A/N: Inspired by Michelle Dockery, who said that if Mary had met Richard in S1E1, that ship would have sailed. How could I not try my hand at that story? This may be the start of a WIP or a series, depending on how you (few) Richard/Mary shippers out there like it. So do let me know. :) Thanks to Gilpin25 for the helpful input on 1912 social etiquette, without which this plot bunny would have sunk like the ship.

1. The Ball

May, 1912

That's interesting, thinks Mary for the first time all night at Agnes Belcher's engagement ball which, thus far, has hardly proven an event worth defying her mother to attend. Nevertheless, she does her best to school her features into an expression that is absolutely not interested-and certainly not approving-as the stranger whom she's caught staring at her several times across the ballroom weaves his way around mingling guests, cutting an unmistakable path toward her. But the eyes peering bright blue from beneath his heavy brow catch her gaze and hold it before she can glance away or even blink, and she knows before they have exchanged one word that this is a man to whom the word noholds no meaning. Hers aren't the only eyebrows raised, at least, when he stands before her with an outstretched hand.

"I don't believe we've been introduced," he says.

"No."

Mary's gaze flickers down to the white-gloved hand, and then back up again to his face. In acknowledgment of his overture, and her dismissal of it, she tells herself-notbecause his gaze commands hers. At the slight narrowing of his eyes, almost a wince, she tilts her chin upward. But though he slowly lowers his arm and slips his hand into his trouser pocket, he forges ahead with the self-introduction that reminds her so of Mr Collins' ill-advised attempt to ingratiate himself to Mr Darcy. If Mr Collins were tall and trim and handsome in evening attire and Mr Darcy as snobbish as Elizabeth Bennett initially judged him to be.

"I'm Richard Carlisle. SirRichard Carlisle," he amends, and it's all Mary can do not to smirk outright; as if his manners don't speak plainly enough of his common breeding, he's as good as shouted it by forgetting to use his title which is no doubt as newly acquired as his money that bought him his invitation to this ball and of which he is crass enough to talk. "If you read the newspapers, you'll no doubt know the significance of the name."

"Oh? Then that must make you either a murderer or a politician."

Mary cringes inwardly-though not outwardly, she hopes fervently-at hearing Granny's words spoken in her own voice-though she quite agrees with the opinion the Dowager Countess would no doubt have of this situation, that even though Mary knows very well that Sir Richard Carlisle is Britain's rising newspaper magnate, it won't do at all to allow thatsort of person too many delusions of grandeur.

So she takes her gaze off him and lets it blindly wander around the room of waltzing couples, and pretends not to know-or, better yet, not to care-that one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in England has singled her out from all the rest.

As if the black mourning dress she's wearing amid all the maidenly whites and creams and pinks and pale lavenders hasn't set her enough apart from the others in the ballroom, she thinks with a sigh, catching her reflection in one of the mirrors inlaid in the elaborate gilt moulding near the ceiling.

But Sir Richard chuckles, low and rumbling, and when her eyes meet the blue ones again the twinkle tells her he knows that she knows who he is, but that he'll play along with her little game. As that sort of person must, Mary reminds herself.

Although when he speaks, she isn't entirely sure it is hergame, after all.

"You might consider me a murderer of a sort," he says, "if reputations count as victims. And I've been known to argue that my newspapers give me a louder voice than those poor fools who spend their whole lives and fortunes campaigning for a chance to shout over each other in Parliament."

"Excepting, of course, those rich fools who only have to be born to get the chance to shout?" Mary can't resist poking at him, though she instantly regrets it when Sir Richard seems suddenly to loom over her, his eyes flashing steely grey to the sound of rattling glass behind her as she instinctively backs away from him and into an unsuspecting footman.

Luckily he balances his tray with a feline grace that makes her think of Thomas back home-right down to the briefly insolent look he shoots her. Mary flushes, either from the realisation that the footman isn't the only person looking at her, or that Sir Richard has caught hold of her elbow, no trace on his face of the expression she found so intimidating just a moment before. Still, she'd like nothing better than to wrench her arm free of him and walk away without another word-and no one would blame her for wanting to escape the graceless, blundering fool-she refuses to make more of a spectacle of herself than she already has, thanks to him.

Or to admit that Mama had been right about her attending this ball at all.

"Goodness," she says, and puts on a simper which feels every bit as becoming to her as the wretched black gown. "I'm not sure which of your alter egos I'd best beware meeting in a dark alley."

