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Chapter Text

During the drive back from the village a storm rolls in, but it's not the muddy road or lack of visibility due to the rain pelting down on the windscreen that forces Branson to slow the car to a creep. It's the car in front of them, and Sybil, mindful of the mirror in which her reflection is plainly visible to the chauffeur, tries not to show her amusement at Branson as he mutters in irritation at the other driver.

"Might as well be driving a horse and carriage, if he's not going to bother to use the bloody gas pedal. Er…" He scratches the back of his neck, a gesture which fascinates Sybil for being at once self-conscious and yet entirely open, revealing a level of feeling to her that none of the other servants, not even Gwen, would to her . "I beg your pardon, m'lady. I get that frustrated when the traffic's jammed up like this."

"Don't worry, Branson, I am in no hurry to return home." She glances up to meet his eyes in the mirror, and smiles at him. "We can pretend we are simply enjoying a leisurely drive together."

"I won't have to pretend to enjoy that, m'lady."

Branson's words are innocuous enough, but they have a strange effect on Sybil, and she finds herself dropping her gaze as a bashful half-laugh escapes her lips. A dart of her eyes back to Branson shows him to be looking rather uncomfortable at her reaction, so she feigns interest in the offending driver up ahead of them.

"Oh!" she cries, leaning forward to peer between the gap in the two front seats through the rain-spattered windscreen. "I do believe that's Edith!"

"Your sister?"

"And Sir Anthony Strallan. He's always coming 'round to ask her to go for a spin."

"Don't know as I'd call it a spin, exactly, if he always drives like this."

This time Sybil cannot stifle her laughter. "He'd never do for Mary, as Father hoped, but he's perfectly suited to Edith because he's…" Sybil searches for the appropriate words.

"A tedious driver?" Branson supplies, grinning up at the mirror.

"Very kind." Sybil's returning smile belies the shake of her head.

She wants to add, And Lord knows how Edith needs someone to be kind to her, but that would be overstepping the bounds she wishes were not in place between her and Branson. Between her and any man, really.

Once again her gaze finds his in the mirror, and Sybil is startled to see that Branson's eyes seem to reveal similar thoughts to hers, that there is such a conversation, such a friendship to be had, if only he were not the chauffeur and she were not the daughter of his employer. He might ask her what sort of man would do for her.

Sitting up a little straighter in the back seat, Sybil makes up her mind to tell him, anyway.

"Branson?"

"Yes, m'lady?"

"Some time, when it's not raining and we're not stuck behind Sir Anthony, would you take me for a proper drive? As fast as you dare?"

He grins, a bit like a mischievous schoolboy, Sybil thinks. "Hasn't your father ever warned you about boys in fast cars?"

"No. What about them?"

Branson shakes his head, as if chiding himself. "It's nothing, Lady Sybil, forgive me. Yes, the next dry day when Sir Anthony's spinning on some other road, you and I will put the speedometer through its paces."

"I can hardly wait." Sybil smiles as she leans back in her seat not so much with anticipation of the promised drive with Branson as with pleasure in her own accomplishment, the breadth of which she is not certain she fully understands.

Chapter Text

When she puts down the car window, Sybil smells the rich earthiness of rain in the air, notes the vivid green of field and foliage against the grey backdrop of the sky, feels the moist heaviness of the breeze against her skin. Breathing it in, she is flooded with the pulse-quickening sensation of being too full to contain all she feels, of an almost desperate need for release, and mounting dread that she will be unable to achieve it.

She darts her eyes up to meet Branson's in the rear-view mirror. "I hope we shan't have to postpone our drive on account of the weather." She has so looked forward to the fast drive in the country Branson promised her.

When he twists in the front seat to look back over his shoulder, his lopsided grin and blue eyes a-twinkle with mischief are ever so much more compelling in life than in reflection that Sybil catches her breath.

"Don't worry, Lady Sybil--I think we can outdrive it. Hold on to your hat!"

She does, saving it from being swept out the window as Branson steps on the gas.

Certainly this is not the first time she has tested the bounds of speed; although not quite Mary's equal as a horsewoman, Sybil is an accomplished rider in her own right. But this--speeding faster and faster down the road until the tree-lined lane is only a blur of green in her periphery, as smooth as a bullet fired from a gun-- fills her with greater exhilaration than she's experienced in the saddle. Why, she cannot readily say.

Leaning forward in her seat as she would in the saddle, her eyes dart from the speedometer to Branson's foot pressing the pedal further into the floor of the car, then back up again to watch the speed gauge indicate its response to the driver's indications. Branson says something, but his voice is lost in the noise of the engine which roars in Sybil's ears as melodically and movingly as any music that has ever filled them. She fights an unseemly urge to add to the chorus with a shout of her own enthusiasm and delight.

But as she watches the steering wheel glide through Branson's gloved hands as he takes a curve without slowing, she can't stop herself from leaning close enough to him that his hat knocks hers a little askew as he tilts his head toward her to hear her say, "Now this is a spin!"

Branson laughs, and Sybil feels his breath on her face and even smells it a little--not unpleasant, but nonetheless it and the nearness of his wide grin give her a spinning sensation that has nothing to do with their fast drive on a winding road. She slides back in her seat.

Power, she thinks. It's the power that makes her feel like this. Not the power of the machine itself, which, she supposes, is rather something that such as an automobile can be mastered with so light a touch--although, come to think of it, that's not so different from riding a horse, after all. The similarity stops there, however. What captures Sybil's imagination is the notion that she is racing through the countryside faster than any horse could carry her in a machine made by a man and driven by a man. He can go wherever he likes, as fast as he dares, independent of any other living creature.

The realisation bursts upon her like the climax of a thrilling political rally, and once again she finds herself restraining the urge to cheer and applaud. As at those events, her mind comes alive with new ideas which she can hardly contain. She sits forward again and taps Branson on the shoulder.

"Please, Branson, would you stop the car?"

The chauffeur instantly complies, managing a smooth deceleration and stop on the side of the road despite the obvious alarm on his face as he jerks around to look at her.

"My driving hasn't made you ill, has it, m'lady?"

Sybil shakes her head and finds herself smiling a little bashfully, unable to quite meet his eyes which regard her so keenly. Suddenly, the request she had in mind to ask seems silly, but this is one fight in which she has very little to lose and everything to gain, so she forges ahead with it.

"I was wondering...Since the weather seems to be holding..." Her eyes flick up and find his. "Would you teach me to drive?"

Branson blinks, and Sybil sees his fingers open and close on the steering wheel as he no doubt weighs her request against the likelihood of Lord Grantham sacking him. At once Sybil is ashamed of herself for daring to ask such subversion from Branson, following so closely on the heels of the by-election debacle--

And then, all at once, one side of Branson's mouth tugs upward, and he's giving his head a slow shake, and his eyes regard her fondly--No, Sybil amends, playfully. As a friend who knows her so well that her unconventional whims don't at all take him by surprise and who is happy to indulge them. He pulls the handle on the driver's side door, slides out of the car, and then opens hers.

