Going Another Way.
Loose sequel to 'Stitching it Up'. Would probably make more sense if you read that little fic first but could also be read as a stand-alone. Also, for the sake of this story, Mrs Hughes didn't go to the station with Mrs Crawley to see off Mr Grigg. You'll understand why later. ;)
Dedicated to the lovely person on tumblr who said they'd beta for me. If only I could remember who you were.
Really struggled to write this one... like, for two weeks. :/ So please let me know what you think if you have a few moments.
He was just going to return the book.
Alright, perhaps that wasn't strictly true. He was just going to return the book and then maybe, maybe suggest that they finish off a bottle of Mrs Patmore's blackberry wine. It was a good wine – fruity and robust – the product of last year's unseasonably warm autumn, and he was sure that she would enjoy it. After all she loved blackberries – always used one of her half days in September to go blackberry picking on the estate. And Charles remembered well how prettily his housekeeper's mouth appeared, stained with dark purple juice.
Besides, he told himself, placing the bottle of wine onto a tray that already held two clean glasses and Mrs Hughes' copy of Great Expectations. It would be a shame to let the second half of the bottle go to waste.
The short walk to the sitting room was just long enough for his heart to start pounding. Charles hadn't spoken to Elsie since his brief moment of madness, five days previously, when he had pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Of course, Mr Carson had seen Mrs Hughes, had eaten hurried breakfasts next to her and passed her in corridors. They had even managed, in between soothing their frazzled staff and attending the family's unexpected guests, a few brief discussions about room allocations and additional food orders. But Charles and Elsie hadn't had a single opportunity to talk things through. Not since the Americans had descended.
A 'surprise' Mrs Levinson had called it, winding him with her heavy fur coat as she swept through Downton's main entrance and into the welcoming hall, a party of twenty dogging her heels. The 'week from hell' the rest of the staff had dubbed it, quietly cursed the ship that had carried their guests safely 'across the pond' whenever they thought he wasn't in earshot…
Had it not been for Mrs Hughes level-headed ability to work the miraculous, Mr Carson was sure that they would have all gone to pieces. She had been a sight to behold: organising emergency room preparations and rallying her maids as if the arrival of Lady Gratham's mother was a call to war – the girls her willing soldiers. And, somehow, she had even managed to create the impression that he, blundering idiot, was overseeing matters in a calm and rational manner.
It was one of the (many) things that he loved about her.
Yes, he could admit that to himself now.
Charles Carson, Butler of Downton Abbey – stickler for the rules and abject traditionalist – was completely and irrevocably in love with his housekeeper.
He was also completely and irrevocably terrified of screwing it up.
Gripping the tray a little tighter Charles took a few steadying breaths, slowing his pace as the door to Mrs Hughes' sitting room loomed. It was pushed shut but not closed – a promising sign. He was sweating now, could feel perspiration rising on the small of his back and the palms of his hands. Breaking this new ground between them was going to be tricky – fraught with the fear of ruining a friendship that had lasted decades. His head told him that it wasn't worth the risk. But his heart… well. His heart had always been tethered to Elsie Hughes in ways that weren't exactly proper. They had put off this moment for long enough.
Balancing the tray along the length of his arm, Charles lifted his free hand to knock… but something stayed his hand at the last second.
Was that music?
Curious, he angled an ear towards to the door, straining to pick up the quiet sounds. It was music… an orchestra, if he wasn't mistaken.
At his questing touch the door fell open slightly, leaving a gap for him to hear through. It was an orchestra, though he had to admit that he was unfamiliar with the piece. As a lone cello's mournful song was joined by a steady violin, filling his chest with warmth, Charles wondered where on earth Mrs Hughes had managed to obtain the gramophone.
Curiosity mounting he leaned forward, meaning to get as close to the door as possible. Unfortunately he also managed to bump the tray against the door's handle, rattling the wine glasses and, much to his dismay, pushing the door open.
What he saw next stopped him dead in his tracks.
She was dancing.
No, dancing was the wrong word. Elsie was moving to the music like water, flowing through the rising crescendo with smooth, measured movements – arms stretched above her head, skirts twirling about her ankles. She seemed to be lost in the rhythm: eyes closed, cheeks flushed, tendrils of hair escaping her usually immaculate up-do.
But perhaps most arresting of all, the thing that caught his breath and stole his reason, were her feet: white, delicate, strong feet - with high arches and tapering toes – standing bare against the wooden flooring.
"Oh!"
The gasp startled Charles so much that he jolted backwards, rattling the wine glasses on his tray. Elsie had turned towards the door, towards him. And her eyes were open.
"Mr Carson?"
Her skirts came to a gentle stop.
"Mrs Hughes, I was, ah..." He trailed off, failing to find a suitable explanation for his presence in her now open doorway.
