All she could hear was the sound of her heart beating in her ears.
And in that moment, when she locked eyes with the one person who had secretly always held her heart, she could hardly breathe.
Let alone, make herself known to him.
He'd grown more handsome since that last autumn she saw him. Since that first time he went away to sea.
And never after had she told a soul, that when she fancied a husband for herself, she fancied James Paul Moody.
But knowing who he was, and how surely her family would look down on him, James was an unspoken fancy of hers that remained a long-lost dream she'd have to be content with never having.
Until the door of the glasshouse opened suddenly, and one last visitor ran into its warm sanctuary out of the rain.
She'd waited so long for this moment.
A chance to meet him under the proper circumstances, which could easily be explained away as an unintended and necessary encounter, due to the rain spilling over outside.
Without anyone telling her how being alone in a glasshouse with a "common man"-or any man, for that matter-was not the way a well-brought-up lady should behave.
Even if the idea of finally meeting him face-to-face terrified and excited her all at the same time, she couldn't believe her stars when James Paul Moody walked into her cousin's glasshouse.
''Is this proof enough...that it must be written in our stars,' she insisted to herself breathlessly. 'Or else, why would he be here now at Downton?'
And for such a promising meeting, how could either of them have known then, that they'd soon wish it never happened?
Chancing upon him in the greenhouse on the estate wasn't anything Jane Austen, of course.
She preferred the darker realism of the Brontës anyway.
There was no lovers' sunshine. No daisies or blushing roses in bloom around them. No aha moment warning her that she was no longer alone, but had been found by something she would never again want to know this world without.
Had she heard Mr. Moody come in, she might've chosen another hiding place to allow him leisure to the glasshouse in peace.
But it was raining.
And had it not been for the rain, she might've happily returned to Downton at last, and he might've happily missed his chance of meeting her.
But with a downpour like that outside the greenhouse window, there was no going back from this now.
As if the universe wept for their sake, foreseeing the bloom of a tragic fate, as they gazed quietly perplexed at each other through the wooden lattice of twirling English ivy growing around them.
Taking each step together on either side of the greenhouse, until they gradually slowed to a mutual stop.
Her eyes hazelnut with green embers as dreamy as an English garden; and his, an ocean-strong blue as calm as an afternoon sea.
Each trying to decide what to do with each other, now that they'd accidently discovered the other's hiding place.
But could it ever really be an "accident"?
She knew him all along, even if Mr. Moody didn't quite remember her the same.
And the choices she'd made up until that moment were deliberate.
Rather than face him with the truth about herself, she'd chosen anonymity.
Fearing the scandal that might ignite and ruin them both, if anyone knew just how much he meant to her.
Just how faithfully she had doted on him, every year, since their first meeting in the cemetery.
Not that she ever meant for this to happen.
It started out innocent enough.
She and her cousin, Sybil, had decided already that they wouldn't be attending her coming-out garden party, if it was nothing more than an excuse for her father to put her up for "silent auction" and get a head start on counting the bids offered up by each of her soon-to-be suitors. And so, she and Sybil decided to run away together, convincing one of the maids, Anna, to lend them her frocks for a day.
Two girls in the prime of their adolescence playing "dress-up", thinking nothing of the consequences.
How could she have known what pain it would bring to she and Mr. Moody both, upon meeting like this?
She dropped her eyes quickly from his, hoping to God that he wouldn't study her too closely.
She knew it was silly to think he would.
It'd been years since she last found that boy in the cemetery, and they had only been children. There was no reason why he'd recognize her now, after so many years gone by.
And taking her lowered gaze as a sign of her bashfulness, Mr. Moody quickly removed his cap for her, having been taken so suddenly by surprise in finding someone else there, that he regretfully forgot his manners.
"I'm sorry, I thought this glasshouse was abandoned," he apologized to her, his accent charmingly sprinkled with the warmth of a working man, not like the proper Queen's English she grew up with. "I'll leave at once."
"There's no need. You claimed it first. I'll go," she offered, more than happy to turn and retreat for the door.
"You mean out there?" he objected, glancing at Mother Nature's violent assault on the greenhouse windows. "Surely, this storm is no kind of weather for a lady wanting for a chaperone."
"Nor for a man either, I'd say."
"Now that'd be unfair for me to judge, as I might pride myself in being a strongly made sailor. I can take a beating longer than any ten for a penny man."
"Well, I assure you, sir, I have walked through many a storm in my 17 years, and have yet to be swept off my feet."
"Well, that is, I only meant..." he proceeded awkwardly, making her raise a dark brow in amusement as he fumbled to catch up with her remark. "That is to say, I'm not saying you couldn't very well manage...Well, I mean I should say that I imagine you to be quite a woman indeed-Blimey, forgive me, that's not what I meant-I don't mean it in that way-What I mean is that I'm a suffragist, and I think rather highly of women and their inspiring aptitude. And I hope I am not being inconsiderate of your independence by worrying for you walking in this storm alone, as I don't doubt you could...But why would you...when my boots allow for easier navigating around mud puddles? And since I am looking for a welcome excuse to be late for an unwelcome dinner invitation tonight, I implore you, miss, allow me to muddy my shoes in your honor."
