When love feels like magic, you call it destiny. When destiny has a sense of humor, you call it serendipity. - Serendipity Trailer
August 25, 1921
Port Isaak, Cornwall
Maire and Evan stood on the northern seawall looking out over the Atlantic Ocean. They had come to Cornwall after the christening, as Evan had promised, so he could show her something of his roots, of the place that had made him the man he was. The man who, against all odds, she had come to love with every fibre of her being.
But the people who had molded him, who had bequeathed him his kindness, his empathy, and his tolerance, were gone. Evan's only brother had died in the Great War, and his father had followed a year later. His mother had lingered, a sad shadow of her former self, until the last year of the war, when she had followed her husband and younger son. Evan had confessed to Maire that he often thought she had only kept herself alive to see him safe through the war.
So by the time Evan left with the army for Ireland, there was nothing left of the family he had known except for the legacy of their love.
But they must have been wonderful people, Maire thought. Her husband couldn't have become the amazing man he was if they had been anything less. He had literally saved her life, and soon he would graduate from medical school and become a real doctor, saving other lives. She gazed up at his profile with affection, but soon turned her gaze to the ocean and studied the horizon once more.
Whitecaps and rolling waves, as far as the eye could see. It was almost inconceivable that anything lay on the other side of that endless ocean, but she knew that if she could fly across that sea she would find land out there. Not just any land…Ireland.
"You don't want to go back, do you?" Evan's soft voice penetrated her reverie and pulled her up short to look at him.
"What?"
"You want to go home, don't you?" Evan's calm hazel eyes met and held her own blue ones. "To Ireland."
"Oh, don't say it…I know we can't. You have another two years of school, and there's Martha, and…" she didn't think she'd be able to hold in the anguish that suddenly racked her body with the force of the want, the need. Why had he said anything? She would have been all right, if he hadn't said anything!
"Well, that's just it," Evan pulled her in and put his arms around her. "Martha already knows. We've been talking about it for some time now." He held her troubled gaze, his eyes calm and sure. "She's pulled strings—Lord knows how she knows all the right people—and gotten me into Trinity College Medical School in Dublin. You remember Dublin, don't you, darling?" He grinned at her stunned expression. "I start in September. That is, if it's all right with you. I know you like your job at O'Malley's, but you could probably get back on with Colum if you were really nice to him, and—"he broke off, suddenly alarmed. "What's wrong?"
"N-noth-ing!" Maire struggled to get the words out through her tears. "N-nothing at all. It's the most wonderful idea in the world, and you're the most wonderful man! What did I ever do to deserve you?" She threw herself at him, smothering him with kisses until he peeled her off, laughing.
"Well, let's see. You served me beer for months when all you wanted to do was pour it over my head. You snarled at me in a very fetching manner as you flounced around showing me how much you hated me." He narrowed his eyes. "You sicced your mother on me. You refused to marry me, and then you kidnapped me and took me to America. Now that I think of it, I can't remember a single thing you did to deserve me!"
Maire was crying again, but this time with laughter. She fought through the hiccupping and gasping for air, and put her trembling hand over his mouth. "Oh, shut up, you…you…Englishman!"
August 27, 1921
Downton Abbey
"Well, it's nearly over and no one has died, so for Downton that can be deemed a success," said Tom.
"Yet," giggled Sybil. "No one has died yet." They were walking in Downton's lovely garden. Abby was with her grandfather, and everyone else had gone into the village. For just this little while, they were blessedly alone.
"Darling, we have to discuss what's going to happen when we get home," Tom said. "The paper will be closing down soon—it was only started up to report on the Irish side of the war, and that will be over as soon as the treaty is signed. I'll be out of a job." He held his hat in his hands and fingered the brim nervously.
"You'll be able to get on with another paper, Tom," Sybil said with assurance. "You have a reputation now, any paper would be glad to have you."
"Yes, well, that's what we need to talk about. I'm not sure I want to go back to a paper, just yet." He stopped and took both her hands in his, blue eyes fixed on her own. "I want to write a book. About the war, and how an Irish family survived the worst of it. I want to tell our story. I've been thinking about it for a while now, and I know I wasn't making much money and now I'd be making none for a while, but I think I need to do this, darling. It's all inside me, it's almost written itself, and it wants to get out. Maybe I could help Daniel for a while, part time, while I write. And Edith says she wants to be my editor." He stood staring at her, waiting, his heart in his eyes.