For a moment they stared at each other across the room. Elsie was catching her breath, lips parted, tendrils of hair falling about her face. She was nervous. He could see it in the furrows of her brow, in the way she bit down on her lower lip. Doubt flooded his mind. What if he had misread things? What if she was happy with the way they were? He wasn't ready to lose her friendship. He couldn't survive without it.
"Forgive me," he apologised, eyes lowered, feeling the fool. "I… don't know what came over me. I'll go."
Charles moved to close the door.
With typical practicality Elsie strode over and tugged the door away from him. "Why don't you come in, Mr Carson," she suggested, smiling up at him shyly. He noticed that she was a good inch shorter than usual without her shoes on. "I'd… like it very much if you did."
Charles cleared his throat. "I did come to return the loan," he confessed, indicating to the book on the tray, "and to… to talk."
In the background, the gramophone ground to a halt.
"Talk." Elsie repeated, suddenly not knowing where to put her hands. "Yes. We need to catch up after the last few days. Things have been so busy…"
He found himself nodded in agreement.
On the brink of something new, and unexpected in both of lives, they hesitated.
"Well then," the housekeeper prompted after a long minute, tilting her head. "Are you going to come in?"
Charles answered with his feet, forcing them over the sitting room threshold and towards the small table standing against the wall. There. That hadn't been so hard… "Where did you find the gramophone?" he asked, setting down the tray and fussing with a glass.
Elsie closed the door behind him. "Let's just say that Lady Grantham's brother owed me a favour and this was how I chose to collect."
Knowing better than to ask questions, the butler turned to face her, eyebrows raised.
They lapsed back into silence. Charles poured the wine, needing to keep his hands occupied. Elsie sat down opposite him, straightening out the tablecloth.
"Mr-"
"Mrs-"
They both laughed nervously.
Charles pushed a generous glass of wine towards her. "You first."
Elsie wrapped a hand around the cool glass gratefully. "Does it need to breathe?"
"I would usually wait a little longer before drinking blackberry wine," Charles said, holding his glass up to the light so that he could better admire the colour, "but I dare say we could both do with a little fortifying."
By the time he lowered his glass, half of Elsie's wine had disappeared.
"Mrs-"
"Take off your shoes, Charles."
"I- what?"
"You heard me."
Confused, he watched as Elsie stood and walked over to her desk.
She began to wind the gramophone vigorously. "We're both too old and too stubborn to be dancing around each other for a moment longer. Don't you think thirty years is long enough? So, if we are going to… to do this, we're going to do it properly." She paused to look over her shoulder. "Well?"
Charles bent over and began to untie his shoes.
Letting out an unsteady breath, Elsie selected a gentle waltz from Mr. Levinson's travelling collection of records and changed the records over on the turntable. She was careful to make sure that the muffling ball was still in place in the horn. It wouldn't do to wake her maids or indeed anyone after the day's hard work. When she was satisfied, she set the needle to the record's edge.
As the first swell of music filled the air, Charles padded over the wooden flooring behind her.
"Ready."
Taking a deep breath, she turned.
He stood in the middle of the room, trousers rolled up to mid-calf – strong, toned calves, she noted – feet bare and white, toes drumming against the flooring.
Elsie had to bite her cheek to keep from laughing out loud. Despite his sixty-odd years there was something so… young and uncertain about him now that she could almost spy the hall-boy that he must have once been, peeping out from behind his nervousness.
"Will I do, Mrs Hughes?"
She stepped towards him, heart thumping. "Will I?"
He could see the curve of the world in her sea-mist eyes. His world. "Undoubtedly… Elsie."
Elsie felt her cheeks redden. He was looking at her in a way that she didn't think she'd ever seen before. Where was her familiar, safe, crotchety old Butler when she needed him?
"May I have this dance?" He asked, hand outstretched, palm open.
Nodding silently, she stepped up to him and settled her smaller hand into his. The sensation of skin against skin was shocking – a tactile explosion – and she let out a little gasp when his fingers closed around hers. Charles drew her closer, placing his other hand on her dress between her shoulder-blades. Elsie raised her free hand to rest comfortably on his shoulder, fingertips brushing against the seam there. They both took a deep, steadying breath. Then Charles began to lead her about the room slowly.
They were stiff for the first few steps, Elsie flustered, Charles concentrating on keeping their steps in time, but as they grew accustomed to being in each other's arms their waltz became smoother – less like water struggling up a hill. Gradually he began to incorporate turns into their dance so that they were moving freely around the room.
"What is it?" Elsie asked, seeing a gentle smile spreading across Charles' face.
He shook his head. "We're dancing. I never thought…" He shook his head again, drawing her closer. "Elsie, if anyone had told me two years ago that you and I would be dancing around your sitting room, late in the evening, without any shoes on, I would have disciplined them for speaking out of turn. I always thought that… this would be the road untaken, that I would always regret…"
Her hand squeezed his reassuringly.
