"Would you…ahem, would you mind if I intruded on your nightcap ritual tomorrow evening, as well?" Carson asked, his voice hardly above a whisper.
Her lower lip was caught between her teeth as she nodded. "Intrude all you like."
Carson smiled at this, a lopsided little thing, before nodding. "Excellent. Well, thank you for your hospitality tonight, Elsie," he said. His voice was low, almost like a rumble, and she caught his dark gaze fall to her lips for the briefest of moments. At this, as if suddenly remembering where he was, he cleared his throat and told her, "Sweet dreams."
With that, he took his leave. The sitting room seemed far emptier, far colder without the presence of his tall frame commanding the room and Elsie tried to ignore the implications of what that meant. She picked up what remained of their nightcaps and headed for Downton's kitchens. In an era past, this place had been a bustling hub of activity, with servants coming and going, tending to the Family's every need. But now, the entire downstairs was more subdued. The kitchen was still functional and Daisy put it to good use each day. Most of the other rooms, however, had been converted into offices and conference rooms that her staff filled during their retreat season. Now, it was starkly barren.
The kitchen was dark, illuminated only by a faint sliver of moonlight banding across the old stone floor. It was calm and quiet, and felt rather like a sanctuary. Navigating her way through the dark room, Elsie set the port glasses in the sink. Washing them would be a task for tomorrow, she decided; she was far too tired and far too tipsy to pay them much mind tonight.
Her flat awaited her, almost beckoning her in her tired state. It had once been the female servants' quarters, but some twenty years ago when Lord Grantham sold an interest in his estate to Her Majesty's government, he knocked down the walls that separated the women's rooms and formed a rather respectable flat for the executive director. It was not orante or grand, not like the rooms upstairs where the scholars resided. But it was comfortable. At least, enough for her. She had a small sitting room, with a well worn leather sofa and an old telly she had brought with her. Framed photos of her travels and flea market oil paintings adorned the walls, and almost every inch not covered by some Turkish rug or another was covered in stacks of books. The bookshelves had long since run out of room to accommodate her collection, so the floor and the coffee table and every other nook and cranny stepped in to assist. Her bedroom told of a similar story: a well worn oriental rug, books in every corner, a cream-colored duvet that could swallow a woman whole.
Adjacent to the sitting room was a small kitchen. She rarely cooked here, not when Daisy prepared lovely meals and then some. Rather, this little kitchen was mostly a place for her to fix a pot of tea or uncork a bottle of wine. Tonight, already feeling a headache forming, she kicked off her shoes and filled her electric kettle. As the water heated and she sifted through her cupboards for something herbal and decaffeinated, she couldn't help but think of the last few hours.
Where had this evening come from, she wondered. The last week since Carson's arrival had been filled with grunts and rude comments and inconspicuous eye rolling. After inviting him to join her for a nightcap three times, each met with refusal, Elsie had written him off as yet another pompous scholar with his head up his own rear end. Lord knew she was quite familiar with that sort. There were even a few moments over the last week where she caught herself counting down the days till the end of the Michaelmas term and his subsequent departure.
But tonight. Charles Carson seemed, in a word, charming. It was a side to him she had yet to see in their weeklong acquaintance, but she found that she rather liked it. Her thoughts returned to his dark gaze, made even darker by the low light of the fire, of the mischievous glint in his eyes as she recounted stories of his colleagues' misadventures, of the way she noticed a little tuft of white chest hair visible from where his Oxford shirt was unbuttoned. He had seemed relaxed tonight, so unlike how he had been before, his body draped casually over the sofa, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, a curl falling on his forehead, his sandalwood cologne rolling off of him and intoxicating her. For a fleeting moment that night as they sipped port and regaled each other with stories, she caught herself wondering how his hands would feel upon her hips. Would his fingers dig into her flesh, or would he be tender, gentlemanly, perhaps even a little shy?
In all truth, Elsie had not noticed a man in that sort of way in quite some time, not since…well, not in a very long time. It was ridiculous, she told herself, a woman of her age thinking such things. Completely preposterous. She almost laughed at the thought. This was a professional work environment and he was a visiting scholar. It would be unseemly and unprofessional to give this man or his hauntingly dark gaze any further thought.
The kettle hissed, jolting her from her thoughts. Reflexively, she popped the tea bag into her mug and poured the hot water over it. As it steeped and she migrated into her bedroom, she betrayed herself. It would be unseemly and unprofessional to give Charles Carson any further thought, she had decided not moments ago. Yet here she was, giving him many further thoughts, all of them unseemly and unprofessional.
