Matthew's Lover: The Story of What Happened Before Downton

Chapter Six

Lucie had never loved.

She had longed to be loved by her parents, but she could not of said that she loved them. She did not love Miss Barbary, instead she saw her as a nuisance. She had not loved any of the men she had conducted her affairs with, which had been why it was so easy to end them. And she had no intention of loving. And for a long time she had thought that would be how her life would go. And she still believed it.

She had yet to realise her affection for Matthew, and that is how it goes for many people. They never realised they were in love until they lose them. And this was the story of Lucie.

She lost Matthew Crawley when she had tried to conduct Stage 2 of her plan. It had all been going perfectly until then. She had casually mentioned it, and that was when it had all gone downhill.

He had asked her, not so politely, whether she realised that he was a good, honest, Christian man, and she had replied that she thought he loved her. He had yelled that he thought she had loved him, but now he saw that she had been playing a game with him from the start. The laughing, the smiling, the talking, the flirting, had been nothing more than a game. And Lucie didn't know why, but when he had accused her of playing a game, it had hurt more than anything else in her life.

It wasn't until the day later when she realised it. She was in love with him! The very thing she had promised herself never to do had happened with this fairly quiet solicitor from Manchester. She knew that it was probably a good thing that he had broken it off, but, all the same, she wanted him back. Now it was over she could marry happily, without someone else in her life, but was that want she really wanted?

All her life she had been miserable, and yet now she realised that these last couple of months had been the happiest she had ever known. For once in her life she had been happy with her life, happy that she was alive. No, happy was not the right word. She had loved her life, loved that she was alive, and not the boy her parents had wanted. And yet want had become of it? She was now more miserable than she ever had been in her life. So what was the point? Nothing had been achieved, if anything her life had been ripped apart.

Lucie wanted him back more than she had ever wanted anything in her life, but she knew that would not happen. The best thing would be for her to promise herself that she would never love again, not go chasing after him. Matthew Crawley was never coming back to Lucinda-Anne Cuthbert, what ever she did.