This collection is based on a set of prompts written by Kissman, one prompt for each letter of the alphabet. There is a reason that I'm starting with the B prompt. I will explain it a little later, when the A prompt comes up.

I've rated the collection Romance/Angst, but this applies to the collection as a whole, not each story. Plenty of them will be all fluff and zero angst. I will give warnings at the beginning of any stories that are very angsty. Some mildly or moderately angsty stories will receive no warning.

Thank you for the challenge, Kissman!

Burden: a story about one character sharing or demanding to share a burden of the other.

Season 1, just because.

Mr. Carson walked through the green baize door and was surprised to find a large pile of bed linens walking slowly and unsteadily up the stairs in his direction. He stood still and watched for a moment while the neatly folded sheets swayed a bit and then regained their footing and marched firmly in his direction. The wall of soft cloth hit him in the chest and muttered a soft curse.

"Mrs. Hughes, why are you carrying all of those linens up the stairs?" Mr. Carson asked.

"Every single one of my maids is ill today. I've got to make all the beds." Her voice was muffled by the sheets in front of her face.

"What I meant was why are you carrying so many at once? You could be badly hurt if you lost your footing on the stairs. Don't you train your own maids better than that?"

She sighed from behind her burden. "I do, Mr. Carson. It was a foolish thing to do, but I'm halfway to my destination so you'd better let me get on before I drop them all."

"I don't think so, Mrs. Hughes," he said, lifting about two thirds of the linens away from her. "I'll take these wherever you need them to go. Lead on, and I'll follow."

Mrs. Hughes sighed in relief when the extra weight was lifted off of her. "Very well," she agreed, a small, sheepish smile on her lips. She moved up the stairs much more quickly now, but Mr. Carson was long-limbed enough to keep up with her. Before long they were on the bedroom gallery. Mrs. Hughes entered one of the rooms and Mr. Carson followed her in.

"You can set those linens on the chair by the vanity," she directed him. She had already laid her smaller burden on another chair and was tugging the sheets from the bed. Mr. Carson did as she bid him. "Thank you, Mr. Carson," Mrs. Hughes said, tossing a quick smile over her shoulder. He surprised her by crossing the room to the other side of the bed from her and helping her pull the sheets from the bed. "What on earth are you doing?" she wanted to know.

"What does it look like?" he asked, deliberately obtuse. "I'm helping you change the linens on this bed."

Mrs. Hughes rolled her eyes. "Yes, but why?" She was amused, but also simply surprised, and not entirely convinced that he wasn't making a joke of some kind.

Mr. Carson rolled up the used sheets and looked up at Mrs. Hughes. "So you won't have to do all the bedrooms yourself," he answered, as though nothing made more sense in the world than the butler making beds. "Now pass me one of those clean sheets."

She laughed, still not quite sure he was serious. "Don't you think this is a bit beneath your dignity, Mr. Carson?"

He raised an eyebrow. "It's rather beneath your dignity as well, is it not?"

"Perhaps," Mrs. Hughes conceded. "But if these aren't done, I'll be the one to answer for it. You're free to go about your usual butlering." She tried to shoo him out of the room with a wave of her hand. "I promise I won't carry too many at once."

Mr. Carson didn't move. "Mrs. Hughes, I've said I'm going to help you and I mean it," he told her, a stubborn glint in his eye telling Mrs. Hughes there was no point in arguing. She shrugged and took a sheet from the neat pile beside her.

"Very well," she relented, unfolding the sheet and sending it fluttering across the bed, all in one neat motion. Mr. Carson quickly got to work on the head of the bed on the side where he stood. He clumsily stuffed the corners of the sheet under the mattress and tucked it in down the side. He was stuffing the sheets under the foot of the mattress into his best approximation of a corner, when he heard Mrs. Hughes giggle from behind him. He was startled; he had not noticed her approach. And since when did Mrs. Hughes giggle?

"What's so funny?" he asked her.

"I can see you're not in the habit of making beds, Mr. Carson." She used her hand to gesture toward his work before bringing it to cover her mouth, but a laugh escaped.

Mr. Carson pulled himself up to his full height and drew his great brows together. "I'm glad you find this entertaining, Mrs. Hughes," he told her, frowning.

