M, again. I will sort myself out soon, but I partly blame CrazyMaryT for practically asking for this!

As butler and housekeeper there should have been nothing that thrilled them more than the news that a part of the house was functioning better than it had done before.

"Mrs Hughes, Mr Carson. The heating in our corridor has been fixed. It'll be working properly by tonight."

"Thank you, Anna."

They waited until she had gone before they looked at each other. Standing opposite each other in the doorway it was difficult to avoid eye contact, and when they finally exchanged a glance it was furtive and dismayed, though fortunately they could both see the irony of the situation.

"Well, I suppose it had to happen eventually," she conceded.

After a week of him sneaking into her room- convincing themselves all the while that they were doing nothing more than using their common sense and keeping warm-, he found that he had grown rather used to this routine. In fact, he had absolutely no wish whatever to break it. He nodded reluctantly.

"We should be pleased," he pointed out.

"We should. But-..." she trailed off; what she had meant to imply abundantly clear.

He smiled at that, at least she was as disappointed as he was. She was looking up at him rather shyly.

"I rather like, you know, our routine..."

"You don't say," he replied dryly.

Lost in apparent deliberation, she ignored his attempt loose attempt to wind her up and continued:

"Why don't we," she began with the air of someone hatching a definite plan, "Just pretend we didn't hear? Just for one more night?"

The expression on her face as she bargained with him really was quite adorable. He considered feigning sternness and reminding her that as housekeeper she really should set a better example, but found he just couldn't manage it. For one thing he was very conscious that she could say the same thing to him. She was smiling at him too now; it was more than likely she knew exactly what was going on inside his head. There was no point feigning anything to this woman.

"Go on, then," he replied, as if giving in to the suggestion reluctantly.

She shot him a triumphant smile over her shoulder as she moved off out of the doorway and down the corridor, assuming her usual stride and barking at poor Lily on the way- as if she hadn't, a couple of breaths ago, been organising a lovers' rendezvous. It was very likely that he was going to have to studiously avoid her in order to be able to think of anything else.

...

In the week that he had come to her room, they had by no means made love every night, in fact on most they had simply thrown themselves under the covers and wrapped themselves around each other to sleep. He had noted with some satisfaction that he slept a lot better with her head tucked beneath his chin than without. But tonight, now that they did not know when they might get to do this again- surely they would, but when would they ever find the time? she might have said- they found that they could not keep their hands off each other. He smiled at the thought, one would have thought that they might have got past feeling like that by their age, but apparently not. They were really in love for the first time, that was what mattered.

"What are you smiling at?" she asked, catching sight of his expression in between undoing the buttons of his pyjamas at an impressive rate.

"Would you rather I did this with a straight face?" he asked, apparently seriously.

"It would be rather less disconcerting," she replied.

"Right," he told her indignantly, "You try doing this with a straight face."

"Doing what?"

He slipped the fastening of her nightdress open at the neck and dipped his face into her skin, kissing round the edge of her breast and tracing his tongue ever so faintly across the nipple. She gasped in surprise, raising her hips off the bed. He grinned wickedly.

"That's not fair," she told him, trying to control her breathing.

"No," he agreed, "It's not."

And without any further words he continued his assault on her, no mercy spared. He buried himself back into the valley between her breasts, planting kisses in the pale skin and feeling her hands press him firmly to her, her hands in his hair. Surely, love was not normally like this; he had never known anything to be like this. Taking one of her breasts in his hand he heard her moan softly and sought to mirror his action but found the confines of her nightdress did not allow him.

"Oh, just tear it off me," he heard her mutter through gritted teeth.

He smiled, not realising she was serious until he felt her own hands tugging at the neckline, utterly desperate. He hovered over her, astounded, amazed by what he had done to her. Forgetting about the dress for a second he just traced the outline of her breast over the cloth. She writhed under his touch. He felt the flesh at his groin tighten unmistakeably at the sound of her whimpering.

"Please," she moaned, her hips kicking uncontrollably under him, "Charles..."

She was frowning, frowning like she did when she was trying very hard to control... Could he make her? Just like this?

Shifting over her, he prised his knee in between her legs. She could only watch, helpless, a sheen of perspiration on her brow. His hands found their was back to her breasts, massaging firmly, and his mouth, licking over her hardened nipples. She was letting out soft shocked moans- unable to hold them back- driving him on. And as her moans grow louder and less restrained, he moved his knee upwards, riding up under her nightdress and pressed firmly against her sex. He heard her come before he felt it, the moisture permeating through his pyjama trousers. Letting out a cry she bucked hard against the mattress, hips moving frantically.

"Charles," he heard her sob in his ear, "Oh, Charles."

He could only hold her until she was still- worn out. And then there was only one thing that he knew for certain- his perception of everything in the world apart from it askew-: he could not go back to the old life after this. He could not go back to his lonely bed, knowing that this woman was across the corridor, wondering if she might be thinking of him. Yes, he had failed her in the past. Now was his chance to bring everything back, to make her happy, again and again. He would leave Downton, he would leave England to be able to sleep beside this woman every night. There was no going back now. Enough time had been thrown away.

"You're so beautiful," he whisper in her ear, twirling her hair around his finger, "You're wonderful, Elsie. I don't know what I've done to deserve you."

"Well," he heard her sniff in amusement beside his chin, "I'd say what you just did got you a long way."

He wrapped his arm around her waist, content to lie there for as long as she needed to recover. The way they lay one of his hands remained pressed against her chest; he could feel her heartbeat still pounding, and smiled in satisfaction.

"Elsie?"

"Yes?"

"Will you please marry me?"

He felt her shift a little in his arms. Only to find that when she was still again she had managed to wriggle a little closer to him.

"Yes."

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