Chapter One

Downton Abbey, April 1912

"You must comfort him, Mary," Cora said.

"I don't see why I must. Of course I'm sorry that he's lost his father, but I don't see how I can help," Mary said irritably.

"He is your future husband, and he is going through a very hard time, and you must be there for him, as is your duty," Cora said in a tone that brooked no argument.

"Why can't Edith do it?"

"Because Patrick isn't going to marry Edith, he's going to marry you. And Edith may have a crush on him, but he wants you, Mary. You must be there to support him."

Mary knew when she had lost an argument, and she knew it now. And so she sighed deeply before brushing down her slightly too small mourning dress and making her way reluctantly downstairs. She knew where she would find him.

She didn't bother knocking, but entered the billiards room without hesitation. She found Patrick angrily hitting balls in any direction with his cue. His eyes were red, although he wasn't actually crying at that moment, thank goodness.

"I knew I'd find you in here," she said.

He nodded slowly, putting down his cue.

"Mary," he said simply.

Mary suppressed the temptation to roll her eyes at his silliness. He looked like a lost puppy, not the heir to an Earldom.

"I'm sorry about your father," she offered, somehow failing to make her voice show any sorrow whatsoever. The truth was, she had thoroughly disliked Cousin James, and she knew that Patrick himself had barely liked him. She simply couldn't find it in herself to grieve, or even pretend to grieve, for a man who had been a horrible bully who had delighted in the fact that he had managed to produce an heir when his cousin Robert had only managed three daughters.

Three useless daughters.

Patrick was suddenly walking around the table and before she knew what was happening, she was in his embrace, feeling his hot tears making her dress damp. She stood still, letting him hold her, reminding herself that she was going to have to be more intimate than this with him when they married, and that he had just lost his only remaining parent.

"Oh Mary, what would I do without you?" he whispered.

Mary didn't answer. In truth, she had no idea what he would do without her. It was the only reason she was willing to even consider submitting to her parents' wishes and marrying him; what would happen to Downton if Patrick was left to run it alone?

She may not want to marry him, but if she did, she could be his partner; she could help him learn about the estate and the tenants. She would certainly ensure the estate stayed strong to pass on to the son they would eventually have.

At least James' death meant that the official engagement and eventual wedding couldn't take place for several months, until they were all out of mourning. She had a few months of freedom left. A few months in which to find another option, another man if possible.

And so she comforted herself as she stood still and let her sort-of-fiancé cry, wondering if he really was as pathetic as he appeared, or if she was truly as heartless as she often pretended to be.

Manchester, 1913

"Do you have anyone special you would like me to meet?"

Of all the inquisitive questions his mother asked him on a regular basis, this was the one Matthew dreaded more than any other. He knew she didn't mean to push him or make him feel uncomfortable, but she did all the same. His reply was always the same: no. It wasn't that he had never met a girl he liked; he had met several. But he had never felt the sort of spark he expected to feel when he met the woman he was destined to marry. He wasn't stupid enough to expect to fall in love at first sight, but he was sure that meeting the women he was to spend the rest of his life with would provoke some reaction that was at least out of the ordinary.

He had never doubted for a moment that he would marry for love. He wanted what his parents had, what he read about in the books he spent so much of his time reading. He had a vague idea of a sweet woman who would love reading as much as he did and would understand that while he loved his job and wanted to do well at it, he would always prefer a quiet life. She would be a relative or friend of a colleague or friend from work, he assumed, as how else would he meet any women?

But the idea of marriage was a distant one. For the present, he had all he needed with his friends and his well-paid job and his large townhouse and his mother.

And so when his mother asked him that question yet again while they discussed the wedding of one of his distant cousins on his father's side to another distant cousin, he breathed a heavy sigh of irritation. He would tell her when there was someone, but until then, surely it was not too much to ask that she let him alone on this subject?

"No, Mother, there's nobody," he said wearily. "I promise I would tell you if there was."

She gave him a long, piercing look, but then returned to the newspaper.

They had never met their aristocratic relatives whose marriage had prompted this discussion, but there would occasionally be something in the paper about them that gave Matthew an odd feeling. This was apparently the society wedding of the year, although this was of complete irrelevance to his life apart from the occasional teasing he endured from his friends for being related to the sort of family that filled the society gossip columns.

"Your father met Lord Grantham once," his mother mused. "Not the current one. His father. It was before I knew him, but he told me about it. He and his father were invited to a shooting weekend at the estate. It was all very grand, and of course your father found it quite ridiculous, but the house was spectacular."

