A/N Thank you, thank you for the reviews.
They marched away from the marquee, across the rolling grass, towards a small copse of trees. He was tugging her behind him, he hoped it was simply because of the pace of his feet, rather than reluctance on her part to follow him. He didn't dare look at her face, afraid of what he'd find there.
They passed the first tree and that signalled the end of her indulgence. She flexed her hand out of his. He turned in time to see her run it through her hair, her brow furrowed. She was stern, lips pulled taught across her teeth, the enamel all but biting through the flesh, "Anthony?"
"Just give me a minute, love. I need to get my breath." To marshal words and language and ensure he gave this his absolute all.
Edith huffed, stomped her foot, although it had no effect on the soft turf, "God! No! Anthony! What are you about, telling me you miss me and calling me love? You cannot mess me around like this, it isn't fair."
"I'm not. I have, in the past and I know you've no reason to trust me, but I promise you, I'm not messing you around now."
She folded her arms, "then what are you doing?"
"Hang on. I have a whole – a whole –" He tapped at the various pockets of his elaborate outfit, finally locating the folded piece of paper, "- speech planned."
He opened out the paper, smoothed the creases. The words swum on the paper. His spider writing was illegible; he wondered how Mrs Hughes ever managed to transcribe his judgments. The points merged into one, all the changes he'd made the plans he'd put in motion. It was all set out in numbered bullet points, in order of priority, as though he was a junior barrister again, trying to argue a Court into a favourable position. A list of things done, points of persuasion, nothing more than that. It was all head. And wasn't that part of the very problem that had taken him to this point?
The affection he felt, the hope, the fear, the anticipation, the love, it was all too much for him, too much for words. It couldn't be reduced to letters and syllables, words or lines. The ink would saturate the page, soak his hands, drip onto his coat.
He stared down at the speech and opened his fingers. The paper rested briefly in his palm before fluttering to the ground at his feet.
He looked up at Edith, she still frowned, arms crossed, her pretty dress catching in the breeze. A lick of hair dashed across her face, catching briefly on her lips before she pushed it aside.
He spoke with absolute clarity, in that judicial voice that she adored, "Edith, I love you. I always have and, if you'll have me, I want to be with you."
Her mouth shaped into a pleasing O, her eyes went wide. A fawn in the gardens. The silence dragged on, broken only by the tinkling glasses and distant laughter of the marquee behind them.
A sense of foreboding settled in Anthony's stomach. A low thrum started insistently in his ears. The head crept back in, condemning the heart. He should've gone with the bloody speech. She needed persuading, and rightly so after everything he'd done.
He held up an arm, "Just – just, wait there. Don't go anywhere. I have more to say." He scanned the floor for the paper. Marched a couple of paces to retrieve it, a little gust kicked it up and away from him, he ran, groping inelegantly at the ground.
The moisture had run some of the ink, but the fundamentals were legible. He stood in front of her, at least she hadn't bolted the scene, "I – er, Edith –" He cleared his throat, "I have spent the past couple of months getting myself in order so that I might be the man you deserve. Maud and I have split up and divorced. I think it's important for you to know I never went back to her or moved back to Kent."
"Anthony –"
He ploughed on, keen to ensure she heard all of it before she rejected him, "I informed the Lord Chief Justice of my circumstances. I have arranged a part-time position as a High Court Judge, in Liverpool. I do not need to be in London, if they require me to return to London I shall leave my position."
"Anthony –"
"I've given up whiskey and will only work for half day at the weekends, if at all. I'm not asking you to jump back into something with me. I have lost your trust. I would just like the opportunity to date, to show you I have changed and that I want to put you at the centre –"
"Anthony!" Her voice was firm, demanding his attention, but it took him a moment to appreciate that it wasn't harsh, the tones were soft, "You love me?"
"I do, sweet one, I really do." He laughed, more through nerves than anything else, "It's like I've swallowed the sun and its consuming me from within. You are everything to me." He put a hand to his forehead, pushed his hair back roughly, "I'm an idiot for not understanding my feelings earlier. I mean there's no excuse for a man into his fifties not to realise when he's in love. I know it now though. I love you. I love you."
She nodded, her head slowly bobbing as if trying to shake the information into its proper place, "you love me?"
Her eyes dropped to the ground and returned to his face. There was a smile. Small at first and then larger until it stretched to her eyes and the heavens and the whole world around them. It was a benediction, that smile; hope and joy. Much more than he deserved, a debt he'd repay happily for the rest of his days.
"You love me."
"Very, very much sweet - ow!" She pinched his arm.
"And you let me go through this whole wedding without telling me?!"
"I-" Her lips silenced him. Thank God.
