A/N: What happens once you're married and you've left the reception behind? Songs running through my head (because they were being played in the café where I was writing and trying not to blush) 'She' and 'Strangers in the night'.

They were alone. After a short train journey to York where they had indulged in nothing more than the pleasure of sitting close together, hands clasped, they had arrived at the Royal York Hotel. They had been welcomed and shown to the spacious room which had been a gift from Mrs Crawley. Someone, Elsie rather suspected Beryl, had thought to call ahead and ensure an ample spread of cold cuts, fruit and a fine bottle of Port awaited them.

So, they were alone. More alone than they had ever been. There were no footmen to come barging in with an imagined drama, no maids to discipline, and best of all, no family to serve. There was no one to please but themselves.

Elsie stood in the middle of the room, taking it all in. she admired the dark green curtains at the windows, which matched the little sofa against one wall and the bed cover, whilst the walls were papered in a lighter green, vines picked out in gold. Charles leaned against the bed, she noted, his hand absentmindedly followed the stitched pattern on the cover.

He was gazing at her, happy to watch as she committed the room to memory.

'What?' She laughed self-consciously, curious to know that it was that held his thoughts.

'Have I told you how very beautiful you look?'

'Not in so many words, although your eyes are very eloquent on the subject. The way you looked at me when I was walking down the aisle Charles …'

The moment replayed in her head, and her attention drifted slightly, so she was surprised when she felt a hand brush against her cheek. Her eyes snapped back to his and her heart contracted as she read the emotions that whirled in their depths.

He continued stroking her cheek as she looked at him, his hand so broad that he also managed to sweep his thumb along her neck, which caused her heart to skip a beat. As he touched her, his voice rumbled lowly. 'You were more beautiful today than you have ever been. Do you know why?'

She shook her head, words out of reach as her mouth went dry and her pulse jumped in anticipation. His thumb was still stroking her neck.

'It wasn't just the clothes, although they are undeniably lovely.' His eyes swept her body appreciatively. She blushed and almost gasped as she felt a tremor running through her. He was barely touching her, but she suddenly felt his phantom hands in places he had never dared roam. Her breathing grew shallower and she fought every impulse to look away, to deny him the knowledge if how she was affected. She looked into his eyes, unknowingly parting her lips slightly, and saw all of her desire reflected back at her.

'Not just your clothes. Nor your stunning hair', he brought his other hand up to the coiffure in question and lightly dislodged a strand so that she was suddenly more dishevelled before him than she ever had been.

'It was your face. Radiant with love, so happy, with just a hint of trepidation. You glowed, Elsie. You shone like the guiding light you are and assured me that in you, I had come home.'

'You saw all of that in the thirty seconds it took me to reach you?' she whispered, placing both her hands to his heart in a gesture of devotion. Awed by his precious words, she hardly knew how she could live up to them.

'It felt like an hour, but I would have waited an eternity if I was guaranteed you would be mine at the end of it.'

They stood, looking at each other for a few moments more, and then his eyes lowered to her lips and before either of them could register moving, as if they were magnetically drawn to each other, their lips met.

They had kept their passions on a low heat during the day, even the private moment outside the church had been restrained, but now each felt the freedom of their solitude and the permission, given by the ceremony, to indulge their feelings.

Their lips melded together, shifting as he angled his head another way. His hand had left her neck and both his arms were wrapped about her, spanning her back and moving over the corset he could feel beneath her dress, and the upper part of her back, where felt the soft dip of her flesh. Her own arms were almost trapped by the close embrace, but she managed to slide them up so that they wrapped about his neck and her fingers splayed into his hair.

He groaned, breaking away from her lips, moving to her neck, which he kissed repeatedly. He ran a hand down the length of the side of her corset and moved back to her mouth, nipping lightly at her bottom lip.

Her breathy 'Oh Charles' told him how affected she was, as if he hadn't been able to discern the fact by the way she trembled in his arms, and so he was not unduly surprised when she pulled back, resting a hand on his chest and told him she needed a moment.

'If I don't sit down, I feel as if I might faint!' She laughed wryly at her own frailty, and moved towards the sofa, indicating she wished him to join her by the way she kept hold of his hand. She sank down on the sofa and took a long breath, before she looked at him, smiling so that he might be reassured.

Their hands were still clasped and she drew them upwards so she could kiss the top of his reverentially.

'You know I love you, don't you Charles?'

As he moved to protest that of course he knew, she squeezed his hand to let him know the question was rhetorical.

'I'm very good at dispensing advice, but not at all adept when it comes to expressing my emotions when you are involved. What you said at the reception and tonight … you have such eloquence Charles. I don't know if I can be so poetic, but I want you to know I love you. I adore you. You mean the world to me and I have no idea how ii managed to keep my love locked up for so long. You said I was your better self. Well, you complete me.'