"But," Charles continued, clearing his throat, serious now, "I've given… this, us, a great deal of thought over the last few days, considered the potential ramifications and repercussions… And I've come to a conclusion."
"Oh?"
Their dancing slowed. Her hand dropped out of his.
"Yes," Charles smiled, curling a wayward lock of hair behind her ear. "I realized that I was prepared to lose everything, but you. Elsie – I should have been braver, should have told you every day for the last twenty-five years that you are the reason I get up in the morning-" she was shaking her head, hand pressed against her mouth, "-but I convinced myself that my feelings for you were one way and irrelevant. I thought- I thought that they would fade with time, that I could get over you."
He tugged her towards him.
"I was a fool, Elsie. A blind, blundering fool. You have stolen the heart from out of my chest and I find that I don't mind. Not one bit."
"Charles-"
Her hand was still covering her mouth, still trying to hold back the sobs that threatened. His confession was too much for her to process – bigger than all of her secret hopes for this evening.
He loved her.
Charles Carson, Butler of Downton Abbey – stickler for the rules and abject traditionalist – was completely and irrevocably in love with her, his housekeeper. And he didn't mind. Not one bit.
Slowly, so as not to startle her, Charles raised a hand to her face, wiping away the dampness he found there. She exhaled shakily, pulling her hand away from her mouth. "Well that told me."
He hummed, tilting her chin upwards.
"Elsie, I'm going to kiss you now… if you have no objections."
"No objections," she echoed, settling a hand against the starched material of his shirt. Underneath her touch, his heart pounded fiercely but she couldn't help but wonder if she had hit her head somewhere in the house and was really lying on the floor, unconscious and dreaming of this moment.
The moment his mouth touched hers Elsie knew that it was real. His lips were gentle and warm, and oh so soft – such a contrast to that first unexpected kiss in his pantry. It was sweet, like summer days and future promises. It was a kiss to build a dream on: breaking her heart even as it stitched it back together again.
When Charles' arms circled around her hesitantly, coming to rest on the small of her back, Elsie realized that she hadn't exactly filled the poor man with much confidence at his current course of action and immediately set about resolving that, returning his kiss and moving forward to press their bodies together. His reaction was immediate, gripping her tighter as he slid his tongue into her mouth.
Elsie moaned, toes curling, hands fisting, adrenalin washing through her veins. If this was what drowning felt like, she'd happily die this way, anchored to him.
Unfortunately the need to breathe soon re-asserted itself. Charles broke the kiss reluctantly, panting into her hair.
"You taste like the wine," he murmured, voice an octave lower than usual, raising goose-bumps on her arms. "Sweet and sharp."
"I-"
Whatever she had been going to say was lost the moment his mouth latched on to the sensitive skin behind her ear. She clutched his shoulders, helplessly compromised – a low heavy feeling pooling in her stomach.
"Charles…"
Encouraged by her ragged breathing, Charles worked his way down her neck, pressing hot, wet kisses to every bit of exposed skin he could reach.
"Charles-"
He inadvertently cut her off by biting down over her pulse-point. Elsie moaned, legs nearly buckling under the weight of the sudden sensation. It was much, much, too much. She couldn't think, she couldn't- couldn't-
"Charles!"
His name finally filtered through the fog of desire. Elsie was squirming in his arms, hands pushing at his shoulders, trying frantically to push him away.
Charles released her immediately, taking a very large step back. "Mrs Hughes, I am so sor-"
Elsie's hands found her hips. "Charles Carson," she exclaimed, breathing hard. "If you dare consider apologising for that kiss I am never going to let you near me again. Do I make myself clear?"
He nodded once.
"And no more 'Mrs Hughes' when we're alone, thank you very much…"
"But-"
"… even when you get flustered." Elsie folded her arms. "Charles, you can't go around… kissing me like… well, like that, and then 'Mrs Hughes' me as if we're in front of the staff… unless you want me to forget where I am and kiss you good morning at the breakfast table!"
Charles pretended to consider this, raising an eyebrow suggestively.
"Charles!"
"Yes, Elsie dear?"
She slapped him halfheartedly across the chest. "You… incorrigible… man!"
"You know, I quite like you being the flustered one out of the pair of us," he teased, drawing her into his arms. "Makes a nice change."
Elsie sagged against him. "Charles, what are we going to do?"
He tightened his arms around her reassuringly. "We'll… just have to muddle through, I guess."
She let out a small snort. "Charles Carson – muddle through?"
"If I've learnt anything over the last few days it's that, with you by my side, anything's possible."
She hummed non-committedly.
"Besides," he said, posture straightening, chin rising. "When I do muddle through, it's always with style."
Elsie patted him lovingly on the chest.