A/N: Yes, I'm evil. I know. Let me just tell you you're not the only ones suffering from this. I blame Elsie Hughes, appearing in my head with bits of dialogue and wanting me to construct a whole-bodied story out of them.

Reviews are, naturally, more than appreciated.

"I have literally run into Mrs. Hughes on my way from the club today."

The gasps and shocked exclamations all but woke the child up. "You what?" Cora gaped at him, blinking rapidly. "Is she staying in London now? How is she?"

"She's still working?" Edith frowned a little, gently patting her protruding belly.

"Why wouldn't she be?" Mary rolled her eyes and put little Reggie down into his crib, before sitting down on her sister's bed. "She had absolutely no reason to be ashamed of in all this."

Edith raised an eyebrow with a hint of mockery, but no actual malice in her face. "I thought you've always preferred Carson to Mrs. Hughes, haven't you, Mary?"

"That," Matthew Crawley's wife gritted her teeth as she raised her chin defiantly, "was before."

"May I just remind you that, hadn't it been for your mother-in-law, we wouldn't have found ourselves in this situation in the first place?"

"Edith," Cora chastised her younger daughter and frowned. "We should be grateful that Cousin Isobel did what she had. To think it might have gone on even further without anyone knowing, if she hadn't told us what she'd seen..."

"Exactly! Would you have wanted Mrs. Hughes to go through all that humiliation alone, not being able to tell anyone?"

"I'm sorry," Edith sighed and lay back, pressing her fingers against her temples. "This child is making me say all kinds of nonsense. If it's a girl, I'm going to name her Violet... see? There it is again! But enough of this—Papa, do you have Mrs. Hughes' address? I would very much like to contact her."

Mary narrowed her eyes. "What do you have in mind?"

"Well, Anthony has been insisting that we hire a new housekeeper, so I thought..."

"You would have her live and work so close to Downton? Is that even wise?"

"Why don't we ask Mrs. Hughes herself whether she would want that, or not," Cora chimed in, covering Edith's hand with hers. "She cannot be happy in London, she's never liked the place." She turned back to her husband, and gave him an encouraging smile. "What about that address, then, Robert?"

He nodded and pulled a small piece of paper of out his wallet, turning it over in his hands with an uneasy smile. "Yes, I do have it... but Edith, you couldn't possibly go all the way down to Lambeth, not in your condition!"

"We'll just have to have Mrs. Hughes visit the Grantham House, won't we, Papa?"

Mary sighed and got up to check on her son, shooting her father a knowing glance as she passed him. "Make sure to give Carson an afternoon off, or there will be bloodshed."

Perhaps he should have questioned his lordship's eagerness to have him out of the house for the whole afternoon—especially after he'd overheard the maids talking about a guest having been invited over for tea—but in the end, he decided to take it for granted and run a few errands he didn't have any time for before.

He finished everything up rather quickly, and was back by the house around a quarter past five. As he turned to head down to the servants' entrance, the main door opened and a female figure stepped through them, bidding goodbye to whoever it was opening them: Thomas, most likely.

The woman didn't leave straight away, but stopped and said something to Thomas, patting his sleeve gently. Charles frowned and hovered on the topmost step, deeply intrigued by the identity of the strange guest—until he took a closer look at her dark green coat, and realized she wasn't a stranger after all.

By the time she walked down the stairs, he was already standing at the bottom, looking up, drinking her in. She'd lost weight, and there were new lines on her face: quite unsurprisingly, given everything she's been through—everything he put her through. She was also lost in her thoughts, her mind having wandered so far away that he actually had to catch her wrist to have her look at him.

"Elsie."

She startled and pulled her arm away forcefully, pressing her lips into a thin line, all colour draining away from her face. "I don't have anything to say to you, Mr. Carson," she spat out and moved to walk away. Quickly he moved to stand in front of her, blocking her way, the two steps she still hadn't stepped down off putting their faces more or less on the same level.

"Please, Elsie. You need to understand, you have to let me explain—"

"Listen to me," she interrupted him, her eyes casting thunderbolts straight onto his heart. "I don't have to do anything, not anymore. I know what you're going to say, and I know you probably believe it to be true—but how could I?" She released a long, heavy breath, and shook her head, not looking him in the eye. "I should probably bid you a pleasant evening, and ask you to give my regards to your lovely wife, but I shan't."

A single tear rolled down her cheek, and she raised her gloved hand to brush it away. "Apparently, I'm not as good a liar as you are. Goodbye, Mr. Carson."

He watched her retreating figure until she disappeared around the corner, and slowly turned around, heading for the servants' entrance with his head hung low.

How could this ever have happened to us, Elsie?...

TBC...