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Tom could clearly remember the moment that hurled him over the edge of the worst mistake he ever made. He could see her now, in his mind’s eye, fresh like it just happened moments ago. He felt bruised, as if he had been thrown against a wall, and he had no way to stop fighting with her now.
All that fighting, for weeks, it seemed, and it was nothing more than his ego and hers clashing together. And he had the nerve to tell her to fall in love with another man so soon after the crash…
He could see it: Mary, standing as she faced the stairs, her face wrought with tears. “Do you know the worst thing?” she asked, shaking as she spoke. “When they said it was Charlie and not Henry who was dead, I was glad! Think of that! I was glad!”
Tom’s eyes softened as he stood opposite to her, breathing heavily and ever so slowly. “You’re not seeing straight. Today brought up Matthew’s death and all the rest of it. You’re in a black mist,” he tried to rationalize. His voice was heavy with panic and tears, just like her, but he hid it better than she did.
She looked at him, crazed, desperate. “It’s not what I want!” She let out a hard sob.
Tom slowly went to her, reaching for her instinctively. He took her hands without even thinking, and she was so needy for the contact she accepted it. “You’re frightened of being hurt again,” he said, his blue eyes searching her brown ones. “But let me tell you this — you will be hurt again.” He swallowed, feeling his heart pound as his mouth let loose another truth he couldn’t control, “And so will I, because being hurt is a part of being alive. But that is no reason to give up on the man that’s right for you.”
For a flash of a second, he saw something die in her. He suspected, at the time, that it was merely the realization she would have to open herself up again — to experience pain again — but now, in retrospect…
Branson felt a chill go down his spine.
The following mistake, they were walking through the woodland, swinging their arms in synchrony, and he refused to believe what he suspected. He really had no evidence at all. Nothing. Really, truly nothing, except a gut feeling and the worst possible intuition that if he sprung what he was keeping on her now, she would never receive him ever again.
He could feel his heart leaping out of his chest as he decided to just stick with what he absolutely knew for certain: Henry Talbot. “Mary, let me get him up here,” he begged.
She brushed him off. “There’s no point. Nothing’s changed.”
“You’ve changed.”
“It’s not as easy as that. I find him very attractive. I like him a lot,” she hedged, keeping a brave face on. But Tom knew who he was talking to.
He mimicked her words: “‘I find him very attractive. I like him a lot.’ What a load of baloney!” The two of them might have been the only people on the planet who would know enough to call her out, but that didn’t matter. They were the only two people here. She was staving off more than just Henry Talbot, right now, anyway; she was trying to make-believe that love wasn’t real. He knew her. She was trying to keep herself and others at bay!
“If I’m in love with him, then what’s that? A powerful urge that fades.”
“Did it fade for you and Matthew?” he asked.
Her reply almost made him seethe: “We weren’t married long enough, but I’m sure it would have done.”
“I’m not.”
“Tom, look I don't mean to pull rank, but with people like us, we need to marry sensibly.” The more she spoke, the angrier he became. It was like she wasn’t even hearing herself, she was just trying to paint herself out to be the bad guy. “Especially if we’re going to inherit the family show. It’s a way of life that isn't for everyone, and a bad marriage can poison it.”
“He’s not an orangutan. He knows how it works.”
“He wants different things,” she pointed out. And that was true: Henry wanted different things than Mary, but compromises could be made, couldn’t they? Didn’t Branson and Sybil want different things when they started out?
“What about you and Matthew? You came from different poles.”
“Yes, but we were young and free.” He had to sigh again. Who was he talking to? Some version of Mary that he had never met before, that was for certain. “It’s difficult the second time.”
Now that sounded like baloney!
“Why?”
“Because you know what’s at stake. It’s easier to get it wrong.”
“I only see a real opportunity for you to get it right,” he said, a little more argumentative.
“Honestly?”
His heart was beating faster and faster. She was accusing him of something, and he knew it. “I’m always honest.”
She peeped at him, suspicion written all over her face. “Are you?”
“Why would you say that, for heaven’s sake?” he asked, with sweaty palms and a hot neck and a moment’s notice away from saying everything wrong.
Yet, somehow, Mary hit a different nail on the head. “One word: Marigold.”
Tom was too stunned to speak right away. He was embarrassed, of course, but thrown off. How did she piece that together but not…? “...It wasn’t my secret to tell.”
