Midwinter Prompt #3: Auld Lang Syne, My Dear (Downton Abbey)
Title: Auld Lang Syne, My Dear
Author: mrstater
Prompt: resolutions
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters & Pairings: Lady Mary Crawley, Sir Richard Carlisle, Lady Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham; Richard/Mary
Rating & Warnings: rated PG, spoilers for the S2 Christmas special
Word Count: 759 words
Summary: "This is Haxby, and that's not how we do it here." Lady Mary Carlisle strongly disagrees with her husband. AU
Auld Lang Syne, My Dear
"Here you are, darling." Richard smirks as he presents Mary with a tray of cut crystal glasses filled with what appears, in the glow of the roaring fireplace and half a dozen electric lamps, to be liquid gold. "The servants are nowhere to be found, so it would seem it's fallen to me to serve the champagne."
"Oh dear," Mary replies, taking one. "Everything you've worked so hard for will be ruined."
As her lips touch the cool glass flute, she can't stop them giving in to the upward tug evoked by Richard's broadening smile and twinkling eyes.
It's a stale joke, to be sure--one which, if she's honest, set her teeth on edge when he made it at the first New Year gathering they hosted as newlyweds. Yet it also represents to her a victory sweeter than the champagne she sips while husband charm their guests with his grin as he hands round the drinks tray for the midnight toast. Richard, whose final words spoken in 1919 had been a complaint about having to wait on himself when he'd fought so hard for his life of privilege.
Well--Mary may have been born to hers, but that doesn't mean she mustn't fight to keep it.
Downton taught her that.
~*~
"Christmas luncheon and New Year's Eve, we fend for ourselves," Mary hisses, drawing Richard to the corner of the library when the servants appear to serve them. "I told you, that's how we always do it at Downton."
"And I told you," he retorts, glowering down at her, "this is Haxby, and that's not how we do it here."
Mary feels the wall at her back, and she remembers Richard's fingertips digging into her arms and the brandy on his breath as he pushed her against a pillar in the hall back home and told her never to cross him, not ever. But he's not touching her now, and rather than being cowed into nodding meekly in submission, she lifts her chin and arches an eyebrow.
"You may have made me mistress of a vulgar house, Richard, but that doesn't mean I must be vulgar as well. Except to say that it damn well is how we do it here!"
She sweeps past him into the centre of the room, half-expecting his fingers to clamp around her arm and draw her back, but they do not; nor does he contradict her when she thanks Pitt the butler and tells him there's been a mistake, that the staff are meant to enjoy their own Christmas dinner while the upstairs party help themselves. Richard does, however, watch her with unblinking eyes as she sees to their guests, which makes her brace for punishment when they are gone after Christmas or revenge when they return for New Year.
But when their guests assemble a week later to ring in 1921, Richard is all smiles--and rather awkward jokes about the servants being nowhere to be found--as he takes up a post at the drinks cabinet and mixes the cocktails himself.
"If I didn't know better," says Granny to Mary in low tones over one of his concoctions, "I'd say Sir Richard made his fortune as a congenial publican and not as a publisher of scurrilous gossip. And I mean that as a compliment, my dear. One might almost believe that husband of yours is a real gentleman."
Richard laughs when Mary passes Granny's words of praise along to him later, as they make their way, his arm around her waist, up Haxby's grand staircase to bed.
"I believe this is where you say you told me so." He squeezes her hip affectionately as they reach the first landing, and turns her to face him. "Go on."
"Do I need to? That is why you wanted to marry me in the first place, isn't it? So people would think you were a gentleman?"
"That's why I said I wanted to marry you." Richard releases her waist to cup her face in his hands, her newly bobbed hair curling around his thumbs as he leans in for a kiss. "I actually married you because I love you."
~*~
He finishes serving the champagne and takes his place at Mary's side just in time to clink glasses with her as the mantel clock begins to herald 1924.
"Happy New Year, my love," Richard murmurs.
His fingers brush over the slight swell at the front of her dress, and Mary smiles against his lips.