The juxtaposition of Mr. Carson's offended dignity and his sloppy work on such a menial task was too much for Mrs. Hughes and she dissolved into laughter. "You'll have to do better than that, Mr. Carson," she said, trying to stop laughing. "Otherwise I might have to sack you without a reference." As long as he continued to give her that great towering frown, however, Mrs. Hughes could not stop laughing. Without thinking, she grasped his upper arm to steady herself. At last, Mr. Carson's frown relaxed and he began to laugh as well. After a few moments, they were calm, but at almost the same instant, two pair of eyes were drawn to Mrs. Hughes's hand, which was still clutching Mr. Carson's bicep. Those two pair of eyes then met each other for a few silent seconds before Mrs. Hughes quickly pulled her hand away and began smoothing her skirt.

"I suppose if you're going to help me I'll have to show you how it's done," she told him.

"All right," Mr. Carson agreed. "Tell me what to do."

"First pull out everything you've just done," she ordered. "I'm sorry to have to say it, Mr. Carson, but it's rubbish."

Mr. Carson smiled as he followed her instruction. He could perceive that Mrs. Hughes was getting great amusement out of teasing him for his wretched housemaid skills, but he didn't mind. The whole situation was rather silly; he was prepared to laugh at himself and Mrs. Hughes's manner of teasing him was never cruel or unkind.

"Now, I'm going to show you how it's done on this corner, and then you'll try it yourself on that corner." Mrs. Hughes deftly folded the sheet neatly around the corner of the bed.

"I could hardly see what you did!" Mr. Carson protested. "How do you do that so fast?"

Mrs. Hughes gave an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. "Very well, I'll go slower." She showed him again, much more slowly this time, how to fold the corner and this time he applied himself studiously to the task of folding the other one. Mrs. Hughes nodded. "Not half bad," she allowed. "We'll make a housemaid of you yet, Mr. Carson," she remarked crisply, making her way to the other side of the bed. She pulled out another sheet and flipped it over the bed, followed by the counterpane, and they finished the work together. Mrs. Hughes picked up her stack of sheets and Mr. Carson took up the linens he had left by the vanity.

In the next room, Mrs. Hughes inspected Mr. Carson's finished work before they left, but she pronounced it passable enough not to have to be redone and they moved on. By the third room, they had established a comfortable rhythm and started chatting as they worked.

"Does this remind you of your days as a housemaid, Mrs. Hughes?"

"It does," she told him. "Those were days of hard work, but there was still a certain carefree quality about it all that my life lacks now."

"I think I know what you mean. Not as much physical labor, but you give the orders and you bear the final responsibility."

"Yes, exactly," Mrs. Hughes agreed. "I don't say I regret it, or that I'm unhappy. It's just different. I don't have the time now to get up to some of the mischief I did then."

"Mischief?" Mr. Carson's eyes lit up in curiosity. "What kind of mischief?"

Mrs. Hughes eyed Mr. Carson suspiciously over the bed they were changing. "I'll give you a story, Mr. Carson, on one condition."

"And what's that?"

"I want a story from you, too," she said, a teasing smile on her lips. "No one will ever make me believe that you have always behaved yourself. There must be some mischievous tale from your youth that you can amuse me with."

"I would deny it to anyone but you," Mr. Carson chuckled. "Go on. What did you get up to?"

Mrs. Hughes bit her lip, mulling over what she might say. She wasn't about to admit it to Mr. Carson, but she could tell quite a few stories of her own mischievous behavior. "Well, when I was about sixteen, I was a housemaid. There was a village dance I wanted to go to, but the housekeeper wasn't allowing it, nor was the butler letting the young men go. There was a house party starting the next day and we all needed to be on our toes." Mrs. Hughes paused for a moment.

"But you sneaked out and went to the dance, anyway?" Mr. Carson prompted.

She sighed. "In my foolishness, I did. I went with one of the footmen. I knew he was keen on me, and though I wasn't really keen on him, I liked him well enough and thought I'd be safe with him at a public dance. We managed to get out of the house without being seen. I enjoyed a few dances, but my escort said he'd like to get me a proper drink. I didn't want to leave the dance, but I didn't want to be left alone, so I went with him. He took me to the pub and it wasn't long before I knew I'd best get back home with or without him."

"A poor excuse for an escort, it sounds like," Mr. Carson remarked. "Did he try to…?"

"He tried to kiss me, but I set him about his business. The next morning he had a nice red mark on his cheek to go with his headache. I left him at the pub and ran all the way home. I don't know when he got home, but by the look of him the next day, I think he must have stayed there drinking for quite a while after I left."

