"I meant" she seethed "that you are one of the most stubborn, pigheaded, silly men I have ever m" She was silenced by a crushing kiss. One large hand tangled itself in her hair. Her eyes went wide and she attempted to shove his chest and continue yelling at him, but found herself grasping fistfuls of his pyjamas and pulling him closer. Her eyes slid shut and her body seemed to meld into the contours of his. She wasn't sure what possessed him to do it, but she was so happy that she dared not question it. Not right now. Not with his lips on hers, not with his hands on her body (his other hand, of course, remaining respectfully on her shoulder).

With her soft lips pressed to his, and her silken hair in his hand he tried to think. Tried to think of an excuse, a reason, anything to explain himself when she pulled away and slapped him again as he expected her to. But she didn't. She didn't pull away, and she didn't slap him again. He thought she was going to shove him, but then he felt her fingers clutch at the fabric of his pyjamas and lost the ability to think at all.

She had begun to erode his resolve with her first tear, and the last little bit had finally snapped when he saw her fire. Her hair hanging loose in large curls around her face, the way her eyes glittered with her ferocity, the way her nostrils flared when she got angry. He had been building a wall between them for years, and tonight, with one unwitting shove, she had toppled it. He wanted so much, he wanted to run his fingers down the length of her body, to take in every curve in this rare corset free encounter. He wanted to feel the softness of her flesh in his hands, her warmth on his skin, her breath on his neck. He imagined lifting her nightdress and exploring her ivory skin, finding out if reality would match fantasy. He imagined finally knowing the taste of the little hollow between her collarbones, and he felt that if he tried she might let him, she might be apprehensive, but she just might let him.

He couldn't allow himself to try. He would be attempting to take advantage of a woman in a vulnerable state. For all he knew she would wake up the next morning ashamed of her indiscretion, and loathe him. And he would loathe himself. It was just as well that she pulled away from him again. She looked into his eyes with the same scolding look she gave to ill behaved maids "Don't you think for one second that this means I'm not angry with you, Mr. Carson."

Nothing in the world could have made him love her more in that moment. He smiled at her and leaned in for another kiss, but she surprised him again by backing away. "I mean it." The tears were back in her voice, though not in her eyes yet. "If you feel this way why must you always push me away?"

Mr. Carson sighed and looked at her shoulder because he could not bear to look at the heartbreak on her face. She was pulling back into sobering reality, forcing him to examine his motivations, and he found himself pulling his hands away from her.

He dropped his hands to his sides and there was a long silence before he found the strength to speak again. When he spoke again his voice was small and strained "Because we can't do this, Mrs. Hughes." He found her eyes, but she tore her gaze away instantly. She instantly felt embarrassed, and very sad again. She'd been foolish again. "The family" he continued, those words building up instant rage in her heart "need me, Mrs. Hughes. I know you think I'm a silly old fool, getting sentimental about the wrong things, but they do need us both. This is a very hard time for them, and you and I both know that they rely on us much more than they realize." He waited for her to respond; he knew she'd have something to say to that. He saw a million thoughts flicker across her expression, but she said nothing. She looked at him and waited for him to continue.

"They've been the subject of quite enough gossip for a long while, and I couldn't bear being the cause of more. Do you see, Mrs. Hughes, there is no option left to me. I cannot leave, and I cannot have what I want, that is just for me, and stay. I made a commitment to them, when the girls were born, that I would be here as long as they needed me. I know you don't love them, Mrs. Hughes. I know that, but I know you know that I do. However silly it makes me, and however little you respect me because of it, it is the truth."

"Do you not love me, then?" The words were out before she'd had time to think about them. She hated them. Those words made her sound weak, pliable to his whims. She didn't mean them that way; she was just so tired of all of this ambiguity, so very exhausted with uncertainty.

"I am not allowed to love you, Mrs. Hughes."

The formal address once again, in this tender moment, clanged in her ears like someone banging on a brass pot. She stood up straight, folded her hands over one another, and steeled her expression.

"I see. Then I believe we've nothing more to discuss, Mr. Carson. I'll say goodnight." She stepped around him and without a second look left him alone in her sitting room.

As much as it stung to hear her say it, and though everything in him screamed for him to reach for her, to stop her, and kiss her again, he knew that this was a kindness. She was sparing him further risk, further compromise, further reason to question his decision. She was letting him have things his way, and it couldn't have hurt him more.

I do believe that this is where the story ends for now.