GraceB

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13606778/10/Charles-and-Elsie-retired-together

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13606778/3/Charles-and-Elsie-retired-together

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13606778/1/

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13601963/1/After-the-London-season

Elsie is a pharmacist, Charles is a photographer. They meet for an interview. That's how everything start 😉

Beryl leans on the table, her hands in fists. “Oh no, you don’t. We already talked about this. Your wedding is in a fortnight, and we are leaving no sooner than three days before. Three. Days. You know it’s better for Becky here. Grantham is a strange place for her, and so is Donton Castle-“

“It’s Downton, not Donton, and wasn’t it you who said she might do better if she was there longer than three days before the wedding? To get used to it?” Elsie raises her eyebrows. “You weren’t wrong. Besides, the dragon knows I was the one who half-blinded it and cut the sapphire out of its forehead. I keep imagining a wing-shaped shadow overhead, and the last thing any of us seeing is the monster setting the clearing ablaze. I would never forgive myself if that happened. I want all of you to be safe.”

The cow sticks its head through the window, mooing, and Elsie pats the animal. “That goes for you, too.”

Straightening up, Beryl comes around the table, wiping her hands on her apron. “You say you want all of us to be safe, your Grace,” she says quietly. She almost never addresses her friend that way, and Elsie knows she is serious. “But you don’t say anything about yourself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Of course I want to be safe. I don’t fancy being roasted alive.” Elsie says.

Beryl gives her a knowing look. “I keep thinking you want to send us away because you want to fight that bloody dragon again.”

Elsie doesn’t try to deny it. Her friend knows her too well. “You think I’m being stupid.”

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13578290/3/The-power-of-persuasion

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13578290/1/

Excerpt:

“Oi!” he says, and it’s too loud even to his own ears, and he doesn’t flinch when she claps a hand over his mouth. “Oi.” A whisper this time, cupping his hand around her ear. “What’s sauce for the goose …”

She laughs full and joyous without being too loud, squeezing his hand even as she shakes her head at him. “Oh, no. Doesn’t work like that.” She’s whispering again, her lips ghosting against the shell of his ear, breath warm and wet and he shivers at the contrast of her heat against the chill evening air.

“No?” he comes back. “And why not?”

This time she leans in further, until their lips are almost touching. “Because you’re drunk,” she whispers, a flick of her tongue at the close of her statement. It misses his mouth and he chases after it. “No,” she tells him in response, but she arches into him as his lips touch gently below her ear.

“Oh, and you’re not?” He raises an eyebrow.

She laughs again, effusive and musical, and he loves her like this. The way a little alcohol makes her silly. She shakes her head where it lies on the edge of the headrest. “I’m squiffy. You’re shit-faced. There’s a difference.”

He rolls his eyes. “Semantics.”

She gets an indignant look. “It’s not, and you know it!” She’s whisper-shouting now and he can smell the Malbec on her breath. It’s more a taste than a smell, really, and he aches to kiss it right out of her mouth.