Everything she's worked so hard for is perfect.
Author: mrstater
Prompt: resolutions
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Characters & Pairings: Lady Mary Crawley, Sir Richard Carlisle, Lady Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham; Richard/Mary
Rating & Warnings: rated PG, spoilers for the S2 Christmas special
Word Count: 759 words
Summary: "This is Haxby, and that's not how we do it here." Lady Mary Carlisle strongly disagrees with her husband. AU
Auld Lang Syne, My Dear
"Here you are, darling." Richard smirks as he presents Mary with a tray of cut crystal glasses filled with what appears, in the glow of the roaring fireplace and half a dozen electric lamps, to be liquid gold. "The servants are nowhere to be found, so it would seem it's fallen to me to serve the champagne."
"Oh dear," Mary replies, taking one. "Everything you've worked so hard for will be ruined."
As her lips touch the cool glass flute, she can't stop them giving in to the upward tug evoked by Richard's broadening smile and twinkling eyes.
It's a stale joke, to be sure--one which, if she's honest, set her teeth on edge when he made it at the first New Year gathering they hosted as newlyweds. Yet it also represents to her a victory sweeter than the champagne she sips while husband charm their guests with his grin as he hands round the drinks tray for the midnight toast. Richard, whose final words spoken in 1919 had been a complaint about having to wait on himself when he'd fought so hard for his life of privilege.
Well--Mary may have been born to hers, but that doesn't mean she mustn't fight to keep it.
Downton taught her that.
~*~
"Christmas luncheon and New Year's Eve, we fend for ourselves," Mary hisses, drawing Richard to the corner of the library when the servants appear to serve them. "I told you, that's how we always do it at Downton."
"And I told you," he retorts, glowering down at her, "this is Haxby, and that's not how we do it here."
Mary feels the wall at her back, and she remembers Richard's fingertips digging into her arms and the brandy on his breath as he pushed her against a pillar in the hall back home and told her never to cross him, not ever. But he's not touching her now, and rather than being cowed into nodding meekly in submission, she lifts her chin and arches an eyebrow.
"You may have made me mistress of a vulgar house, Richard, but that doesn't mean I must be vulgar as well. Except to say that it damn well is how we do it here!"
She sweeps past him into the centre of the room, half-expecting his fingers to clamp around her arm and draw her back, but they do not; nor does he contradict her when she thanks Pitt the butler and tells him there's been a mistake, that the staff are meant to enjoy their own Christmas dinner while the upstairs party help themselves. Richard does, however, watch her with unblinking eyes as she sees to their guests, which makes her brace for punishment when they are gone after Christmas or revenge when they return for New Year.
But when their guests assemble a week later to ring in 1921, Richard is all smiles--and rather awkward jokes about the servants being nowhere to be found--as he takes up a post at the drinks cabinet and mixes the cocktails himself.
"If I didn't know better," says Granny to Mary in low tones over one of his concoctions, "I'd say Sir Richard made his fortune as a congenial publican and not as a publisher of scurrilous gossip. And I mean that as a compliment, my dear. One might almost believe that husband of yours is a real gentleman."
Richard laughs when Mary passes Granny's words of praise along to him later, as they make their way, his arm around her waist, up Haxby's grand staircase to bed.
"I believe this is where you say you told me so." He squeezes her hip affectionately as they reach the first landing, and turns her to face him. "Go on."
"Do I need to? That is why you wanted to marry me in the first place, isn't it? So people would think you were a gentleman?"
"That's why I said I wanted to marry you." Richard releases her waist to cup her face in his hands, her newly bobbed hair curling around his thumbs as he leans in for a kiss. "I actually married you because I love you."
~*~
He finishes serving the champagne and takes his place at Mary's side just in time to clink glasses with her as the mantel clock begins to herald 1924.
"Happy New Year, my love," Richard murmurs.
His fingers brush over the slight swell at the front of her dress, and Mary smiles against his lips.
Everything she's worked so hard for is perfect.