Matthew hummed disinterestedly. He had an important meeting in a couple of hours, and saw no need to devote any real attention to distant relatives he would never meet and a spectacular house he was certain he would find overly ostentatious and wasteful if he ever saw it, which seemed unlikely. His wealthy cousins wouldn't spare a moment's though for him, so he saw no reason he should do so for them.

"You should go to that dinner you were telling me about," she said, interrupting his thoughts again. "You'll never meet anyone new if you don't go out and try."

He sighed in indulgent exasperation. "Mother, I'm perfectly happy as we are, just the two of us. If I meet a woman and fall in love, you'll be the first to know. If I don't, then I don't."

"But you'll go to the dinner?" she persisted.

Matthew almost laughed. "It all sounds a bit fancy for me. Full of people I don't know. And you know I have a lot of work at the moment."

She opened her mouth to protest, but he beat her to it. "But alright, I'll go. And if I meet my future wife there, I'll give you full credit, alright?"

He did not meet his future wife. He did, however, meet a lawyer from London named Reggie Swire.

March 1919

Isobel Crawley glanced quickly at her son, then went back to looking out the window at the dark and dreary Yorkshire countryside. It was raining, and the trees were blowing in the strong wind. A storm outside to match her son's stormy expression.

In truth, she wasn't feeling much more cheerful herself, but as she had been doing for the last four years, she knew she needed to stay positive to be strong for Matthew. He hadn't wanted to come to Yorkshire, hadn't wanted to meet Lord Grantham and his family, hadn't even wanted to hear a word about the great house, estate and title he was now heir to. Isobel would have let him have his way (after all, they were still in mourning), but he had been so depressed in recent months that she was beginning to worry. Anything that made him leave the house and end his self-imposed exile from the world had to be worth trying.

Eventually, he had given in, claiming not to care what became of him anymore, and that Yorkshire was as good a place to be miserable and alone as anywhere.

And so here they were, dressed in ridiculously expensive and elaborate evening clothes, on their way to Downton Abbey.

She wondered what these new relatives would be like. She had always known that Reginald was distantly related to the Earl of Grantham, and always paused for a moment when she saw mention of the family in the papers, but she had never expected to actually meet the aristocratic relatives.

She had certainly never guessed that Matthew would end up as heir to the Earldom. The concept still seemed a little surreal, even now they had packed up all their belongings from Manchester and moved to a lovely house in a charming little village in rural Yorkshire. Even now they were in a car that belonged to the Earl, being driven by a chauffeur who worked for the Earl, on their way to have dinner with the Earl and his family.

She turned away from the window again when Matthew stretched his back, emitting a quiet groan that she had become used to hearing in the past few months. She suppressed the urge to remind him that she had told him to lie down that afternoon, and that he shouldn't have ignored her. He had enough on his mind without being scolded like a child, even if he had been behaving like one.

"I hate the rain," he muttered gloomily.

"So do many people, dear," Isobel said lightly. She saw his scowl and added in a softer voice, "We don't have to stay late tonight. I'm sure they'll understand we're tired from the journey."

"No. I've had enough of being an invalid. We don't need to go home early."

"Then you need to try to appear a little more cheerful, Matthew. It will be a long evening if you're miserable."

"And what exactly do you expect me to be cheerful about, Mother? The fact I'm to inherit a useless title and a great estate that will probably be bankrupt before it is mine? The fact I'm only here because the previous heir got himself blown up in France, leaving poor Lord Grantham with a middle class solicitor for an heir?"

Upper middle class, Isobel thought, a little indignant; she and Matthew had nothing to be ashamed of. She didn't say anything, however, as it wasn't likely to improve Matthew's mood. She did a lot of that now, censoring what she was going to say in order to try not to upset her son.

She was trying to think of another reply when the car stopped. They had arrived. The chauffeur, Branson was his name she remembered, opened the door for her and handed her out of the car. She went round to Matthew's side of the car and watched as he carefully slid his legs out of the car and slowly pushed himself up with a grimace of pain that made Isobel's heart clench. He got his balance with his stick and looked at her.

"I don't need to be watched, Mother. I can manage," he snapped.

Isobel just nodded. He still used two sticks if he had to walk any distance, but tonight he had left one at home, muttering something about not wanting to look like a cripple. In Isobel's opinion, he was just making the evening more difficult than it had to be for himself, but she had known better than to object.

They made their way to the front door, and Isobel noticed for the first time quite how magnificent the house was. There must surely be at least a hundred rooms. In the dark it was hard to see the detail of the building, but it was certainly very imposing.

Two footmen were standing waiting for them as they were shown into the house, a sign of true luxury in this new world that had lost so many of its young men. They found themselves in a small entrance hall, although it was already possible to glimpse the splendour that awaited them through the next set of doors.

