Chapter Text
24th December 1908
Walking through the green baize doors was like going through a portal. On one side everything was peace and serenity, on the other, speed and panic. It was almost funny really, how effortless above stairs appeared to be, and how little the Family knew about the chaos that each meal alone could cause. Or at least, that was the case when the redheaded cook insisted on taking everything so personally. Perhaps a sane person in her position would manage to baste a turkey without getting hysterical. Though Sarah had a theory that the recent spike in madness was a temporary one. She had caught Mrs Patmore loitering rather too long by the iceblocks, and surmised that The Change could be in effect. Long ago one of the madder O'Brien aunts felt the need to explain the whole business in excruciating detail (much like she had done for puberty and childbirth) to the point where a thirteen year old Sarah began to pray to die young. Anything was better than the prospect of becoming as melodramatic as Auntie Tess.
With each step, the air thickened with flavour. Because at this stage it really wasn't a smell, it was a taste, one which had long escaped the confines of Mrs Patmore's domain. The air of the servants quarters was spiced and sugared with Christmas cheer and Christmas crisis. It had been for days, and Lady Grantham even commented on the way it seemed to be clinging to Sarah's skin and clothes.
(She tried to pretend that the Countess' awareness of her smell didn't make her feel as gooey as Mrs Patmore's caramel soufflés, and that the smile after "mixed with your usual tobacco of course" didn't make her eyes burn with tears.)
Warm gingerbread, rum soaked fruit, steaming puddings, roasted fowl, and crackling fires were the ingredients that made this time of year so… so dreadful. This house was not her home. She would not spend Christmas morning stuffing a goose while Mother did the most obscenely complicated mental arithmetic to ensure everything would be cooked and warm at the same time. Neither would she spend Christmas evening reading aloud for her nieces and nephews. The family she loved, in her own quiet way, never saw her on Christmas anymore. And this year, after Mother's death, she had not been invited for Boxing Day either. The truth which had long lay dormant was finally undeniable, she did not have a home. With both parents gone, and only weak willed brothers and oppositionary sisters left, it was easy to be forgotten. They had families of their own, work that made their hands burn and their backs ache. Hosting a landless, homeless, spinster sister with nothing to show for her life aside from neat embroidery and a hope that the woman she dressed was fond of her— who could blame them for cutting her out? They had lives to live and she wished them luck.
God, she needed a smoke.
Sarah kept a packet of Black Cats in her pocket at all times, just in case she found a spare moment to slip outside, or she thought she could get away with smoking out a window. She made a beeline for her coat, ignoring the ruckus around her. There was always some sort of disaster these days, thanks to either new and stupid staff or old and stupid rules. Suitably dressed for the arctic conditions, she slipped out unnoticed, just in time to avoid Mrs Patmore's explosion about there being unclear numbers of guests for luncheon. Her sigh stayed in the air as a white cloud, and she took a moment to appreciate the bracing cold against her cheeks. Then she paused.
There was a child in her spot.
Well, not quite a child, but hardly a man either. He was what Sarah's crotchety old Nan used to call 'freshly stretched'— late puberty when they're all limbs and think a moustache will suit them. Luckily this one had the sense not to try, he knew his looks lay in the perfect porcelain of his skin and the sharp jaw that would only grow into. And, she was certain, he did know these things. He arrived three days ago with all the pride of a peacock. His previous employer must have thought very well of him, because he had worn an expensive overcoat— from which he dramatically removed a silver pocket watch before mysteriously declaring "I do hope I'm not late", in a barely disguised Manc accent— the kind a person uses to speak to the Family and pretend better breeding.