“So it is true.” Mary paused. “Well, I knew it was.”
He sighed again. “Never mind Marigold. She won’t make you happy. Henry Talbot will.” Henry Talbot, his mind shouted. It stung, in a way, and he knew why it did. But he would rather see her married off to a man who could properly take care of her than scare her away himself.
And maybe that made him a coward.
But Henry was a better man than he was.
“Oh, Henry Talbot, Henry Talbot. You’re far more on his side than you were on mine,” she said, her voice more emotional than before.
“He’s the one for you,” he urged. “Trust me and give him a chance.”
“No. And if you want to redeem yourself in my good graces, you won’t give him a chance either!”
She marched off angrily. With one last sigh, he screwed his hat on tighter and marched after her. He wasn’t happy. She certainly wasn’t, either. But still, when he caught up to her, she reached for his hand and their fingers laced together.
That was the first time Tom had held anyone’s hand while he was furious with them.
The following days were still tense, but the tensions eased. Maybe she was starting to see his argument.
Until he invited Henry to Downton Abbey.
Mary was absolutely livid, stomping up the stairs as Tom followed her up them. Henry was there, behind them, but he didn’t really give a damn at the moment.
“This is so precisely not the way to win me over,” she snapped lightly at him.
“Mary, will you just get off your high horse?” he tried.
She turned around, irate. “Why are you interfering, anyway?”
He blinked. “Because I love you and I want you to be happy.” The Isn’t it obvious? was tacked on without him having to say so.
She rolled her eyes. “Well, you’ve got a bloody odd way of showing it!”
And before either of them knew it, Henry caught up.
“Well, I take it this is me you’re fighting about?”
“Yes, it is,” Tom answered, keeping his eyes on Mary. Unsure himself whom he was talking to, he added, “And you can dig yourself out. Because I’ve had enough.”
Mary scoffed as Tom left her and Henry alone. He could hear her ask, “Have you brought a dinner jacket?” in her nasty tone, but nothing solid past that. He heard the bickering — arguing, really — but left it to her to take care of.
And still… He knew he should have backed down.
What if Mary really didn’t want Henry, and she wasn’t just afraid?
He waited until evening and until he cooled off to talk to her again. Currently, he couldn’t handle it. He knew it, too, and he knew she couldn’t handle it.
Right now, it was that same evening. He was standing with her again, watching her eyes rest on the trio talking on the other end of the room. “I like Bertie. I do. But when you see them together…,” she started, trailing off as she let her thought hang in the air.
“Meaning?” he asked, already despising where this was going.
“Only if Henry were the new Marquess of Hexham, there wouldn’t be a woman who wasn’t setting her cap at him,” she explained.
“What about you? Would you set your cap at him? Because if that’s why you’re not, shame on you.” He felt a sting, too. Did she really care so much about position? He thought she was better than that.
And after a frighteningly long pause, it confirmed what he said as right. A stone sank in his belly. That felt personal, somehow. “Oh, stop lecturing me!” she flung. She dashed off with a loud huff, and Tom stood still.
He watched Henry dash after her.
And that, for the first time, was when he actually made the right decision. He caught up to Henry first and held him back. “No,” he said, “don’t. It was me, this time, and I’ve got to fix it.”
“Are you sure?” Henry asked, looking at him quizzically. “She’s obviously upset because I’m here.”
“Let me,” Tom urged.
Henry sighed, but relented. “If you say so.”
And that was all it took to dash out the door. “Mary!” he called when he saw her. “Mary, wait. Mary!”
“What do you want, Tom?” she asked harshly. She stopped on the stairs, but didn’t turn around. She merely looked over her shoulder at him. “You’ve been pushing me toward something I don’t want for weeks! What else do you want me to say? Do you want me to roll over? Are you just going to accuse me of being a grubby little gold digger, again?”
“I didn’t call you that, Mary,” he said, shaking his head. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sorry I offended you, but is that really what’s stopping you from marrying him? Is it just his money?”
“Of course, it isn’t,” she said, gripping the stair rail so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Haven’t you stopped to think that for a moment, just a moment, that I might not love him? Everyone says I do, but who would know best? Those around me or myself?” She left her mouth agape as she collected herself. “I’ve told you before, Tom, that I don’t like my hand being forced. I really don’t need you or anyone else to convince me I’m feeling things that I’ve never felt and never will for him.”