All the oxygen that had been missing from his veins and absent from his heart, flowed back. As though she'd held it inside her this entire time. He was alive again, resurrected in her arms.
He mumbled into her mouth, "sweet one, my darling, dearest love." His fingers carved valleys into the flesh of her cheeks, as if she might disappear if he didn't hold on tight enough, "my lovely Edith, you have given me a life. I'm sorry it took me so long to realize."
Her lips curved against his neck, the shadow of a smile printing into his skin, "You did eventually realize, that's something at least. Mrs Hughes warned me that you very clever judges are sometimes utterly dim, so I suppose I should be grateful it only took you a few months rather than a few decades."
"Mrs Hughes called me dim?"
"Stupid, actually."
"Outrageous!"
"True though."
"Yes." He petted at her ears and down her neck - the soft flesh where it mated with her shoulder.
He brushed her fringe off her forehead, "You'll marry me of course?"
"That's rather a leading question, My Lord."
"Apologies. Will you marry me Edith Crawley?"
She pressed her face to his chest, whispered her answer to his heart, "Yes."
She stretched her neck up and he bent his head to catch her mouth again.
The marquee was filled with music.
Edith looked back, "we missed the speeches."
"The best part of any wedding."
She laughed, he moved her hand to his hip and the other to his shoulder, he rocked them around in small circles.
"Is this a dream?"
"No sweet one, reality."
Her lips quirked and she ran her index finger over his cheek, caught his bottom lip, "you're wrong. It is a dream." Then she leant up on her tiptoes and kissed him. After several, far too brief, glorious seconds, she pulled away, "I love you too! Did I say that? I've thought it so many times, but have I actually said it? I do though, I do love you too, so much I might burst with it. I –"
"Edith?"
"Yes?"
"I know, I saw the portrait. Now, hush." He drew her back to the kissing.
Slowly, arm in arm, heart in heart, they meandered back to the tent. Edith's weight leant into his side, it was no burden, no weight at all really, everything was light as a feather. He floated through time and space.
"How is Maud?"
It was just like Edith to ask that particular question.
"As ever, Maud is fine. She's my friend, she'll remain my friend –"
"I should hope so."
"She's in a ten week firearms trial in Cambridge, which has proved to be a distraction. Funnily enough Len came to see me just after we decided to end it and asked my permission to try –" Len had used the word 'shagging', but it was so horribly indelicate Anthony decided on a substitution, "courting her. I always thought they hated one another. I think, on Len's part at least, it was just a cover. I haven't heard anything from either of them since."
"So perhaps she is being distracted by more than the trial in Cambridge?"
"Quite."
"Did you mean what you said about the job in Liverpool?"
"Where is your gallery Edith?"
"Liverpool."
He bumped his elbow into her ribcage, gave he a wink, "then Liverpool is where I shall be. Where we shall be."
"But part-time?"
"Job sharing with a charming lady judge who has had the audacity to have a family she'd like to see from time to time."
Edith's hand pulled him to a halt, "I don't want to be the reason you give up the job you've worked for your whole career. Going to the High Court is all you ever wanted."
"Oh, love, I'm not sure that I even understood what it meant to want something before I met you."
"I don't know what to say to that."
"Nothing to say. Besides, I'm not giving it up entirely, I'll still be at work half the time."
"What will you do when you're not sitting?"
He tucked her arm back into his, ran a finger along the soft flesh of her exposed arm, delighting in the fact he was able to do so without artifice or subterfuge, "Teach. Perhaps write. Mrs Hughes tells me that your café is in sore need of a cake baker."
Edith grimaced and he set them walking again, "she told you about the carrot cake. Hang on – did you know she'd come to see me?"
"I asked her to see you, to invite you to the wedding in person. I wanted you here and I worried if you weren't trapped by the bonds of social convention that you wouldn't come here or let me say my piece. In addition, it gave me sufficient time to sort myself out."
They reached the entrance to the marquee, she stopped his advance with a firm hand to the middle of the chest. Her eyes were wide, "you planned this."
God, she was beautiful, he'd forgotten the extent of it and his breath took leave of his chest. He put his hand in the small of her back and eased her closer. There was no resistance, silly for him to think there would be, they were friends and lovers and affianced, but relief washed over him all the same, "I did, sweet one."
"How many people knew?"
"That I love you and planned to declare myself?" She nodded, "everyone you've talked to at this wedding, plus some others who aren't here – Len, Maud, so on. You told me that you didn't think I could ever be sure that you were the right choice for my future. I wanted to show you I was sure. So sure, in fact, that I told everyone and anyone who would listen all about my plans. I have no doubts about us. You are my future Edith Crawley."
Her smile crinkled the delicate skin around her eyes, "and you're mine Anthony Strallan."