She pressed another kiss to his hand and then leaned forward to capture his lips for a brief but ardent embrace before she drew back to whisper 'I am completely, desperately, passionately in love with you Charles.'

There was nothing else to do, after that declaration, but draw her towards him and kiss her soundly. The murmurs of pleasure both of them made fuelled their kisses and their hands tangled, his in her hair, hers in the folds of his jacket as they tentatively danced the passionate steps of love.

His hands, indeed, seemed to take on a mind of their own, for they moved before he was even aware. Only her gasp and the tightening of her own hand on his shoulder, beneath his jacket he noted delightedly, caused him to realise he had brushed the top of her thigh through her dress, and was drawing small circles down towards her knee.

She felt the new position of his hand and sighed in delight, her head tipping back to rest on the edge of the sofa. The pleasure she felt was abruptly curtailed by a sharp pain in her head, and then she remembered the combs which adorned her hair. She sat up.

'I think I need to remove these combs!' she laughed, and then thought about the other things that needed to be dispensed with. Taking a decision then and there, she looked at her husband, then half lowered her lashes. 'The dress might have served its purpose too.'

He sucked in a breath at the implication of her words, but before he could ask if she meant them, she had risen from the sofa and moved to stand in front of the long mirror, which was placed discretely in the corner.

'Will you help me Charles?'

He stood, and paused only to shrug off his jacket. He stood behind her and, for a moment, neither of them moved, but shared a heated look in the reflection of the mirror. Not breaking eye contact, he drew one hand from her hairline down the long row of button he would soon release, and then placed a kiss to the hollow of her neck.

'Just to be clear, my darling, that the removal of your dress does not therefore mean we have crossed the Rubicon. If you want to stop, we will.'

She smiled tightly and nodded, but gave him no verbal answer, instead she merely said 'The combs first, Charles.'

He nodded and pulled the two combs free, laying them delicately on the dressing table, before turning back and surprising her by proceeding to pull out the pins that held her hair in place. Slowly he unfurled her hair. When he started to unwind the plait, she gasped at his intention.

'It'll tangle Charles.'

'Then I'll brush it. I want to see you as nobody else has, or ever will.'

It was the work of a moment and then she stood in front of him, her auburn hair, shot through with a touch of silver, cascading down her back, trying to read his expression in the mirror. She thought she discerned tears and turned in concern, only to find his lips crashing down to hers in a sudden passionate display.

'Stunning' he whispered as he drew back and span her so she faced the mirror again. He moved her hair over her shoulder, so that it hung, Godiva like, over her curves and then deftly undid the topmost button of her dress.

As he worked, he placed a kiss or brief caress, as the mood took him, to her revealed skin, which was thrilling to her and set her shivering in anticipation. As he worked lower, he found the barrier of her corset, and in a whisper she gave him permission to loosen that too.

The buttons were undone in minutes but he made no move to remove the dress. Instead he stood, his hands on her shoulders, connecting with her eyes in the mirror, silently telling her it was her choice to make. Slowly, she tugged at the fabric at her wrists and pulled her arms from their wrappings, before she let the fabric fall to the floor about her feet. She heard his intake of breath as he glimpsed the top of her bosom, rising and falling quickly as her breathing quickened. She saw his eyes darken as he took in her semi clad form and felt his hands on her hips as they unconsciously sought to tough where before her clothes had always formed a barrier.

Placing her hands on top of his, she guided them until they wrapped about her, and placed his hands at the top of her corset where the fastenings started.

Both of them were breathing shallowly and he didn't dare expend energy on asking if he could really do what she was indicating. Instead he pulled her slightly closer and used the mirror as his guide to undo the fastening of the last proper barrier to his wife. Soon it joined the dress on the floor. Only her shift remained.

Turning in his arms, she took care to step out of the circle of fabric, and with shaking fingers removed his tie and undid the first two buttons of his shirt.

Before she could proceed any further, however, he pulled her flush to him, his growing desire totally evident to her, and kissed her ardently.

There was no stopping the roaming of his hands now and she groaned as one of them brushed the side of her breast. He did it again, more deliberately, and she groaned again. He repeated the action a third time, drawing his tongue along her collarbone as he did so, and she felt her knees buckle.

'Charles' she whispered, as she gripped his shoulder, emitting another groan as he brushed her nipple.

'Charles – take me to bed …'

A/N: That's it ….. I can't go any further. Major kudos to those that can write full sex scenes, but I seem to be incapable, or at least when it comes to these two. I think there might be a part of me that worries the LA Times (or Graham Norton) will find it, and force them to read it. But I hope you enjoyed the lead up. I think they'll do alright, don't you?

Reviews would be amazing, if you're so inclined.