She was stood in his pantry doorway, watching him. He did not have to look up to know. He had heard the faint tinkling of her chatelaine against her skirts.
"Well, Mr. Carson, that was another thing entirely. You are quite good, you know."
He looked up at her cheerful words. "I've not ruined everything?"
"Ruined?" Her brow furrowed. "You think...?"
She lifted his hand and held it between her own two. She looked away, without making much effort to hide her smile. "You daft man. Do you really think I'd go off you for doing a bit of singing and juggling at a charity event, particularly when Lady Mary put you up to it? It was Lady Mary, I presume?"
He cleared his throat, flexed his fingers and hesitantly curled them around hers. They had taken to doing that as of late - since his proposal - taken to holding one another's hands. Not often, mind, just when they had an uninterrupted moment, which was rare indeed.
"She caught me juggling for Master George," he rumbled softly. "And reminded me that I once did the same for her."
Mrs. Hughes smiled at him. Fondly, was the word that came to his mind, and for the first time in weeks his heart lightened.
"You're a fool, Charles Carson," she stated matter-of-factly, "if you think that would change my opinion of you a whit."
...
He was shy of it, of touching her, she noticed, but not of reciprocating when she brushed her hand over his. It was as if her initiative gave him encouragement or permission, perhaps a bit of both. He would thread his fingers through hers and clasp her hand. The strength of his grip wavered with his nerve.
"Mrs. Hughes," he would say when it happened. That was all he would ever say in the moment, and only once, with the first contact of her skin to his. In that visceral register that kept her awake at night.
"Mr. Carson," she lilted unevenly in response. (Every time.) Of course not before her breath caught in the back of her throat. (Every time.)
Not this night. Because he had been too busy being worried, and she had been too busy being warmed by his fretting. Perhaps it was time for a shift in the ritual.
She lifted his hand to her lips and pressed a bold kiss to his knuckles.
"Mrs. Hughes," he rumbled. It snapped her eyes to him the way he said it. She chased after her breath, failed miserably. Continued to fail miserably when he encircled her wrist loosely with his free hand. And then his mouth was at her wrist and he was opening her fingers and kissing the center of her palm. And she made a decidedly wanton noise, shocking both of them still.
It took her a long time to gather herself. She still held his hand when she was able to roughly whisper, "Mr. Carson."