Matthew and Mary's date continues here from Matthew's point of view and with a tiny amount of angst. I'm finally seeing the light at end of the tunnel with this story. Right now I have three more Tom/Sybil chapters and an epilogue mapped out, but whenever I start writing, the story tends to get longer and longer, so I'm not sure I'll stick to that figure. In any case, still lots to come. Thanks to everyone for reading.

Matthew

Matthew had a lot of questions about what would happen at the end of the night. Would they be going back to his place? Even though it was actually more her place than his. If so, would there be kissing? Would there be more? If not, should he see her to her parents' house? What did she expect? What did she want?

The questions popped up in his mind the moment he had seen her walk into the restaurant the first time and run back out. The indecision might have irked her for making her seem nervous or anything other than supremely self-possessed. Matthew found it adorable. But once she finally strode in and made it to the table, there the questions were, nagging at him all at once. Through the first bottle of wine, then appetizers, then dinner, then another bottle of wine, he'd managed to keep them at bay. Their conversation so lovely, so lively, so comfortable, calming his nerves and dispelling any worries he might have had about how the night would go. But then dessert came and the end of the night was imminent, and however much he wanted it not to end, there were the questions again about where it would all go from here.

Where could it go? He lived in Dublin. He wanted to move to London, sure, but that wasn't where she lived. Could he live in the north of England? And wasn't he getting ahead of himself anyway? He wasn't ready to make any life decisions based on Miss Mary Crawley. But he liked her. He would admit at least that. He liked her very much.

So he had questions. He expected awkwardness. And yet, in spite of those truths, he wasn't all that surprised when, just after the server picked up their dessert plates, Mary did away with it all, announcing that, yes, she would go back to Sybil's with him after dinner, but, no, she would not be sleeping with him.

"You're not disappointed, are you?" She asked archly and, he thought, somewhat playfully, after a moment.

"I'm not sure there is a gentlemanly way of answering that question," he replied. "Besides, it's rather coy of you to ask isn't it?"

"I suppose it is," she said with a warm smile. "I guess I hope you're not disappointed because I'm not. I've had a wonderful evening, and I don't want there to be any unnecessary complications or awkwardness."

He liked hearing the sincerity in her voice. Whatever guards either of them had put up at the start of the evening were gone now. And he couldn't be disappointed—well, not too much, anyway—because he hadn't allowed himself to presume how the night might end, even if he couldn't stop himself from hoping.

"I am in full support," he finally said, "of anything that eliminates awkwardness." He laughed at the ridiculousness of what he'd just said, and she joined him.

Maybe life in Yorkshire wouldn't be so bad.

Dinner paid and coats collected, Matthew waited outside while she went to the loo. He checked his mobile for messages and found one text from Tom.

"Turns out house-swapping with Sybil was the best idea you've ever had. I'll owe you a pint when you get home. And possibly our first born."

Matthew laughed out loud and typed out a response, "OUR? Has it gone that well?"

Tom's reply was almost immediate: "BETTER!"

Matthew smiled and looked up. Seeing Mary making her way through the restaurant to the door, he quickly typed, "I'm not there yet, but not terribly far behind."

"? ? ?"

His friend would have to wait for a response. Matthew was still searching for the answer himself.

XXX

Back at Sybil's flat, Matthew put away his and Mary's coats, and she set about making tea for them both. He excused himself to go to the loo, tossing his wallet on the coffee table on his way. From there, he went to the guest room to hang up his suit jacket, leaving his waistcoat on and rolling up his sleeves. He looked at himself in the mirror for a moment and laughed, thinking of earlier tonight when he was getting dressed and wondering if Mary, if she showed up, would think a three-piece suit too much. He did want to impress her, but he also didn't want to make it so obvious. Her tastes, like her demeanor, seemed so particular, so refined. He wondered if anyone ever truly measured up, if keeping such exact standards was ever exhausting for her. He thought of her and her silver tea tray at 3 in the morning. He would have questioned her need or desire for such decorum, if he hadn't found it all so terribly endearing.

I guess this is what people mean when they say you like who you like, he thought with a smile.

"I can only assume the presentation will be as good as last night's," he joked as he walked back into the living room, hearing the kettle start to whistle.

But Mary wasn't in the kitchen. She was kneeling by the coffee table.

"Mary?"

