She was already under the covers, her light off and book away, when he made it into their shared bedroom. He smiled softly down at the way she curled into the pillow, turned to his side, her hand outstretched just a bit as if she was ready to reach for him. He padded over as quietly as he could and removed his slippers before sliding in beside her.

"Oh, Robert, there you are," she murmured, and her hand reached fully out to his side as he'd predicted. "I've been waiting for you."

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, dearest. Go back to sleep if you wish."

"No, no, I've been longing to speak to you all day." Cora curved closer to him, slipping a leg between his. Her arm wound around his middle as he reached beneath her shoulders to draw her to his chest until her head rested happily against him. "I feel as though we've barely seen each other since we've arrived. Is it silly to say I've missed you?" She sighed in content as they finished their practiced adjustments, and Robert smiled a kiss into her hairline.

"Not silly at all. I missed you, too, Cor," he whispered, his embrace tightening briefly around her. "How was your day, darling?" he asked, and she began speaking in sleepy, slow tones about their luncheon, and her growing concern for Mary, and the things Mama had said. He heard the names of his various family members, and chuckled lightly at her small jokes as she kept talking, but he couldn't keep his mind from drifting back to his conversation with Shrimpy.

'We don't like each other.'

The words echoed in his head and he sighed heavily back into the pillows. How terrible for Shrimpie. He felt for Susan, too, as he knew he should. They both looked so terribly unhappy, sounded so unhappy. And Rose caught in the middle of it all.

'We don't like each other.'

To spend day in and day out, every meal, every social occasion, every holiday, every night with someone you didn't like. Well - he supposed they didn't spend their nights together. Robert knew it was unusual for people of their kind to sleep together at all after an heir and a spare had been secured. He knew the relationship he and Cora had was different than most. Suddenly words Mary had said so long ago came back to him - 'I hope you know really smart people sleep in separate rooms.' He smiled to himself, knowing that Mary and Matthew had shared a bedroom from the beginning of their marriage. They were certainly a couple that liked each other. He couldn't imagine any two people better suited for each other, except maybe he and Cora.

'We don't like each other.'

"Cora - "

She looked up at him from where her head lay on his chest, surprise evident. He'd interrupted her, he knew - interrupted some story about what Rose had said at tea and Susan's reaction - he could hear her words still hanging in the air and see the slightly annoyed look on her face but he couldn't stop himself from asking -

"You know I like you, don't you? That I like you a great deal?"

All sound suspended for a moment and he felt a rushing in his ears.

"I - " she began awkwardly. "I - wait, Robert, what?"

"I like you. I like you very much," he offered, suddenly a little embarrassed and almost wishing he'd never said anything at all.

Accustomed to his sporadic bursts of thought, she recovered quickly enough to smile indulgently at him and answered. "Well . . . after nearly thirty years of marriage, I should hope your feelings are a bit stronger than that," she teased.

He shook his head. "Of course I love you - "

"I love you, too, darling," she whispered sweetly and kissed his jaw.

"-but the thing is, I also like you. I like your company. And I hope you like mine."

She sat up, leaning on her hand by his side and turned to him, eyeing him curiously. "I adore your company. But Robert - what's this about? Is it - "

"Shrimpie. Something he said about Susan and him."

"Oh." She nodded sadly. "It's awful watching it, isn't it? Sometimes I feel quite exhausted trying to change the conversation between them or find something neutral to say….and the way she can be with Rose. Poor dear. It's so difficult raising children, especially as different as she and Rose seem to be. But I hope I was never like that with our daughters. Especially . . . "

Her voice trailed off and he watched her eyes drop. The slight set in her jaw as she swallowed and turned away confirmed that she was trying to hold back tears and he reached to pull her back down to his chest. She resisted for a moment before allowing herself to again lean into his embrace. Her face found the crook of his neck again, and he felt the slight wetness of her cheeks against his skin.

"You were never that way with Sybil, no matter the challenges we faced with her. If anyone questioned her unjustly or caused Sybil to feel anything less than the incredibly gifted and sweet creature she was, it was me. I should have been as supportive as you were all along. Luckily, even when I was being stubborn and stupid, she never backed down and was always exactly who she was."