"That's enough that, old girl," Elsie chided herself, shaking her head and trying to think of anything other than him. A blushing schoolgirl, she was no longer. With a great degree of effort, she dressed for bed and sipped at her tea. Her resolve only failed her a few times.
When the light of day would no longer permit him to continue sleeping, Carson drew himself out of bed and rubbed his temples. That he didn't have a headache was a miracle, though some credit was due to the two large glasses of water he had drunk prophylactically before retiring to bed last night. He was no amateur when it came to staving off a hangover. College dinners and their subsequent after-hours whiskey tastings would certainly lead to far graver mornings had one not developed this principally important skill.
Looking out at the expansive south lawn covered in a blanket of fog, he could feel a small smile tugging at his lips. Foolish thing, he chastened himself; there was nothing to smile about. In all the real ways, nothing had changed in his life. He was still in exile from Cambridge, his professional and personal lives were still abjectly disastrous, and he still was stuck here, cut off from everything and everyone he once knew.
And yet, last night, nipping on tipples before the fire, the two of them swapping stories, perhaps even flirting a little, had been one of the best Carson could remember. It had been simple and breezy and unpretentious. It had been glorious.
Of course, he reminded himself, it would be terribly bad form to let it go any further. This was a professional retreat center, not some singles' cruise about the Caribbean. And besides, he had no business making advances in that sort of way. Not now, anyway.
Still, as he bathed and dressed that Saturday morning, Carson felt an odd sensation course through him. It stirred in him, starting in his belly and radiating through his chest. It propelled him to move more quickly, shaving and running product through that naughty curl and brushing his teeth at an accelerated clip. It was foreign to him now, but he could almost remember a time when he felt it keenly and felt it often. And as he shrugged on his navy blazer and checked his reflection in the mirror before heading downstairs to breakfast, it dawned on him. He felt happy.
How long had it been since he'd felt that, he wondered. And how long would it last?
This morning, unlike every other morning he'd spent at Downton, Carson did not rush through breakfast and bolt to the library. He sat down and fixed his tea, and read through The London Times on his phone as he ate his eggs and munched on his buttered toast. When Elsie eventually came into the dining room around 7:15, he was amused to see a look of shock on her face.
"Good morning," he said in a casual tone. "I hope you aren't in a sorry state today."
Elsie shook off her shock and pressed on to the buffet to assemble her own plate. "Good morning to you, as well. And mercifully, I'm right as rain today. Scots aren't strangers to a night of a little indulgence." He chuckled at this.
She sat down across from him, eyeing him almost curiously. "No pressing research matters this morning?" she asked, a teasing lilt to her brogue.
"Nothing too pressing, no," he replied. "I'm making good headway on my outline, though."
She sipped at her tea. "Are you, now?"
Carson smiled. "Quite. I suspect I'll be able to have a respectable first draft ready by the end of the month. Writing comes far easier when I am not distracted by lectures or faculty meetings."
"Do you miss it? Lecturing?"
He considered this for a moment, trying to harken his mind back to when he taught full-time and lectured some of Britain's best and brightest. So many had been wonderful pupils: curious, inquisitive, hungry for more, as he had once been as a young lad at Pembroke College. He thought back to the supervisions, to the exams and the degree ceremonies where they'd all be clad in robes and velvet hoods. Many of his students went on to become peers of his on the faculty of various Cambridge colleges or at similarly situated universities throughout Europe and America. He tried to remember how proud he'd felt of them, then, how he felt their accomplishments as his own, how he'd felt as if he had reached the pinnacle of his academic career. But it felt like an eon ago.
"I suppose I miss a lot of my life in Cambridge," he answered at last. Had she frowned a little when he said this? He must have imagined it, for when he looked back up at her, it was gone. "But, ahem," he cleared his throat. "I'm enjoying my time here, as well."
"Of course you are," she said a little too quickly.
"And what are you working on?" Carson asked, trying to change the subject.
"I'm going through article submissions for our conference next spring," Elsie explained. "I've got a stack of about sixty that needs to be whittled down to ten. Most of them are quite good, so it's a bit of a task."
"Any familiar names?" he pried.
She smirked. "You know full well that conference submissions are blind."
