He looked up at the sharp rap on his door. It wasn't Mrs. Hughes as he'd hoped. Disappointment briefly curled down the corners of his mouth. But his letdown was forgotten completely when he saw the dessert in Mrs. Patmore's hand.

"I thought I might bring you a piece before you headed up for the night."

Smiling as he set down his pen, he said,

"I thought I smelled your apple tart. Thank you."

As he accepted the confection, he nodded to a chair in front of his desk.

"Don't mind if I do," she said. A relieved sigh escaped her as she sat.

"And clotted cream?" He tilted his head to the side, a friendly question in his eyes.

She chuckled.

"You can call it an engagement present if you like."

He grunted happily as he took a bite.

After a few moments of comfortable silence, she spoke.

"So you two still haven't settled the location for the reception, I take it?"

"Well, no, not precisely," he answered. He smiled softly then, almost indulgently, she thought. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. "But we'll come to an agreement soon. We always do."

In fact, he was certain that he could convince his bride-to-be to come round to his way of thinking. She wanted the reception at the school. He wanted it at Downton. They'd been arguing for days. Even though she cited the fact that she didn't want to have the staff at Downton working at her wedding, he guessed that she didn't feel strongly enough about it to refuse him.

Nodding at his statement, she watched him take another bite.

"You know she told me about her sister. Becky," she said.

He looked at her, his brow knitted. Most likely Mrs. Hughes told Mrs. Patmore the details of his proposal: the doomed house hunt, her sad tale, and his eventual proposal on Christmas Eve. A pang of guilt reverberated through him at that. He still hadn't made it clear to her that the true reason for his proposal had nothing to do with Becky, or saving her, or companionship. He loved her desperately. He adored her, in fact. It was possible...probable, more like... that she wasn't aware of how deep his affection for her ran. He hoped that that particular conversation might keep until after their wedding. Truthfully, he hoped that they would never need to have that conversation at all. That she would be able to figure it out on her own. Be able to read his mind somehow. Like she always did.

"Do you know," she said slowly, "how old she was when she understood what it meant to have a sister like Becky?"

Bewildered at the sudden shift of atmosphere, his plate fell a bit.

She went on.

"How old do you think she was when she knew that she would be responsible for another person for the whole of her life? That she would, most likely, never have a family-children, mind you-of her own? That no one would ever take care of her? That she would always be the one to take care of everyone else?"

She paused. His eyebrows were nearly to his hairline.

"She never asks for anything, Mr. Carson, because there has never been anyone in a position to give her anything. Her whole life has always been about what she could give others."

Dread began to fill him and his eyes glistened.

"Now she never said any of this to me, mind. She doesn't complain. She's only ever happy when she talks about you. But I can read between the lines with the best of them."

She slapped her hands on her knees with a falsely jovial finality. She stood and stepped to his desk.

"It's eight, by the way," she said.

His brow furrowed in confusion.

"She was eight years old. When she knew."

And with that she whisked the barely touched apple tart out of his hands and swept out of the room.

He sat for long minutes, staring at the door after she left.