary faces away from him as Robert raises his voice continually at her back.
"–Carson defending you to Thomas and whatever Thomas thought he saw and then your argument with Matthew, the both of you snapping and yelling at one another as you are prone to do, except this time it's the middle of the night and voices carry which you would know if you hadn't forgotten yourself completely. You woke Miss Harking! She went straight to her parents. Mary, are you even listening–"
"Yes," she whispers, her entire body tightening in front of the window. Matthew would like to go to her, to wrap her his arms around her silhouette, to remind her of the happiness that is to come, to whisper his vision of her naked beneath his sheets in her ear while she raises an eyebrow and swats him away. "I'm listening."
"Robert," Matthew begins.
Robert turns, pointing his finger at Matthew. "I told you not to come here this morning!"
"Papa," Mary seethes, her shoulders raising.
"You've wanted us to be married for years, Robert. We thought you would be happy. In fact, I don't understand any of this, frankly," Matthew says levelly. The energy in the room is frenetic; if Matthew held a glass of water in his hand he is sure the very liquid itself would vibrate with jagged edges of something that is beyond what Matthew expected. Where are Robert's loud and worried demands coming from?
"Would you be happy to find a man in your daughter's bedroom?" Robert retorts.
"Papa."
"I'm sorry for that," Matthew tells him without looking at Mary, willing her to let him handle this, if only for the fact that Mary and her father cannot seem to get along since she returned to this house. "But if our voices were, in fact, raised, you know we were only discussing–"
"You weren't discussing anything when I stepped through the door." Robert takes a step nearer to Matthew. "No one was, in fact, speaking."
"Robert, I'd just asked your daughter to marry me and she accepted. The setting, I agree...We agree–" Mary turns to glare at Matthew. But she needs to know that they are partners now. "...was completely inappropriate but what you saw was the celebration of an accepted proposal."
"Oh, your explanation is very fine," Robert says shortly. "Very fine. But I could have saved you time if you would have spoken to me."
"I admit I should have asked you for Mary's hand but this whole–"
Robert interrupts, "...Saga between you two..."
"...Has been complicated. More than you know really."
"Oh really?" Robert goads. Mary shakes her head and turns back to the window, fisted hands at her side. "I thought the world has been watching your relationship play on for years now. But I could have saved you plenty of time if you would have spoken to me first."
"I repeat, I should have asked you for Mary's hand–"
"I'm not a child," Mary lifts a hand wearily to her forehead, her back still to the men. "You've given my hand in marriage before. Am I not allowed to give myself away this time?"
Robert glares at her briefly before taking another step toward Matthew. "That's not what I...What I mean to say is that you should have spoke to me, Matthew, about how such a thing would affect the estate."
If it is possible, Mary stills even more completely, her hand halfway in the air. Matthew is at a loss. Can three people have a conversation and be talking about three different things? Apparently. Except it seems as if Mary has picked up Robert's line of question.
"Doesn't this solve everything that you worried about when I first came to Downton?" Matthew asks but Mary is already shaking her head again, turning quickly, her eyes like daggers on her father.
"No, it doesn't, Matthew," Mary murmurs without looking at him. "Because something has changed. Hasn't it, Papa? Isn't that what you would have told your heir if he would have come to you first? What have you done?"
"I'm afraid the estate is not as solvent as it once was." Robert does not look at his daughter. In fact, he seems intent on ignoring her. His words are for Matthew–man to man. But he does not meet Matthew's eyes either. He stares at the doors of the parlor.
"What have you done?" Mary repeats. "Does Mama know? Is this why you were so chummy with the Harkings despite their very recent coming up in the world? Lucy's money?"
Matthew sees little beads of sweat appear on Robert's forehead. "This does not concern you, Mary."
Mary laughs lowly, walking farther away from Matthew and her father, closer to the window. "Of course. It's only terribly funny...when you consider that now Matthew is in the position I was in after Patrick died. This time he is the one you are asking to marry for money."
"This estate–"
"Is your third parent and fourth child. Yes, we know, Papa," Mary says dryly. Finally she turns and walks nearer the pair. "So in order to save the estate Matthew must marry for money? Like you did with Mama?"
Matthew feels as if he's been socked in the stomach. He can barely keep up with the way Mary's mind whirls, since she, of course, knows her father much better than he does. She grew up with him. She knows stories by heart he's never heard. And she is seething with a rage that has simmered for days here in this house, a woman treated as a child. "Robert, is this true? What happened?"