And by the time he finally got on with it, he looked up to find her silently giggling behind her hand.
He sighed, in great relief.
He wasn't ever any good at words. But perhaps it hadn't come out to her so badly as it sounded to him.
At least she was laughing, and not the alternative.
"You don't do this often, do you?" she teased him playfully.
"No," he admitted. "I'm rather green at this, I s'poose. Though I reckon that's what one can expect, when one spends more time with seadogs than high society at garden parties. But picked my own lot, I have. Too late to regret it now."
"I can't imagine that you would," she said, her smile warm like the sunlight they'd been missing since morning. "And I can only guess that the reason we're both here is because we are mutually sick of garden parties and high society anyway. So how about we settle this dilemma of ours by placing a bet? Sailors are notorious gamblers, aren't they? There's no way you can disappoint me there."
And though his mood hadn't let up since the entail meeting, he couldn't help cracking a smile now, pleasantly surprised by her refreshing unconventionality for a lady.
"What have you in mind?"
"I propose that we have a contest," she said. "Whoever tells the most horrid story about how they came upon this glasshouse gets to stay in it. The other walks."
"Suppose I told you an exceptionally horrid story then?"
"Now, that'd be unfair for me to judge, as I'm a dreadful storyteller myself," she said. "I wouldn't know the difference between your dreadful and mine, but I can assure you, mine is fairly horrendous. I doubt you could outbest me at that."
"Then which of them shall we stomach first?" he asked her, folding his arms in anticipation as he leaned against the garden worktable behind him. "Your horrid or mine?"
"Well, which is longer?"
"I should say, I could fire mine off in under a minute," he said, glancing at his pocket watch, before pocketing it again. "Though if I manage it in less time, you'd be grateful to have been spared."
"How considerate of you," she approved with a nod, giving him the leeway. "Shall we begin our misery then?"
"The truth is," he began his dramatic tale. "I have no desire to be married now."
"Is that all?" she asked, feeling cheated.
He had warned her he'd finish in under a minute, but not a sentence, and he could've at least put in some kind of effort to make her believe she'd been seduced by an illusion of foreplay.
And what reason did a man have to protest anyway?
He was a man.
Marriage was his game.
"It is my understanding that men hold lordly indulgent power over marriage," she commented. "In that case, I imagine you have everything to gain from marrying, and every right to choose when and when not, or whom and whom not, and where and wherefore. So, forgive me, but I'm afraid I don't quite understand your distress."
Gradually, he straightened up from the worktable, the good humor in his blue eyes dimmed as he resumed the objective posture known for his lawyer kinsmen.
"I see. You believe only women have everything to lose in marriage?" he stated. "What do you make of me then? I gain nothing from marrying the woman being forced onto me. If I marry her, I lose everything I worked for at sea. And if I choose my own heart, I lose my father's support. I can not afford my indenture bond alone. And because my father must always have his way, he would have me marry some prudishly entitled well-to-do snoot-a Miss Millicent Crawley-who I never cared to make the acquaintance of, and would be damned to marry otherwise. The truth being that I have my heart set on another. And as I intend to make my affection known to her, I can not–no, will not–make Miss Crawley my wife. That is the crux of my distress. I am not allowed to pursue the woman I admire, because she is not of the privileged class, like Miss Crawley. It's why I took shelter in this glasshouse...knowing I must have an answer for my father by tomorrow."
James leaned against the window again as he watched the rain pour outside, so worked up in his own discontent, that he hardly noticed his listener anymore as he rambled on.
"If she's anything like her rascal brother, Patrick, I can not even stomach the notion of meeting her without loathing 'her not-quite-a-ladyship' from the darkest pit of my godforsaken soul. Better that she marry another, as I would never abandon my life at sea to be hers. I can not and will not give her any happiness."
And by the time he finished his story, her face had gone as pale and still as the gray windowglass fogged over from the chilling rain.
All they heard for a time was the fall of raindrops against it, as she was too dumbfounded to speak otherwise.
But speechlessness, alas, was not part of their bet.
Mr. Moody waited only a moment before turning from the rainy window to face her expectantly.
"I do believe you promised to outbest me at this dreary contest. Misery loves company, eh?" he gave her the floor at last. "It's your turn, miss. Tell us what it is they won't let you say aloud out there, and pray, don't hold back. You may never get a chance to be so plain-spoken again."
Her jaw dropped to speak, but her lips only trembled in stunned, resenting silence.
Resentful not only for the damning truth he didn't spare her a word of, but for being such a lamb. Such a stupidly gullible, lovelorn little girl infatuated for so long with the day they'd finally meet, now gutted with the embarrassingly mortifying reality of her own foolishness.
And still...despite the brutal declaration of his candid confession...she loved him.