As the footmen helped them out of their coats, the man Isobel assumed must be Lord Grantham walked briskly over to greet them.

He smiled at Matthew and said, "Hello again." Matthew managed a tight smile that looked more like a grimace.

"It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Mrs Crawley," Lord Grantham said, turning to Isobel and shaking her hand.

"We're delighted to be here," she said cheerfully. She turned to Matthew and smiled at him. "Aren't we Matthew?"

In truth, Matthew had rarely looked less delighted to be anywhere, but he took her hint.

"Delighted," he said stiffly.

They were led through into a huge and very beautifully decorated hall. A line of servants stood on the right, and several ladies in expensive looking evening gowns entered from another room in line. Isobel observed them all, but her eyes were immediately drawn to a young woman dressed in black. This must be the widow of the previous heir, and Lord Grantham's eldest daughter. She was strikingly beautiful, but she was pale and far too thin, and she looked deeply unhappy. Rather like Matthew, actually.

The introductions were horribly awkward, even as she tried hard to be polite and friendly to make up for Matthew's quietness, which was verging on rudeness. As she had expected, these relatives were terribly condescending, and it was clear that apart from Lord Grantham, they really didn't want her and Matthew there at all. The Dowager Countess seemed especially frosty, and the beautiful young widow seemed not to have any interest in them at all. She didn't smile once.

Matthew scowled down at his plate. This evening was going just as badly as he had expected. Everyone here clearly hated him, especially Lady Mary. He supposed she could hardly be blamed. She had lost her husband and her home and future all at once, and now he was here, the heir to what was to have been her late husband's. Matthew felt a familiar stab of guilt at having survived not only the war, but the flu epidemic too. He had escaped death so many times it seemed unjust.

When the footman explained to him how to serve himself, he barely kept his temper. Before the war, he had been respected as a successful young lawyer with a bright future as a partner ahead of him. When he had joined the army, he had been respected for his uniform, and had moved up the ranks, always with glowing reports from his commanding officers. Here, however, he was the unwelcome middle-class interloper, here because of an antiquated law that meant women couldn't inherit.

It didn't help that his back was in agony after the journey from Manchester. The damp weather didn't help, and nor did the fact that he had left one of his sticks at home. He hated it when his mother was right, but when it came to anything medical, she usually was.

He looked up suddenly when Lady Mary said, "You'll soon get used to the way things are done here." The words could have sounded reassuring, but her tone of voice made them seem anything but.

"If you mean that I am accustomed to a very different life from this, then that is true," he snapped back. This time last year he had been half starving in the trenches. If only the stuck-up Lady Mary knew quite how different a life he had been accustomed to in the last four years.

There was an awkward silence, until the other young woman, Lady Sybil, he remembered, asked "What will you do with your time?" Her voice was sweet and kind, and for some reason, this irritated him even more than Lady Mary's hostility.

"I've got a job at a partnership in Ripon," he said shortly. "I start next month."

He wasn't surprised when everyone stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. He hadn't expected enthusiasm for this clear evidence of his middle-class status, but frankly, he couldn't care less. He wanted to get back to normal after the war, wanted to prove that he could still function, still work, wanted something that would keep him busy and keep his mind off thoughts and memories he had so far found impossible to escape.

"You do know I mean to involve you in the running of the estate?" Lord Grantham asked. Matthew wondered how anyone who had lived through the past few years could be so shocked by a job.

"Don't worry. There are plenty of hours in the day, and of course I'll have the weekends," he said, his tone making it clear that his decision was final.

"We'll discuss this later, we mustn't bore the ladies," Lord Grantham said.

"You're not boring us at all," Lady Sybil said. "I think it's marvellous that Cousin Matthew wants to go back to work again after the war. Having a job can give your life such purpose and direction. I already miss nursing. In fact I…"

"Not now, Sybil," Lord Grantham said, and Matthew sensed that this was an ongoing argument.

"Oh, did you train as a nurse during the war?" his mother asked. And from then on, there was no stopping her. At least everyone had stopped looking at him. Matthew stopped listening.

Isobel was glad when nobody seemed inclined to prolong the painfully awkward evening. Lady Grantham had led the ladies through to the drawing room as soon as politely possible, and Lord Grantham had not lingered in the dining room with Matthew. A few stilted attempts had been made at conversation, and Lady Sybil had tried valiantly to engage Matthew in a largely one-sided debate about politics, but when Lady Mary had suddenly swept from the room with a cold and insincere apology, Isobel had taken it as a sign that they could leave without offending their new family.

