Warning: AU Bombshell ahead. Not sure if any other Chelsie author has presented this idea...am thinking may write a separate piece in exploration unless the feedback is negative. Thanks in advance for reading you fantastic lot-

Diamond

Summer had seemed to disappear over night as August became September. A cold rain had ushered in the dawn of the first day of the new month and it had lasted all week, only dissipating with the onset of the evening's dusk.

Unsure whether it was the weather or if she coming down with something, Charles gave his wife a worried look as she picked at the stew in her bowl.

"Everything all right, love?"

Elsie looked up, but didn't hold his gaze as she quietly answered, "Oh, I'm fine."

"Are you sure? The stew was delicious and you've barely taken three bites."

She sniffed and gave him a small smile as she picked up her almost full bowl and his empty one on her way to the kitchen. Charles followed in her somber wake. "Do you think you might be ill? Do you hurt anywhere?"

Elsie leaned against the counter as she stared at the bowls in the sink. She did hurt, but not in the conventional way of which he spoke. The pains she felt were of the heart and soul variety. The dismal weather had signaled the end of a wonderful, carefree summer full of distractions. Now, cooped up with little to occupy her mind or time, she felt dreaded memories she had joyfully tucked away begin to crawl out of their hidden depths.

"I wish you'd unburden yourself, love."

She looked over her shoulder at him, "I don't know that you do, Charles."

He moved quickly to her side at the sink. "What is it? Tell me, darling." The feel of his warm hand on her cheek was more than her aching heart could take and she allowed a tear to escape the corner of her eye. "Are you sure?"

Charles felt a sudden tug of fear, but the sight of his wife's misery was far more upsetting. "Of course. We should share our troubles, Elsie."

She studied his face a moment before taking his hand from her cheek and leading him back into the dining room.

She started slowly, but with each secret she shared, she felt as though a heavy layer of weight composed of anguish, despair and anger had slowly been picked and lifted away.

Charles sat quietly holding her hand, his lips never uttering a word as she talked of Tom Branson and his seduction by the scheming Edna Braithwaite, as well as bringing to true light Marigold and her mother and the details of Ethel's depths of despair and heart wrenching separation from the child whom, like Marigold, would never know who his mother truly was.

It was when she began to speak of their beloved Anna that she lost all control of her emotions. Through sobs and choking breaths, she told the sorry tale of Alex Green and the horrors he inflected on their girl as Dame Nellie sang, bringing to surface the wretched injustice of Anna's imprisonment and the lengths to which Mr. Bates had gone to secure her freedom at the possible cost of his own.

With only two layers left to shed, she wiped her eyes and nose before taking both of his hands in hers'. With a deep breath, she finally admitted to him the discovery of and the torment endured over the lump in her breast. He listened to her speak of sleepless nights filled with worries; worry over money, worry over Becky's care and worry that she wouldn't live to see more days with him.

Using her same handkerchief, she reached out and dabbed at tears that now fell down his cheeks as he maintained his caring, sympathetic, yet silent demeanor. "I have one more burden, Charles, and it is the greatest of my life and I am terrified to tell you because I am afraid it will change things. Change how you feel about me."

Charles shook his head and whispered, "I love you. Nothing you have said or can say could possibly change how I feel about you."

She looked deep into his shining eyes, so full of love and spoke the words she had never said aloud in over forty years. "Becky isn't my sister, Charles. Becky is my daughter."

The color drained from his cheeks. "What?" He tightened his grip on her hands as he tried to convince himself that he had misheard her.

"I was sixteen and it was harvest time." Elsie's gaze went to the table, unable to look him in the eye any longer. "There was a group of lads who made their way through Scotland during each harvest season and would help the farmers get the crops in as the weather moved. One boy paid me particular attention like I had never been paid before and I was young and foolish and I lost my good sense…and my virtue in my father's barn in the middle of a late summer's night. The boy was gone the next day, never seen or heard from again. And nine months later, I had a baby girl and she was born with the chord around her neck. She was blue. I remember seeing my mam holding her upside down, patting her back and I just kept saying, "She's blue…she's blue…" It took several minutes, but she did finally let out the tiniest cry." Elsie lost control of the emotions she had so painfully marshaled until this point, fighting to catch her breath as she continued, "It was clear within the first few months that she wasn't like other babies. She didn't crawl or coo or react like other babies. She did everything late."

