Author's Note:

I wrote and posted this story to AO3 a few years ago and I have no idea why I never uploaded it here. But since I'm about to introduce Richard/Lavinia into my Edith/Anthony story, I was thinking about it and decided I might as well upload it here as well.

This is not required reading for the E/A story. Can't stress this enough. Honestly, I likely won't go into Richard/Lavinia's back story much in that fic as they're already an established couple. However, I still have major head canons for why their scenes in the show were always so wonderfully angsty and one of those head canons is a previous (and secret) dalliance…perhaps not quite as soapy as this version. But, then again, Downton is all about the soapy melodrama.

Anyway, Richard and Lavinia will not make an appearance in "You've Given Me Back My Life" until around Chapter 6 but I'll be uploading the eight chapters of this fic over the next few weeks, in case anyone is interested in reading a prequel of sorts in the meantime.

As I mentioned, it's already on AO3, so if you don't want to wait to find out what happens, feel free to take a peek over there :)

The cover for this fic was created by the talented chryssadirewolf (who I don't believe is on this site, but if you are, hi friend!). She graciously created a total of four beautiful collages for the fic, all of which can (again) be found on AO3 for anyone in the mood for some extra Richard x Lavinia content.

I.

Mary's telegram had mentioned that Lavinia Swire was ill.

She said it plainly, unadorned:

Miss Swire has been taken ill with the Spanish influenza.

And upon reading those words, Sir Richard had cancelled his last appointments of the day and hired a driver to take him up to Downton. He didn't think twice and was on his way within the very hour of reading that message.

If he had stopped to think, if he had made an inquiry into the state of his own mind at that moment…

Or was it his mind that made the decision after all?

Mary thought not. Mary guessed that jealousy and spite had brought him to the house, conjured in his cruel, scheming heart, and she said as much, as blunt as always, when she confronted him in the drawing room.

The dawning clarity written on her face spoke of many things, none of them generous. None of them to be hoped for in a woman he was soon (that was still the plan, wasn't it?) to call his wife.

"You're here because if the worst should happen, you think Matthew will collapse in grief in my arms, don't you?" she laid the charge at his feet, shaking her head sharply and moving her eyes towards the ceiling, weary of him after a mere five minutes in his presence.

His jaw moved at her accusing words. The thought had crossed his mind, of course. He was nothing if not observant about human behavior. It was written into his bloody job description. And, given the lines Mary and Matthew had begun crossing, that was likely the exact scenario that would play out should Lavinia…

Should she…

He couldn't bring himself to think the word, much less speak it aloud. And he failed to respond to Mary's accusations, other than to say, understatedly, "It's a tricky disease."

For the real reason that he had dropped everything and come to Downton upon hearing of Lavinia's illness was…tricky, in itself.

Richard Carlisle was a master of secrets, keeping them with discretion, hoarding them with a talent befitting a man in his position and releasing them only when the moment was right, if it was right. But his own secrets—oh, those would never see the light of day.

And those that he shared with Lavinia Swire were buried deeper than all the rest.

In a biting tone, Mary had told him of her conversation with Lavinia. About Reggie Swire's debts and the papers that Lavinia delivered to him, the regrettable but profitable Marconi scandal that followed.

He was not surprised that Lavinia shared those details with Mary. And he was not surprised that she failed to divulge the rest.

We will never speak of this again. Lavinia had pressed those cold, cold words into her letter with bloodshot eyes.

No, Mary didn't know all. Only Lavinia, an ordinary girl who so wanted her ordinary life, clinging to it with an iron grip, knew all of it. And she might take that knowledge to the…

No, he still couldn't say it.

So he turned his attention back to Mary. Always Mary, with her long-suffering sighs and her eye rolls, her nearly emotionless practical streak that mirrored the coolness in him. A coolness that he had crafted over years and years of denying himself a heart in the pursuit of something tangible. Wealth, position…distraction.

I am a self-made man and I'm not afraid to admit it.

They would have made a good team. He hadn't been lying when he told Mary that. But Richard knew what Mary and Matthew had done. The more pliable servants at Downton were loose-tongued when a coin crossed their palm and one of the maids had told him the whispers on the stairs only a few minutes after arriving.

Whispers that said Mary and Matthew had shared a dance and a kiss only the night before.

And that Lavinia had seen it happen.

"She's not seriously ill," Richard found himself saying to Mary, confidently. As if it must be.

Although, how would he know? Still, he deluded himself with the words, focusing on Mary. Focusing on the game that he had committed himself to the day he met the young heiress at her aunt's house.

The same day he heard that Lavinia had taken up with a country lawyer who, because of the most unlikely of circumstances, would someday be the 6th Earl of Grantham and heir of Downton Abbey.

Richard knew how this quartet would end from his very first visit here. He wasn't a stupid man and Mary and Matthew were not clever in hiding their feelings.

Lavinia saw it too. She must have, she wasn't blind. She wasn't a fool.

If she'd just listened that day in the garden…if they hadn't quarreled, if she hadn't seethed with rage. Again.

How dare you…

But too much had happened, before and after that day, and the ice in his veins grew colder with each successive hour. Hadn't Lavinia said the same all those years ago?

What price did you get for your heart, Richard? Can you tell me that?

Not enough, he thought. This was the first time in a long time he'd been able to admit it. But he had trained himself to be aloof to all regrets and buried them before they could rise up in his mind, clamoring for attention.

Mary saw none of the regrets, only the games. And she was shaking her head in her cool manner, at her wit's end with whatever doomed pseudo-romance they'd set upon, now seeing through his games too easily. And hers. She grew tired of him. He grew tired of her. He truly did.

Why had he come to Downton, when he knew she would be like this?

Why had he come to Downton at all?

You know why…came a voice in his head. The stark words of Mary's telegram, so innocuous, so seemingly mundane, echoed through his mind again. And a sudden set of raw feelings that he hadn't felt in a long time.

Fear. Loss. And regret, Lavinia. There's much to regret.

But Sir Richard Carlisle, so set on his path for so long, wasn't ready to hear it. So instead, he focused on wounded pride as Mary strode from the room in a dismissive manner.

It nearly worked.