"If all the rich young ladies learn to drive," he says, "then a lot of poor young men will be out of a job."

"Perhaps, but then we'll all be equal, won't we?"

Though Branson's smile holds, all trace of joking vanishes from it as he regards her steadily. "Indeed, Lady Sybil."

He offers his hand, as he always does, though when Sybil places hers in his outstretched palm, Branson's gloved fingers seem to close around hers in a manner that goes beyond duty, or even gallantry, and his grasp lingers a moment longer than necessary even after she has alit from the vehicle. But Sybil tells herself that the acceleration of her pulse is due to the excitement of her impending driving lesson and not Branson's touch, and he releases her hand willingly enough when she hitches up her skirt--if only she'd thought to wear her bloomers!--and climbs into the driver's seat.

"All right, Branson," she says, trying not to grin too hugely as she clutches the steering wheel, "show me how it's done!"

Chapter Text

Driving a car proves to be a rather more difficult feat than Sybil expected. Setting off smoothly and stopping again without jostling his passengers look so effortless when Branson does it, but with Sybil behind the wheel, progressing a mere ten yards occurs as a series of lurches which she feels certain will put both their necks out of joint.

"I shouldn't have been so hard on poor Sir Anthony," she remarks with a sigh, too mortified to look at her chauffeur, as they come to another jerking stop in the middle of the road which Branson chose for their fast drive for its lack of other motorists. "I don't seem to have a knack for driving at all."

"Nobody does, at the start," replies Branson.

Sybil lifts her eyes from where they have been transfixed on the gear lever, which she grips with her white-knuckled left hand, her hopes rising with them. Still, there is enough of her eldest sister in her that she arches one eyebrow in scepticism at Branson, who sits so relaxed in his driving uniform that she cannot conceive of him ever looking as ill-at-ease in an automobile as she must.

"You're not just saying that to be kind?"

"I'm saying it because it's true. Learning to drive's a bit like learning to dance. Your hands have got the steering wheel and the shift lever to contend with while your feet work the gas and the brake."

"And all the while your eyes must watch the road instead of the steering wheel, shift lever, gas pedal, or brake."

"Exactly," Branson says, grinning. "Just like dancing, when you're supposed to keep your eyes on your partner instead of your feet."

His eyes hold hers in a way that would make it impossible for Sybil to look anywhere else even if she wanted to--though she suspects she should want to look away from Branson, as somehow this prolonged eye contact makes her feel very much as if she is dancing with him--with him, a chauffeur in her father's employ!--despite the reality that they are sitting in the two front seats of a car, not touching.

And then, suddenly, they are touching. Branson covers her left hand, still clutching the gear lever, with his own. Gently, he un-pries her fingers from around it, lifts her hand, and places it on the steering wheel.

"You concentrate on the steering and the pedals," he says, though Sybil has to work very hard at concentrating on his words as his fingertips--does he realise he is doing it?--skim back and forth across her knuckles. "I'll man the lever for now."

Sybil can only nod, not trusting her voice not to tremble; only when her shaking foot on the gas pedal brings the idling motor loudly to life does she release her breath with a shudder.

The driving lesson goes much smoother after that--in a literal sense--with Branson needing to remind her to make small corrections with the wheel or jam his foot on an invisible brake only a dozen or so times. These occasions, in general, are not necessitated by Sybil's immature motoring skills, but by lapses in her concentration.

Though she battles to check her thoughts, her imagination insists on returning to the moment when Branson's hand had covered hers. What would it have felt like, she wonders, without the barrier of his thick leather driving glove between them? Would his skin be rough, his fingertips and palms callused by a life of labour? Certainly it would be warm, she thinks, from the radiant intensity of his personality.

Then there is the idea of dancing with him, planted by his comparison of driving lessons to dancing lessons. Would he navigate a ballroom with the smooth precision with which he handles the roads?

"Branson?" she says when she is settled once again in the back of the car and the chauffeur in the driver's seat, her lesson having lasted for as long as Sybil dares under the guise of having gone to a committee meeting. "Do you dance?"

His reflection briefly registers as much surprise as if she asked him whether he walks the tightrope in the circus before his features relax into his characteristic lopsided grin. "Everyone dances. I think what you're asking is whether I do it well, or whether I enjoy it."

"As a matter of fact I was inquiring whether you're too occupied with your lofty socialist ideals for as trivial an amusement as dancing." Sybil is a little taken aback at how like Mary, or Granny, her words sound, but she is pleased to hear Branson chuckle.

"Ah, but dancing is hardly trivial, Lady Sybil."

"You enjoy it, then?"

He hesitates before meeting her gaze in the mirror and answering, "With the right partner."

Having only just had her first season, Sybil may be inexperienced in the matters of men and women, but she has witnessed enough of Mary's suitors to recognise an expression of interest. With a heart racing faster than the car earlier, she realises that she should have recognised Branson's interest in her before now. Or acknowledged it to herself, though she knows she did not allow herself that indulgence because Branson's interest, however flattering she may find it, however appealing, however mutually interesting, is wrong. And she is wrong to encourage him.

So she says, with all of the Mary-like coolness she can muster, "I don't suppose there should ever be an occasion in which we might dance together."

Only it comes out more disappointed than dispassionate, and Branson's gaze flicks away.

"No." His broad Irish tones are short. Flat. "I don't suppose."

They are silent as he steers the car up the drive of the house, but after he shuts off the ignition, he lingers at the wheel rather than immediately hop out to assist Sybil out of the vehicle. She watches in fascination as his fingers trace the ridges in the steering wheel, and feels a tingle in her knuckles as his the gesture, lacking his usual confidence, recalls the memory of his touch. Does he think of it, too?

He turns around in his seat and looks at her with eyes that at once reflect the sadness she feels pricking at the backs of her own, and blaze with the vision he always seems to see of a future in which impossible dreams are fulfilled.

"But I've a thing or two left to teach you about driving, haven't I?"

"You have," Sybil replies, very softly, awed by the realisation of exactly what gift Branson is holding out to her.

Not only do these driving lessons afford her independence of movement, but Branson offers her real freedom as a woman, to make her own choice about whom she will give her love. He knows that she knows his feelings, and he knows that she returns them, but whether anything will come of them is her choice, not because she is his mistress and he her servant, but because she is a human being inhabiting the same earth as he.

Dancing the same dance.

"I shall look forward to our next lesson more than anything," she says.

Branson's smile is restrained, but he step is light as he comes around the car to help her alight, and he quips, "More than anything? Even a rousing political debate?"

"Perhaps not quite so much as that."

On the ground, Sybil reluctantly lets go of his hand to maintain the illusion of propriety, but Branson catches hers and tugs her back to him, close enough that his slightly stubbled chin scratches her cheek as he murmurs, "Please don't make me wait too long for your next lesson, m'lady."

How could she, after that, whatever it was, which makes her feel quite in danger of needing to look at her feet as she walks up to the house?

