Well I’m a day late (shoutout to the stomach flu) but the next installment of the 20 kisses challenge with @galindadaae is finally done. My prompt was “kisses meant to distract the other person from whatever they were intently doing”
Mary had read this page of her book at least five times; every few minutes, she glanced at the clock and her attention was drawn away. Where was Matthew? It was after midnight, and he was by no means a night owl. She had been sitting in their bed for the last hour waiting for him to come up, but his presence still eluded her.
However, she hardly even needed to ask the question, because she had seen the stress of the past few months wearing on him, and she had hardly seen him outside of the library.
Tired of waiting, she tiptoed down the stairs, past the bedrooms of her children, and came to the door of the library.
Sure enough, there he was, pouring over the estate ledgers, papers spread out all over the desk. The light was low, and he squinted to make out what was in front of him. He looked exhausted, Mary thought, and she was silently grateful that it was a Friday night, that he would not have to go to work early the next morning. But he wouldn’t stop working in some capacity, she knew. What was a weekend, indeed.
He didn’t turn even when she came through the library door, so absorbed was he in his work.
“Darling,” she said softly, moving toward him. He looked up at her, and gave her a sheepish shake of the head, to which she responded, “Come away from that.”
He sighed, taking her hand in his as she came up to his desk. “I can’t, I’m afraid. I’ve got to figure out another way to reduce expenses which Robert might accept. He doesn’t seem to understand how vulnerable it all is right now, with the market crash in America and the increasing irrelevance of grand estates like this I just…”
“Who would have thought fifteen years ago that you’d be so concerned over the future of the estate?” Mary said, reflectively. She wasn’t sure whether she approved of such change or not; she did love Downton, but she didn’t want her love of her home to overwork the man she loved more than anything else.
Matthew sighs and glanced at his lap. “I want this to be there for our children. They don’t need the grand and opulent style that once came with this, but I want them to have security and the best opportunities possible. But that means we need to cut more expenses to make this sustainable in the long term, and if I can’t get Robert to see…”
He was interrupted by an unexpected kiss. Mary was practically on his lap, her lips pressed to his, her eyes closed. He closed his eyes as well, unable to remember what he had last been speaking of.
“Shh…” Mary said, pushing back a piece of hair that had fallen into his face. “You need some distraction from that.”
Matthew looked as if he was about to give in, but his words still would not concede. “No, I need to focus so we can implement as soon as…”
She took his face in her hands and kissed him passionately, intensely, and with the love and desperation of missing him as he was.
As they broke apart, slightly breathless, she caressed his cheek. “I love you, and I so admire everything you do for the children and for me. But you can’t work yourself to death over it. We’ll work on it in the morning, together. But for now, come to bed. Because there’s more where those kisses came from.”
Matthew raised an eyebrow. “Do you consider me so easily distracted?”
“Not as easily as you should be; I have to work hard to pull you away,” Mary said, smiling as he stood up and turned off the desk lamp.
“Perhaps you need to work harder,” he said with a smirk. His stress, in the moment, was beginning to melt away.
Mary took his hand and nearly pulled him out the door. “I think I might, but not in the library.”
