Thomas Barrow almost turned his nose up at the card before him. For the first time in over ten years, he had something to open on Valentine's Day. He looked at it as though it would bite him.

"Is this some kind of joke?" Thomas held up the card in front of John Bates's surprised face.

"Why would I send you a Valentine, Barrow?" Bates snarked, so bitterly that Thomas fully believed for a moment that it was a joke, it must be, and he almost threw the card at Bates's nasty face.

But that would accomplish nothing, and so he sat down with a frown on his face.

"Why don't you open it first?" Andy said casually from down the table while examining his cup of tea. "See what it says before you jump to any conclusions?"

So Thomas opened the envelope.

Andy knew the pink paper stock with red roses was too girly for Thomas, but all the other valentines Andy found in London had had pictures of naked babies, or worse, women and men kissing, and Andy didn't want to give Thomas the wrong idea. He had gone up to London on his free day to visit friends, buy a Valentine's card for Thomas, and pour his heart out. Anonymously, of course. Not good to put anything like that in writing, he knew.

Though Thomas didn't seem to be a sappy sort of man, just because you couldn't see that part of him, Andy knew, didn't mean it wasn't there.

Everyone sitting at the table had stopped eating breakfast and waited silently as Thomas opened his valentine's card. Andy thought it was rude of the staff to marvel so much over Thomas getting a valentine.

"What's it say?" Miss Baxter asked.

"Nothin' much," Thomas said, blushing. "Excuse me for a moment."

"What's gotten into him?" said Bates.

"He got a valentine's card, that's what," Andy said.

"I know that," Bates said and nearly rolled his eyes, "but from whom?"

"That's not really our business, is it, darling?" Anna said softly.

"What's happened to Barrow?" said Carson as he entered the room.

"He got a valentine," said Miss Baxter.

Carson's face turned a disturbing array of pinks and reds before he squared his shoulders. He cleared his throat and took his seat at the head of the table.

"I don't suppose that could do any harm," he said to Mrs. Hughes in a voice too quiet for anyone to hear, anyone who was not paying as close attention as Andy, that is.

"What harm could it do?" his fiancée smiled at him and laid her hand on top of his.

Thomas walked about in a daze the rest of the morning. Andy watched him with a smile on his face. Thomas was a smart man, and he'd figure out the author of his valentine soon enough.

"What're you doing loitering about?" Thomas said.

Andy had been lost in a daze himself, leaning against a wall in the bootroom, Lord Grantham's riding boots forgotten on the table in the center of the room.

"Can't a man have a moment of rest, Barrow?"

"A man, yes. A footman, no." Thomas smiled and closed the door behind them.

"Oh, Barrow, don't envy me. The under butler must be busier than a footman on any given day. You know that."

"No, actually, I don't. I've got a half-day today. And you know that I'm not so old I don't have some tricks for getting out of work up my sleeve…" Thomas said, leaning on the large table.

Andy knew he was blushing. "I'd like to see them."

With that Thomas whipped out Andy's card. "Got this today."

"I saw. You like it?"

"You have no idea," Thomas sighed. "Here I was, thinking I was finished, and here comes a chance to hope again…"

"To hope for what?" Andy, leaning on the table himself now and slightly out of breath.

"Jimmy."

"Who?" Andy said.

"You remember Jimmy Kent, the footman I told you about?"

"The blond one? Yes, why?" Andy felt the corners of his mouth dipping into a frown.

"He has feelings for me after all!" Thomas beamed. "He told me so right here."

"How - what…" Andy's heart sank. "How do you know it's from him?"

"He lives in London, and here, in the letter, he thanks me for saving him, and remember that I - "

"Saved him from a gang beneath a bridge at the fair four years ago," Andy said.

"Something wrong, Andy?" Thomas asked, concerned.

"Nothing," Andy said and put on a smile. It was his job as a footman to look pleasant at all times. And if he could do it for Lord and Lady Grantham, he could do it for Thomas.