Why do I do this? This is a new story related to Hearts and Bones (thank you to everyone who read that story. It's among my very favorites. I wanted to just do a one off epilogue…but here I am doing this instead… I hope you like it. If you do I'll keep writing. Rated T for now..but for anyone who's read Hearts and Bones... erm... that will probably change :)

July 1941

XX

Matthew's back spasmed and he grimaced in pain. "You're getting old," he muttered to himself. The hardback chair didn't help. It wobbled and creaked.

Most of the more comfortable pieces of furniture at Downton were under wraps or put away upstairs by the staff for the duration. They had been replaced by War Office issue desks, chairs, bookcases, and two long conference tables.

The old spinal injury was more and more flaring up due to lack of activity. He hated having a desk job at a time like this.

He glanced up from the report he was analyzing to see the photo he kept in pride of place on his desk. It always made him smile to see his family all together.

It had been taken six years ago.

They had virtually given up on having more children but there was Mary holding their youngest child, the year old Robert on her lap. He was laughing at the camera, always the happiest of children little Robert had brought many moments of joy into the old earl's life until the day he died in 1939.

Matthew held the hand of their oldest son George who had wanted to sit independently in his own chair next to his father. At four and a half he was, even then, rambunctiously head strong. So like Mary. He was away at prep school now but was to arrive by the afternoon train for the summer holidays at the end of the week. Matthew couldn't wait to see him again.

Two elder children stood behind their seated parents and younger siblings. Tall and willowy like their mother, both had the blond hair and blue eyes of their father. Isabella was the eldest Crawley child. She was now married. Her husband was in the RAF, an officer in Bomber Command.

And Cécile…

Matthew's mouth pursed anxiously. So gifted in learning languages, Cécile had been reading French literature at Somerville College, Oxford when she was recruited into the SOE, sent to specialized training, and was now on a mission to infiltrate and to collect information on German movements and transmit the information back by radio.

Matthew rhythmically tapped the table with the end of his pencil. The buzz of ringing telephones, clacking typewriters, and hushed conversation around the small library of Downton Abbey fell away as he gave into the worry that had been slowly building inside him.

She was now five days past her regular communication.

"Cee Cee…" Matthew murmured under his breath, using the nickname he bestowed on her as a chubby baby much to Mary's vexation.

He got a grip on his emotions again. Sat up, coughed, and tried to concentrate.

Downton was once again at war. One of the many stately homes under temporary control by the War Office. It housed a branch of the Inter-Service Research Bureau compiling statistics on general supplies and subsistence for the government.

At least that's what they told anyone who asked.

In reality Matthew had been approached last year during the worst months of the blitz about using Downton, tucked away up in Yorkshire, to secretly house a training school for the Special Operations Executive. Agents trained here in methods of sabotage would then use those skills in overseas covert operations.

Never realizing that the very next year one of those operatives would be his own daughter.

As a VC recipient, former soldier, member of parliament, and Foreign Office diplomat Matthew understood his duty. And he really had no choice. The government would have confiscated the Abbey anyway for some purpose. This way at least he got to choose which department would be housed at the estate. He had resigned as MP for Downton East when Robert died and he took the title of Earl of Grantham. The war started shortly thereafter and, upon trying to re-enlist, he was rejected which stung. At 45 he was at the upper range of volunteers but it was his spinal shock and severe pelvic bruising due to falling into a debris pit in 1916 made him unfit for active service.

Instead he had been promoted to Major and seconded back to Downton to work with the SOE trainees in honing their skills for operations in occupied Europe. His job was to lead a group of native speakers and academicians who taught the SOE operatives the various regional French dialects and idioms so rather than standing out they would blend in to the community. They also taught the soft inflections of Bavarian German as well as standardized High German and the distinctive sound of a Berliner who peppered their speech with French jargon due to long influence of French at the Prussian court.

The team was a dedicated bunch of people. Many were refugees from Nazi occupied France or Belgium. Others were Jewish exiles from Germany or Eastern Europe. They had also combed the universities, finding scholars who were past draft age who wanted to help out using their language skills honed over a lifetime to teach the young agents.

Matthew contributed to the instruction as well but his true job was more of a cross between a conjurer and an umpire. The Foreign Office expected him to perform miracles in getting agents out into the field as quickly as possible. The Army brass and the gowned academics both held the other in utter disdain which didn't help matters. They all were the cream of the crop and it wasn't easy soothing their fragile egos as they constantly butted heads on matters great and small. Just the other day a Walloon from Belgium and a self-proclaimed true Parisian disagreed on the correct pronunciation of the French essayist Michel de Montaigne. It had gotten so heated that Matthew had to referee before it came to blows.

A time consuming job, and not very glamourous, but Matthew knew its vital importance to the war effort.

