Winter Rose

Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.

- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

London, 1873.

"For God's sake, Violet!"

The words slashed against her back like a whip.

Violet Crawley did not flinch. Slowly, she replaced the hair-brush on her dresser. The silvered back connected with the inlaid wood. It clicked.

The noise broke his temper again.

"Is it too much to ask? That my wife, my Countess should spend the night by my side?"

His heavy brows jutted in a dark line over his eyes. Eyes, she had once thought akin to mahogany in their rich, earthy colour. She forgot, in that moment of fancy, that mahogany was one of the hardest woods in the world.

"The Prince Royal will be present." Patrick Crawley continued. His voice rose in timbre. "His wife. The Duke and Duchess of Argyll. Sir William and Lady Bywell. Dammit, even Hepworth has dug that Yankee heiress of his out of the country. Is it a point with you to make me a laughing stock of our acquaintances?"

In the mirror Violet's lips tightened at the unfair blow. Experience, however, dictated that Patrick's accusations only grew worse when she retaliated. A man who ascended to the peerage at the tender age of fourteen, was not in the habit of tolerating the dissent of his subordinates.

Even if the subordinate in question was his wife and Countess of eight years standing.

She swallowed back hot words. The effort nearly made her wince. "I'm sorry, Patrick. I did not intend to upset you. It was merely-"

"Sorry?"

The Earl of Grantham flung out his hand. To her left, Violet heard a soft thump and the crunch of breaking glass as the delicate sherry glass landed on the Persian rug. She licked her lips.

"I am just a little tired, Patrick."

"Tired? For Christ's sake, Violet, this dinner is important."

"You say that for every dinner with the Prince. And besides-"

"Because every dinner with the Prince is important! Even you must be aware of his influence in the Foreign Office. They say Granville slips him despatches under the table every evening at Whites'." Patrick shook his head sharply. His voice took on the clipped staccato of irritation. "Violet, I should not have to beg for you to support me in my career."

"Career?" That absurdity took the strain too far. Violet shot to her feet. The violence of her rise sent the loose pins skittered from her hair. Auburn curls tumbled to the small of her back. She flung them back from her face as she faced her husband at last.

Narrowed blue eyes took in the expression of stark surprise that ambushed Patrick Crawley's handsome face for a moment.

"A career, Patrick, is an act of locomotion undertaken by a horse. It is not an excuse to abandon Downton and your responsibilities for the distant pleasures of foreign shores." She lifted her chin. "Whether they are conducted in the presence of our future king or not."

For a moment, Patrick Crawley gaped at his imperious young wife like a blowfish. It was rare that Violet permitted anything so vulgar as anger to break the smooth facade she presented to the Polite World.

Then his brown eyes darkened.

"I expect you must be a little wearied from your journey today." He picked up a hairpin resting by his foot. "That can be the only excuse for you to indulge in such low-class histrionics."

"It is not a hysterical wish to avoid witnessing my husband's flagrant infidelity!"

"Infidelity?" The word fell from his lips like a chip of ice.

She had pushed him too far. Patrick Grantham made it clear from their very wedding night that she, Miss Violet Steyne of nowhere in particular, was in position, legally or socially, to question his actions. Her remit was the house and children and a countess, a true lady, as her mother so often reminded her, understood her boundaries.

Her place was not to question the masculine world in which her husband moved. She requested. She submitted with graceful dignity. She did not demand and she most certainly did not intrude on the grubbier mésalliances that took her husband from the marriage bed.

A lady, according to Lady Harriet Steyne, did not allow such tawdry concerns to dictate her emotions. She was cool and polite and proper. She honoured and respected her Queen, her God and her family.

And she honoured her husband above all. Particularly, when her husband was the Earl of Grantham and close confidante of the Prince of Wales.

But there was the honour due to a husband on one hand. And, Violet thought, there was the humiliation of sitting down to dinner opposite her husband's mistress on the other.

She straightened her shoulders. "You may regret my absence, Patrick. I am sure Jacqueline Bywell will not."

The hairpin snapped down onto her rosewood dresser with an audible click. "Whatever arrangement I have with Lady Bywell, madam, is entirely my own affair and none of your concern."

"Except when I must sit opposite the creature for the duration of seven courses. I will not, Patrick!"

"Violet-!"

A gasp from the door cut off the remainder of the Earl's retort. In the doorway, one of the maids, a blowsy young girl in the blue-and-White uniform of the nursery, flinched under the unexpected attention of her employers. "M'lord… M'lady. I'm sorry, I just thought Master Robert would-"

"Mama!" The young boy escaped his nursemaid's grip. His nightgown billowed like a ship in sail as he raced across the room. One small, warm hand slipped into Violet's palm and squeezed.

Blue eyes looked up to the young Countess, a reflection of her own. "Mama, Potter said that I may not visit you tonight but I haven't seen you all day."

"Downton." The young viscount flinched a little at his father's tone. "Is this any way to conduct yourself?"

It took every modicum of Violet's self-control not to run her hand over the fine brown hair and cup the head that now hung low at his father's admonition. Patrick was firm that such pampering gestures were ill-suited for a boy of nearly seven years old.

She gave the damp fingers a small squeeze, unnoticed by his father. "You must not burst into a room in such a fashion, Robert."

"No, Mama. No, Papa. I'm sorry, Papa." The words wrung from the bent head in a low voice. Robert Grantham, Viscount Downton lifted his head, trouble swimming in the blue eyes. Even at his young age, he could sense the tension running through his mother's elegant bedchamber. "It was just.."

"A gentleman does not offer excuses for his behaviour, Downton." Violet flinched, knowing, as Patrick himself did, that his words were directed to her as much as the little boy shivering between them.

"I'm sorry, Papa."

Patrick's saturnine face softened a little at the tremulous voice. He bent down, until his head was level with his son. Gently, he chucked the child under his chin. "Be a little man now and, tomorrow, I'll take you to the sailing pond at Hyde Park, hmmm?"

A small smile curved at the boy's lips. "Ca-can Primrose come too?"

"If I receive a good report from Nanny Kettle in the morning, Primrose may come as well. Now make your bow to your Mama."

The little hand slipped from Violet's palm. With studious care, Robert bowed to his mother and father. "Goodnight, Mama."

Violet curled her fingers into fists to resist the temptation to hug her son. "Good night, Robert."

With another proper bow to his father, the night-gowned viscount walked carefully back to the door. Potter grabbed his hand. She bobbed an awkward curtsey and disappeared, her mumbled "Good night, m'lord," lost in her haste to leave her employers' apartments.

"Primrose?" Violet's voice rose. "Surely the place for your dogs is in the country?"

"The place for my dogs, madam, is wherever I choose." His gaze swept her form from the red curls piled on top of her head to her slippered feet peeping from beneath her petticoats. "It is the same for my wife. One hour, Violet." He picked up the silver bell on her dresser and shook it.

At the gentle chimes, the plump figure of Violet's dresser appeared. Black eyes flickered once to her mistress's deshabille and then back to the earl, scrupulously attired in evening black. She bobbed a curtsey. "My lord?"

"The Countess will accompany me this evening."

Again, the black eyes danced to Violet, then to the night-time pot of chocolate provided a scant half-hour before. Martine had been a dresser for many years and knew better than to ask question. "Very good, my lord."

Patrick Grantham shot his recalcitrant wife a final warning glare. "I will be waiting in the drawing room. Do not be late." He turned and walked from the room. The door closed on his back with a subdued click.

Violet slumped back onto the stool of her dresser and closed her fists against the urge to cry.