Before she reaches the door, Branson's lilting brogue reaches her ears: "Next time we'll go over backing up!"

Chapter Text

Part Four

As Branson requested, Sybil arranges things so that driving lessons are not far between, though they are few. Less than a fortnight after taking the wheel for the first time, she has become both a competent and confident motorist.

"You see?" Branson remarks as she flawlessly completes a battery of tests he puts her to one afternoon when her family believe her to be at some committee meeting or other in Ripon. "You have a knack for it after all."

His praise, of course, pleases Sybil, but even more pleasing are her own achievements, which include successfully parking the car parallel to a fence, with obstructions placed at the bonnet and boot to represent other automobiles, should the situation arise that she find herself city with nowhere to park but on a street between two cars--an unlikely scenario, to be sure, but a skill she is nonetheless proud to have mastered.

"I've always been a quick study," she says.

"And I've always been a good teacher," replies Branson with a grin.

"Then surely you'll agree that frequent practice is necessary to keep my skills sharp."

Ordinarily at this point in their drives, Sybil resumes her seat in the back and Branson drives her home, but now she pulls the gear lever and brings the car back around to the road; they can pull over closer to the house and make the switch for the sake of appearances. Even though they discuss none of these plans, Branson seems more than happy to comply with them.

"Absolutely, m'lady," he says, and proceeds to make such a show of pulling off his unnecessary driving gloves and relaxing in the seat next to hers that Sybil's imagination supplies an amusing mental image of him leaned back with his hands beneath his head, elbows akimbo, and his feet propped on the dashboard.

"In fact," he goes on, "any time you need to be driven anywhere, I'll glad let you assume my chauffeur duties. I'll catch up on my reading or kip in the back seat."

"Does that mean you'll give me any wages you would have earned driving me?"

"Hmm... I suppose that'd be fair, but how will I fund my political career?"

"I shall make a generous donation to your campaign."

"I'd settle for holding your hand."

Sybil's eyes dart to Branson's upturned palm. His bare, upturned palm. Feeling the car begin to drift to her left, she averts her gaze back to the road and grips the steering wheel tighter in her hands.

"I thought you told me always to keep both hands on the wheel?" Shivers race up her arm from where Branson's fingertips stroke the edge of her hand and wrist, coaxing their way between the steering wheel and her hand, and she wishes she were not wearing gloves.

"Did I forget to mention there's an exception to the rule when you're driving a long stretch of straight open road?"

It occurs to Sybil that if this were a novel, she'd be too affected by his touch to speak, while in reality she does feel a little breathless but perfectly capable of participating in this flirtation. "I believe you did," she says.

"No? Well, that was remiss of me and a mark on my sterling teacher's reputation."

"That's no matter, as you're going to be a politician."

She weaves her fingers together with his, and glances over at him to smile, but at that moment they are jostled apart when the car gives a violent jolt accompanied by a sound like a shot that makes Sybil cry out and has Branson grabbing for the wheel to keep the car under control.

"What have I done?" she asks, horrified, as Branson steers the shuddering vehicle off the road.

"Nothing," he says, in tones that match his reassuring grip of her hand. "A flat tyre, that's all. It wasn't your fault."

"What a relief," says Sybil, though she's still catching her breath and doesn't sound at all relieved.

Branson squeezes her hand again, then hopes out of the car. "I'll have to change it, but it won't take long."

"Can I do anything to help?" Sybil asks when he opens up the back of the car to get out his tools and the spare tyre.

"If you like I'll show you how to change a tyre, but I'll warn you it's dirty work--and the ground's a bit like soup from yesterday's rain."

Sybil opens her door and steps down onto the muddy roadside before Branson can come around to assist her. "I'm not afraid of a little dirt. And shouldn't I know what to do in case I'm ever alone and a tyre goes flat? Surely it's as likely a scenario as my needing to park alongside a city kerb?"

Branson's slow smile stretches as he gives his head a little shake as he is so prone to do during conversations with her. This time, Sybil cannot deny the obvious affection in the expression, or the warmth that steals all through her or the fluttering in her breast as though her heart has taken flight. The openness of his regard, so different from the courtship games that began to play out at her London debut, makes her feel rather shy and uncertain how to proceed.

And then he is unbuttoning his chauffeur's jacket and shrugging his arms out of the sleeves, and she is at an utter loss at the sight of shirtsleeves and Branson's lean form in his trim waistcoat.

"Pardon me, Lady Sybil," he says when he notices her goggling at him, "but I am afraid of a little dirt."

"Or is it that you're afraid of what Carson and Mrs Hughes will say if you come in looking like a field hand?"

"That's it precisely. Do you mind?"

Sybil carefully drapes the jacket over her arms and tries not to be distracted by the lingering smells of Branson in the fabric--the faint tinges of petrol, motor oil, and wax mingling with the masculine tang of shaving soap--as he explains the process of changing a tyre.

He doesn't get far, however. Just as Branson's put the jack in place to lift the car so he can work, his voice is lost in a crack of lightning, followed by a sudden downpour as if the rain-saturated clouds were sliced open by the jolt of electricity.

Before Sybil can move, Branson springs upright and takes her elbow, leaning over her slightly to shield her from the rain with his taller, broader frame as he guides her into the back seat of the car. She slides across to make room for him beside her, but when she looks up from removing her wet gloves and retrieving her handkerchief to blot the water off her face, she sees Branson duck back out into the shower and drop to his knees in the sludgy ground to resume his task.

"Branson!" she calls out over another rumble of thunder and the pelting on the roof of the car that sounds like marbles raining down on the metal instead of water. "You can't mean to change a tyre in a thunderstorm!"

"If I don't, you'll be late getting home! I don't want Lord and Lady Grantham to suspect you haven't actually been at a committee meeting."

"Don't be daft! They won't suspect anything but that we've been delayed by the weather, and they'll understand about the tyre. Now please, come wait it out with me in the car!"

He makes no attempt at further argument, though he does pack his tools and stow them in the boot before joining Sybil.

"You're soaked," she says, unfurling his jacket.

Though he is visibly shivering, he takes it from her only after he has ascertained that she did not get wet enough to require the use of it. As he dons his jacket, Sybil struggles to squelch disappointment that the white shirt plastered to his arms and chest so that she can see the warm tones of his flesh beneath it is covered once again by the heavy wool. But she seems at a loss not to think about it as she finds and fresh handkerchief for him to dry his face and hair with.

"I hope the storm passes quickly so you won't have to sit too long in those wet clothes," she says, unable to stop her eyes from travelling down to watch him mop his neck just inside his collar. "You'll catch a dreadful cold."

"I'm Irish, Lady Sybil. We're perpetually wet and cold. Trust me, I'll live."

"I'm not worried you won't live," she replies, taking back her sodden handkerchief. "Only that you might be temporarily miserable."

Branson turns slightly in the seat to face her more fully, one arm stretched along the top edge of the seat so that his hand rests just above her shoulder. "What have I got to be miserable about?"