Branson climbed the stairs after her with the speed of a slow raindrop down a pane. “And I’ve told you that I love you, and I want you to be happy. I want you to be taken care of by someone who has the confidence, the bravery, and the experience to be with you. He cares about you. He’s a good man. It seemed so right that you’d reciprocate.”
Mary wiped her face, still stunned and exasperated. “Why do you advocate for him so forcefully? Are you getting something out of it?” she asked. “Is he somehow promising you something?”
“No!” he cried. He took a deep breath and did his best to stay calm. “No. I get nothing out of it other than seeing you taken care of.”
“And who put you in charge of that?”
“Me.” Tom stared at his shoes, chewing his lip before looking back at her. “Me. I did. Stupidly, I did.”
“Why? Do you owe me something?”
“I love you, Mary,” he said again. Fear clung to him, turning his limbs to lead. He couldn’t move another inch.
“I know you love me,” she told him, looking confused. She turned around fully, knitting her eyebrows together. “But that doesn’t mean you owe me anything when it comes to my marriages.”
“Mary,” he breathed. It was all he could say as he silently wished she understood.
And then her eyes widened so big, she had to sit down on the steps. “Tom,” she gasped. “Tell me I’ve got it wrong.”
“I love you. I love you.” He swallowed thickly. “I couldn’t very well marry you myself, could I?”
A tear fell down her face. “God, you couldn’t have possibly said this before?”
“How could I?” he asked, hanging his head.
“How couldn’t you?” she asked, breathing hard and heavy. She put her hand over her heart. “This explains everything… The interference, the insisting, the man you picked out!” Mary pressed her lips into a line as she stared at the ceiling. “I thought it was just me seeing things, but I can’t believe it.”
“I’m sorry,” he breathed. He knelt on the stairs in front of her, keeping a distance but staying close enough to touch. “I should have never…”
“No,” she said, cutting him off. “No, you shouldn’t have pushed me to another man.”
“No, Mary, I should have never said anything in the first place.” He wiped his mouth. “If I just kept quiet about everything —”
“Even Henry?”
“Even Henry,” he agreed, “then you would be happy.”
She wiped her eyes, still in shock. “You’re so impossibly stupid,” she said quietly, shaking her head. She reached for his hands, her fingers shaking as she snaked them through his. “So stupid…”
He gripped her fingers tightly. “Mary,” he whispered, “I never should have been so stupid.”
“Will you promise to stop being silly?” she asked, putting her forehead against his. “Send Henry away,” she said, “because I’m certainly not marrying him after this.”
“Would it hurt you, now that you know?” he asked. He cupped her face, brushing his nose over hers. “Does it hurt now?”
“Shut up.” She pressed her lips against his carefully but firmly. He kissed back gently. She pulled away and kept her eyes shut tightly. “We’re certainly not done fighting.”
“I understand,” he said, a surprise chuckle escaping him. She smiled, petting his cheek.
“Papa will be quite confused,” she said. “Henry coming to win my hand only for you to take it.”
And that was the best decision he could have made. He took her hand and helped her off the steps. “Let’s go back, Mary,” he said, guiding her back to the party. He still felt quite shocked. He knew she did, too — he saw it on her face and how she glided down the stairs.
“Does this mean we’ll be getting married?” she asked, still processing the whole ordeal. “Or will we have some time?”
“I don’t mind waiting as long as you need to,” he said, rubbing her knuckles. “But let’s worry about Henry first… God, I feel like a fool.”
“You should. He really had no business being here.”
When they passed back into the party, Bertie and Edith were just leaving. They could hear snippets of their conversation: “Before I say anything, I want you to know that I’ve always planned on telling you this… but I wanted to make sure…”
Mary held Tom tighter. “Marigold, I assume?”
“I hope so.”
Henry was standing in the middle of the room, having been pacing when they entered the party again, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw their intertwined hands. Robert and Cora almost didn’t notice at first, but when they did, they were equally shocked as Henry.
“You can’t be serious,” Robert said, gaping. “And here I was thinking I was only imagining things!”
“Are you two finally done bickering?” Cora asked, putting a hand over her heart.
“Yes,” Mary said, smiling wider than she had in a long time. “I think we are.”