Right now he was examining a rather tedious list of test scores on linguistic proficiency. It was one of his jobs to weed out those candidates who did not perform well and move on those that did. It was vitally important not to be caught out using the wrong inflection or lingo and give yourself away to Nazi officials in the zone occupée. You had to be able to pick it up quick or else be deemed unacceptable to the needs of the SOE.

"What a load of bumf…" he muttered shoving another piece of paper onto yet another pile.

The Official Secrets Act prevented him ever telling Mary about anything of these activities. To anyone who asked he worked at a dreary job for a governmental sub agency and Cécile was on a long walking holiday in the west country, taking a vacation from her uni studies. But he knew his wife far too well to think she was fooled for a minute by the story concocted to conceal his real work. Or Cécile's covert operation.

She knew. But she also knew well enough not to ask.

He looked at the clock again. A few more hours and he could go home.

The pencil started tapping again against the test papers.

XX

Mary lived at Crawley House, no longer able to live at Downton Abbey due to the War Department's commandeering. In the fall of 1940 she took the seven year old Robert and moved into the village; living there with a minimal staff of a cook, day maid, and her own lady's maid Anna who had returned to service after her husband died of cancer in 1928. Anna and John's son served in the army and had been one of those evacuated from Dunkirk in June 1940.

Matthew moved back and forth between Downton and Crawley House depending on how involved he was in a given operation. Time spent with the family was precious. In addition to George returning from school Isabella was also expected today. Mary knew Matthew was looking forward to the small family reunion. Isabella had said she wanted to help out with the younger children but Mary wondered if it was really because with husband Charles away she was restless and worried.

At 44 Mary was as beautiful, as elegant, as contrary as ever. She wanted to take a more active part in the war but knew she had to be at home for her younger children. She wanted to go back to Downton and take her place once again as the Countess of Grantham but knew it was impossible. Once at Crawley House along with her mother, now the Dowager Countess, they served the war effort as best they could. Cora was chair of several local committees including one to find homes for evacuated children fleeing London and the bombing raids. Mary was in charge of Downton's farms that were kept a going concern by the Women's Land Army making sure the fields were sown and reaped on time and help feed a hungry nation. Mostly that was office work, making sure they were paid and equipped properly and finessing things with government agents who constantly scrutinized for further ways to retrench.

"The house will be full to bursting." Mary warned her daughter when Isabella arrived.

The two women kissed cheeks.

"George is arriving at 4:40 from Asygarth and will share with Robert. Matthew's coming for the week end to see everyone. You will have to share with Mama. She's upstairs resting. But don't worry. She's off in the morning for a long visit a friend in the Lake District."

Cora was still a formidable woman at 70 but was also showing signs of her age. Mary made sure the younger children did not bother her during her afternoon naps.

"It's fine," Isabella said giving her mother a hug. "I've been on my own so much lately it will be good to be among people again."

They sat down in the morning room. "Which brings up another subject. I do have some news," Isabella announced.

Mary looked up, expectant.

"No Mama. No grandchild yet." Isabella explained. "I'm going to join the Air Transport Auxiliary and fly aircraft from the factory to the air field."

"What?" Her mother said sharply. "You can't."

"I most certainly can. Cee Cee might swan off to the country and keep up her ivory tower studies but I want to do something."

Her mother's eyes then narrowed. Not quite at each other's throat as she was with Edith at the same age, Cécile and Isabella had their moments over the years. Isabella was a great deal like Matthew in her equanimity, usually unwilling to rise to Cécile's baiting. Their second daughter, however, was all Mary in her capricious obstinacy. Simply averse to give an inch even if she knew she was quite in the wrong.

In this case Isabella wasn't to know that the story about Cécile's walking tour was false. Indeed, neither in truth was she to know. But her husband, for all his gifts, was a terrible liar. She knew better than to question him about what Cécile was really up to. But putting things together in her mind Mary knew that her daughter was most probably involved in some secret war operation. And Matthew was worried.

Mary saw it in his eyes. They had been through so much together from that first meeting in Paris where two strangers became two lovers. He had been disillusioned by what he witnessed in the war. She was jaded from a disastrous marriage. They found solace in each other's arms. And then they fell in love.

They fell hard.

Fast.

Two hearts beating as one.

Nothing had kept them apart. They had made love at first in his cramped flat along the Rue de St. Germain. Then in her posh hotel suite. On a Biarritz balcony or an alley along the Seine their flaming passion had been set alight. Even after they married and settled down their appetite for intimacy did not abate.

Their love had ever been a fierce, consuming one.

He always said Mary saved his life. A damaged man he had drifted through his life. Lost because of the war. Because of his injury, Lavinia's death and then his mother's. His father's suicide. He felt nothing at all by the end. He drowned himself in drink and kept the world at bay with cutting sarcasm. Only Mary brought him back. His friends had seen the change in his desire to throw off the crushing ennui and take a job at the Foreign Office. To try to do his bit to make a better world. To be a good husband and father.