He looks at her for such a long time with such a contented look that Sybil blushes and wants to look away, but finds that she cannot. Branson's eyes won't allow her to look anywhere but into them. And she doesn't really want to look anywhere else, not really.

To her dismay, he breaks eye contact, glancing around the car. She feels a little better when she notes that he doesn't appear to be really taking any of it in at all, as if he, too, is a little overwhelmed by all of this--by them--and needs to regain his sense of balance. Which, intriguingly, makes her feel steadier.

"I've never sat in the back seat before," his lilting brogue breaks the silence.

"Do you feel as though you're subverting the social order?"

Chuckling low, he returns his gaze to her, and Sybil's breath hitches at the intensity of it in contrast with the absent expression of the moment just before.

"By sitting in the back seat of my employer's car with my employer's daughter? Not especially."

He slides closer to her so that his knee brushes her thigh and his arm slides down from the top of the rest in a comfortable crook around her shoulders. His body is surprisingly warm for being clad in sopping clothes, and Sybil thinks of his joke about cold, wet Ireland and decides that the fiery passion so characteristic of Irishmen must blaze so hotly from within that they can weather any storm.

She has a fleeting thought that right now, she is the fuel for that passion. Then Branson slides his hand to cradle the back of her neck, drawing her face toward his, and his lips melt into hers and she cannot think of anything at all except that she's catching fire, the whole world is catching fire, and that after this moment burns to its completion, she, everything will be different.

And when Branson pulls his lips from hers--but not his hand from behind her neck--and they linger a whisper apart, foreheads and noses touching, and her fingertips tracing the masculine smoothness of his cheek, he murmurs, "Now I'm subverting the social order."

"It seems you're a bit of a revolutionary after all," says Sybil, and pulls him down for another kiss.

Chapter Text

Part Five

These days, when Branson pulls the car over on the side of secluded roads, Sybil doesn't join him up front for a chance to drive; instead, he moves to the back with her for another chance to kiss.

There is at least as much to learn about kissing, she discovers, as there was to learn about driving. Never having kissed a man before Branson, it only occurs to her once she is actually doing it that more than lips are involved in this most intimate expression of affection and passion. With the exception of bumping noses on one or two occasions before they determined the precise angles at which to turn their heads to avoid this nuisance, she finds it less an exercise in her coordination than learning to simultaneously steer, shift gears, brake, check her mirrors, and watch the road.

But what compels Sybil about kissing is not her natural aptitude for the physical mechanics, but the ease with which she and Branson have moved from friends to... two people who kiss in the back seat of an automobile. Which, she realises, shouldn't be so surprising in light of how they so readily stepped beyond the boundaries of mistress and servant to form that friendship in the first place. Kindred spirits, she supposes you would call them, but something draws them together from a source that runs deeper than shared political views or common causes or a mutual blurred vision of class lines.

Something that makes it so very easy for her to be in the back seat of her father's car in the arms of her father's chauffeur...to press her body so close to his that she feels enveloped in him...to give herself willingly over to a sensation of helplessness that comes when he curves his broad palm over her neck and strokes her skin with work-roughened fingers...to be at the same time emboldened by his touch and in turn coax low sounds of need from him as she loosens his necktie so she may dip her head to kiss the uniquely masculine swell of his Adam's apple...to dishevel his ordinarily tidy hair by weaving her fingers through the strands she delightedly discovers are surprisingly fine, soft as a baby's...to rake the tips of her fingernails across his scalp, which kindles his fervour to claim her lips once again...to murmur his name--Tom, not Branson--against his mouth between kisses, and to allow him the same liberty of dispensing with the last barrier of formality.

Every kiss, every caress, every loving word she carries with her, at first as wonderful secrets that make her smile inexplicably whenever she rides with her mother or sisters and contemplates their scandal if they knew to what destinations this car carries her when she is the only passenger, what activities take place in this back seat besides travelling and making occasional small talk with the chauffeur.

However, the novelty of a secret illicit romance soon wears off when Sybil realises that to scandalise would be to demean what she has with Branson, what she feels for him. She doesn't want to keep secret that which makes her so happy, can't bear the thought of him ever thinking she hasn't come forward with their relationship because she is ashamed of him. She has justified her secrecy under the guise of protecting his job, but shouldn't she be concerned protecting his heart, as well?

And the car, which had been to her a symbol of power and independence and a haven from the limitations placed upon them both by society, now seems like a prison for hopes and dreams which have grown too large for it.

Feelings and hopes and dreams which are too large for even the whole world, such as it is.

She may believe that love should be allowed to transcend the boundaries imposed upon them by the old and the unenlightened, but when it comes down to defying her family, she is not so sure she's any more of a revolutionary than Branson. Oh, she talked big enough when she threatened her father with running away if he sacked Branson for taking her to Ripon for the Count, but in time, when her passion cooled, even she had to admit that she would have nowhere to go if she left her home. And where would Branson go, if he lost his job because of her?

The next time he leans in to kiss her, she turns her face to the window, which for the sake of privacy is up despite the day's being brilliantly sunny and warm, so that his lips graze her cheek.

"Sybil?"

The bewilderment in his voice is nearly enough to make her ignore the misgivings of her conscience, as is warmth of his breath as he nuzzles the sensitive skin behind her ear. She does turn to him--she owes him at least the courtesy of looking him in the eye when she says what she must say--but she holds him back from her with a hand against his chest.

"What is it?" he asks, brows furrowed.

Sybil opens her mouth to answer, and finds it has gone dry. It's too late now not to speak the words she meant to, so she says, hoarsely, "We can't go on like this, Branson."

He sits back from her, breaking all contact, as though burnt by her return to formality--which she feels, too, her tongue scarcely able to form his surname after having known the joy of whispering it in intimate moments.

"What do you mean?"

"This is wrong."

"Being with me is wrong?"

"No!" cries Sybil. "It's the deception...If we have to lie to everyone to be together...that can't be right, can it?"

He gives a defiant shrug such as he would deflect an argument that doesn't hold up to logic in a debate. "Is it right for them to deny us a chance at happiness because of arcane and arbitrary divisions between people?"

Sybil looks down at her hands in her lap, clutching at her skirt, crumpling the fabric, and feels her resolve weakening. Branson makes so much sense, as always, articulating her deepest held convictions in a way she has never been able.

"I'm sorry," he says, his tone softening. "I knew I was asking a lot of you, going against your family."

She jerks her head up to look at him, bristling at his implication that she has fallen short of his expectations. "This isn't your way, either, Tom Branson." She invokes his full name by way of compromise. "When you believe in something, you don't skulk about in secrecy, you pronounce your convictions boldly, relying on reasoned argument and lively debate to sway others to your point of view."

"I also know when to speak up about a belief, and when to keep quiet about matters people aren't ready to hear. Do you really think Lord Grantham's open to the idea of his chauffeur courting his daughter?"