Within a few minutes he had been identified as the new second footman, a seventeen year old lad with impeccable references. Mr Carson had interviewed him the previous month in London, while the Family were down for a society wedding. The maids fell in love with him immediately, even though most of them were far too old for him, and even Mrs Patmore was charmed into letting a biscuit or two slip by her eagle eyes. Upstairs, the young ladies were more than pleased to see a new face, especially one so close to their own ages. That is of course until Lady Edith said "of course you like him Mary, he's just you as a man!" and prompted yet another argument between them. This gave Lady Grantham a headache, and so Sarah missed out on the first evening meal with young Thomas Barrow, to tend to her mistress' terrible ailment.
In the days in between, the impression set on that very first day had stayed much the same. He was arrogant but so terribly efficient at his tasks that even Mr Carson could not bring himself to chastise him. The boy was strangely eager, even knowing that there was so much work ahead of them for Christmas, he volunteered for extra chores. What he lacked in humility he made up for in genuine skill, attention to detail and a tasteful eye. Sarah began to wonder if he had some plan in motion, what sort of footman asks to turn clocks? That relentlessly cheerful housemaid (who had arrived during the summer and not stopped smiling since)— Anna— muttered something about how thoughtful he was to offer his skills but for the life of her, Sarah couldn't think of how twisting a key in the back of a mantle clock was anything to get excited over. In her opinion, the house had gone mad with the fumes from the Christmas tree. All that pine cannot be good for a person.
But now the little beggar was in her spot. Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she walked towards him, and he turned at the sound of snow crunching underfoot. There were stray snowflakes on his ink black hair. She took out her matches and lit her cigarette, relishing the second of heat from the flame.
"Happy Christmas."
She had heard more joyful tones at funerals.
"You don't look so happy yourself, lad. Homesick for Mother?"
The words felt bitter on her own lips, but it wouldn't do to get sentimental in front of a stranger. She glanced down to where he held a letter. His long and rather delicate fingers looked about to snap off in the cold. Daft bugger hadn't even buttoned his coat.
"No. I mean, I was going to spend Boxing Day with someone."
No one spends their life in service without coming across several young orphans, but in Sarah's experience they are rather forthright about it. There was too much mystery and nervousness behind those words for such a simple explanation. She didn't like the idea of such a young boy being unwelcome in his home, not when he didn't even have enough time to do anything really wrong. At seventeen, Sarah's sisters still thought they could help her find a husband. They used to give her advice about acting more feminine, seemingly blind to the fact that she was the one who designed their pretty dresses and, that she was a better homemaker and dancer than the two of them combined. She knew very well how to be feminine, and what men wanted in a woman. Where she struggled was understanding what women wanted in a man.
She subtly squinted at the boy's letter. It ended with 'sorry, love John'. She blew smoke out slowly before making a decision.
"Who's the lucky girl?"
The reaction was immediate. He crushed the letter in his hands and stood up straight.
"I'm not!- I mean, it's not a girl. It's just, it's a cousin. The rest of my family live too far away and we were going to- he's an orphan you see and, well now he's spending it with his fiancée's family and I don't want to impose."
Sarah rose an eyebrow. "So you're not a ladies man then?"
She could actually see his pulse thundering in a vein on his neck. She felt mildly ill.
"No. I'm just, I'm waiting for the right girl. My mother raised me to be discriminate."
Sarah took another drag and blew the smoke in sharp puffs. She stepped forward and looked right at him, into his eyes, into the fear he was absolutely failing to conceal. The nausea she thought she felt was clear now. She never used to make children panic, to scare them for the sake of it. Though it wasn't for anything so trivial or petty, not really. If she could read him like a book so could everyone else and while Lady Grantham may be forced to pack her off for a lobotomy some day, he was far too young to see the inside of a gaol. He needed to learn how to lie. For his own good. The worry was across his entire face, aside from a steady jaw. That was almost as good as hers when the Countess asked for a neck massage.
"Do you smoke?"
He shook his head and squeeked out a no.
"You will. But you'll catch your death out here dressed like that and Mr Carson didn't hire you in time for Christmas just to have you catch pneumonia on the Eve itself."
"Yes Miss O'Brien, thank you."
