Chapter One – Before Downton

There were many reasons why she protected her girls from gentleman callers, but none was more important than what her life has become. When she was younger, there was no respectable Mrs. Hughes; it was Elsie, the girl with curly hair and caramel eyes, she could make the boys head turn.

It was a pity her mother never been as strict as she is with the women placed under her care. Her mother never told her not to believe in boys' promises of love and marriage, or that boys never married women they already "had a taste". Maybe, if Charlotte Hughes has ever told her any of those things, her son wouldn't be a bastard.

To her, the pain of given birth to a child was there to teach her a lesson. Maybe it was to make her a good mother and woman, or just to punish her. It pained to leave her boy with her mother, but they needed money and nobody in the village would hire a woman with such reputation.

Her small Charles was just three when she got into the train to Downton, where nobody knew of her past, and she could work in peace to send money for her mother and child since she didn't spend much by living where she worked.

It was a tiring job, but the housekeeper said it was a good thing. "If the girls were tired, they couldn't make stupid mistakes." Such thing made me wish she was my mother, but looking back, I wouldn't trade my Charlie for anything. No men could make my heart skip, like my boy did when I saw a new picture of his, or one of his letters. The only man that ever came close to that was to dignified to be related with such a tainted woman as myself.

Enough of the past, I have a problem the size of a Scottish man outside. But the first thing I should do is wipe the smile of my face. Just because my once smallish boy became a giant highlander is no matter of pride… maybe it is, but I have no time for this! Right now he is talking with Mr. Carson, and soon Charles – the big one. No, this isn't right. Charles Senior…yes, that will do. Soon Charles S. will be in my parlor introducing me to a boy I know since he came out of my womb!

I probably should be paying more attention to the happenings around me, since when the door opened, I almost had a heart attack.