"I don't imagine he tried anything untoward after that," Mr. Carson conjectured.

"Certainly not," Mrs. Hughes confirmed with satisfaction. "Mr. Carson, you're not paying attention to your work. Pull that sheet out and do it over again."

"Of course, Mrs. Hughes," he agreed, doing as she'd asked. "Just don't sack me, please."

"Don't worry," she told him. "I can see you're a hard worker and I know you'll catch on eventually."

"High praise, indeed," Mr. Carson muttered, but he was enjoying this little game they were playing.

"Now it's your turn, Mr. Carson," Mrs. Hughes pointed out, as they moved from one room to the next. She looked at him expectantly as they pulled the linens from the bed.

"I also tried to sneak out for a dance once," Mr. Carson admitted.

"Are you a dancer, too, then?" Mrs. Hughes asked.

"You know I dance," he told her. "Every year at the Servants' Ball."

"Well, yes, of course you dance, but if you sneaked out to go to a dance, that means you like dancing. Or at least that you did then."

Mr. Carson smiled. "I did and I do. But this dance I wanted to go to was in the next village. I was rather smitten with a girl, a housemaid like you, who lived there, and I'd promised to meet her. The trouble was that there wasn't any moon that night and I lost my way. It started to rain and I was covered in mud by the time the sun rose. I asked the first person I met on the road the way back home and ran all the way there. I made it in just enough time not to get caught, but I'd had no sleep, so I was miserable the next day."

Mrs. Hughes smiled. "And the housemaid?"

"She was pretty vexed with me, even when I tried to explain. So that was the end of that, though I can't say it's any great tragedy. A very young man may chase many pretty girls, but it's often best if he doesn't catch one until he's a bit older."

"Very wisely spoken," Mrs. Hughes agreed. She gathered up some dirty sheets. "We've only one room to go, Mr. Carson."

Mr. Carson felt a great deal of disappointment that this little amusement was almost at an end - much more than he thought he should. But he'd forgotten his troubles for a little while and enjoyed Mrs. Hughes's company while she was in a merry humor. It had been an unexpectedly pleasant morning.

When Mrs. Hughes cast the sheet over the last bed, Mr. Carson waited until it fluttered to the mattress before he started. Mrs. Hughes finished quickly, but he dawdled. "Mrs. Hughes, can you come help me? I'm afraid I'm doing this wrong again."

"Of course." She came to stand behind him and patiently talked him through the first corner. When he stood up after completing it, he noticed movement in his peripheral vision and turned around, where he was nothing short of astounded to see Mrs. Hughes dancing with an invisible partner. She noticed that he had caught her and almost stopped, but Mr. Carson took her in his arms, filling in for her absent partner. Mrs. Hughes was very surprised at first, but she grinned again in response to the easy smile on Mr. Carson's face. They danced around the room for a few moments.

"You looked so happy, I had to join you," Mr. Carson explained.

She responded only with a smile and they danced for a minute or two, but the sound of voices outside the room sent Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes to different parts of the room. Mrs. Hughes got to work completing what Mr. Carson had left unfinished and Mr. Carson stood by the vanity, looking very unsure of himself.

"Carson?" Lady Mary knocked on the half open door and entered the room, followed by Lady Sybil.

"Milady?" he answered. "How can I help?"

"I told you he was in here," Lady Sybil whispered to her sister.

"Just a message from his lordship," Lady Mary told him. "He'd like to see you in the library this afternoon at about three." She looked around curiously. "Why are you here, Carson?"

"Mr. Carson's just checking up on me, milady," Mrs. Hughes answered for him. "He likes to look in on the housemaids while they're at work, but I'm changing all the linens today."

"That seems a little high and mighty of you, Carson," teased Lady Sybil. "Don't you think Mrs. Hughes can be trusted to make the beds properly without your checking up on her?"

Mrs. Hughes kept her head down and continued working, biting her lip to prevent a laugh from escaping. Poor Mr. Carson.

"Of course she can, milady," Mr. Carson sputtered. "I was only checking bedrooms because I had forgotten Mrs. Hughes would be making beds today, but once I saw her I was reminded of a question I need to ask her about dinner."

"We'll let you get on with your work, Carson," Lady Mary declared. "Come, Sybil." The two young ladies left the room. Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes stood still in the room until their voices had faded completely.