He scuttled off, oh so different to the prideful figure he had been before. She watched him with tired eyes, then suddenly, right as he put his hand to the doorknob, she called out;
"Thomas? Next time— just say there's a girl."
As the Countess of Grantham stood under her glittering Christmas tree, she thought about Christmases past and the family she used to have that didn't celebrate it at all. When the two celebrations aligned, which was quite often, Christmas would be spent in her grandparents home. Abraham and Ruth Levinson had no Christmas tree, certainly no crib, and didn't sing carols. However, their home in Cincinnati became synonymous with the festive season. All the cousins would come together, Poppa would smile five times larger than normal, and they would feast on foods that the cook in New York had no idea about. Perhaps it should have felt strange, sitting with Mother in a separate room while the others prayed and lit candles and everything else that Cora was never really allowed to understand. But there was nothing strange about family, not in those days. Not when she was still young enough to see the Menorah as a beautiful thing, before 'Jew' became something to worry about and be ashamed of.
At Downton, Christmas could only mean one thing and the English, Christian— Anglican — traditions were all that could be performed. Cora's grandparents were long gone, as was Poppa. The cousins kept in contact, her dear Uncle David made sure that they did, though after so long without seeing them they were little more than names on the end of letters, or photographs that the girls didn't care to look at. But Cora remembered sharing stolen sufganiyot with them when they were supposed to be asleep, and giggling together about nothing. She missed them. Like she missed so many people at this time of year.
"Mama! Mama please can I stay up for dinner tonight? I'm already twelve, please it's Christmas!"
Cora turned to face her youngest and most enthusiastic child. Little Sybil was not so little anymore, but she was a darling, happy and wonderfilled girl with stars in her eyes and hope in her heart. Sometimes just to look at her made Cora cry.
"I'm sorry sweetheart, you're still too young. And if you aren't all tucked up in bed early Father Christmas won't be able to deliver anything to you."
Sybil rolled her big blue eyes, "really Mama, you know that Father Christmas isn't real. I've known for years. Edith told me. Anyway, grown ups don't get anything from him and I really think given the circumstances I should also be treated like a grown up."
"The circumstances?" Cora hid a grin behind her hand.
"Yes! I am the only person left in this house who does not have dinner in the dining room! I am so tired of always having meals in the nursery like a baby."
Cora took her daughter's head in her hands, leaned down to kiss her forehead and whispered; "You'll always be my little baby, my beauty and my baby."
Sybil sighed dramatically and wiggled out of her mother's embrace. "Not if I can help it!" Her expression suddenly changed, "Oh! Cousin James!"
The warmth that memories and Sybil brought her faded immediately. She turned around just in time to see her daughter be whisked off her feet and spun around in the arms of James Crawley. His son Patrick stood some paces behind looking glum and uncomfortable, as he had all his life. Cora clenched her fist.
"James. You should put her down now."
"Oh come on, Sybil doesn't mind, do you Princess?" He turned her upside down and began tickling her until she screamed with laughter and giddy delight. Cora pursed her lips;
"Put her down please."
Cousin James slowly acquiesced, lowering the giggling girl to the floor with a smirk. "Your Mama is just jealous that I don't pick her up and spin her about until she's breathless and begging me not to stop, isn't that right?"
Cora's stance stiffened as she exhaled loudly, "Sybil why don't you bring Patrick to find your sisters."
As they moved out of sight James let his eyes drift slowly down her figure. Cora felt the urge to cover herself, though she was already fully and modestly dressed. But, unlike mild-mannered Robert, this Crawley had a knack for causing discomfort, pain and distress. Tall, handsome and vile, James Crawley was a quintessential cad, a well bred scoundrel and currently transitioning from a successful military career to a business one. The one advantage which both paths offered, was extensive periods of travel which took him far, far away from Cora. Until of course, he wormed his way back to the Abbey and troubled her once more.
