A/N: I'm very sorry for the delay! My Muse demanded I wrote a 'Lovejoy' one-shot, and then the real life interfered in a very unpleasant way… Enough of the excuses; I'm bringing you a new chapter, and hope you enjoy it—especially since I feel that I don't do the kind of atmosphere I'd created here very well. Let me know what you thought?...

The door opened with a loud squeak that made them wince. Elsie looked at Robbie's disgusted face and laughed, caressing his hair gently. "Some butter on the hinges should help."

"Let's hope this will be your biggest problem," Lord Grantham nodded and entered the cottage, looking around apprehensively. "Not bad, I suppose, though I suspect you'd want to have it cleaned properly before you move in…"

"That goes without saying," Elsie nodded as she walked slowly across the light, spacious kitchen, into the slightly smaller bedroom with windows overlooking west, and another room on the southern side of the house that could be easily turned into a study. It was all quite dusty, sparsely furnished and unkempt, but she could see what this place could become after giving it a proper going-over: a home.

Her home. Their home.

She heard Lord Grantham click his tongue disapprovingly, and turned to find young Robbie perched upon an old, dusty chest in the corner of the room. "Elsie, Elsie!" he cried, reaching out to her. She chuckled and walked over to scoop him up into her arms, revelling in the feel of a warm, soft body pressed against hers, and a pair and small hands clasped behind her neck.

"Now, young man, is that the proper way for you to call Mrs. Carson?" Robert came over and gently patted his grandson on the behind. "I'm very sorry. He shouldn't be calling you that."

Elsie raised her eyebrows, hugging the boy a little tighter. "Why not? 'Mrs. Carson' is far too difficult for him to say, and I'm neither his relative nor his nanny—what would you have him call me, milord?"

"You might be right," her employer nodded with a thoughtful expression on his face. "I have never thought about it that way…"

"Milord? Pardon my asking, but why is there no nanny?"

It was the first time she'd seen Lord Grantham roll his eyes. "Sybil believed herself more than capable of taking care of her child without any 'outside help', as she likes to call it. As you can see, it isn't exactly so."

Elsie smiled, feeling Robbie's body go limp in her arms as the boy dozed off. "Milord, I will only say it once, but please believe me when I do: I do not mind taking care of little Robert, not in the slightest."

"Even though his arrival made you come to the decision of retiring?"

She shook her head, heading outside of the cottage with the sleeping child in the arms. Robert jumped forward to hold the door for her in a perfect imitation of a footman. It earned him a real, bright smile. "I don't think he made me decide, your lordship. Although perhaps he did make it easier for me to be honest with myself for once."

Robert watched her carefully as he closed the door and handed her the key. She took it and slipped it into her pocket, not wanting to attach it to the chain at her waist. She would be giving it up soon enough.

The thought was cold and strange, and it made her sigh and lower her gaze, not wanting to meet her employer's questioning eyes.

"Mrs. Carson?"

"Yes, your lordship?"

"I trust you have been happy at Downton…?"

At this she did look at him, hardly seeing him through a moist mist that seemed to fill up her eyes to the brim. "I have, milord. Very much."

He smiled and handed her a handkerchief, taking Robbie out of her arms and propping him up against his own shoulder. The boy hardly stirred. "In that case, I hope you'll be even happier after you leave us. You will be missed—you already know that—but I'd be happy to know you'll be exchanging one kind of happiness for another, not giving it up altogether."

"I have absolutely no doubt it will be just the case, milord."

"Very well then." They started to walk slowly towards the Abbey, and Elsie frowned as the setting sun shone straight into her face. "And when does Carson plan to leave us?"

She frowned even more. "Why would he leave, milord?"

"Isn't he planning to join you in your retirement? I thought that was what he'd like."

"I—didn't tell him anything yet, milord."

His lordship actually stopped in his tracks at that, gaping at her in astonishment. "You didn't? Why?"

"It's very difficult for me, milord. Far more difficult than I'd imagined it would be. I—I wish to take it all step by step, as slowly as possible, and it would be quite a big step, telling my husband a thing like that—"

"Like what, precisely?" Charles' voice came from behind them, making both Elsie and Lord Grantham gasp and cringe inwardly. "Good afternoon, your lordship. I didn't know you were planning a walk for today."

Lord Grantham left hurriedly, pleading that he needed to take Robbie home and check on the state of things over at Crawley House; Elsie wished she had but a shadow of an excuse to follow him into the house and put the conversation she was about to have off until the evening. She had been planning to talk to Charles on this very day anyway, especially since she'd already seen the cottage and genuinely liked it, but were she to be completely honest with herself she'd have to admit that, whatever the point of discussion would be, she liked it best to have any and all serious conversations with her husband in the relative privacy of one of their respective bedrooms. She found Charles much more… manageable… in a room that contained a bed.