He looked down at what she was looking at and it was his wallet, which was open on the floor. Her expression was one that he couldn't quite describe but seemed to be hovering somewhere near disappointment.

Matthew didn't have to step any closer to know what she had seen, and immediately he knew that the conversation, which all night had been light and comforting and exciting, had to take a turn. The burden that he had been trying to avoid in coming to London was suddenly here, screaming to be acknowledged.

The kettle continued to whistle. Mary hadn't taken her eyes off the wallet, the picture, but she didn't really seemed focused on it either.

"Mary, listen."

She stood up quickly and started talking nervously and wringing her hands. "No, I should apologize. I was getting my handbag and ran into the coffee table, and it fell open. I wasn't trying to snoop."

He took a step toward her, and she immediately turned around to head to the kitchen.

"The kettle must be ready, don't you think? I'll check it. Although I should probably be going. I have—"

"Mary, look."

"I need to get back to Downton and—"

"Mary—"

"No, you don't need to explain anything—"

"Mary—"

"This is stupid. I'm stupid. Of course, you have a girlfriend. In what universe would a guy like you not have a girlfriend—"

"Mary, STOP!"

She had her hands on the counter now and took a breath to steady herself before finally turning off the screaming kettle. Matthew slowly approached her and put his hand on her shoulder, but she stepped away quickly.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Mary, please let me explain. It's not what you think."

He tried to step closer to her again until he was standing right next to her. Tears were welling in her eyes.

"Just, tell me . . . if you're married . . ."

"I'm not married."

She released a long breath but didn't turn to face him. "So she's your girlfriend?"

"She was."

"Why would you still have a picture of you with your ex in your wallet?"

"It's complicated—"

"Matthew, I came tonight because I thought I liked you—I do like you—and I told you I wasn't going to be coy. Please don't you be coy with me. I don't deserve it."

"You don't, and I don't have any intention of doing that. Please just sit down, and I can tell you who she is."

She finally looked at him, and the sadness he saw in her face hit him in the gut. She didn't need words for him to understand what she was saying to him, Please don't be like the rest of them.

"Trust me, please."

"Why should I trust you when I barely know you?"

"This conversation will help you know me."

Mary moved to sit down at the kitchen table, while Matthew went back into the living room for his wallet. He came back into the kitchen, sat down next to her, took the old photo out and put his wallet back in his pocket. Holding the picture in his hands now, he realized that for however long he'd kept it there, in a spot he'd see every time he'd open his bill fold, he hadn't looked at it, really looked at it, in years.

It was taken at a birthday party a friend of Lavinia's had planned for her. They'd only been dating about two months, so the newness of it all was still fresh and very visible in their expressions. She was wearing a red dress and a party hat. Both her arms were wrapped around his neck, her face pressed against his with a smile that spoke volumes of the love she clearly already felt. He was in black trousers and a blue button-down shirt. One arm was wrapped around her; his other hand was holding a pint. Whether or not there had been love in his heart at that point he couldn't remember, but he was happy and the happiness was all over his face. If his body language gave anything away regarding the level of his attraction, compared with hers, few would have noticed.

After a few minutes, Matthew looked over at Mary again. She was so beautiful and so eager to be in control of herself and everything around her. She had told him tonight of the pressure that she sometimes felt as her father's eldest to work for the family firm, to marry well, to be everything that everyone expected of the daughter of an Earl. He hated to see himself so diminished in her eyes, even if under a false impression, but he also couldn't help but feel pleased on some level that he had affected her this much already.

He reached over to her hands, which she had folded on the table in front of her, and his touch seemed to startle her. She looked up at him. He looked as deeply into her as he could and said, "I'm not going to hurt you, Mary. I promise."

She smiled tightly at him. "Who is she?"

"Her name is Lavinia Swire. She was my girlfriend for a few years, and then about a year and a half ago she was diagnosed with cancer. About a month after that she died."

"Oh, Matthew!" Mary turned to him abruptly and squeezed his hands with both of hers. "I'm so sorry. I'm horrible for thinking the worst. I just—"

"No, it's OK—"

"It isn't. It's selfish, which is what I am, I'm afraid."

"Mary—"

"I am. And, all the more now for hijacking your explanation."

At this they both laughed quietly, breaking the tension that had settled over them since he'd come back into the living room.

He turned to her and cupped her face with his hand, wiping a tear on her cheek with his thumb.

"It's ok."