His smirk now firmly fixed, James sauntered forward, right into Cora's personal space. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of chasing her through the Great Hall.
"Keen to get me alone? You do look rather, stirring, in that gown."
Cora folded her arms, "I don't recall inviting you to stay this year."
She made it her business to ensure that he would not spend Christmas at the Abbey, even going as far as to lie to the rest of the family that he had refused her invitation so that they would not decide to extend it themselves.
He shrugged, "family don't require invitations. Come on Cora, We haven't seen one another in months, don't I get a welcome home kiss?"
"I don't see why, as this is not your home and you are not welcome."
He beamed, "how I have missed our little tête à têtes."
Cora made a noncommittal sound and moved to leave. Enough years had passed to conceal her rage at his presence, but that didn't mean she was willing to be around him for longer than absolutely necessary.
"Don't go!" he grabbed her hand with an iron grip, making her attempt to pull away fruitless.
"Let go of me," she bit out.
He pulled her closer.
"Didn't you miss me?", his breath was hot and horrible against her ear, "I thought about you — constantly."
Cora's blood rushed loud and painfully as she struggled against him again, blinking back tears, "Let go of me, or I'll scream."
He laughed lowly, "no you won't. Not on Christmas Eve."
Before she could attempt to make good on her threat, James let go of her hand and pressed a lingering kiss to her cheek. She felt the colour drain from her face, and she stood frozen in his hold.
"James! What a surprise— no kisses for me?"
Rosamund. Blessed relief. She was released. She was safe. He hated witnesses.
Cora let her senses shut off, blurring out her surroundings and the voices of her family. Her heart was beating too loudly to deal with small talk, and the fear that had been steadily rising over the last few minutes was still too acute to handle actually looking at James Crawley. She was only dimly aware of her own words, a poorly put exclamation of an oncoming headache and a vague promise to return for dinner. She thought she heard someone admire the Christmas tree. Then, with the coldness of shock taking over her body, she slowly ascended the stairs and tried her damnedest not to weep.
There has been a stuffed fish hanging in the butler's pantry for as long as Mr Carson occupied it. Though she witnessed his promotion to the position, Elsie Hughes had absolutely no idea where his fish came from or where it had been stored up until that point. The question had been on the tip of her tongue for years, just waiting to be answered. But she never got as far as to ask, because she didn't want him to see in her face just how much she hated that ugly, ugly fish.
Now, as she stood at the door which had fallen ajar under the pressure of her closed fisted knock, she could see Mr Carson staring at his fish. For a brief moment he closed his eyes, breathing deeply almost as though he was in prayer, and then he snapped them open again and resumed his gaze on the fish. Perhaps he was finally going to get rid of it.
"Mr Carson, do you have a moment?"
She didn't wait for a reply, pushing the door open further instead and stepping inside the room as though it was her own. Her mother would have considered that a sign of woefully bad breeding, but over the years the pantry, like her sitting room, had become a shared space for the two of them. Private and personal moments were exchanged there, memories and worries. This was where, after a sherry nightcap, she told him about her father's death. It was in her sitting room, sipping hot tea, where Mr Carson admitted that because he was an only child he felt somewhat guilty for letting his family line and name die with him in service. That was when Elsie pretended she was also an only child, because the shame attached to the name Becky and the word asylum was too big and painful for their private and personal spaces.
"Certainly Mrs Hughes, is everything quite alright?"
His eyes were strangely wide as he said it, like he was surprised that she was there at all, or as though he may be hiding something. Such as tears. As she moved closer he took out a handkerchief and pretended to cough. She thought she saw a glimpse of red in his eyes. Worry settled somewhere close to her heart.
