A/N: Thank you all so much for your kind reviews! It is so thrilling to find email alerts in your inbox, i can't tell you.

Now, for the story: we are picking up where we left off: Charles Carson knowing he is a fool for letting Elsie Hughes slip away because he can't find it in himself to make a move. Elsie doesn't seem to be able to do anything about her feelings either.
It's tragedy, this is.


Managing Downton took more than just a clear idea of a linen rota, Elsie thought to herself, helping the head housemaid change the sheets in the nursery. You had to know which person was where at any time of the day. To be open in your communication, you had to be strict and knowledgeable and then there was the not so little task of making sure that servants were hardly ever seen. The Earl and Countess were kind employers, they did not mind seeing the odd maid tending a fire and they did not object to being kept informed about the well-being of the newest members of staff, but all the rest of it came down to Mrs Hughes.

While she pulled the clean sheets into perfect corners, Elsie could see herself doing the same thing in her own house. A small cottage on an estate. With a garden and a double bed in the bedroom where she would lay her body to rest next to his, safe, loved and cared for. With a cot in the nursery and shoes and boots on the doormat and telling stories after dinner. Again she shook her head.

Her headshakes were a running gag in the servants quarter, she knew. Once she overheard a maid telling a bootboy about it. She endured it with grace because she knew the other choice was to give in to those thoughts and if she did that, she would be so thoroughly unhappy, she would be unable to do her job.

Her job meant a lot to her. She had worked hard for it, letting any part of it slip because she couldn't keep herself, her thoughts and her desires in check was unthinkable. While in her dreams and most private of thoughts she was 'Elsie', on the outside she would always be 'Mrs Hughes'.


He stood by the door, ushering in the head housemaid who was carrying a tray of cups and saucers and oversaw the serving of sandwiches and teacake. Lady Grantham was still young, her three children were all just under ten and her American ways had not completely vanished. He knew she enjoyed a cup of tea and a sandwich, but he also knew she could just as easily have gone for coffee. Charles felt loyal towards her, but more to her husband. The Earl was a good man who tried to run his estate with delicacy and honour. He was kind to his tenants and gave his daughters all the attention he could.

All daughters. For a member of the aristocracy, this was a complication. For him as butler, a commoner, it would have been just chance without any implications. He tried to imagine himself as something else than a butler. What was it that he could have become if not a servant. He avoided the memory of himself as a Cheerful Charlie who sung and danced in noisy, smokey halls.

He did not know what he could have been, perhaps an accountant would have been possible. He would live in a small house, perhaps in a town or on an estate. He kept seeing the swaying hips of Elsie Hughes before him, just slipping around the corner. He could see her laying the table, darning small socks and stockings.

"Carson?"

"Yes, m'lady?" he slipped into his persona: he was butler at Downton, nobody else.


When Elsie walked past the drawing room, she saw him standing by the dresser and he just looked up. Their eyes met and she could feel her cheeks flush bright pink. But she didn't look away. So many things were going through her mind: how she could drown in those eyes, how handsome he looked in his starched shirt and tie, how dignified he was even when he poured tea in dainty cups.

How she wanted to close even the smallest of gaps between them.

She did not reprimand herself. She stayed where she was. Going over and pressing herself against him would not only have been highly unladylike, it would have been painful with hot tea being poured over her dress. Though with the amount of layers of clothing on her, she wondered how long it would take for that tea to finally reach her bare skin.


He heard her before he saw her, the clinking of her keys always being there before her. He looked up from the tea he was pouring and got lost in her beautiful eyes. It was all he could do to not push away the teapot, walk over and just devour her. He did not put down the pot, but kept looking. He saw how she blushed, but didn't look away or move at all. Blood was rushing to places he preferred it stayed away from when he was in company. When she finally broke the spell, he had to think hard of unpleasant things such as dead fish on a slab before he could return to performing his duties.


TBH...