She knew better than to even try to talk to Matthew in the car, and neither of them spoke a word until they were let in by Molesley, who, much to Matthew's evident irritation, had clearly been watching at the window waiting to open the door as soon as they arrived.

"Well that went as badly as I expected," Matthew said as he all but collapsed onto the sofa. Isobel knew he chose to sit there rather than his comfortable armchair in protest against her advice that his still-healing back needed to be properly supported. Normally she would have forced him to follow her advice, but today, he was, if possible, more miserable than usual.

"I don't know," she said neutrally. "I rather liked Cousin Sybil, and everyone else seemed friendly enough. It's a difficult situation for everyone, and they're barely out of mourning."

"We are barely out of mourning. I don't see why we had to come." He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, rubbing his back without noticing it. She hoped he would see sense tonight and take his dose of pain medication. He didn't always, and she knew that her prompting would make him less rather than more likely to do so. He was so stubborn.

"We came because we were asked, and because you could do with a change of scenery," she replied patiently.

He didn't answer.

"I'm sure we'll all get along far better when we know each other," she said hopefully. "Cousin Robert seemed to be eager to be friendly."

"Lady Mary hates me," Matthew said flatly. "The Dowager Countess hates you. The others…" he trailed off and shrugged.

"Cousin Mary has recently lost her husband, and now you're to inherit the estate that she expected would be her home for the rest of her life. You can hardly expect her to be exactly welcoming. In fact, I would like to get to know her better. The poor girl looks so terribly unhappy. I would have thought you might be sympathetic."

The more Isobel thought about it, the more striking the similarity between Cousin Mary's behaviour and her son's became. Taking their grief out on other people.

"I'm going to bed," Matthew said abruptly. Isobel watched as he slowly pushed himself to his feet, swaying and almost falling as he straightened up. She almost stood up to reach out and stop him falling, but he managed to get his balance in time. He limped slowly to the door, leaning on the furniture for support.

"Goodnight Mother. I hope you sleep well," he muttered. Perhaps the politest thing he'd said all day.

"Goodnight my darling boy," she replied. She listened to his slow, uneven footsteps, then, when she knew he was on the stairs, she quietly walked to the door to watch him. He hated it when she did this, so she knew now to stay in the shadows. She wished he had agreed to take one of the downstairs rooms as his bedroom for a while, until the stairs weren't such a struggle for him.

It took at least a minute for him to reach the top, leaning heavily on the banister. Seeing he was safely on the way to his room, Isobel went to sit back down. She knew she wouldn't sleep yet.

She hoped desperately that however that first evening had gone, this would prove to be a fresh start for both of them, away from the memories of the past few years, and the past few months especially. She needed it as much as Matthew did.

Mary retired early. She knew it was rude when they had guests, but she didn't see why she should care about these strangers who were here to steal what was rightfully hers. She didn't much care for their company anyway. Cousin Matthew, as she had been instructed to call him, seemed dull, impolite and morose, and his mother was irritating beyond belief.

She went straight to the nursery, her footsteps speeding up as she got closer, drawn by a now-familiar pull. She opened the door carefully and stepped inside. Nanny was sitting in a rocking chair knitting something. She moved to stand up, but Mary quickly raised her hand in a gesture to tell her to stay seated.

She walked over to the little cradle and looked down at the perfect little baby, dressed in immaculate white gowns and swathed in carefully arranged blankets.

"Hello darling," she whispered. The baby looked up at her, perfect blue eyes trusting and contented. Mary stroked her tiny cheek, marvelling, even after all these months, at the softness of the skin, the warmth. The baby worked an arm free and reached up in a gesture now familiar to Mary. She smiled even as her eyes clouded with tears, and picked up her daughter and held her close.

"We'll be alright, darling. We'll be alright."

It had become her mantra, her prayer these past few months when everything had been thrown into turmoil. She wasn't sure she believed it, but she hoped that one day she would. Because she knew that the future of this tiny child depended on her, and she was willing to fight to the death to give her daughter what she deserved.

Author's note: I've been writing this story in my head for months, but never got around to planning it and writing properly until I spent what could have been a very miserable Christmas self-isolating and cheered myself up by burying myself in Downton Abbey again. This is really a story about grieving and the shadow of the war, and how hope and love can be found even in the darkest of days, so although it starts off sad, I promise things will slowly get better. I'm planning to update every 3-4 weeks, but although this whole AU is very clear in my head, I haven't actually got much written down yet, so we'll see how it goes.

I'm sorry to anyone expecting a new chapter of Love Alters Not - there will probably be a final chapter at some point in the next few weeks, but I'm afraid this new story has been taking up all my inspiration!

I'm also writing a series of one-shots that I might start sharing with you in the next few weeks, so look out for that.