A/N Sorry for the delay in posting. Work on top of me again, but I'm back above water now and the next three chapters are pretty much done. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review, it's kept me going.

Through the crackle of the intercom Anthony sounded harried, "on my way down." She heard a thud and the start of a swear word, "shi-" before he released the button. Managing six foot (plus) of limbs and extremities could be a burden sometimes, or so she imagined.

Edith leant against the wrought iron rail and took a languid look up and down Anthony's street. Stark stucco frontages, brilliant white, except in one case a bright lemon and in another, sky blue. Cars butted the pavements with dull grey streetlights and bus stops, the tiresome trappings of modernity. She could see past it, all the way to the street in its hey-day. Women in bustles, men in top hats.

"Penny for them?" He was standing beside her.

"I love your road."

"Me too. We looked at new build apartments nearer the tube, but this place took my breath away. Not practical, of course, but beautiful. The moment I turned that corner –" he pointed to where the side road met the high street, "I knew with an absolute single-mindedness that I had to have whatever was for sale on this street." He clucked in the back of his throat and cast his eyebrows up to his hairline.

"What?"

"Not unlike how I felt when I saw your pictures. I had to have you." Had to have her. Anthony having her. Against this rail. Edith flushed. He shook his head and his lips curled into that particular smile which she was starting to think was just for her, "I meant, to paint the picture."

She nodded too vociferously and turned her gaze away, "yes, I know what you meant. Thank you, that's an enormous compliment and, as ever, I'm not sure I will live up to such promise."

"You will."

He'd had faith in her since their first meeting, borne out of nothing. It was deeply attractive.

"What is that?" He was holding a large wicker container which looked just like –

"A picnic basket."

"For?"

He laughed, "a picnic of course."

She followed him down the small set of stairs, "Anthony, it is three degrees." Far too cold for a picnic, but then again, he'd made a picnic for her, and him, for them. Suddenly it seemed like the greatest idea she'd ever heard, why wasn't everyone eating picnics in March, it made perfect sense.

"I expected better of you Edith." He arrived at a battered, navy blue Jaguar and fumbled with the keys and the basket, "we are children of The North. This weather is practically tropical." The frost caused the boot to stick and he couldn't manage it with one hand.

Edith laughed and motioned him away, "move over." With a jerk she got it open shaking her head at the sparkling ice crystals lining the rubber band around the rim. She traced it with a gloved finger and held the sheen of ice up to her face for closer scrutiny, "oh yes, we're basically in Barbados."

"Fine. We'll go to a restaurant then."

"No!" It was a slight shout, a couple walking past them glanced over with quizzical faces. She cleared her throat and dropped the register, "no. A picnic sounds lovely."

"I thought we could go to Newnham?" He slammed the boot and followed her round the side of the car. Of course he was going to open her door for her, "I've never been. You can sit on the grass can't you?"

"I really do think it's too cold to sit on the grass, but there are benches and you have to walk across the grass to get to them."

"Excellent." She had half a leg in the car, "hang on."

"What?"

"Where's your sketch pad?"

Instinctively Edith's eyes went to her small leather bag, slung across her body, empty, except for her purse and phone. There had been a time when she couldn't leave the house without a large satchel, the only thing big enough for her heavy-duty paper and selection of pencils. Then Sybil died and the art shop paper became WH Smith's own, ten pencils became five and then two and then she realised there was no need for any of it and the bag might as well go too.

"I assumed I wouldn't be sketching you today, so I –"

She stopped. His fingers closed around her wrist and he pulled her back towards him on the pavement. Then they were gone.

"Edith, we are going to one of the most beautiful cities in the world. You told me that you paint places and things, where better to do that than Cambridge?"

She had told him that when they first met, using those exact words, when confronted with the baffling revelation that he had chosen her to do the painting.

"I was – I am, but I can't –" There were no places and things any more. Apparently now she was just a painter of Anthony.

"You're doing all right with my portrait. You never know, inspiration might strike and the rest will start to come back as well, you cannot possibly go without the means of capturing a scene if the mood takes you."

"It'll take me an hour to get back to Brixton and we're supposed to –"

"Come on." He set off marching up the road and she skipped to catch up. "There's an art supply shop on the High Street, it'll only take fifteen minutes or so to get what you need and then we can be off."

It took more like an hour. Anthony was fascinated by the choice available. He pointed out all the different grades of paper, colours, textures. He asked Edith if she wanted chalks or paints or pens or pencils. It was a sweet shop of treats for an artist and he wanted her to have all of it. She nearly got carried away and let him buy everything for her, but, in the end, a small pad with pencils was all that was required. Anthony insisted on paying.

It occurred to Edith that Anthony was the first boy she'd bought back to Newnham who she really liked. Ironic that it should happen six years after graduation.

He trailed her into the Porter's Lodge with the same reluctant body language that most men exhibited on entering an all women's college. Edith rolled her eyes at him, "come on, the feminists won't bite, I promise."

His eyes widened, "you mean they don't bite."

She chuckled, "oh, they definitely bite, they just show restraint most of the time."