Sybil's mouth twitched. "Humph. You've worked all this out with Edith, and forgotten to mention it to your wife?" She laughed at his guilty expression. "You've been afraid to tell me, haven't you?" She shook her head. "Silly man. You know I don't care about money. I think it's a wonderful idea. I have a good job. It won't be for long, you'll sell a million copies of your book, and we'll be as rich as King George!" She danced away from him and then came back. "And another thing. We can rent the flat to Patrick and Edith, and move back in with your mother until we get something small, just for us. It's perfect!"
Tom stared at his wife in amazement. He would never get over how little concern she had for the trappings of wealth, how unselfish she was. Here, in the shadow of the house in which she had grown up, the biggest mansion in the north of England, she was telling him that his becoming an impoverished writer was a grand idea because they could get rid of the beautiful flat that her grandmother had given them, and move into a small row house with his mother! He should be used to it, but he knew he never would be.
"Well," she said, her voice brisk, "now that we've gotten that sorted out, I have something to show you." She led him around the house to the back, and moments later they were standing, hand in hand, in the garage where their story had begun so many years ago.
It had changed very little. There were more cars now, but the Renault was still there, proud as ever. Tom clucked over its condition, finding a cloth and running it over the hood with a loving hand, patting its bumper in sympathy.
"I know she misses me," he sighed. "See, the chauffeur isn't polishing her properly, and look at those tire rims! The man ought to be sacked!"
"Tom, darling, did you think I brought you out here to visit your old love? Or just maybe it was to reminisce about the times we had in this garage! We're leaving in two more days, and this is our only chance." Her look was dangerous, and Tom dropped the cloth quickly.
"Of course, darling, it's just that—" he stopped talking, because Sybil had stepped in and plastered her lips to his. After a long moment he stumbled back in mock horror.
"My lady! What if your father were to come out to order the motor!"
Sybil giggled. "I don't think my father has the capacity to be shocked any more than he has been, poor man. Anyway, I wanted to discuss something with you, Mr. Branson, and this seemed the best place for it."
Tom slanted her a suspicious look. Was she still playacting now? He couldn't always tell. "Y-ess? And what might that be, that requires our being in the garage?"
"Well," Sybil sauntered around to the opposite side of the Renault. "Do you remember a conversation we had, after we discovered that Edith and Patrick had been…had been…well anyway, you said that when we met we just talked, for years. We never did anything the least bit naughty."
"Yes, I believe I remember saying that. I also remember that I had recently been shot. I was weak and vulnerable at the time, and I'd had a great shock, and-"
"What you said," Sybil went on, ignoring him, "was that we didn't take the opportunity to toss off our clothes and get it on in the Renault a few months after we met. That is exactly what you said," she grinned at him. "And I think, now that we find ourselves back here in that self-same garage, with that very same Renault, we should remedy the situation. Re-write history, so to speak."
And with that, she slipped out of the dress that she had worn just for this occasion, knowing its capabilities, and let it fall in a puddle of silk to the floor. She was quite pleased with the effect, as she'd practiced for an hour earlier that afternoon.
"Sybil!" Tom sputtered. "Sybil…ahh, feck!" And then he said nothing more for quite a long time, as he was pulled into the back seat of the venerable old motorcar that had held their secrets for so many years. The Renault, of course, said nothing, although it rocked a bit in its stall, which could be expected due to its advanced age and the indignities being visited upon its smooth leather seats.
August 30, 1921
Registry Office, London
"Will he come, do you think?" Edith's face held such tremulous hope, Patrick wanted to hunt Lord Grantham down and strangle him. How could he even think to hurt this woman, this amazing person who wore her heart on her sleeve and had fought the demons of hell to be here, in this moment? His heart would have gone out to her, if it had not already been hers. He was hers, body and soul. But he could not help her in this.
He thought back to the first time he had seen her, Lady Edith Crawley, daughter of the Earl of Grantham, whose name wasn't even Grantham. What strange people these aristocrats were, he thought. Couldn't even come up with one name and stick with it!