He pretended to pout, slumping his shoulders a bit for effect. "Bully for that. I could've been of some assistance," he joked. "Where do you work while you're here?"
"I have an office downstairs. It used to be the old butler's pantry."
Carson leaned back in his chair. "Ah, I see. Madame Executive Director likes to sit at the helm, does she?"
Was he flirting? The teasing tone in his voice and the subsequent blush in her cheeks certainly lended themselves to that conclusion. Knock it off, old man, Carson thought to himself.
Elsie nodded, looking down at her plate, as if that would hide the rose in her cheeks. "It's the biggest office downstairs," she explained. Clearing her throat and setting the napkin on the table, she said in the flattest tone, "Speaking of, I ought to make some headway of my own in my work today. I'd best get a move on."
Carson startled at this abrupt end to their breakfast. "Oh, of course," he muttered. "I probably ought to, as well." They bid each other goodbye and disappeared to their respective corners of the estate.
The morning was a pale one, the kind that keeps the sun hidden all day and prevents a person from really feeling the passage of time. Normally, a day like this was optimal for conducting research, for entering into that flow of work where one could lose oneself. Those were Carson's favorite kinds of days. And yet today, as he returned to the library and pulled out the books he'd need for his outline, he found that that much anticipated current of work eluded him. It came close on occasion, offering him a few minutes of productivity here and there, but it never swept him away. He was distracted and he didn't want to admit to himself why.
By noon, Carson felt his stomach howl at him and he finished off his tea, hoping that would satisfy it for now. It did not abate. He stared at his computer screen, a bit disappointed with himself that his outline had changed very little since this morning. Hours had been wasted. A break was needed, that much was certain.
Against his better judgment, he felt his feet carry him to the dining room where the door to the downstairs kitchens surely led. He tiptoed as if he were intruding; perhaps because he was. Sure enough, past a long hallway where servants used to assemble trays for the Family, he found the staircase and could see that at the bottom of it was a long hallway, full of offices, no doubt. He began the slow descent, pausing a few times midway and almost retreating, even turning back and taking one or two steps up. But he shook it off and continued.
There was something about last night, about that wonderfully simple evening he'd shared with her, that he longed to repeat.
Down a long hallway, he could see light coming from one of the offices. His stomach performed all sorts of acrobatic moves at that and he shook his head. Good grief, Charlie, he thought to himself. But he pressed on. Peering inside the office, he found Elsie at a large, antique wooden desk, probably left over from the butler whose pantry she now occupied. She was leaning back in her chair, a pair of cat-eye reading glasses at the tip of her nose, holding what looked to be an essay in one hand, and a pencil whose end she nibbled on in the other. A studious look was about her and her brow was furrowed in concentration.
How long he stood there observing her, he could not say. Elsie was deep in thought and hadn't noticed his towering figure darkening her doorway. Gently knocking on the doorframe, he announced his presence.
Her blue eyes shot up to him immediately and he was glad to see her face brightened when they landed on him. "Goodness, you startled me!" she exclaimed.
Carson shuffled his feet, feeling a tad embarrassed. "My apologies," he said.
"Not to worry," she told him, setting down the essay and taking off her reading glasses. "Can I help you with anything?"
Her consummately professional tone almost made him change course. Perhaps he should give up and ask for help with the printer or something like that. But he knew he'd regret it if he did.
"Um, yes," he began, inching further into her office. "I was wondering if you'd like to grab lunch in a bit. John and I went to Beryl's Bistro last week and it was quite good."
To say she seemed surprised by this would be inadequate. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows lifted and he noticed that she took a little steeling breath. But her expression eventually settled into a small grin, and he felt it go right through him, to a place where a small grin like that had no business going.
"Beryl's would be great," she told him at last. "She's actually a dear friend of mine, so I'm glad to hear that you like her restaurant."
Carson felt relief wash over him like a wave crashing upon the shore. "Excellent. Shall we go now?"
She smirked, perhaps at his impatience or perhaps at the way he bounced on the balls of his feet, jittery and eager. "I can't see why not," she said. "I'll fetch my coat."
"Delightful," he replied. Did a grin take up his entire face? He wouldn't dare admit that it did.
A/N: Thank you all so much for your support of the last chapter! I'm glad you're all enjoying it. I'll be going out of town this weekend, so I probably won't be able to update again until next week sometime. But I promise I'll update as soon as I can!
I hope you all enjoyed this installment! Let me know your thoughts on this one if you can!