"Really? How intriguing." He sounded almost – it couldn't be – flirtatious. She looked back and he arched an eyebrow.

The main entrance to Newnham was through the College's newer additions. Most of Cambridge kept their 1960s and 1970s' follies hidden from view, discoverable only through thick foliage or around the bend of a river no one ever punted. Newnham had put theirs front and centre. But it made the reveal of the extraordinary Champneys buildings all the more remarkable. Beautiful red brick and ornate, bright white windows. An idyllic architectural paradise set in rambling wilderness gardens hidden from view behind mid-century monotony.

Anthony was as surprised as most, "Blimey, that's unexpected isn't it?"

"I know, it's beautiful. In my final year I had that room up there." She pointed to one of the largest bay windows in the centre of Sidgwick, "and I'd just sit on my window seat and look out on the grounds and think how lucky I was to be in a place like this."

"You grew up in a place like this."

She led them to a bench by the sunken garden in the centre of the grounds, "no, Downton is nothing like this, it's all gothic horror and spikey turrets. This –" she stretched her arms out, "isn't designed to intimidate, it's designed to welcome, to invite. It's warm and affectionate. Nothing like Downton."

"Also, Mary wasn't here."

They sat on the bench and Edith shrugged, "alright, perhaps I'm imposing a few of my sibling issues onto Downton. Even without that though – Newnham is better." She nodded decisively.

Disappointingly Anthony shuffled away from her and put the picnic basket in between them. He begun to unpack a few items and poured tea from a thermos, "so, tell me, what were you like at Cambridge?"

Edith looked into her plastic mug and let the steam warm up her cold nose, "quiet, bookish, happy. For the first time in my whole life, I was happy."

"For the first time?" He spoke softly.

"I suppose I must have been happy as a child. But coming to Cambridge took me away from parents who didn't seem to care about me, other than to point out all the ways I wasn't coming up to scratch, Mary and her spite." There was a flutter of guilt as she spoke the next words, "and Sybil and her perfection." She took a sip of the drink, "this was the first place I could be myself."

He handed her a few grapes and she was grateful that her mouth was occupied; otherwise she'd be compelled to tell him even more revealing truths. She squashed one between her teeth and chewed.

"Why should you escape this introspective path? What were you like at Cambridge, Anthony?"

"I was –" He unwrapped the end of a tin foil package, revealing a beautifully browned sausage roll, and handed it to her, "studious."

Edith snorted, "you'll have to imagine my surprise." The aroma from the food was delicious, "were you happy?"

"I think I was. Not for the first time, mind you - I had no siblings –" his eyes flashed in her direction, "But yes, the world was full of possibilities." He shook his head, "this feels like a maudlin topic somehow." He eyed her sausage roll, "eat your lunch."

The explosion of flavour on Edith's palette was remarkable. She looked down at the unassuming object, some clever person had put caramelised onion between the meat and the pastry.

"Where did you get this?"

He looked a little sheepish and answered as she went for another bite, " as a matter of fact, I made it."

Is there anything more alluring than a woman who sprays pastry shards out of her mouth, down her chin and into her lap? Edith flushed beetroot red and Anthony laughed, handing her a paper napkin with a mocking eyebrow arch.

Edith cleared her throat, "you made this?"

"You sound so shocked! I don't know where you developed the view that I am some sort of unreconstructed, Neanderthal male."

She chewed and swallowed, wide eyed and worried that such a simple question could be taken as a comment on how she perceived his whole personality. "I don't have that view. But, well, I mean – you don't even own matching crockery. Are you telling me you have baking trays, mixing bowl, wooden spoon –" she tapped each finger and she remembered the items which might be required to make pastry, "oh – a rolling pin?"

He had polished his lunch off in double quick time, "alright I confess –"

"Ha – I knew it!"

"Hang on, let me finish. Mrs Patmore leant me the use of her kitchen and her expertise – I needed a refresher."

Edith balled up her tin foil and narrowed her eyes at him, "A refresher?"

"Yes. That's all. I can cook - my mother taught me. She didn't want me going in to the world just being able to study and play cricket. I needed to be able to take care of myself -" he cleared his throat, "- and any family I might have. In her book that meant more than getting a well-paid job, I needed to be able to rustle up the essentials. She had quite a wide view of what was essential – puff pastry absolutely topped the list." He spoke quietly by the end of the speech and looked intently into the distance.

Edith was no cook, but she'd watched enough of the endless parade of cookery shows on television to know that puff pastry was best if left for twenty-four hours. He'd probably been planning this since Thursday at least. Her heart fluttered.

"Is she-" Edith didn't know how to ask the question, she hadn't lost a parent and he seemed terribly sad all of a sudden.

"Gone?" He nodded solemnly, "yes." He took two more silver parcels from the basket and Edith wondered what more there could be, "she could have been a chef I suspect. She was extraordinarily good at cooking."

Delicious looking chocolate cake emerged from the wrapping. Anthony topped up her tea. The icing had been piped on with a bag; it rose and fell in perfect little mountains.