Be it as it may, there was no way she could have possibly dismissed him now. Taking a deep, slow breath to calm herself, she met his cloudy eyes with a solemn gaze of her own. "Charles, my love, there is something I need to tell you."

"I gathered that much," he pointed out, without any real venom in his voice: just concern, and a touch of curiosity. "And it must be quite serious, too, if you feel obliged to use any kind of endearments."

She gave him a hard look and pursed her lips. "I would have you know, Charles Carson, that I do use 'endearments', as you call it, quite often—as often, in fact, as you deserve one."

Charles sighed in exasperation and took her hand, placing it gently in the crook of his elbow. "You know very well I'm only teasing you—and you use it as a diversion to distract me from demanding an answer to my question. What is going on, Elsie? You haven't been quite yourself these past few days, and now I'm seeing you having secret conversations with his lordship everywhere I go…"

"They are not secret! They're simply… private."

"Very well, private. Would you still care to share with me what they were about?"

"My retirement."

Two simple words—they were out of her mouth before she even had the time to register them properly—and still, probably the most terrifying thing she's ever had to say aloud. She kept her eyes down, walking slowly beside her husband, towards the house that brought them together and that would soon stopped being 'theirs', even in the limited, artificial capacity it has been until now. She felt as if she'd been enveloped by thick, white fog, muffling all the sensations picked up by her senses, making her numb, numb and emotionless…

"You have decided, then."

She blinked and looked up at him, genuinely surprised. "You knew I was planning it?"

Charles shook his head, covering her hand with his. "I noticed you have been tired recently. I heard you talk to Anna several times since last winter: you were instructing her far beyond the scope of a head housemaid's work: preparing her to take over after yourself. That's how I knew you'd been thinking about handing over the responsibility."

"And you… approve of it?"

He stopped and turned her to him, placing one hand gently under her chin, while the other wrapped securely around her waist. "Elsie, my dear, I want you to be happy. First and foremost: whether in service or not, whether in this house or not, I want you happy. If leaving Downton is what you need right now, then leave you shall—and in case you have any doubts about it, let me tell you that I do not plan on staying behind for too long."

Now that could have made her faint, had she been prone to such foolish behaviour. "You may have to spell it out for me, Charles, for I cannot quite make myself believe my own ears."

He chuckled (chuckled!) at that, and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. "Last summer, when I went to London with the family, I met a very promising young man, a Mr. George Wallace, an under-butler in Lady Cavesham's house. I took some time to get to know him and asked around about his reputation, which proved more than satisfactory. Then, when I started to suspect you might be considering retirement, I wrote to him, and asked whether he'd be interested in relocating to Yorkshire, should I decide to leave my post. He said yes, and we have been corresponding ever since."

"Have you told his lordship about this Mr. Wallace?"

"No, not yet—I wanted to be sure of your intentions. But since I already know what you're planning, I would very much like to have Mr. Wallace come and meet his lordship: as soon as possible."

This was too much to take in at once. "But you love your job! You love the family, and the house, and—"

"I do, Elsie. I cannot deny it. But I love you more."

She sighed happily and let him pull her closer still, tucking her head under his chin. "We really should talk more, husband. Keeping secrets from each other does us no good."

"I'm glad we agree on this one, wife. Am I to understand you approve of my plans?"

"As much as you approve of mine, I daresay." She placed a short, tender kiss on the underside of his chin and took a step back, reaching up to straighten his jacket. "Shall we go back to the house, then, and inform our peers of them?"

The look in Charles' eyes was positively devious. "How about you show me that cottage first? I'm sure his lordship expects us to have quite a heated argument before we come to any agreement regarding your 'astonishing' news: and it wouldn't do the younger staff any good to have us come back before we reconciled..."

His hands caressed her back in the most enticing way, making her shiver in anticipation. "Would it be possible for us to... reconcile... despite never having argued in the first place?"

"As long as we found a proper place for such an activity..." He pulled her in for a kiss that made her head spin, and erased all thoughts of propriety from her mind.

"I'm sure something could be arranged—although we might we forced to do some dusting, first. Are you sure you don't mind performing such a tedious chore?"

"I'm sure there'll be more than a spoonful of 'sugar' to help this 'medicine' go down, my dear. Lead the way."

Needless to say, they were almost late for ringing the dressing gong before dinner in the Abbey—but they left the cottage a little cleaner than it had been in the early afternoon.

Although the cleanliness did happen to concentrate upon the kitchen table.

TBC…