Somehow they managed to avoid each other for the rest of the day. Though not intentionally on either parties part, it just seemed to work out that they barely passed in the hallway let alone paused to speak to each other. Ever since his marriage, Lady Mary had become much needier than before. While Carson tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, proclaiming to his wife at night that Lady Mary was used to things being done properly and refused to let standards slack, he secretly knew the young lady of the house was trying to make sure Carson still had room for her in his life.

Mrs. Carson found herself spending most of the day in the store cupboard taking detailed stock of all its contents. When she did hear Carson's telltale footsteps down the hallway she was knee deep in the back of the cupboard and decided it would not be worth the hassle to confront him at the present moment. If she thought about it she was still rather hurt by his actions and a discussion now was more likely to lead to a heated argument than a resolution.

At dinner the two heads of staff sat down next to each other for the first time since the incident at breakfast. Carson looked at his wife with a worried expression, trying to silently convey to her his sorrow at his actions and his hopes for forgiveness. Mrs. Carson was about to give her husband a soft smile to let him know that all would be well however before she was able to Anna came in and announced that one of the children had fallen ill and Lady Grantham requested Mrs. Carson to come to the nursery and assist. By the time she had returned to the servants hall dinner had been finished and Carson was gone again serving the family.

As Carson stood at attention in the corner of the room he couldn't help but worry. He knew he had upset his wife with his actions earlier. And while he tried and tried to reason why he had pulled away so quickly he couldn't seem to come upon a solution. It didn't make any sense. He loved his wife, very much. And certainly he craved her touch almost every minute of every day. So why then would such a simply act of a hand on his arm set him so completely off kilter. As he tried to reconcile his emotions and his actions he suddenly realized that everyone in the room was looking at him and the dowager countess was tapping her foot unhappily. It was going to be a long night.

Mrs. Carson sat quietly in her sitting room, casually eating the remains of her earlier dinner looking over the final inventory list. It was getting close to the time of night when her handsome husband would join her for a night cap before they went to bed. She had been replaying the events of the morning over and over again in her head and had finally decided that she was upset over nothing. He had just been startled and had reacted inappropriately. They would simply sit down, discuss it as they did everything else and all would be right.

Hesitantly he knocked on her sitting room door.

"Come in." She said, capping her pen and turning to find him in the doorway. "Hello." She said happily, trying to ease his mind and let him know that everything would be okay.

"Hello." He said, "It seems like I've hardly seen you all day."

"I was thinking the same thing, please sit down." She said gesturing towards his usual chair.

"I'm afraid I don't feel well and I'm going to head up to bed now. I just wanted to wish you a good night before I did." He said.

"Oh, well I can come up now if you'd like-"

"No," he said a little too quickly, "I mean if you were planning on going up now then certainly but don't ignore your work for me." The instant he said it he knew he'd misspoke. His wife was never one to ignore her work and any accusation of such behavior would certainly be met with anger on her side.

They stood in silence for a moment. She was taken aback by his words, trying desperately to convince herself that he was just unwell, perhaps he had been all day long and that was the cause of his odd behavior all day.

As he turned to go she decided to extend one more olive branch, in hopes that he would accept it and they could part for the night sure of their themselves.

"Mr. Carson, what about my goodnight kiss?" She asked, softening her smile.

"Well, um…we certainly cant down here." He said, stepping inside the door and hurriedly shutting her door. "Anyone could come in, it would be most inappropriate."

"More inappropriate than going to bed without kissing your wife?" She said, annoyance creeping into her voice.

"There is more to life than kissing. In fact we've lived the majority of our lives without kissing. I'm going to bed now."

"Charles!" she said standing up and looking at him, anger on her face.

Without looking back he left her sitting room quickly and going up to bed.

Standing alone in her sitting room she felt her heart drop as she listened to his footsteps walking away.