The answer is no. Branson knows that as well as Sybil does, though since they kissed they've never given the truth any credence by speaking of it. But her knowledge that her father believes some men--most men--are beneath her by the sole virtue of their birth, doesn't stop Sybil from flushing from the collar of her frock to the roots of her hair with the shame of it.

"I do the best with what I have," Branson says. "If that's not enough for you--"

"That's just it," Sybil cuts him off. "You should be with a woman who can give you a world larger than the one within this car."

"Shouldn't I be the one to decide what sort of woman I should be with and what size world I'm happy to live in?"

Sybil gives him a small, sad smile. "But you won't be a chauffeur forever--you said so yourself."

Before she can offer another word of argument, Branson gets out of the car, slamming the door behind him, and takes his place in the driver's seat. He turns the car around and he takes her back to Downton in silence, and with the speed of that fast drive in the country that led to all of this horridness between them.

When they arrive at the house, Branson shuts off the motor and hesitates a moment at the wheel before getting out to help her, catching her gaze in the mirror.

"How large a world do you require, Lady Sybil?"

She takes in the reflection of the car's interior, and in her mind's eye sees all the moments they have had within it play out like a moving picture, only she can hear their voices engaged in conversation together as clearly as if played back to her on a phonograph. One conversation, in particular, is at the forefront. Driving's a bit like dancing, m'lady...Do you enjoy dancing, Branson?...With the right partner....I don't suppose there should ever be an occasion in which we might dance together.

"Only one large enough to dance in."

Chapter Text

Nearly a fortnight later Sybil receives a note from Branson, by way of Anna, asking if she can make up an excuse to be in Thirsk for an evening; he has someplace he'd like to take her which he believes will be of interest to her. This comes as quite a surprise, as Branson has left her in no doubt that he doesn't share her opinion that putting an end to their romance is for the best. She was sure he'd want nothing to do with her beyond the required shuttling her around to the village or Ripon--which she has avoided as much as possible, and then only in the company of her mother or sisters--and, indeed, for his part, he's not spoken a word to her beyond yes, m'lady since the day she broke it off with him, though his eyes in the mirror have spoken volumes to her of his longing.

Yet here he is, carrying on almost exactly as he always has with her, as if nothing, good or ill, has happened between them.

Well---perhaps not exactly. The silence between them as he hands her up into the car and speeds away from Downton is not the companionable one of friends or even the polite one of mistress and servant. Tension pulls between the back of the car and the driver's seat, the air almost electrified with Branson's lingering hurt and anger and Sybil's own sorrow and regret that it had to come to this.

So her astonishment is all the greater when Branson pulls the car over to the side of the road where they usually do to move seats.

"You'll still let me drive?" she asks, blinking at him in disbelief.

" Just because we're not kissing anymore doesn't mean we have to give up all our covert activities. And you've not had much opportunity to drive after dark. "

Warmth prickles Sybil's cheeks at his frankness--and underlying flirtation--but she steadies herself with the reminder that Branson, whether flirting or simply conversing, is never anything less than frank with anyone. She doesn’t look away demurely, instead smiling her relief that he is not so hurt that he cannot be friends with her. "Oh, I'm so glad!"

But her blush deepens when, after assisting her down from the back seat, Branson keeps hold of her hand and gazes at her intently.

"Anyway," he says, the corners of his mouth curving slightly upward, "I don't believe I've kissed you for the last time, Lady Sybil."

She would rebuke him for taking liberties, but his pairing of her title with the reference to their romance--and dear God, the intensity of his eyes--nonplusses her. Then, abruptly, his hand releases hers, leaving her with the sensation that her fingers are cold despite her glove, and he boosts her up by her elbow into the driver's seat. She sits, gripping the steering wheel with hands that now sweat profusely inside her kid gloves, until she has recovered from a wave of dizziness brought on by the disconcerting moment.

It gets better before it gets worse, however, as Branson doesn't immediately come around to his side of the car. Instead, he opens up the back, and Sybil glances over her shoulder to see him remove his hat and high leather driving gloves, tossing them carelessly into the rear seat. When he begins to undo the buttons across the front of his coat, she whips back around to face the front of the car, but her eyes stray more than once to watch his reflection in the mirror as he changes his chauffeur's uniform for an ordinary suit of clothes.

"Going incognito?" Sybil asks when he finally comes around to the front, trying not to be too obvious in her admiration of the grey tie and cap that bring out the colour of his eyes or the way his hair spills out from beneath the brim, though Branson's broad grin gives her the suspicion that she might not have been entirely successful in that endeavour.

"Now, I can't very well turn up where we're going wearing chauffer's livery and not driving, can I?"
He slides into his seat, and Sybil starts the car and turns back onto the road in the direction Branson had been driving.

"Where are we going, anyway?"

"Thirsk."

Sybil must concentrate on the unhelpfulness of his answer to distract herself from how attractive she finds his smirk and raised eyebrow when she glances sideways at him. "So you said--but where in Thirsk? A political meeting?"

"We may be meeting some people who may be political, yes."

Sybil shoots him a look of exasperation, but as her eyes turn back to the road she laughs quietly. "I see you're determined to cloak our destination in mystery. I suppose that makes it even more exciting."

"I prefer to think of it as a surprise. Though I'm glad you're excited about it."

The conversation lapses, Branson apparently expecting Sybil to continue, she unable to do so because she's not confident she can without returning his flirtation. It's impossible to interpret his words and actions in any other way than spoken and done with the intent to woo. Her natural impulse is to give in to his confident persistence which she honestly finds appealing, but she clutches the steering wheel again as if keeping control of herself as well as the car, half-tempted to turn around in the road and return home, if they can't have an outing together as friends without the undercurrent of more. Understandably they require time for the romantic feelings they have for each other to fade, but Branson seems determined not to let them.

Sybil presses the gas pedal deeper into the floor, accelerating as fast as she has yet dared to drive. Doesn't Branson realise this decision isn't any easier for her to accept than it is for him? But she does because it's for the best, for both of them. Because she cares more for his dreams than she does about her own.

His dream is her dream now.

Heaven help her if she does anything to jeopardise his already tenuous chances of seeing them realised.

She's so lost in her own thoughts, which Branson makes no attempt to interrupt, that she doesn't notice the countryside slipping away until suddenly the bright lights shining out of dozens of windows alert her to their arrival in the twilit town of Thirsk.

"You can park just there," Branson's voice at last breaks the silence, and Sybil's eyes follow the line of his pointing finger to a not generous opening alongside the kerb, between a dogcart and a dented Ford with chipped red paint.

Sybil fleetingly thinks how ostentatious her father's Rolls Royce is going to look parked between the two vehicles, and also how the parking situation seems so representative of her own state of being caught between two eras, two worlds.

"Now I know why you've brought me here," she says as she lines the car up with the gap. "The parallel parking test you set me wasn't challenging enough."

"If you're not comfortable, I can do it for you."

"No, I'll do it," says Sybil, shaking her head.

Branson flashes her a grin of approval. "I know you will."