She glanced up at his face, willing him to offer some sort of response, but his expression was unreadable. Swallowing hard, she continued, "No one knew about her. My mother had kept me shut up at home from the time I began to show and I had been out of school for almost five years so no one thought much about not seeing me until one day when Joe Burns and his father showed up to ask for my father's help with a lame horse. My parents knew Joe was sweet on me and would want to see me so they hid me in the back room with Becky. I prayed that she would keep quiet, but she began crying and I couldn't soothe her. My mam opened the door to where we were hiding and I heard my father say, "Elsie's tending to her sister. She'll have to see you another time, Joe," and that was it. We never spoke of it, my parents and I. From then on, Becky was no longer mine. She was my mother's. It broke my heart, I loved her, love her, so very much."

Charles looked down at their clasped hands, letting almost a minute pass before he spoke. "I…I need some time. I need to walk." He squeezed her hands and looked into her eyes, but she could detect neither rejection, nor acceptance in his look, only contemplation.

"Of course." She felt her stomach drop as he let go of her hand and made his way to the back door.

She remained at the table for a few minutes. The shedding of the burdens had lifted a tremendous weight from her, but with the sudden departure of her husband, she felt not only lighter, but without tether; a lonely and terrifying feeling. With a deep breath, she willed her legs to carry her into the kitchen to tend to the leftover stew and dishes.

He had made a few circuits of the back garden when he looked up and saw her at the kitchen window. The warm amber light above her head highlighted the flashes of copper and gold in her hair and caused shadows to intensify the definitions of her strong cheekbones and elegant nose. He watched her worry the precious bottom lip he found so sweet to taste and it suddenly struck him how incredibly strong she was.

A set of footmen had taken to calling her "Keeper of the Keys" in the years just before Thomas had come to work at Downton. He now knew that keys were the least of what Elsie Hughes Carson had carried with her for so many years. It took great discipline and strength of character to shelter the secrets of others', as well as one's own; Anna, Tom and Ethel had detected these qualities in her, recognizing her kindness and trustworthiness. Even he himself had shared more secrets with her than anyone else for these very reasons.

And her own secret. She had been a naïve farm girl who made one youthful mistake and had paid for it in spades for the rest of her life; sacrificing and scrimping to take care of a child she was never allowed to call her own. All those years she had carried this tremendous burden in her heart.

He sat down on the wrought iron bench, the cold damp seeping through his trouser seat and recalled something his father had told him when he was a young boy.

A brooch had been lost by a visitor to the abbey while she was riding and Charles had happened upon it when walking to the stable from the riding trail, the shiny diamond surrounded by jet shining in the sun.

"Do you know where these come from, Charlie?" His father pointed at the multi-faceted stone that shimmered in the fire light given off by the lamp that sat on his father's desk. Charles shook his head. Bending down to the box next to the hearth, his father retrieved a piece of coal. "This. It starts out like this and after many, many years of pressure from the layers of earth on it, it becomes this," he held the brooch out to Charles, "a diamond. And miners dig them out from under all those layers so people can appreciate their beauty. It is very strong. Stronger than any other stone. It takes more force than you or I can imagine to break it. You see the way it catches the light?" His father lifted the stone towards the firelight, "You will never see anything as strong or as beautiful."

She sat on the edge of their bed facing away from the door, darkness surrounding her except for the moon's light that shone through the window and across her face. She heard the bedroom door open and close, but she didn't turn.

He crossed around to the end of the bed nearest her, looking down at her moonlit face, silver light reflecting in her shining eyes. His voice was quiet and tender as he repeated the words he had said earlier in the evening, " "I love you. Nothing you have said or can say could possibly change how I feel about you."

Taking the hand she now offered, he sat down next to her on the bed and wrapped his arms around her, quite certain he would never know anyone as strong or as beautiful as his Elsie.