"Yes, everything is— I just wanted to let you know that everything is on track for tomorrow. The Mr Crawleys are settled in their usual rooms, Lady Grantham took to bed with a headache but Miss O'Brien says it's a mild one. Oh, Lady Rosamund brought a treat for the young ladies, some sort of wine substitute that they can drink with the rest of the family at dinner- she left it in the kitchen but I'll bring it in to you in time for decanting. What else, what else— ah yes, church tomorrow. Mrs Patmore is all fuss because of the timing of the food. Now I was thinking, I've got three Catholic girls very keen to go to midnight mass tonight. That will last a few hours and because it's that bit further away someone will have to let them in between two and three o' clock. If that's the case though, perhaps they can supervise the food in the morning? What do you think?"
He was still folding his handkerchief into perfect triangles.
"That sounds most suitable, thank you for informing me."
Elsie let out a quiet "aye" as she exhaled. He didn't look up.
"Are you alright? I know things are busy, but we're managing. Thomas is fitting in well I think. The arrogance will have to be knocked out of him soon enough, but he's a hard worker."
When she got little more than a nod in return, her face creased into a frown. She checked her watch and stepped forward. No time like the present.
"I understand if you don't want to speak about it, but if you got bad news or if there is something you want to let out, just know that I am happy to listen. You've been a welcome shoulder for my troubles for many years now. I'd be honoured to return the favour."
Her hand hovered over his arm for a moment. She drew away without touching him. She heard him take in a large breath.
"It's not bad news. Not really," he turned to face her more directly, "I've been offered another position."
Only Elsie's training as a housemaid prevented her from wild exclamation. She shoved trembling hands behind her back and croaked out, "where?"
She wanted to ask so much more, firstly if he was going to take it— perhaps he had already accepted, maybe his notice had been handed in and he was staring at the fish trying to decide how to pack it. She wanted to ask why he wanted to leave, what they could have done to prevent it, what she could have done to keep him in her life forever. She needed to know if he would miss Downton, or her.
"London. An old friend contacted me and offered a new challenge."
The one question which had not occurred to her before, suddenly passed her lips and was heavy with incredulity— "are you leaving service?" It sounded ridiculous aloud or in her head, but butler elsewhere is hardly a new challenge and he had never expressed much excitement about London townhouses.
"If I go", her heart skipped at the uncertainty, "I would no longer be in service at a private home, that is correct. The position is a managerial one at an establishment of great renowned."
Elsie's eyes widened slightly, "the Ritz or the Savoy Hotel?"
Mr Carson was silent, but his expression gave her confidence. He certainly was excellent at managing staff and hosting dinner parties and guests more generally, at both everyday tasks and monumentally extravagant ones. But a hotel? Even one as prestigious as the Ritz, she simply could not picture him there. In truth she could not picture him anywhere outside the confines of Grantham land, but the family aspect of Downton had always seemed to hold such power over him. He loved the Crawleys. He treated the young ladies almost like his own, and his concern at any trouble with Her Ladyship or His Lordship was unmatched. Furthermore, Downton was his home. Not just the Abbey but Downton itself, he grew up in the area and his parents had worked here too. Leaving would surely be more difficult for him than for most.
"When are they expecting you?"
He clasped his hands together and looked down.
"They want a reply in the new year and, then to start before February. I cannot say that I have decided anything. It's a big change and... Well—"
"There's people you'll miss."
Elsie swallowed. She couldn't meet his eyes.
"You have been a good friend, certainly I will miss you Mrs Hughes. And everyone else I work with."
She nodded, "and the Family." He stiffened slightly, and made no answer. Then, as though suddenly remembering himself, he continued,
"Yes. I shall miss the Family."
Robert swallowed a hiccup and pushed open the dividing door. He was met with utter darkness.
"Cora!"
He meant to whisper, but honestly was not sure if he did or not. The sharp, "what is it?" and the speedy manner with which his wife turned on her bedside lamp suggested the latter.
"Cora, my darling it's Christmas."
"Robert, you're drunk. Go back to bed."
But he had already crossed the vast expanse of the room to reach *her* bed.
"I'm trying. Won't you let me in?"