In the end she manages to squeeze into the tight space, with a little help from the horse pulling the dogcart, which spied a clump of grass growing up through a broken cobblestone and opened up the gap a little wider when he went to eat it. Even though Branson teases her about giving the horse credit for this portion of her examination, Sybil basks in her success and doesn't wait for him to get her door for her before alighting from the vehicle.

The instant her feet touch the pavement, she becomes aware of the strains of fiddles and flutes and a piano drifting out from the open upstairs windows of the public house before them, along with the telltale clamour of stamping feet, clapping hands, and voices raised in laughter. Sybil's stomach constricts as she looks up at Branson, stood beside her now and looking down at her for her reaction.

"You've brought me to...a dance?"

"A mate of mine was married this morning. He and a lot of the other lads in town are shipping out in a fortnight, so they decided to make the wedding supper a farewell party, as well."

"Good God!" cries Sybil, reflexively reaching out to clutch Branson's hand. "This isn't your way of telling me you've joined up, as well?"

She feels sick with fear and a sudden rush of shame that she's been so wrapped up in her own pursuits of learning to drive and kissing Branson that she's given little thought to the very real troubles in the world that threaten to disrupt all their lives. Indeed, the war has already taken its toll on their own household, Thomas--astonishingly--and William having joined up immediately, along with a number of the gardeners and groundskeepers. And of course the great talk is whether Cousin Matthew will go, and what that might mean for the estate and for Mary.

Branson's eyes hold her tenderly as he presses her hand in reassurance. "No, m'lady. Not yet, anyway." She lets out her breath, and he adds, "This is my way of telling you there are places where we can dance together, if we're patient."

Sybil's heart begins to pound, in tempo with the music coming from the wedding celebration, and she nearly throws her arms around Branson and dances with him right there in the street, elated that he has proved her wrong.

Just as quickly, she reminds herself that he hasn't proved anything at all.

"Branson, this doesn't--Gwen?"

For at that moment, the pub door swings open to reveal a copper-haired woman whose familiar pale face is lit by the same beaming smile she wore the day Sybil had the joy of giving the former housemaid the happiest news in her life. Close at her heels--to be precise, his hand rests intimately around her waist--follows a uniformed man about Branson's age.

Gwen freezes on the stoop. "Lady Sybil? Tom?"

Branson reaches out and takes her hands in greeting. "This is a treat! I didn't know you'd be here. You know the happy couple?"

"Helen operates the switchboard--and Peter stood up with John."

Gwen introduces her soldier, one Peter Masters, and as Branson shakes hands with him, Sybil asks, "You enjoy your work for Mr Bromwich, then?"

That Gwen's face could beam any brighter seems impossible, but somehow it does. "I feel I was born to be a secretary."

"Bromwich says she's the best secretary he's ever had, and he's had a few," says Mr Masters, and Gwen flushes, but Sybil is pleased to see that her smile doesn't falter modestly.

"I'll never be able to thank you properly for getting me the job, Lady Sybil."

"Your happiness is more than thanks enough," Sybil says. "And do let's dispense with the formality now we're free to really be friends."

"All right," Gwen says with a little uncertainty. She glances at Branson, and Sybil plainly sees the questions which she's dying to ask.

Apparently Branson does, too. Rubbing his hands together, he says, "Right. I'm an Irishman, and I've been stood outside a pub for ten minutes. Can I get anyone a drink?"

His joke breaks the tension, but when the two men retreat inside the establishment for a pint and Sybil links arms with Gwen for a stroll up the pavement, away from the noisy party, she finds herself at a loss to begin the conversation.

Thankfully, Gwen relieves her of that burden. "I'm still so surprised to see you, m'lad--Sybil, I mean. You're really here for the dance?" She glances over her shoulder, then back at Sybil, lowering her voice. "With Branson?"

"He's been teaching me to drive, you see..."

Sybil shakes her head at her own feeble effort at hiding the truth. Though not in the habit of confiding in Mary or Edith, at the moment Sybil can think of nothing she'd like better than to talk her troubles over with a person she now realises she's long regarded as a sister. Though Gwen hasn't expressly invited her to do so, Sybil can't imagine she would mind returning the favour of providing a listening ear and advice, if she has any to give.

So she tells her everything.

"Well, I'm not surprised, at least not on his part," Gwen says when Sybil has finished. "It's been obvious for months that Tom's taken a shine to you."

"But you're surprised that I feel the same way about him?" Sybil is, frankly, a little miffed at the idea that the very woman with whom she'd formed a close camaraderie whilst in service in her house might not expect the same disregard for class boundaries in romantic relationships, as well.

Gwen seems to catch Sybil's undertone. "I only mean that you weren't as obvious with your feelings as he was with his."

"I wasn't aware of my feelings," Sybil concedes, "till after you left."

"Truthfully, I thought it was a pity for Tom, because the pair of you had the stuff good matches are made of, if only he weren't the servant and you weren’t the lady. Only I see now I shouldn't have worried after him."

Sybil stops walking and turns to her friend. "You mean you don't think it's hopeless for us?"

She searches Gwen's face for an answer, but the former housemaid has years of experience schooling her features to mask her thoughts.

But after a moment, Gwen says, "I think I owe you an apology,"

"Whatever for?"

Gwen's eyes cut away guiltily before she drags them back up to meet Sybil's and says, her low voice a whisper of remorse, "For thinking that being well-born means your dreams are surely in your grasp. The truth is that if I followed my dreams I had nothing to lose. You've got everything."

The acuity of the observation produces a pang in Sybil's chest and makes a prick at the back of her eyes. She blinks quickly against the moisture, draws up her shoulders, and twitches her lips into a smile which she hopes is brave, but which she has a feeling looks more like the sardonic one Mary wears whenever someone manages to strike a chord. She hopes she doesn't sound like Mary when she says, "Thank you, Gwen. Truly, I appreciate that--though it doesn't exactly fill me with hope for a happy ending with Branson."

She tucks her arm through Gwen's again, and Gwen gives her a sad little smile. "I don't know if it's hopeless for you or not. But the world is changing, that much I'm sure of."

Sybil hmms her agreement, a reserved response to the idea which ordinarily fills her with an exhilarating sense of having a mission in life. "I suppose the question is whether I want to be the one who changes it."

They turn back toward the pub, where Sybil is unsurprised to see Branson stood by the door, watching them--waiting for her--and she thinks that right now it would be much easier to change the world by chaining herself to a railing and going on a hunger strike for women's rights.

Gwen releases her and gives her a gentle nudge toward Branson. "Maybe a dance will help you make up your mind."

Chapter Text

A dance with Branson, Sybil thinks, leaving Gwen's side to rejoin him in front of The Darrowby Inn, is certainly likely to help her make up her mind about him.

Less certain is the likelihood of that decision being the correct one.

