*ON HOLD* Cora Crawley had another brother. Her brother married and had a beautiful daughter named Evelyn Levinson. When a mysterious fire burns the Levinson home, 6-year-old Evelyn was the only survivor. Cora takes in her orphaned niece - and this...
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Grey skies, thick black clouds, the trees whipping in the strong winds, dense air - that's all Evelyn could see and feel while looking out her open window. It was early in the day, Grant wouldn't be at the house to pick her until later but Evelyn feared that the weather would get worse. It was obvious a storm was approaching Downton although it was moving quite slow. She wondered if she would be able to postpone the trip to Andover by blaming her uneasiness on the weather - but she knew Grant wouldn't take that excuse.
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Evelyn hadn't slept even more than a minute. She knew her heart rate for the last 17 hours had been well above what it should have been. What if Matthew was right? Who was she kidding, she knew he was right. She knew Matthew well enough to know that he would never do anything to put her in harm's way and would go out of his way to protect her from it. She hadn't lied to him about her family - even as a 6-year-old child, she had often observed her father's demeanor change completely simply by the arrival of a letter. She never got the chance to look at those letters but she wasn't that naive to know when something was wrong with her father. While the burning of their house was waved off as being a fallen candle, Evelyn was never so sure. Her mother was a cautious woman, Evelyn knew that if she had suspected anything that could harm her family she would have had escape plans, backup funds, buried possessions - a little excessive, maybe, but no one really worries about someone setting your house on fire. Despite Evelyn knowing that Matthew's concerns were valid, she was going to try and do what her parents never got to do; protect her family. If Grant was a threat, she wanted them as far away as possible...if Matthew needed to dig around Grant's office, she was going to give him the chance to do it.
However, she did wonder, if she goes with Grant, would she ever make it back home? Did he intend to harm her reputation or her?
But what if Matthew was really only basing his worries on allegations and nothing concrete?
She wouldn't know...he didn't tell her what he knew.
She admired Matthew for his desire to protect her. She was taken aback by his confession that he wished to marry her; though, she can't say she didn't already have that suspicion.