The room was not quite spinning, in fact it was rather normal. But it was likely a symptom of his mild intoxication that he did not immediately notice Cora's stern expression.
"No, get out and go back to your dressing room this instant."
Still warm from a couple of extra glasses of brandy, Robert ignored her. Leaning forward, he whispered successfully this time;
"But we always make love on Christmas"
To say that the Earl of Grantham was unprepared for what happened next, would be an understatement.
The pillow was cold and firm enough to slap some sobriety into him. By the fifth hit he was lucid and could even grab it from his assailant. Anger and tears marred his wife's face. Familiar guilt washed away the last of his pleasant tipsy state. He sat on the side of the bed, just out of her reach, the weaponised pillow between them.
"I'm sorry but, Cora, I don't know what the matter is."
That wasn't a lie, because while he had a long list of things that could possibly be wrong, which one she would choose for tonight remained a mystery. Blue eyes met through the yellow glow of the lamplight. He could not read her, but then, he had not been able to for years. If ever.
"I—" she swallowed, "I need you to get rid of James."
Robert huffed in reply, "not this again, Patrick is my heir I cannot cast his father out of the family."
"Why not?! You've tossed more important people aside— don't tell me you've learned from that mistake now!"
"Cora! Please, keep your voice down," his face creased in concern, "that is all in the past. You agreed to let those things go, and to not bring it up again. We both did."
Cora looked away and quickly back again, "don't you care that your cousin is trying to drag me to his bed every chance he gets?"
"He's doing no such thing. Don't be ridiculous, I cannot banish my cousin from the Abbey just because he flirts and kisses you on the cheek."
James had a bit of a reputation, that was true and his general attitude towards anything in a skirt could be classed as demeaning or even dishonourable, but he was family. Crawleys stick together. It is his job, as head of the family, as Earl, to keep things as they should be. Over-friendliness is not a crime. Really,James had improved rather a lot since his unruly youth and had now chosen a life as the ever eligible never settled widower. He made mistakes, like anyone— like Robert himself— but there was nothing totally unforgivable. Or criminally inappropriate. His playful pursuit of Cora was almost two decades long, he clearly wasn't going to act on it. This was all done in good fun. He was just something of a character. Colourful. Mildly disruptive.
Cora sat up straighter in the bed.
"We both know that is the least of his crimes, but if you insist on leaving all of *that* unpleasantness aside then yes, I still believe you have every right to send him away to never come back. You don't know how he speaks to me Robert, like— like I'm his whore."
Cora could also be colourful. Especially with her language. Throwing stones was rather brave of her considering the see-through nature of her own home. If this family had someone they should be worrying about it was her. She could, and had tried to, cause a bigger scandal than James has ever dreamed of. Her indiscretions, her lies, her ridiculousness. Robert put a lot of effort into being patient with his wife, and trying to understand why she insists on torturing him. He eventually concluded that it wasn't really her fault. On their last trip to New York, he recalled hearing a rumour that there was madness on her mother's side of the family. Which would make sense as she never spoke about them. And of course, she had almost chosen a footman over a Viscount.
Robert did not hide his incredulity, "this penchant for melodrama may have been charming at one point but now you're just speaking nonsense."
"You used to know what he was like,— don't you remember all the women, the gambling, the actresses he claimed to be supporting because he had shares in a theatre? He was nothing more than a Rake with the moral compass of a dog in heat. And he still is!"
Robert scratched at his neck and sighed.
"Cora, you are the only person who has not accepted that James has changed. He left that life behind a decade ago, more."
"Why won't you believe me! What reason would I have to make all of this up?"
Robert simply gave her a look. She digested it slowly, allowing silence to settle before;
"Are you just going to wait until he attacks me?"
"Well, I've been waiting twenty years, what's another twenty?"
"A normal man would be livid at the idea of his wife being propositioned."
