Things are starting to "wind down" so to speak. Only seven chapters left!
While this is an AU of sorts, some things from the show I did choose to keep, including this sad moment :o( I apologize to any Andith fans that read this story (and remember, all these thoughts are coming from inside Larry's head, so if the language/emotion seems cruel, consider the source). Thanks as always for reading and sticking with this!
Reunion
May, 1920
The groom has left the bride at the altar. The guests are in disarray. His parents look positively flummoxed.
Granted, the wedding breakfast that was to follow has been canceled, because the wedding itself was canceled! But that doesn't mean everyone has to go. People like his family—close connections to the Crawleys—naturally, they can stay. As do a few others…including the family of a girl whose face he slowly recalls, after she smiles at him long enough.
His little shadow. Ah yes, now he remembers. Sweet looking, delectable; her body is nothing like Sybil's (still) but she is lovely, there can be no denying that. And perhaps it is a good thing that she is nothing like Sybil?
He'll never forget the shock on Sybil's face when she saw him enter the church. She and Mary were standing outside, having their picture taken. She's gotten bigger since he last saw her—that is, her stomach has gotten rounder. Yet another reminder that she's allowed that filthy mick to touch her.
He grits his teeth, almost to the point where he fears he'll chip a tooth.
At least he can take joy in the fact that his presence unnerved her. Though despite his wounded pride, he wishes it weren't so. He wishes (still) that his presence would have the opposite effect; that she smile and blush and look at him in the way she looks at that bloody paddy. And when she's distressed, like she clearly was when Edith was humiliated, she would reach out and grab his hand, touch his chest, cling to his arm…the way she does with the chauffeur.
Damn it, he still wants her. He needs a distraction—BADLY!
Enter his little shadow.
"…You probably don't remember me," she murmurs, blushing and smiling prettily up at him in that way he wishes Sybil would.
"Evangeline?" he attempts.
"Imogen," she corrects, but she just looks so happy that he's speaking to her at all.
Ah yes, the cousin of that git, Bellasis, the "other Tom" to whom Sybil once seemed enamored with. Why couldn't her Irishman be so easily handled as his shadow's cousin?
He forces himself to listen, as well as to talk with his lovely shadow. In doing so, he learns that she remains unattached to any particular gentleman, though if she is hinting to him about helping her "change" that possibility, he's not interested.
…But he's interested enough in managing to sneak them both away for some champagne-flavored kisses, as well as a few "forbidden" caresses (though nothing that could land him with an unwanted fiancée).
Despite the somber mood of the house, Larry can't help but feel it's been a productive day.
And in the brief moments he spent in Imogen's company, he was able to forget Sybil; Sybil and her pregnant belly, carrying the paddy's abomination.
But no distraction, no matter how sweet at the time, is ever long enough.
That is something he has in common with the jilted bride.
Like her, Loneliness remains his bedmate.