Her heartbeat quickens at the grin that stretches slowly across his face as she approaches the green-painted facade of public house--so much for her attraction to him fading with time--and she remembers the softness of his lips upon her own, and his earlier bold declaration that they have not kissed for the last time. Averting her gaze from his face doesn't help, as her eyes instead fix on his forearms, bared by rolled-up shirtsleeves--he must have got too hot when he went in for a drink--and she can think of nothing but his arms around her, the warmth of his skin radiating through the light fabric of her summer frock...

Out the corner of her eye she spies the car parked along the kerb. She should get into it, right now, and drive away from the pub, away from Thirsk, back home where the walls of Downton Abbey will keep them apart from each other where the bounds of society have, thus far, failed to do so. For if she remains here, at this wedding celebration, if she dances with Branson, it certainly will lead to more than a dance.

And Sybil simply doesn't think she has it in her to give him up for a second time.

She continues walking, straight past the car, without moving so much as a finger to open the door.

Because she also doesn't have it in her to refuse Branson a dance.

Not after he put so much effort into bring her to a place where they can dance together. Not when his eyes are looking at her, so bright and unblinking, as if being here with her is as unbelievable and wonderful as his dreams of being an MP.

It's only a dance, she tells herself. Deliberately, she slows her gait, deepens and lengthens each breath drawn and exhaled. Neither gives her a stronger conviction that it is only anything with Branson, but at least she is able to take his outstretched hand without trembling--much-- when he makes her a slight bow and asks, "Would you be so kind as to favour me with a dance, m'lady?" and she can answer in--more or less--steady tones, "I should be delighted, Mr Branson."

It's only as they're weaving their way through the throng of the pub up to the narrow staircase leading to the rooms above where the dance is being held that Branson reveals any emotion other than the perfect confidence with which he proclaimed they would kiss again. With the hand not holding hers, he reaches up to wipe beads of perspiration from the back of his neck; the corners of his smile appear to be stretched a little too taut.

"I know it's not the sort of dance you're accustomed to," he says, "I can only imagine the ball Lord Grantham held for your London debut."

Though Sybil knows very well Branson's opinion of the differing styles of living between those in her station and those in his, she recognises a clear note of wistfulness underpinning his words. For an instant she indulges a fantasy of sweeping with him through gilt doorframes into a grand ballroom, he formally attired in tails, ivory waistcoat, and gold watch chain, she in the dream of creamy silk that just glows faintly pink like clouds touched by the dawn, and of him leading her out onto the dance floor for her first waltz under the approving gazes of her parents and the envious ones of her sisters. It's a vision she's held since she was a girl, sneaking away from nurses and governesses to watch Mary and Edith come of age in splendour, and she wonders if she's truly willing to give that life up for the humble one Branson can offer her, whole-heartedly as he does.

She shakes off the daydream and opens her eyes to the reality of the room into which he's brought her, where soldiers and merchants and farm-hands and servants dance with milkmaids and laundresses and shop girls and--spying Gwen--secretaries, all dressed in a variety of Sunday bests which would never pass muster with her family at any time. More eye-catching than their clothes is the joy that they all wear, equalling any merriment contained in the ballroom, in spite of peeling plaster and squeaky wooden floorboards in desperate need of refinishing, and fiddle and piano strings not quite in tune with each other. Joy, in turn, wells up within Sybil as surely as it did the night she was presented at Court as a grown woman. For here are women who don't attend merely because they are eligible, but because they are equal.

And that, she suspects, may be well worth whatever the cost to her.

She gives Branson's hand a squeeze. "It's the best dance I've ever attended--certainly you're the best partner."

He grins. "We'll see if you still think that after you've actually danced with me."

Think it, Sybil does, as Branson whirls her around the room. In fact, if either of them is clumsy or out of step, it's she, not being familiar with a number of the dances preferred by townsfolk. There are, of course, the waltzes and polkas that are the thing at society balls, though they have a decidedly different flavour when accompanied by a patchwork band of musicians culled from among the bride and groom's friend--not to mention when partnered with an Irishman whose rolled up his shirtsleeves and loosened his necktie and smells, rather exotically, like whiskey and a warm garage. She's fully reliant on his instruction in the Turkey Trot, the Bunny Hug, the Two-Step, and the Foxtrot, which is so new that Branson himself hasn't had much practice at it, all dances which she's heard of from her mother as imports from America but of course hasn't danced because, they are, in her granny's words, too lewd for polite society.

But Sybil detects nothing improper about these dances, despite the proximity of Branson's body to hers at times, and she revels in the fun and the freedom of the movements, the feeling of relaxation the swinging ragtime rhythms allow to seep into her tendons and joints. It reminds her of that one fleeting evening more than a year ago when she dared to wear bloomers to dinner. She wishes she'd thought to wear them tonight, though Branson's smile at her even as she is matches the one he flashed her through the window that day.

"Are you a quick study at everything?" he asks her, practically shouting the question above the throng of the instruments and the pounding feet of the dancers and the muffled din of the pub below.

"It certainly didn't take long for you to teach me to dance like a commoner!" she puffs out, surprised to find herself breathless with exertion at the deceivingly effortless dance. "Or to drive a car."

"Or to be a Socialist. Which do you think Lord Grantham would be least pleased about?"

Teaching me to kiss, Sybil thinks, a little surprised Branson doesn't say it. "The dancing, without a doubt," she replies. "I'm sure to make a spectacle of myself at my next season, doing the Turkey Trot."

"I doubt if even London high society'd think any the less of you for doing the Turkey Trot than this lot here. Or haven't you noticed all the envious looks the other lads are sending my way?"

"What?" Sybil glances around, askance, though all she sees is the blur of the other couples whirling around them.

She finds herself drawn snugly against Branson's chest and his cheek pressed to hers as he murmurs in her ear, "You're the most beautiful woman at the party, Sybil Crawley. You outshine the bride. They can't keep their eyes off you."

At once Sybil's face flushes hot even as a shiver courses down from the place where his breath touched her ear. She wants to turn her head to kiss the lips that whispered so sweetly to her, but instead she reins in desire and holds her body back from his. She cannot, however, stop herself from indulging in flirtation.

"But you can spare a glance from me to notice the other men looking?" she quips.

"I'm simply employing the quality that makes me an excellent chauffeur."

"Which is--?"

"Being aware of my surroundings at all times, even while keeping my eyes on the road." His eyes rake over her, stirring up a blush, and he grins as if aware of the effect he has on her. "So to speak."

Sybil has observed his focus behind the wheel. To now be the object of that intense scrutiny herself...She has a feeling her head would be spinning even if she weren't in the middle of an unfamiliar dance. No one had paid this degree of attention to her even at her own debutante ball. Oh, she had admirers, to be sure, handsome, perfect gentlemen, all of them. But none of them looked at her as Branson does now: as if he really knows her, as if what makes her truly beautiful to him has nothing to do with clothing and coifs and cosmetics.

Suddenly, as he twirls her, she laughs, the sound mingling with a serious of rollicking notes from one of the fiddles, as if the music is an accompaniment to her high spirits. When she's face-to-face with Branson again, she meets him with his eyebrows raised.