"I'm sure Carson is glad that I am abnormal." Those last words were muttered, instinctive, an immediate mistake that, try and he might, Robert could not bring himself to regret. He wanted to forget their desperate situation, the mess they had been sitting in for years. But given his own part in it all, he could not break the terrible conditions of their truce. He must grin endlessly and bare without complaint. Or at least, without much complaint.
"Get out."
"Perhaps casting yourself as the victim would work better if you had an ounce of virtue." The words felt cathartic, even though he knew they were cruel. It was his insistence that they stay together, that they try, that she return to him and dedicate herself once more to their marriage, his desperation, which granted him access to this room. But it was her agreement, her consent not to struggle, her willingness to leave her lover and be true to him as a wife should, which allowed him to sit on this bed. Logically he knew he should not keep punishing her. But even after the worst had happened, when she suffered like a dog and could not stand for grief, he never felt the promised buzz of satisfaction. He never got revenge. Logically he knew he should not need that. But the laws of love do not follow such rational thought.
"Get out of my bed."
"If James ever does get beyond vague suggestions and idle innuendo, perhaps you can shout that at him."
"Get out of my bed you rat!"
"That's the spirit!" He forced a laugh.
Cora launched herself across the bed in an attempt to physically push him off of the mattress, but Robert had already stood up.
"You cannot keep insisting that I forget what happened, and then hold those same things against me. We've been married for eighteen years and I am tired of being pursued incessantly throughout that entire time by your lecherous cousin— why is it so wrong for me to expect you to care?"
"The last time I showed such care you were far from grateful." He sounds bitter, he knows it but cannot care.
"There we go again! Holding the past against me, but I cannot even mention his—"
"You see Cora, I don't really believe that James' advances are unwanted by you."
This was only half true. Or at least it was more complicated than that. But the heat of an argument was hardly the time for details.
"What? I would never touch that man of my own free will."
"That's what you say, what you want to believe. But I've been all but exiled from this room, and I cannot really imagine you taking a vow of celibacy."
Cora kneeled up in the bed, shuffling over to his side so their faces were level. Resting her hands on his shoulders she leaned in, almost to kiss him. Which didn't make any sense of course. He had just insulted her, again, even though really, he didn't want to. Sometimes the anger just got too much and he could no longer take it on the chin. He wanted to know why, after all these years, she stopped trying. Not altogether, but in private she no longer pretended respect. Every smile was drenched in resentment. Indeed, it could all be seen as his fault. In his darker moments Robert convinced himself that it was what he deserved for being as weak as Father said he was. But the truth was that love was supposed to make a person weak. It was his desperate love for his wife that made him do these things. It was his love for the Family which saw them marry in the first place. Duty, love, respect. How was he to know that Cora could feel none of those things?
As the oil lamp was behind her, her face was bathed in shadow and darkness when she whispered; "Just because you repulse me, does not mean I will go weak at the knees for another man I hate."
Robert quickly shimmied out of her loose grasp, frustration, rage and sadness forming a nauseating lump in his stomach.
"There she is, the loving wife looking for her husband's protection."
He stepped away from the bed and drew his dressing gown closer around himself. She looked up at him with the same hateful gaze that had never really left over the last seventeen years.
"So you would really sooner see me defiled than have to explain James' absence from family gatherings— is that right?"
If Robert had genuinely thought for a moment that his cousin was capable of such a thing, he would have been banished from the house years ago. No matter how much he was indebted to the man, or how much he used to fear him. A cad with empty threats was not the real reason Cora tried to rid them of him. And in a way, Robert needed him there so she could focus her energy on that particular grudge, rather than back on trying to dismantle their marriage. She was far too miserable to have been lying about forsaking her lover, but that didn't mean he considered her a paragon of truth. And just because he knew James would not assault a woman, did not mean he thought adultery and seduction were out of the question.
The Earl walked towards the dividing door with a sigh that suggested nonchalance he had never felt;
"If you're asking my permission to have another affair, you really don't need to."
He shut the door just in time to avoid a flying book.