A/N Here's Chapter 12, explaining Elsie's thinking and behavior.

Thank you so much for the overwhelming reviews for the previous chapter. I can't even tell you how happy it made me to receive them and read them all! Please keep reviewing!

Chapter 12

Elsie was in hysterics. She had fled from her parlor without apology or explanation, leaving poor Mr. Carson to wonder what on earth he could possibly have done wrong and why his housekeeper had suddenly gone mad. Now she was lying on her bed, sobbing violently into her pillow, trying not to wake anyone. She was certain she had ruined the two best things that had ever happened to her. In one, insane, terrible instant, she had driven away her true love and her dearest friend.

The man she loved had just kissed her, and she had run away! She had waited so long for that kiss! She had thought of it every day and dreamed of it every night for twenty years. Tonight, it had actually happened. And instead of returning his kiss with ardor, she had blundered about and gone to pieces. Instead of professing her love, she had scampered off like a frightened rabbit.

What pained Elsie now more than ruining any chance at happiness with the man she loved, however, was the loss of her most precious friend. She could bear to live without his love. She already had, for many years. But she could not endure the loss of his friendship. She relied on his daily presence, his constant support, his reassuring smile, their evenings together.

How could she ever face Mr. Carson again? What could she say to him? How could she possibly explain her behavior?

And why, exactly, had she run away? Elsie wasn't sure herself. At the time, she hadn't been able to think clearly. Those lips had been kissing her. The lips she had longed to kiss for two decades. The lips that spoke to her in the deep, booming voice that so enchanted her. The lips that had kissed her so many nights in her dreams. The lips that tonight, at long last, had kissed her while awake.

And everything might have been just fine, if she had been able to kiss him back just as sweetly and innocently as he had kissed her. But she couldn't kiss him sweetly and innocently. When his lips had finally met hers, she could only have reacted passionately. He had kissed her as a gentleman kisses a lady, reverently and respectfully, but she had wanted to kiss him as a woman kisses a man - a man she has loved for more years than she would care to count - vigorously and enthusiastically. Not improperly or indecently, but unreservedly and whole-heartedly. She had wanted to kiss him with none of the restraint she had employed for so long. She had wanted to fling her arms about him, hold him tightly, kiss him repeatedly until they were both breathless and senseless, and then whisper her love in his ear.

And that was the problem. She had almost done just that. It had required enormous self-control not to, because if she had responded as she would have liked, she certainly would have scared him off. It had taken Mr. Carson months to progress from hesitantly holding her hand to nervously winding his arm around her to bashfully kissing her cheek. What would he have done if she had thrown herself at him like some desperate, wanton woman? Whatever his exact response, Elsie was certain it wouldn't have been favorable.

Still weeping, but no longer gasping and panting, she sat up on her bed, clutching her pillow. Having regained some of her senses after her earlier frenzy, she realized that in all her jumbled thoughts and feelings, she had overlooked the most important revelation of the evening. She had been so worried about her own irrational behavior during and after the ill-fated encounter that she hadn't thought about the implications of Mr. Carson's behavior. Elsie smiled in spite of herself.

Mr. Carson had kissed her! He had kissed her full on the lips. Not on the hand or the forehead or the cheek, but squarely on the mouth! All their prior contact, for two decades back, could be construed as comforting or encouraging, or more recently, even friendly. Holding hands, wrapping an arm around someone, and even kisses on the cheek could be interpreted simply as tokens of affection between friends. But the way he had kissed her tonight was by no means just friendly. His kisses were slow, lingering, sensual, and most decidedly romantic in nature. It could only mean one thing, one thing she ventured not to believe until just now: Mr. Carson must love her.

After she came to this epiphany, her spirits lifted. At last, she had reason to believe that the love she felt for her dearest was reciprocated. In recent months, she had refused to accept for certain what Mrs. Patmore had been telling her all along, lest she be disappointed. She had wished, hoped, dreamed, imagined ... But never expected. Never believed. Never. Until now. After having felt his love through his kisses, she no longer doubted. Elsie finally allowed herself to believe that Mr. Carson was as much in love with her as she was with him.

But now, she had hurt him. He had finally got up the nerve to kiss her. She could only imagine what it must have cost him. It involved both a momentous change and the necessity to reveal his feelings. What must he have felt when she ran away? His pride would have been injured, and he certainly would have thought that she didn't love him. She had to make things right, tell him how much she really did love him, ask his forgiveness. She couldn't bear the thought that she had caused him such pain. She would run back to him right now if she could, but she could hardly go to his bedroom in the middle of the night.

She resolved that she would go to him first thing in the morning and tell him everything. What had she to lose? If he would not forgive her, then she would be no worse off. But if she could explain and make him understand …well, then she had everything to gain. And Elsie promised herself that if she should be fortunate enough to have the chance to kiss Mr. Carson again, neither of them would be running away.