A/N: Okay, I'm breaking the promise I made to myself again and posting a third installment tonight. Only I want to post a couple tomorrow because they're all quite closely connected (and also, I'm waiting quite impatiently for the new ep of Major Crimes to finish recording on my tivo so I can watch it without adverts).
_higher love_
He had thought himself in love once before. And perhaps he was; he still remembers Alice with great fondness mixed with the pain and that must mean something.
For years after her rejection he married himself to his work, the house. And he was, if not happy, then content, satisfied, if he could not be fulfilled.
And then Mrs Whitely hired a new Head Housemaid.
Elsie is beautiful to him, he has no reason to lie to himself about that any longer. She can still turn heads when she drops the Housekeeper uniform and mask. But in those early years she could have had a suitor from every village in the country and they would each have still felt glad of the privilege.
She had not, of course, and she was quick to turn away any man or boy who tipped their cap at her - kindly and gently, but with that Scottish determination that told them she would not be changing her mind. And he had been pleased, had nodded his head and congratulated himself on choosing her as a friend, someone sensible like himself who would always put her work first.
And so he had fallen in love with her, quite without any encouragement from her and very much without his own consent.
He cannot know when her own heart was turned in his direction and although they have both taken to signing their letters with love, they have not discussed it at all.
He is not worried by the uncertainty of it, no doubt she'll tell him one day, when he is in a mood or she wants to make him smile.
They are not young anymore, and with age he has found peace with patience - but only with her, he will still require duties to be carried out with due haste.
He has thought on it between the gunfire in the - too close - distance, the grenades and gas attacks nearby and decided, one night when he imagined that he may actually see his way to the other side of this war, that he will ask her to marry him.
He will not return to a life where he is just Mr Carson to her and she is Mrs Hughes, cannot picture a world where he can walk beside her, both of them knowing where their hearts lie, and not take her hand in his, kiss her cheeks and her lips and hold her close when she cries.
He fancies himself a practical man, and so he has thought about the consequences; his Lordship may ask them to leave, they will have to move away, find other employment. But he has some savings put by and knows that she has too. They are known by name for their work at Downton and would find positions somewhere in time. He would miss Lady Mary but...he needs her. Has for a long time and so he has decided.
He has not, in all his thoughts, considered that she may say no.
He should be wary after his hand was rejected the first time, but he is not. They may not have spoken of it, but she would not have written it if she had not meant it.
He clasps his rifle in hand, secures the hat on his head and turns to his troop.
"Right men, we go for one more push."
The gunfire stops and he raises the silver whistle to his lips.