Mary knew Matthew had changed her. For reasons dissimilar to his she drifted as well through life. More than just spoiled because of her title, her family's money and station she was also brittle and caustic towards everyone in her life. No one got close to her. No one would hurt her.

And then Matthew broke her defenses and she found herself, in the best way possible, in his love. He never made her feel less. Something she knew had she married a man her father had wanted would have done. She would have been forced to efface herself for him. Matthew never even thought that possible. Mary was always Mary. Opinionated. Passionate. Headstrong. She did as she like and never looked back.

They had raised their brood and grown rich in love with each one. But even their children said everyone else drifted away from view when the two found themselves in a crowded room. They were lodestones. Magnetic. Drawn irresistibly to the other.

"All rather sickening really," Cee Cee would drawl in a mocking tone. "One's parents should keep separate bedrooms and not be seen to be an embarrassment to the family name."

But they really loved their parents and knew they were lucky. They had grown up happy and ensconced, even during the dark years of the Great Depression, in a certain amount of luxury. Matthew had not been rich and wanted his children to know the value of hard work. Whether that was in education or charity work they were expected to realize that their privilege brought with it obligations of public service.

And so it was here with Isabella's decision. Mary knew it was impossible to gainsay her. She was their daughter and she would do what she was set upon doing.

"A pilot?" Mary asked instead. "Is that even allowed?"

"Absolutely. They are recruiting all over the country Charlie says. I don't want to sit at home and can jam all the war."

Just then Robert ran in the room. "Isabella…Isabella…!" He threw himself into his sister's arms. "Come see my soldiers." He jumped down and started to drag her arm.

"Robert," Mary pulled her son into her own lap. "Let Isabella alone. She'll play later."

"Now! Now!" He insisted. "Gran keeps falling asleep. Papa won't be here for hours…" He dramatically prolonged the word as if it were years instead. "Izza will help me set it up so it will be ready for George." He flashed melancholy eyes and used the nickname he gave his sister when he was unable to say her full name and was meant to butter her up.

And it worked. There was nothing for it but to give in. "I'll be there in a tick," Isabella said. "Give us a chance to gulp down some tea at least."

"Is there cake?" Robert was also easily distracted by food.

"Mrs. Shaw has some custard tarts." Mary answered. Using some of the eggs produced at the farm and the rest from the ration books the cook usually scraped together a decent tea in the afternoon. "And after you can show Isabella your soldiers then we'll all walk to the station to fetch George."

This seemed to satisfy the child and he settled down to wait.

The seven year old had distracted Mary from the conversation with her eldest daughter. She knew Isabella's mind was made up but having yet another child in harm's way made her that much more nerve wracked.

The front door opened. Robert leaped up and ran out the door to see who it was.

Mary waited, thinking it was too early for Matthew.

But then she heard his laugh when his son came tearing around the corner.

Both smiling Mary and her daughter got up to greet him.

He walked in the morning room with Robert in his arms.

"Hello darling," he greeted his wife with a warm kiss on her cheek.

"Isabella," Matthew was so happy to see his eldest daughter and gave her a kiss as well. "I couldn't take it anymore and decided to call it an early day so we can all go to the station together."

Mary squeezed his hand in support. They both felt the need to have as much of the family in one place as possible.

Cécile would be there in spirit, Matthew said to himself. He had decided to go to London to Special Operations Executive headquarters and speak to the director, Sir Frank Nelson, about exactly what information they had on her whereabouts in France. Or if not the director himself, he'd find an old colleague to root out some information.

Gripping Robert even closer in his arms, he struggled to keep a straight face.

Was she dead? Dear God he hoped not.

Wounded, though? Or taken prisoner?

He hated not being able to tell anyone about Cécile being missing but such was the vital secrecy of these operations that he could not.

He and Mary's eyes met.

"We'll talk later," he murmured. "I have to go to London in the morning."

Mary bit her first response back, a question as to why he had to leave so unexpectedly. But instead she just briskly nodded and got on with pouring the tea.

Her hand only slightly shaking as she held out the cups.

XX

Où sommes-nous censées recontrer cet homme?

Cécile was hunkered down inside the garret. The radio had broken and she was having trouble fixing it. The course had trained her how but the device was proving tricky.

In the meantime she had been contacted by a trusted agent that they were to meet another, code named Henri that night about information he had on German troop movements in the area.

"Au café au coin de la rue," said her contact. A woman she only knew as Gaby.

Cécile nodded. The Gestapo had been actively rounding up people for questioning and she had been laying low. But they needed to meet this man. Any information they garnered would go to helping Bomber Command know the best industrial sites to target.

Just then the two women heard the banging of a car door outside and the sound of German voices.

Had they been found out?

XX

Tbc (if you decide it's worthy! Thanks for reading)