"Are you quite well, Mr. Carson?" Mrs. Hughes asked, approaching him. He looked rather red in the face and she thought she might be in for a scolding. She had left him open to Lady Sybil's gentle attack, after all.

"What a relief we weren't caught," he replied.

"Yes, that would have required a great deal of explaining," Mrs. Hughes agreed. "Well, it looks like we're finished here. Can you just help me gather up the dirty linen to take to the laundry?"

Mr. Carson had not moved, however, and was looking just as red and confused as he had before. "What if they'd seen?" he murmured, staring into space.

"Come, Mr. Carson, it's not as bad as all that," she tried to soothe him. "It's not as though we were up to anything very terrible. Inappropriate, yes, but hardly enough to get us sacked. You look as though we were on the verge of being caught en deshabille in the bed we've just made."

If Mr. Carson had laughed at her indelicate jest, she would have felt perfectly comfortable, would have laughed and moved on with her work. But he did not. He stood still, his face flaming red, looking everywhere but at her.

Mrs. Hughes felt her own face turning pink as understanding dawned on her. "Oh dear," she said to herself. She must have touched on something with her risqué comment. Perhaps they had not been en deshabille in one of the family's bedrooms, but the thought must have occurred to him. Whether it had been before or after her foolish remark was immaterial to Mrs. Hughes. The problem now was that they were still standing, dreadfully embarrassed, together in this room, when they both had work to do elsewhere.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Carson," Mrs. Hughes apologized. "I shouldn't have said something so coarse. I'm not sure what came over me."

He seemed to relax a little, though he still would not look at her.

"Will you help me with the dirty linens, Mr. Carson? I don't think I can manage them all myself." Mrs. Hughes stood at the foot of the bed, trying and failing to think of what else she might say to make him more comfortable. Mr. Carson's eyes darted around the room a few moments longer before he finally let them rest on her face.

"Of course I'll help," he told her, but he didn't move.

"I really am sorry, Mr. Carson," she apologized again.

"It's all right," he replied gently. "I'm not angry."

"Well, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you. But we'll say no more about it. There's a pile of linens on the floor over there," she pointed out.

"Did you enjoy dancing just now?" Mr. Carson asked her.

"I did, Mr. Carson," she answered. "Thank you."

Mr. Carson stepped closer to Mrs. Hughes. "I might be no better than your keen, drunken footman," he murmured.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Mrs. Hughes wanted to know.

"Slap me very hard if I anger or distress you, Mrs. Hughes, and I promise never, and I mean never, to repeat the offense." Mrs. Hughes looked into his face in complete confusion. Mr. Carson took her tenderly by the shoulders, bent down, and kissed her. Mrs. Hughes dropped the linens she had been carrying and took hold of his upper arms for support as his lips moved over hers. It wasn't a very long kiss, nor was it particularly short. When he let her go, he made sure she was steady on her feet and then began to gather sheets from the floor on the other side of the room. Mrs. Hughes was immobile with shock for a few seconds before she began to gather up the sheets she had dropped at her feet. Mr. Carson was reaching for the door knob when she spoke.

"Wait," she called to him. Mr. Carson turned and faced Mrs. Hughes. "You're not like that footman at all."

"Oh?" Mr. Carson looked hopeful.

"For one thing, I can't even imagine you drunk, Mr. Carson," she began, taking a businesslike tone. "Aside of that, you won't have a red mark on your face; I assure you, no slap is necessary. As for being keen, well, your kissing me could mean you're keen or it could mean that you just felt like kissing me. Only you can answer that question. Regardless of all that, I think you come in well ahead of that keen footman, in every way but one."

"And what's that?"

She grinned impishly. "He did dance with me for more than three minutes before he tried to kiss me."

Mr. Carson smiled sheepishly, but bowed in her direction. "I'd be honored to escort you to a dance at the next chance I get. And you can be sure that your dancing, kissing butler is keen. Very keen, indeed." He turned away and left the room, arms full of linen.

Mrs. Hughes smiled as she followed him, performing a quick pirouette just before she reached the door. When she stepped out of the room, she looked severe again, and she walked, rather than danced, down the gallery. There would be time for laughing and dancing and kissing later. Mr. Carson was well ahead of her and would reach the laundry before she did, but she hoped they might meet in the corridor. She hadn't properly thanked him for helping her with this morning's burden.

The end.

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