"Is there some joke I'm missing?" he asks.

"I was just thinking..." Sybil hesitates, feeling rather sheepish about the thought that just occurred to her. But she's told a great many things to Branson at which most of her other friends would balk, and he's never made her feel foolish. So she says, "I feel a bit like Cinderella at the royal ball."

In true Branson form, he doesn't miss a beat. "I see the similarity--except that obviously you've not left a bed of ashes to come here, and your sisters are far from ugly."

"Though they're certainly quarrelsome enough."

"And you travelled here by car, not carriage."

"Hmm." Sybil must concede that point. "Which I drove myself, without any assistance from a fairy godmother."

"So what you mean," Branson says, "is that you don't actually feel anything like Cinderella at all."

Sybil doesn't know if she can explain herself properly to him. How she feels that at last, with the culmination of these driving lessons, she feels as if she's been released from the sheltered world within the walls of her family home. Not that she doesn't love Downton, and her family. It's just that since she met Branson, she's come to see that home is only a small corner of a much larger world, which she wants to see more of than what they would think she should see and show her. She wants the freedom to discover the world for herself, and to return home whenever she pleases.

"I'm afraid my car will turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight," she says. "I can't believe I'm really here, with you."

Branson's arm tightens around her, and he looks at her in such a way as must mean he is thinking of drawing her in closer for a kiss.

Before he can do, however, the song ends, and he leads Sybil off the dance floor to the refreshment tables at the end of the room. He gives her a glass of punch, which refreshes her after the vigorous dancing, but does nothing to cool the ardour Branson stirred up in her or her disappointment that the moment came to an end; as he tilts his head back to drain his glass, she watches the roll of his throat above his collar in fascination.

"If you're Cinderella," he asks, refilling their glasses from the punch bowl, "does that make me Prince Charming?"

"Of course not." When Branson turns back to her, his expression one of amused surprise, Sybil does her best to maintain a straight face as she adds, "You're a Socialist. You don't believe in princes."

To her delight, Branson, more one to merely smirk his amusement or chuckle silently than to guffaw, nearly snorts his punch. Sybil grins into her own glass as she takes a sip.

"Anyway," she goes on, "as you gave me the means to attend the ball, that must make you--"

"Dear God, don't say it!" Branson splutters. "That's how you thank me for teaching you to drive and taking you to a party? By casting me in the role of the Fairy Godmother in the strangest re-telling of Cinderella I've ever heard?"

Setting her empty punch glass on the table, Sybil arches up on her toes and brushes her lips across Branson's cheek as she weaves her fingers together with his. "This is how I say thanks."

She pulls him out into the centre of the room amidst other couples assembling for what is announced to be the final dance of the evening. The musicians strike up a slow waltz, and without hesitation Branson takes her in his arms and begins to move with her in time to the music. He holds her closer than is strictly appropriate for a waltz, their joined hands tucked against his chest, his other hand resting intimately low in the small of her back. At first she is rather taken aback by it, then observes the other men in the room locked with their sweethearts in the same slow-dancing embrace--particularly the soldiers; Gwen has even tucked her chin under Mr Masters' chin--and realises that this night is borrowed time, even for her. Branson may not be bound for the battlefields of France, but she's nevertheless to be separated from him. So she settles her own hand high on his shoulder so that her fingers brush the smooth warmth of his neck and stroke the softness of his hair. He leans into her touch as she arches into his, and she gives herself over to the dance. Their movements now are little more than swaying; she thinks of two strong trees, deeply rooted and entwined against the raging storm.

When Branson speaks, she feels the low rumble in his chest against her own. "If you're not Cinderella and I'm not the Prince, does that mean you won't run away at the end of the night?"

Sybil's heartbeat quickens, knowing the meaning behind his question, not knowing whether her answer ought to be the one she wants to give, or the one she should give. She knows that in any case, she wishes he would kiss her, either for the last time or as a fresh beginning to their halted romance, and tilts her face up toward his.

Branson responds in kind, and stops dancing as he pulls her against him, but she feels no more than the caress of his warm breath on her lips before he draws back. "We should go."

Needless to say, she's a little bewildered as he escorts her from the room and out of the pub, and even more so when he opens the back door of the car for her.

"I thought you wanted me to practice driving home in the dark?" she asks, making no move to get in until Branson's hand on her elbow boosts her up into the passenger seat.

No sooner has she sat, her mouth still open in question, than he is clambering into the car after her, his lips pressed hard against hers. For a moment her astonishment renders her unable to respond, but soon enough she recovers her senses enough to yield to the insistence of his kisses, to relish the scratch of his stubble against her chin and the throb at the nape of her neck as his fingers tangle in her hair. She makes a low moan at the familiar sensation of his tongue pushing her lips apart, deepening the kiss, and she elicits a similar response from him when she catches his lower lip between her teeth, the throaty sound accompanied by the tiny jingle of a few hairpins falling to the floor.

The world seems to tilt on its axis as she finds herself reclining backward in the seat, Branson bestowing kisses from above. Coherent thought begins to slip away, but as his lips leave hers as he adjusts his position to hold his weight off her, it occurs to her to give him one last chance to consider what this may mean for him if they continue on this irrevocable course.

She places her palm against his shoulder and pushes, gently, against him. He looks at her, breathing raggedly, his eyes blue flames of fire reflecting the moonlight beyond the car windows and the passion within him.

"It was only a dance, Tom. It didn't change anything."

"No," he says, hoarsely, his agreement so surprising that Sybil's heart constricts with an electric shock. Then he adds, "But it wasn't only a dance, my lady." He cups her face in one hand, his thumb stroking her cheek, as the other closes around her hand in the valley between her breasts. "It was hope."

Hope...

...That Branson will be free love her without fear of reprisal from his employer...That Sybil will be free to return that love and build it on a foundation free of lies and deceit...That others will accept them as they accept each other...

...Someday.

She wraps her arms around him and holds his head against her breasts; his lips graze the skin above the neckline of her dress.

"We may have a long wait," she murmurs, "before we can really be together."

"You're worth waiting for," he replies, and he kisses her again and again, along her collarbones, up her neck, in the sensitive hollow between her jaw and her ear. "Worth working for...worth fighting for...even if I have to wait and work and fight for ten years or more."

If she is honest, Sybil still is not certain how much of her life this fight, like her quest for women's rights, will require her to give up, but then again Gwen's words return to her and Sybil is just as unsure how much will be taken by forces that are already at work in the world and far beyond her control. Loving Branson may well require the fewest sacrifices.

She draws his face up to claim his lips once more, but she pauses for a moment before the kiss.

"I know where our fight should begin," she tells him.

"Where?"

She nudges him, and he sits up, pulling her upright with him, and turns her head to look at the steering wheel in the front of the car. "With driving lessons."

"But you already know how to drive."

"Exactly," Sybil says, throwing her shoulders back and flashing her most defiant smile. "And it's high time my father knew it."

~Fin~