She had been sitting there at Sybil and Tom's wedding, nervous as a cat. He'd thought it was because she thought herself above them all, like that other one, Lady Mary. But something had drawn him over. Maybe it was the fact that he, with his face torn and bruised from the attack that had been meant to kill him, had found that life was precious, and every minute counted. And he had found that his own predjuces were unfounded.
She was a delight. They had talked for hours, and in that tiny yard at the back of Colum's pub, a seed of something had been planted. A seed that had grown, and blossomed, been cut back and survived to grow again stronger than before. The seed of a love he had never expected to find in this lifetime. And now she stood before him, her eyes filled with love for him, and he knew that God had decided, for some unknown reason, that he was worthy of such a love.
"Darling? It's time." Patrick squeezed her hand before moving to his place at the front of the registry office to stand waiting. In a few moments that beautiful woman would walk up the tiny aisle and rejoin him, and they would be declared man and wife. He would say the words that had been ready in his mind for nearly two years, that he had once despaired would never be said. He looked out at the group of people squeezed into the small space.
His brother Tom, who had paved the way for him with his courage to marry Sybil, Edith's sister, in the face of terrible consequences for them both. Sybil, his own first real love, with tears of happiness shining in her eyes for him and for her sister.
His brother Michael, and his fianceé Aislinn. He gave Aislinn all the credit in the world for having the patience and forbearance to deal with that one! Kathleen, engaged to Deaglan, who of all of them reminded him of himself the most. Maire, and her Englishman, Evan. Who could ever have imagined that, but there they were, happy and at peace with the world. The Three Musketeers, alive and well and in love with the people they had been meant to find. Amazing.
He caught his mother's eye. She was trying to be brave, sitting next to Lady Grantham and pretending to work a speck of something out of her eye. But he knew better. Mam was a romantic, and he had always been her favorite. She'd never said, of course, but he knew.
Edith's sister, sitting ramrod straight and staring straight ahead, next to her husband Matthew. He pitied Matthew, wondered what it must be like to love someone so cold, so rigidly tied to society's rules and strictures. But the man seemed to love his wife, and she seemed softer when she spoke to him. To each his own, he wouldn't judge.
That crazy grandmother of Edith's, Martha, and the other one, Granny Viola? Violet? who seemed so far away from anything he had ever experienced that he had been shocked when she had approached him, just before they'd all entered the registry office. He'd been scared out of his boots, to be honest. She had marched right up to him.
"Young man!" (he could still remember the regal tone), "I hope you have at least a modicum of the sense your brother Tom has, because my granddaughter can use all the help she can get."
"Yes, ma'am," he had managed.
"Hummph! Well, blessings on you, then," had been the response, and she had sailed off. Now she was looking at him down her nose, as if waiting for him to cut and run for Ireland. He winked at her, and had the satisfaction of seeing her blush before she turned her nose back up where it had come from. That might have been—yes, he was almost sure it was—a ghost of a smile on her wrinkled face.
The music started. Edith looked at Patrick, took courage from the love in his impossibly blue eyes. Then she turned once more to look at the empty doorway of the registry office.
And he was there. Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham, stood at the back of the room, tears running down his face. Rooted in place, he stared at his middle child, saw the look on her face, and was glad he had come to his senses…again. He stepped up and took her arm.
"You look beautiful," her father whispered. "I'm so proud of you." And together they walked down the short aisle to where her future waited.
The End
A/N: No tidbit of history this time, but I thought that some of you might like to know that I have written a novel. Yep, it takes place in Scotland, not Ireland, and it's not FanFiction so of course it can't be about our favorite couple, but one of the love interests of my heroine just happens to resemble our lovely chauffeur from Downton Abbey. If you're interested in learning more, I would be honored to have you visit my author's website. Apparently FF will not allow me to place a link here, but it is mmackinnonwriter . Add .com to the end, and we've gotten around the system! Click the widget "Books". The book is The Comyn's Curse. I write under the name M MacKinnon.
A/N: And of course, I will be back with more about Tom and Sybil and their families, because I just can't leave them alone.