"Are you a frequenter of dark alleys, then, Lady Mary? I generally avoid them-though I confess I'm always on the prowl for a good story."

Her surprise at his knowing her name must register on her face, because he smiles-smirks, rather; in either case, dimples form beneath his high cheekbones.

"Ah, yes," he says silkily. "Lest you think me too uncouth, I did ask our mutual friend Lady Belcher-"

Lady Agnes, Mary, twice shy, resists the urge to correct him.

"-for your name and an introduction. But I grew impatient with waiting."

"For a story? I'm afraid I must disappoint you on that score, Sir Richard, for I'm quite the blank page."

He draws a step nearer to her, and though again Mary's instinct is to recoil from him, she instead digs her heels into the floor to hold her ground. "Actually it was your dance card I hoped to find blank."

He's being honest; Mary can read the hope as plainly on his face as if it were printed in black typeset, through the softening of the strong masculine features. A very handsome face, she thinks again, though he must be near to Papa's age and uses far too much pomade-but that's not the reason her heartbeat quickens. Sir Richard Carlisle isn't as confident about his place in the world as he'd like everyone to think with his talk about his newspapers, and it's exhilarating to have that sort of power over a man like him. How silly she'd been to allow him to alarm her before, when it had been her who'd provoked such a reaction from him in the first place.

"It is," she tells him, savouring the pleasure of watching his smile stretch and settle into the cocksure one he'd worn when talking of his social and political influences before adding, "Because I'm in mourning. I would have thought my wearing a black gown to a ball made it obvious that I don't intend to dance tonight. It did to the other men."

Her gaze wanders over Sir Richard's shoulder to the centre of the ballroom, where the men and their young ladies seem to float upon clouds of light colours and even lighter fabrics in the golden sunset glow of candelabras and electric chandeliers reflecting off the gilt mouldings.

"I'm so terribly sorry," she says, swinging her back to Sir Richard.

"Don't be." Apart from stepping back from her again, he shows no sign of being disappointed. Which, if she's honest, rather disappoints her. His lips curve in a pale smile. "You've given me a story, after all."

"Oh?" Her voice pitches higher than usual, as she hopes he's only joking, and not nursing resentment for her earlier dig, after all. "I'm intrigued."

"As am I. Tell me: why would Lady Mary Crawley attend a ball when she's in mourning?"

Because she's bored, she wants to tell him. Because she can't stand being home any longer, with the endless talk of poor lost Patrick and the entail and what man is now to inherit what ought to be hers. Because, like Sir Richard, she is tired of rules and of being governed by them, and this one is easy to break.

"Because it's my dear friend's engagement party," she says instead. "It wouldn't do to short-change Lady Agnes' joy just because I'm a little sad, now, would it? Hardly a story. Not even a juicy blurb for one of your ladies' journals."

Sir Richard lifts his chin and his eyebrows. "No, indeed. How kind you are, to make such a sacrifice for a friend. Only..." His dimples deepen with his smirk, and his shrewd eyes sweep appraisingly over her, lingering a little longer than they ought over the modest neckline of her mourning gown. "I'm not certain it issuch a sacrifice. You don't seem even a little bit sad, as you claim to."

I know you're sad about Patrick, Sybil's voice whispers in Mary's mind. Whatever you say, I know it.

But Sir Richard Carlisle is not the soft-voiced, sweet-faced darling her little sister is, and Mary wants to clap her hands over her ears to shut out his words, her own words: I'm not as sad as I should be. That's what makes me sad.She was so ashamed of the pale girl dressed in black staring at her from the mirror of her dressing table that night, and her flight to London has only brought her face-to-face with her again, in the mirror of this man.

This man. Who doesn't belong here. Who shouldn't have any right at all to see her, much less straight through her, or to speak of it as plainly as if he's known her all her life, more plainly than anyone who hasknown her all her life.

She draws up her shoulders and gives him a narrow smile. "Mylot don't, you know," she says, and turns to go, not caring any longer whether she makes a spectacle of herself or not.

But Sir Richard doesn't let her. Before she can take one step away from him, his gloved fingers close around her upper arm, their grip at once gentle but unyielding.

"That's not an aristocrat's stiff upper lip I see," he says in a tone so low Mary cannot be sure is meant to soothe her or scare her-or seduce her, she thinks, and immediately dismisses the thought, "but one that's never quavered at all. And why should it? We've all worn black for someone we don't care two pence about."

