His room is warm, his bed turned down and he only needs to ring the bell for his valet to come up. He is not ready to get out of his suit yet, he is not ready to leave this evening behind. Crawley will have to wait another ten minutes. Twenty. The man does not have to suffer late nights a lot, he will forgive him for this one exception. This exceptional night is making his heart beat too fast, his mind swims with memories and sudden daydreams.
He unties his shoes and kicks them off, pulls off his tie, shrugs out of his coat, stalks over to the drinks cabinet and pours himself a large brandy.
He sinks down in the large seat by the fire, nips on his brandy, thinks about the party. Of how extraordinary it has been to find her there.
Elsie.
He is confused by how she has been under his skin for decades and how it tingles where she has touched his arm. How he can hear her voice even after being in his carriage, the horses running, the wheels rattling over the cobblestones. He is confused because after so much time he still wants to be with her.
The brandy comforts him, but he cannot relax. She will be coming to his home in the afternoon, she will see how he lives, how his life is filled with simple pleasures and duty. She'll find there are few servants and that he does not entertain much.
He hopes he will not disappoint her, that in the light of day she will still see him the way she saw him this evening as they clinked their glasses, the champagne waltzing against the rim.
"Thank you, Levinson." Elsie dismisses her maid and waits for her to leave the room.
It's a smallish guest room, but it is enough for the eldest, unmarried daughter of a Baron. She is nothing but an Honourable and she has nothing to show for her coming out one Season long ago. Her time in France and Italy is almost a dream by now. She cannot make claim to a bigger room, a less lumpy mattress, a warmer comforter.
She is alone and she pushes off the blankets and goes to the mirror. She sits down, and looks intently at her reflection. She knows her years won't look as if they have caught up with her yet - not in the gaslight in the antechamber she and Charles had used for a little heart to heart, but tomorrow in the light of day, he is sure to see the wrinkles that have formed in the corners of her eyes, the lines in her forehead.
He might be so disappointed.
Of course it is silly to think he will court her. It is silly to look at herself in the mirror, pointing out obvious flaws. But she sits there for half an hour, forty five minutes and the clock on the mantle ticks and tears are welling up in her eyes and she bats them away for fear of them being spotted in the morning by Anne or John.
Never has she been so shaken by a man.
Not since that fateful night she had met him for the first and only time.
"Elsie was acting rather peculiar tonight." John says to his wife. He has sneaked into her room and they have curled up together. Sleep won't come if he doesn't have her near and she indulges him, even though they are staying at somebody else's estate. They know their servants won't betray them, downstairs in the Servants' Hall or upstairs in the small attic rooms.
"Was she?" Anne is tired, he can hear in her voice.
"Wasn't she?" He retorts.
"She was more lively than she has been in a while and she did seem to take a shine to Mr Carson."
"Yes. Carson. Shackleton tells me he is the Earl of Grantham."
"Oh!" Anne turns in his arms. "That is a surprise."
John nods and wraps his arms around his wife. "Yes. Not to her though, or at least I think she knows. She seemed rather close to him."
Anne smiled. "Are you worried?"
"No. Elsie can look after herself." He runs his hand over his wife's back, smoothing the cotton of her nightgown.
"I didn't mean about Elsie."
The silence that follows is deafening.
He lets Crawley lay out his best, lets him tie his cravat with extraordinary care and checks if his shoes have been polished.
Of course they have.
He dismisses his man and makes his way to the dining room where he butters a piece of toast and drinks his tea with an extra spoonful of sugar.
He will need his strength.
The morning passes slowly. He meets with a tenant but cannot keep his mind on the problem presented to him. He is being served coffee, but he forgets it. His lunch is a quiet affair as is his habit, but today it irks him. For once he feels it would be pleasant to have a friend closeby, to have somebody to confide in.
He is not a man who is in the habit of courting and he remembers lessons his father had tried to press upon him when he was a young man. That ladies needed to be treated kindly and courteously, that he needed to be certain he showed his interest only when he meant it. For any other kind of dalliance there would be plenty of girls willing to 'help him out'.
In his youth he had taken the message to heart and had used the offers of ladies of the night while in London for the Season, but he had never much enjoyed it and certainly he had not boasted about it, like some of the men in his club were wont to do. These days he had given all that up, the Season, women selling themselves.
Now he was eating without tasting much and he kept looking at the clock, both willing time to go faster and slower, looking forward to seeing Elsie and dreading it at the same time.
"I have absolutely nothing to wear." Elsie went through her limited wardrobe with Levinson as Anne sat on her bed, commenting on the few choices there were.
"Wouldn't the green do?" Anne said.
Levinson nodded. "I can easily have it read in time."
"Thank you, Levinson." Elsie dismissed with a little bite in her voice that came solely from nerves.
"Sorry." She immediately apologised. She missed the look between Anne and her maid.
"Didn't we pack anything that wasn't practical?"
"You are making too much of this, Elsie." Anne piped up only to be met with an eyeroll.
"Maybe the green will have to do." Elsie sighed and took a step back from the large wardrobe and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She looked as nervous as she felt.
She looked forward to having tea with Charles, seeing him again. Talking to him had been so easy, had felt so natural. But tea was not a ball and a green teagown not a cream-coloured ballgown with a deep neckline. What if he felt differently after a night's sleep? What if didn't look so wonderful in full daylight?
"I'll take it downstairs, Milady."
"Thank you." When the door closed, Elsie heaved a deep sigh.
"How long before we have to go?" She asks.
"About four hours." Anne replies.
"Oh God…" Elsie whispers.
A/N: Thank you for reading.