"How awful am I that you've lost someone and are now the one comforting me," she said, talking both of his hands in hers again. "I'm so very sorry, Matthew. For your loss, I mean. What a terrible thing to have gone through. And for her, so young. You can talk about it—if you want to that is."

"There's not really much to say. It was very sudden. When they discovered it, it was already at stage 4, so there really wasn't much that could be done. It was ovarian cancer, but it had already moved to her lymph nodes and her liver."

"Were you at least able to say goodbye properly, in those last weeks?"

Matthew paused and took a deep breath. "No, not really. But that was my own fault. Given how advanced it was, her doctors weren't sure about what to do, other than make her comfortable. They started her on chemo to see if they could slow the growth and she responded at first, so they decided to operate on her. The thought was that with surgery on her liver, they could take out the cancer there and maybe the chemo and medication would take care of the rest. it was a long shot, but . . ."

"But what?"

"She never woke up. They told her, told us, that it was a risk. She was aware of what might happen, so she tried to prepare herself, prepare me, but I couldn't. I couldn't talk to her as if she were going to die. I was supposed be the supportive boyfriend, always positive. I wouldn't let her talk as if she wouldn't make it, as if she wouldn't beat it. So when she went in, I told her, 'Everything is going to be fine.' But then she didn't wake up."

And before Matthew knew it, before he could stop it, her death, his cowardice, all of it sucker punched him all over again. He pulled away from Mary abruptly and stood up to pace around the kitchen, as if he could somehow keep the wave of guilt from getting out. He'd processed it all before, but he hadn't ever spoken of it aloud. Not like this.

"You don't have to keep talking," Mary said, still sitting at the table.

But now he couldn't stop himself, and the thing that he had kept inside of him for the last 15 months, the thing that no one knew, not even Tom, his closest friend in the world, tumbled out of his mouth.

"I was going to break up with her."

"What?"

He stopped pacing and let out a long breath. Leaning against the counter now, looking at his feet, he continued, "The day she told me about the cancer. I was planning on breaking up with her. I'd been planning on it for a week, but we were both busy and when she came into my flat, I thought, 'OK, this is it.' And then she said, 'I have cancer.'"

He lifted his eyes to Mary again, a little bit afraid of what he would see in her face, but felt immense relief when he saw only understanding.

"I didn't want to say goodbye to her because I kept telling myself, 'If she gets better, if she beats this, then we can move on.' Incredibly selfish don't you think?"

"Incredibly human, I would say."

"It's funny," he said with a sad sigh. "In the last year, people have been treating me like I'm in mourning, like I lost my wife. They think that I'm mourning the life that I missed out on with her. And I want to scream at everyone, 'We weren't going to get married!' I don't know what kind of life she would have had, but I hope it would have been better than being with a prick that didn't really love her."

"But you did love her. You stood by her, Matthew. You were trying to keep her alive. There is love in that!"

He laughed a joyless laugh in response.

"You think that what you did is what anyone would have done, but it isn't. The world is a sad place full of people who would have cut and run, but you didn't." At this, Mary walked over to where he was and leaned on the counter next to him. "You feel guilt that I'm afraid I'm not equipped to unburden you of, but I can say that from where I'm standing, she died knowing that you wanted her very much alive. It may not seem like much, but it's a kind of love that most of us only ever hope to have."

He turned to her with a smile, still sad but brighter than it had been just a few minutes ago. "Thank you." The burden was not entirely gone, but it was lighter. It hadn't felt good to Matthew to say that particular truth aloud, but he was glad to have said it. And to have said it to Mary.

After a long, quiet moment between them, she asked, "So how about that tea?" She smiled at him warmly and gestured toward the sofa. "I'll bring it out."

A few minutes later, he stood up from the sofa as she carried over the tray, perfectly arranged as before. She set it down and straightened back up, standing very close to him. She put her hands on his chest and slowly both moved toward each other, touching foreheads together for a moment before going in for a long, slow kiss. There was no lust, no urgency, as there had been the night before. Only patience and support and caring. After a few minutes, they broke the kiss and he pulled her even closer to him into a hug.

A couple of hours later, he would step outside with Mary, hail a taxi for her and stand there watching until it was out of sight, still thinking about the kiss. It was the only one they shared that night, and in the days, months and years to come, despite what had transpired between them before, both of them would refer to it as their first kiss.