Taking her only comfort now in having never spoken her true affections out loud to James, as she could never bear making such a gross misjudgment, risking her reputation on no more than unrequited adolescent pining.
"I am..."
Her voice cracked ruefully.
Her throat swelling and her eyes hot with tears that she had just enough of a lady's social grace to mask.
James waited.
She kept him waiting.
What was she to do with a man who regarded her with such unparalleled loathing?
Was it too late to regret coming back to Downton with her father and brother now, at exactly the time the flame of her girlhood, James Paul Moody, was called to the estate by Cousin Robert?
Regret would hardly be any use to her now.
And so there was nothing left to do but to carry on proudly, finishing the grim little game they'd started with each other.
"I am Miss Millicent Crawley," she confessed at last. "And on behalf of my cousins, I'm very pleased to have you here with us, Mr. Moody."
It was a lie.
A disgustingly cruel containment of her true feelings, putting on that artificial little smile she'd perfected over the years, as was expected of a lady of her standing. Even as Millicent knew there was no coming back from this.
Not for all the forgiveness in the world.
How could she never again feel tormented when James Moody was near, knowing first that he hated her for no other offense but being Patrick Crawley's sister; and second, that he always preferred another woman to her, for no other reason but his prejudice against her privileged overclass?
"Oh...I see," James told her, a bit slack-jawed. "Well, there's a good one I never expected. S'pose I needed that today, I did." He chuckled to himself. "Though, even so,..can you imagine how ungainly it would be, had you actually been the real Miss Millicent Crawley?"
"You mean the well-to-do snoot, as it were?" she answered him coolly.
James dropped his forehead into his hand, wanting for nothing but the power to disappear eternally.
"Ruddy hell...I did say that, didn't I?" he whispered regrettably in hindsight.
And when at last James took in the hot rosy color in Millicent's cheeks, and the wetness glistening around the brim of her doleful amber eyes, he instantly felt like a proper ass.
No matter how badly he disliked the Crawleys, it can't have justified this.
"Forgive me. I do apologize for the misunderstanding," he told her gently. "Cross as I am with my father, you did not deserve to become the brunt of it. I only wish I could take it all back."
"Though...why would you?" Millicent answered softly. "If it's how you truly feel, I would have it no other way."
James swallowed hard in crushing shame, knowing Millicent was right.
As much as he wished she hadn't heard him, he couldn't make himself feel any differently for her, knowing that his heart was set on another.
"Don't worry," her smile was watery, but nonetheless, quite pretty. "Now that I understand your feelings, I'll speak to papa. I'm sure I'll come up with something to tell him, so we both don't end up miserably wed."
"I'm terribly sorry, Miss Crawley," James deeply regretted it. "I never meant..."
But James fell silent, knowing he was only making it worse.
His eyes dropped down to the basket gripped tightly in Millicent's ungloved hands.
Finding them rather peculiar, as hers weren't hands he might've picked out for a wellborn lady.
They appeared slightly tanned for an heiress, as if she'd spent more time in the sunshine than most of her social equals, with a little fresh garden dirt lightly dusting her fingernails.
And upon closer inspection, he thought he spotted a slight callous around the knuckle of her thumb. Remembering that he had identical ones anywhere he could get them on his hands, after slacking rope on the Boa.
The well-off daughter of Sir James Crawley enjoying her own share of work from time to time?
A hidden gem, she must've been.
And for that, how precious her hands might've been to him, had they belonged to anyone else but Lady Millicent Roseline Crawley.
It didn't matter to James then how much he adored a working girl's hands.
An heiress and a sailor could never be.
And having heard his confession, with no understanding of anything else, Millicent was absolutely broken.
What good could she do by displeasuring him any longer with her company?
Having already foolishly given James her heart, she would not make the same mistake of giving him her tears too.
"Forgive me," she whispered her parting excuses to Mr. Moody. "They'll worry, if I don't go back soon. I can't stay here any longer."
Nodding a polite Good Day to the sailor, Millicent turned away from James before her true feelings for him betrayed her.
Putting as much distance between her and the James Paul Moody she thought she knew so differently.
And by the time Miss Crawley reached the glasshouse door, James was one damning confession too late to realize that he hadn't thought enough about the basket of forget-me-nots left behind on the garden worktable.
And when he finally came around to that one piece of ill-fated evidence, awakening an unbearably agonizing suspicion in him, the young sailor had already pushed Miss Millicent Crawley so far away from him, there was little hope of ever asking her back.
"Wait," James called to the lady, abandoning her flower basket as he hurried from the glasshouse after her. "Miss Crawley, one moment, please."
But when he reached the outside gardens, abandoned by all but the rain whispering in the leaves of the earl's ivy sanctuary, James found that Lady Millicent had given him exactly what he'd asked of her.
Damning him to one nagging question that haunted James thereafter.
Could she be...her?
Had the girl he lost in Scarborough years ago been standing before him all along, without him ever knowing she was with him?
But it was an answer James had ruined his chance of ever knowing.
As by and large, the seaman had safely won theirbet.