"Some investments did not go as planned–"
"What kind of investments?" Mary whispers. "Good, sound conservative investments, Papa?"
Robert shakes his head, biting his lower lip. He doesn't deny her accusations; rather he holds in a sarcastic retort. "Mary, you make this more difficult than it has to be. You always do."
"Do I?" she seethes. "Of course I do. That's why you're always shoving me off on Sybil who has the patience of saint or Matthew, using his love against him, when I'm at my worst. Well, I am about to make things even more difficult, Papa." She marches to the parlor doors and turns toward both of the men. "I think you forget some very important things." Her voice lowers to a sacred hush. "I think you forget two very important people–Lavinia and Mackenzie–both of whom...probably–" Her voice breaks. She does not look at Matthew, the man she agreed to marry only the night before. "...took less than they deserved." She straightens her spine, raises her eyebrow. "If you remembered Mackenzie, my husband, you would also know that I, in my own right, am incredibly rich." She relishes the last word as Matthew stares at her and then looks to Robert who is ashen. "So pardon us, but Matthew and I will be getting married. And we will shovel Mackenzie's money–the lovely man you could barely speak a kind word about–back into the estate. But if we do that, Papa..." Mary shakes her head. "If we agree to do that, you won't be making any decisions anymore. I watched you mishandle what some considered my inheritance. I'll be damned if I watch you mishandle Mackenzie's fortune."
She doesn't slam the door; it clicks into place.
Matthew sits, lacking all grace, heavily, desperately trying to digest everything he just heard and all without a glance from his intended.
Robert wants to discuss things but Matthew is in no mood to hear from the man who usually places his hand so heavily on Mathew's shoulder. Did he do that with Patrick too? And what about when he entered the room and Cora presented Mary to him? What did he do then? And Edith? And finally Sybil? What would Robert have done if the fourth baby lived? If he was a boy or she was a girl? Would he have settled his hand on Matthew's shoulder so heavily then? Would he have asked him to listen, to just please listen?
Carson's eyes direct Matthew out the front door where Matthew walks down the path at a brisk pace. She cannot be too far ahead of him and yet she is. He imagines her back in that room–such resignation in her voice–as if all along she knew they would come to this place in that room with her father.
He finds her at their bench which brings a kind warmth to his belly despite their morning. For the first time, she glances at him, her hands balled in one fist in her lap. "You found me."
"I did," he agrees, sitting next to her.
"Did you listen to his explanations?" Mary asks quietly. "If you did, it's quite a waste of time. If you ask me–"
He covers her hands with his own. "Mary," he says quietly.
"I'm sorry for speaking for you back there. It's only–" She takes a deep breath. "It's only I'm so angry. He doesn't see me. He used to at least know me but that isn't even true anymore. He acts like Mackenzie never existed. If you can acknowledge Mack then why can't Papa?" Mary asks, squeezing her eyes shut. "I realized, however, though my exit was well executed maybe...Maybe you would prefer to marry someone like Lucy Harking–"
"Mary."
"Who has her own money. Maybe you feel...strange that it is Mackenzie's money only Mackenzie gave me that my money and so it's mine and if we are to be married then it's ours but, Matthew, if that's too much to ask–"
"What did I tell you?" he interrupts. "I am not marrying anyone but you. That's a fact. And I know what Downton means to you. If you want to save it, we'll save it. If you would rather not use Mackenzie's money–"
"Our money," she insists, turning her hand in his and squeezing tightly.
"The money," he allows. "If you would rather not use the money towards Downton then that is your decision–"
"Our decision."
He stops and smiles at her. "I like hearing you say that. I like knowing we are on the same team."
She blinks at him. "Did you think I would wake up and change my mind?"
Placing an arm around her, he pulls her a bit closer. "I hoped not."
She lifts her hand to his cheek so he must look down into her eyes. "Matthew, it took everything for me to say yes. It was like leaping over a cliff. But I leapt. And do you know..." Now it is her turn to smile. "It wasn't far of a drop at all. In fact, afterwards, when I was trying to sleep...I felt a bit silly for making it so dramatic."
His forehead touches hers. "You're never dramatic."
"And I'm never difficult either," she replies, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I'm so glad you know me so well." She pauses. "You make things easier. You made saying yes easier. And you're making this easier too. Can we stay here, just for a little awhile?"
He presses a kiss to the top her head, squeezing her to his chest where she finds the lapels of his jacket with her hands and holds on. "Yes, for a little while."
A/N: Please let me know your thoughts. Major motivation for this final push to get these two together! xo