As any fan fiction writer will tell you, there are times when you can plan out a story, even a long story, and then happily write each chapter from beginning to end, in order, methodically. That, of course, is the more professional way to do it – when you're in charge of the process.

Then there are times when a plot bunny takes up residence in your head and hops about continually until you write it out.

This is one of those.

He had said that he couldn't bear for her to think that they might 'take up' together again when they couldn't, and both his confession and his discomfort had been genuine. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her by encouraging her, leading her on, letting her know his true feelings…and then have to watch while she became disappointed and disillusioned, while she realised just how old and crippled he was, what a terrible bargain she had in him.

But days had passed since then. The longer he went without seeing her, the more he believed that he'd been an idiot. Had he hurt her? She had not contacted him again. Surely that meant either that she had taken him at his word and forgotten him (which hurt, but was the best for her, he had to face it) OR that she didn't care a fig for him in the first place and all his hopes (hopes he had crushed on a daily basis, only for them to grow back stronger than before) had been built on a deluded misconception of his that such a lovely woman could care for him.

At least I have all those lovely memories from before the War he thought to himself as he got into the back seat of his car to collect a precious package of books he was having sent down on the London train. All those wonderful rides in this very Rolls…he let his thoughts wander to the most heavenly evening of his life and the drive to York for that blissful concert, how incredibly beautiful she had looked, how sweet and coy she had been, how soft her silk-gloved hand had been on his, how she'd blushed demurely at his compliments, how he'd lost himself in her eyes…

"Lady Edith!"
It was entirely a coincidence, he told himself, that he had been thinking of her and then there she was as if by magic, just outside the Post Office as he drove past. (The fact that he'd been thinking of her almost constantly had nothing to do with it.) But he shouldn't have called out to her like that. Now she was walking towards the car which Stewart had stopped immediately he'd heard Anthony call out to her.
"Hello!" she said, her musical tones sounding for all the world as though she was happy to see him.
"Hello!" he managed, although he sounded like a soppy schoolboy with a huge, uncontrollable crush on his French mistress.
"What are you doing here?" she smiled.
"I'm meeting a train, but I'm too early." At least he'd managed to get his voice under control again.
"Oh. That's unusual for you. You're usually absolutely on time. On. The. Dot!" she laughed, opening the door of the car and stepping in to sit by him. Oh god… His heart rate quickened as she turned slightly to look at him, brushing his knees with hers as she did so.
"I mustn't hold you up" he squeaked, afraid of what she might say, and what he might do in response.
"I'm not doing anything" she said, thinking but I'm so glad to see you. You are the only person in the world who could make me feel anything more than just a wizened old spinster right now. Anthony was looking at her expectantly, politely…but more than politely, with interest. He really wanted to know how she was.
"I thought I'd get away from wedding panic." That was truthful, at least.
"Don't you like weddings?" he asked, with a tinge of something both sympathetic and poignant. She thought back to tea at Locksley the previous week…"I don't need a wife, I need a nurse". She didn't want to make him sad. She certainly didn't want to hear him say he didn't want her again. So she concentrated on the preparations for Mary's nuptials.
"Don't be silly. Of course I do. Only, I've talked of clothes and flowers and food and guests until I'm blue in the face."
"Yes, weddings can be reminders of one's loneliness, can't they?"
He looked so…so resigned. And he'd expressed exactly, exactly, how she was feeling about all the fuss about Mary. Mary...for whom nothing was too expensive or too much trouble, who had the unstinting love of both her parents and Matthew...and there was 'poor Edith' sitting close to the man she had loved for six years in vain. He'd told her they were only going to be friends. And without him there was nothing in her future, not love, not companionship, only bleakness stretching out for years and years. And he still thought…well, she wasn't sure what he thought, but it was obvious that he didn't feel the same about her, as she did about him.

She couldn't help it. Despite all her upbringing and years of training in decorum, she closed her eyes, bowed her head, and quietly began to weep.