"Oughtn't I care about a cousin who died on the Titanic? Isn't that why your newspapers are still revelling in the gory, sentimental details of the tragedy?"

Sir Richard laughs. "I believe you're quite mistaken, Lady Mary. I'm not in the business of making people care. I'm in the business of selling newspapers. And no, I can't think of any reason why you ought to care more about a cousin because of the tragic manner of her death."

"Hisdeath. He was my fiancé."

Mary can't think why she would tell Sir Richard Carlisle, peddler of scandal, sentiment, and society gossip, what she's told no one else outside her family-except that his fingers radiate warmth through his glove on the sliver of her bare skin left exposed between the top of her black satin glove her black beaded lace sleeve-and she's relieved, so very relieved, that there exists someone in this world who doesn't think she's cold and unnatural. Or, if she is, that she's not cold and unnatural and alone.

"I see," says Sir Richard. "Not the fiancé of your own choosing."

Only if something better didn't come along. This time, Mary doesn't cringe from the memory of her own words, but meets Sir Richard's bright blue eyes. "He was the heir to my father's title and estate."

The lines of his face soften, and so does his hold on her arm, his thumb stroking lightly over it. An intimate and bold gesture, and one which she must not allow, no matter how comforting it may be, not having come here with the view of dancing.

"Though I don't expect a self-made man like you, Sir Richard, to appreciate the intricacies of inheritance law."

Rather than release her, as Mary hoped the tweak to his pride would make him do, Sir Richard's fingers tighten around her arm, causing the beadwork on her sleeve to dig into it.

"Perhaps not," he says in tones kinder than his touch, "though I do know most laws don't favour your sex any more than they favour those not born rich. We're not so very different, you and I, and I can imagine that were I in your position, I wouldn't be sorry to see distant cousins drowned in the icy waters of the Atlantic rather than inherit what was rightfully mine."

"You arequite the sensationalist, aren't you? I hope I won't open the morning paper to find a story that puts your words in my mouth."

Sir Richard's smirk is less than reassuring, and Mary's arm is cold is left suddenly cold as he unwraps his fingers from around it. However, his voice is warm as he again slips his hands into his trouser pockets and says, "I'll make you a deal."

"A deal?" Mary repeats. "Dear me, Sir Richard-do you always speak to ladies as if they were business associates?"

"Only the ones I deem equal to it, Lady Mary. And I assure you, there haven't been many."

It is, no doubt, the strangest compliment a man has ever paid her, but the best one she can imagine in this moment. A shrewd man like Sir Richard must know it, too.

Nevertheless, she says, "What do you propose, then?"

"That you reserve a place for me on your dance card the next time you're in town and not not-mourning. I assure you, I may not be one of your lot, as you say, but I dance as well as any man born into a title."

"I've had my dancing shoes trod on by many an aristocrat," Mary replies, "so you've hardly instilled me with confidence. But all right-if it keeps me out of the papers."

She extends her hand, and Sir Richard shakes it as firmly to seal the bargain as if he'd made her a business deal-though with a tenderness in his eyes Mary doubts many of his business associates have seen.

"Just so you know," he says, having the grace-for once-to look a little embarrassed, "I wouldn't have printed a story about you."

"Of course not. Why would anyone find a woman being a victim of unjust laws newsworthy?" That sounds so frightfully self-pitying that Mary can just hear Granny scolding her for sounding middle class. Which will never do in front of Sir Richard. So she flashes a smile and adds, breezily, "Though I will be telling my grandmother you asked me for a dance."

Sir Richard looks so ridiculously pleased, his chest puffing out and his grin stretching, that Mary nearly laughs at him. Another thing her lot don't do, but it feels good to restrain a different emotion, for once, than bitterness and betrayal.

"Will she be impressed that a newspaper magnate sought you out?" he asks. "Or is new money more scandalous than anything she could read in my papers?"

"She'd be impressed if one of the footmen sought me out. No one wants to kiss a girl in black,she said before I came."

She tries to pull her hand from Sir Richard's but once again he draws her back to him. Closer than she'd stood to him before, so that her skirts whisper against his trousers, as they would if she was waltzing with him. The ballroom even seems to swirl around her like it must to the dancers.

"I can't say it ever made much difference to me what colour a girl was wearing."

"No," says Mary, struggling to keep her bearings when he releases her hand abruptly and steps back from her. "Of course it wouldn't."

"But remember," he says, smiling at her over his shoulder as he takes his leave, "I wasn't the one who brought up the subject of kissing."