While I know many of you were eager for Sybil to reject Larry, I think a lot of you have been even MORE eager to see what would happen when Larry learned about Sybil marrying Tom. Well...wait no more. Hope you enjoy!
Obituary
June, 1919
He upholds his promise and not only manages to stay far away from the great Yorkshire estate, but also avoids contact with the rest of the Crawleys.
After January, he stays in London, keeping himself busy at his clubs and various brothels. Just as he had done for Patrick all those years ago, he too makes sure that the women he sees are nothing like her; dark-eyed, blonde, with waifish figures that lack her voluptuous curves. And when the Season finally comes around, he drinks and flirts with a different woman at every party.
Yes, he's managed to convince himself that he doesn't care, that Lady Sybil Crawley never mattered. What is Sybil when there are a bevy of beauties hanging onto his every word and dying to be his dance partner at every ball he attends?
And yet it's at one of these balls that he learns the news.
"Did you hear about the Crawley girl?"
"Lady Mary?"
"No, the youngest one; can't remember her name."
"What happened?"
"She's gone off to Ireland! Married the family chauffeur!"
"NO!"
"Yes!"
"That can't be—"
"It's true! It's in the paper! The tiniest announcement I've ever seen, but my Imogen found it."
"I can't believe the Crawleys would let something like that be printed!"
"I thought the same thing! But apparently it was the doing of the elder daughters; they attended the wedding, or so I've heard."
"Shocking!"
"Scandalous!"
"Poor Cora, she must be devastated."
"I feel sorry for those other two girls! At least Lady Mary is engaged to that Carlisle fellow, but the poor middle one; not that her prospects were ever favorable, but they certainly aren't now!"
He leaves the ball then, practically stumbling out its doors as if he's been struck to the point that his brain has been addled. And perhaps he has? The words of the two gossips continue to swirl around in his head…
The youngest Crawley girl…she's gone off to Ireland…married the family chauffeur…
Youngest…Ireland…chauffeur…
She's done it. She did it. She actually chose that grubby mick, that dirty paddy, she…
She chose the chauffeur…over him.
He loses his footing and nearly stumbles headfirst onto the pavement, but someone manages to catch his shoulder to keep him from falling. Unfortunately that someone is a chauffeur.
"GET OFF ME!" he growls before shoving the man in the all too familiar looking livery away from him. He waves down a cab, but it's not his own place that he demands to be driven to, but the family town house, surprising his mother as he barges into the drawing room.
"WHERE IS IT!?"
"Larry, what in the world—?"
"IS IT TRUE!?" he roars. "DID IT HAPPEN? HAS SHE…" he can't bear to finish the sentence. He can't bear the thought of any of it.
His sweet Sybil, his beautiful Sybil, HIS Sybil…with that bloody paddy.
He glares at his mother…and she doesn't say anything. She lifts her chin, though there's a sad look in her eyes. Oh God, she knows.
And she must, because she doesn't ask him to clarify what he means. Instead, she turns her back on him and goes towards a desk and opens a drawer, and he watches as she removes several papers…including a piece of newspaper. And without another word, she walks back and hands it to him.
Indeed, just as the gossips said, it's tiny…and yet it might as well be another headline about the Titanic sinking.
On Saturday, June 7, Lady Sybil Crawley
youngest daughter of the Earl and Countess of Grantham
married Mr. Tom Branson
son of Margaret and the late Declan Branson
in Dublin, Ireland
It's a wedding announcement. But it might as well be an obituary, because Sybil is lost to them all now.
The paper starts to crumple in his fingers and he fights the growing urge to mourn. His mother comes forward and rests what is meant to be a sympathetic hand on his arm. "Oh Larry, I'm so sorry—"
He jerks himself away, and without another word, walks out of the house, the door slamming in his wake.
He would have given her anything, anything she asked. She could have been dancing with him tonight! But no…no, she…she CHOSE to go to Ireland and marry that…that…
Suddenly uninvited images begin clouding his head.
Sybil on her back, her hair loose and spread across a pillow, her body naked, her creamy skin practically glowing in candlelight. She's writhing, gasping, and moaning her lover's name, a name that isn't his…and the chauffeur is there, kissing her, touching her, making her tremble, making her—
NO! THIS WASN'T HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE! SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO MARRY HIM! HE WAS SUPPOSED TO THE ONE TO DO THOSE THINGS TO HER! AND IT'S HIS NAME SHE'S SUPPOSED TO BE MOANING! HIM SHE'S SUPPOSED TO BE SAYING…"I love you"…
…But it's not.
And he hates her, more than he ever thought possible to hate someone.
Even more than the chauffeur.