"Sorry, I don't know why I said that. Please, Lady Edith, please don't cry."
Of course that just made her weep more. How could he be so sensitive and kind, and then in the next moment make her so unhappy?
"Stewart, drive us down to the end of the village where we won't be seen."
"Yes, sir."
Anthony really was at a loss for what to do for best. It was his right hand that was nearest her, so he couldn't offer her any solace without stretching to reach her and that would be noticed by people in the street. He was sure she really wouldn't want to be embarrassed in that manner.
Stewart parked up behind some trees off the road, well away from any buildings or people. Anthony looked at his pocket watch and came to a decision.
"Stewart, would you return to the Station Master's Office to collect those books, and then…" he fished a bank note out of his pocketbook "…go to the Grantham Arms and I'll fetch you when we're ready."
"Very good, sir." Anthony's loyal man looked compassionately at Edith but decided not to mortify the lady any further by offering his sympathy, and left without another word.
Edith was beginning to be able to compose herself a little, although she felt her resignation to a constant ache of disappointment and melancholy in her life like a stone around her neck. She didn't want to leave her beloved Anthony's car and his dear company painful though it was to know that he didn't return her feelings. But she didn't want to remain there either, when she had made such an embarrassment of herself.
"My dear" Anthony began, twisting towards her and gently taking her hand in his, "I know you won't really want to confide in me, but I would dearly love to be able to help you if you tell me what is wrong and what I can do."
When she looked in his eyes, mesmerising as they always were, she also saw genuine care. He hadn't judged her for her loss of control. He hadn't even made any remark that might have contained half-hidden sarcasm like Mary or Granny would have. It made the tears well again, but she blinked them back.
How much of the truth should she tell him? They lived in the same district, the same village...perhaps she had better be completely honest, to avoid misunderstandings in the future like those in the past.
"Anthony, when Mary's wedding happens in a few weeks' time, I shall be left as the only unmarried daughter, the one expected to look after my aging parents and to become the maiden aunt to Sybil's and Mary's children. Is it any wonder that 'weddings can reminders of one's loneliness'? Because they certainly do that to me. Especially this one."
She sighed and looked out of the car, avoiding his eye now that she had got it all out.
"Oh, Edith, that won't happen to you, I'm absolutely certain of that. There will be some dashing young man with his life ahead of him who has brains and taste enough to know when he's standing in front of a goddess!"
"A goddess? Oh Anthony, you and your almost Mediaeval sense of chivalry and honour!...which I love so much when you aren't being so exasperating. Do you know how many supposedly eligible young men I knew from before the War who survived it? Five. And that includes you, Matthew who was also wounded, and Larry Grey who bribed his way to serving three years as a Staff Officer fifty miles behind the front lines."
Anthony's expression was a well of pain and misery. He shut his eyes trying not to see the truth of what she had said, and the fact that, wounded or not, he had returned when so many young men who deserved to had not. He shook his head, unable to face it.
"But there are still good men around and one of them is bound to discover the last available Grantham beauty. You are too lovely to remain single for long."
Edith gave a bitter laugh.
"I'm sorry, Anthony, but you are wrong. In my entire twenty-five years of life, there has only ever been one man, one man only, who gave me anything more than half a glance before pursuing my sisters instead. Only one man made me feel that I was worth his time, or that he actually enjoyed my company, or led me to believe that he thought highly enough of me to contemplate proposing marriage to me...even if he then came to his senses and didn't."
"No! That isn't what happened, Edith! Please believe me. That day was the most tragic, awful day. I was a fool to let Mary play on my insecurities. I would have proposed to you if that hadn't happened, or if War hadn't been declared."

"But you...you don't want to propose now."
He was distressed; she could see it in the irregular way he was breathing, the tension in the way he leant towards her, and the anguish etched on his handsome face.
"It isn't a case of not wanting to, Edith. You are an amazing woman, you deserve better than me. When Downton was a convalescent hospital, you helped look after the officers, yes? Didn't any of them recognise how wonderful you are?"
"There was one..." Anthony's heart fell with resignation "...but he turned out to be a conman who saw me for what I am: a plain and gullible fool of a dried-up old spinster."

"You are no such thing! You are inspiring, and intelligent, enchanting, and bewitchingly beautiful. You will meet a good man who is worthy of you, and you must not belittle yourself in such a manner. I won't...I won't allow it."

To her shock, Anthony seemed almost...angry with her. She'd never seen him so disturbed as he was now. Well, what he had said had annoyed her too. Hadn't he heard a word she had said in the last five minutes?

"Well, Sir Anthony, we had better agree to disagree, because as far as I'm concerned I have found the man who makes me feel lovely and cherished, who gives me the courage and confidence to achieve more than I thought possible and all those other things you just mentioned. The trouble is he doesn't want me."

"That isn't true, Edith! I do want you! God, how I want you! I just don't deserve you!"

"You...want me?"

"Yes!"

"Forgive me if I can't believe that based on your behaviour towards me recently."

She was just summoning up the courage to leave the car, when she felt a strong, masculine hand expertly slip around her waist and take hold of her back, pulling her bodily towards him. Eyes wide, she saw he had removed his hat, tossing it carelessly onto the floor. He'd removed his right arm from its sling. His own eyes were hard as steel, determined, possessed. He held her tight, bent down and kissed her...hard.