"You made this as well?"

He handed her a fork, "Yes."

They ate the cake in silence. She supposed she couldn't be objective about it. Even if he'd burnt the cake and flavoured it with mustard she suspected it would have been the best thing she'd ever eaten, or would ever eat.

"Your Mother taught you well. I don't think anything I can say about this cake will do it justice."

"Thank you. I thought about being a chef for a while."

"Really?"

He sighed, "no, not really. My father wanted me to be a barrister, so I was always going to be a barrister. I valued the things my Mother taught me – cookery, photography, creative writing - much less than the only ambition my Father ever had for me. Why is that do you think?"

He ran his hand through his hair, ribbons drifted through his fingers and landed in disarray about his head.

"Are you actually asking?"

His eyes held hers for an age and then he looked away and shook his head, "no. It's a pointless question. The answer changes nothing."

Edith wanted to say that the answer might change everything. She suspected he knew that, she suspected that was exactly why he didn't want the answer. He was afraid of change. And she was falling for him. She had fallen. Before even the home baking, she had fallen. This was perilous.

He stared intently at the building in front of him and didn't face her as he asked, "Do you think we would have been friends if we'd been at Cambridge together?"

Edith laughed, "well, given that Mary was doing law and Matthew too – and my father had studied it and Sybil wanted to study it, I'd pretty much sworn off lawyers at that point."

He looked at her and wasn't smiling; it was a serious question, which struck her as odd, "sorry, I – yes. I mean, we're friends now aren't we? So it stands to reason –" she trailed off.

Why was she nervous about this line of conversation?

He nodded with a scowl, his voice was quiet but firm, "Yes, I suppose we are friends now. Friends are good." He shook his head then and was silent.

Was she relieved? Suddenly friend was a terrible word. The absolute worst. Comrade, chum, associate, ally: dreadful, all of them. She was Knightley with no chance of ever succeeding. She could think of nothing to say to make herself feel better, to bring them back to where they had been before they decided that they were friends, only friends.

"Right." He stood up and dusted the cake crumbs from his trousers. "Onwards, Edith – you can put it off no longer with meditative conversation and distracting tours of forbidden women's colleges – we must go to John's and see our rivals." He nodded towards the exit of the Porter's Lodge. The crooked smile danced off his lips and twirled into her heart, she relaxed, all was well.

The walk to John's snaked through Cambridge's prettiest streets. They swapped mathematical bridge myths and stories of life and death on the punts. Edith dragged him to Fitzbillies, saved from bankruptcy and newly refurbished, to get a box of Chelsea Buns. She had no room for any more food but she'd be thankful for them when she returned to Brixton that evening. They stopped in front of the Corpus Clock and argued about its relative merits. Edith thought it interesting and provoking, Anthony declared it ugly and indulgent. Neither could actually tell the time by looking at it, which, they agreed, made it pretty useless as a clock.

They walked in silence as they approached the unassuming entrance to John's library. Edith's stomach flipped at what awaited her, her neck ached and a lump rose in her throat, the panic lay in wait, ready to strike.

Term had ended, but a smattering of students remained, pouring over books, rustling pages, rattling bags, stifling coughs. They were surely being deafened by the sound of Edith's heavy breathing, which reached a peak when she caught glimpses of pale faces and bright red robes.

Anthony whispered, "they're just past these last shelves."

They emerged from the stacks and she was faced with a long wall of male faces - she spotted a solitary woman a couple of pictures from where she stood. All wore red robes with white fur collars and long, shoulder-length white curled wigs. And bands. Edith hated bands, superfluous, pointless fabric.

"They're all in robes."

Anthony nodded, "yes, red robes – Judges' wear red in the High Court."

"I know, that's why you call it 'taking red'. I just –" The lump rose a little higher, and talking became a task to be accomplished, rather than a simple every day action. She shook her head.

He tugged on her hand and she looked into his concerned eyes. It was an instant medicine, his touch.

"What is it?"

"I don't really know what the picture will look like, but –" she breathed deeply and he took his hand away from hers, she was bereft but ploughed on, "I don't see you in robes."

He nodded, "alright. Why not?"

"I don't know." That was a stupid answer and she raised her hand to stop him from interjecting, "The portrait should be a reflection of you and, when I think of you - " She flushed a little and looked to the pictures rather than at him, "I don't think of you in robes, but, as you are now, casual – normal. To me, you're more than some judicial clone."

"I am?" It seemed like a question but he answered it with a nod and a smirk, "I am. Good then."

"What does that mean?"

"Then I won't be in robes."

"But they're all in robes." She gestured at the wall of faces.

He leaned down to her ear and his breath glanced across the side of her neck, "they're all boring. I want to be exactly as you see me. I trust you."

She tilted her head to look at him, he was just inches away, his eyes intent on hers. The universe narrowed to the charged air between them. There was nothing else, at all, except the single thought that she could lean forward and catch his lips.

A shrill voice cracked out across the silence and the universe flooded back, "excuse me? Can you take this outside now? Some of us are trying to study."