"Darling Sybil," Cora said softly into the dark. She snuggled deeper against his chest, hooking her leg back between his and wiggling her toes beneath his calf. He held her close to him, stroking the braid of her hair. The pain of losing Sybil was still fresh and deep, and the divide that had appeared between them in the aftermath of her death had been crossed, but both still found it hard to speak easily about any of it.

Robert wondered when it would ever get easier, if it would ever get easier. 'When one loses a child, is it ever really over?' Cora had asked the day of the funeral. Thank God Mama had persuaded the good doctor Clarkson to do some more research on the matter and present his findings in what had begun as a terribly awkward and painful conversation and ended as the beginning of a chance for forgiveness between Cora and him.

Before that, those first few weeks had been full of nearly unbearable pain, resentment, and as much scotch as it took to get him to sleep in his dressing room. He would lie awake, night after night, hearing Cora's soft sobbing just across the threshold in their room, knowing she didn't want him there to comfort her, as she still held him responsible for Sybil's death. Night after night, praying that it was all some mad nightmare he would wake from - that Sybil and Tom would be proud parents together, that Cora was falling asleep in his arms every night, that Mary and Matthew would soon be having a child of their own.

Oh, and Edith, his mind automatically supplied. Their middle daughter with the worst luck in the world, it seemed. This new fellow seemed a nice enough chap. Clearly he was interested in Edith. That this new relationship would end up with his daughter finally happy and loved was all he wanted at the moment. He sent a silent prayer up to God that this Michael Gregson character was the right choice for his troubled middle child.

Cora's hand sliding over the silk of his pajamas brought him back to the present moment. Her palm and fingers trailed a path from his shoulder to his waistline and back, caressing him gently but with no real intent. It was always so soothing when she touched him so, drawing him in, grounding him to the earth, to her. She was his tether, his constant to it all when he felt things spinning beyond his control. And the way their daughters were, the war, his mama, the estate . . . it all too often felt like it was beyond not only his control but his comprehension. But she never wavered, his Cora. She faced it all bravely, gracefully, with a flexibility and sense of humor he rarely seemed to muster. And as he felt her hands saying 'Don't worry, I'm here, I'm with you come what may,' he felt his own hands responding, touching her gently at her elbow, her shoulder, her neck.

"Come here, darling," he whispered, turning on his side towards her and shifting his legs and hers until they were face to face. With an arm under her neck, he pulled her to him, his hand at her back, kissing her face softly until she hummed contentedly at the contact.

"So what was the thing Shrimpie said?" she asked slowly, tilting her head slightly so he would kiss her cheek again. He did and then pulled back to look at her.

"He said, that is - " he stumbled for a moment to get the words out. "I asked him about how they were doing, he and Susan. Not to pry or anything, but it's just so painful and obvious and . . . well, he said that they didn't like each other."

She stilled and looked up into his eyes. "Not that they don't love each other, but that they don't like each other?"

"Darling, I don't think love has ever been a part of the equation for the two of them. I'm sure neither of them ever expected to find love in their marriage," he answered gently. "It generally isn't a reality for people of our station. You know that."

Her brow furrowed and she bit her lip before shaking her head. "I know. It's just . . . so terribly sad and . . . I guess . . . sometimes I forget how lucky we are."

"All things considered?" he questioned softly, his hand drifting to outline her cheek before settling again at the back of her neck.

Her eyes smiled at him and he felt warm from the tips of his toes to the top of his head under her gaze. "All things considered. I know how lucky I am, Robert, even if sometimes I might seem to forget. I wouldn't trade you for anyone else in this world. You're mine for keeps."

"Darling - " He pulled her face to his and their lips met tenderly until she pulled back with a playful grin.

"So?" she asked expectantly. "You like me, Robert?"

"Of course," he murmured, trying to bring her lips back to his.

"Well?" she dodged his efforts.

"Well, what?" he huffed.

"What is it that you like about me? Inquiring minds want to know."

"Oh, for God's sake, Cora. You know what I like about you. Come," he moved to kiss her again, but she shook off his advance.

"Robert, please." She placed a hand on his chest. "Maybe it's selfish," she shook her head slightly and looked away before looking back at him and continuing shyly. "But . . . something must have come to mind about us if what Shrimpie said affected you so. And, well, I wouldn't mind hearing it, if something did in fact come to mind."

"Cora . . . " even he could hear the petulant tone in his voice as he said her name, but he couldn't help it, merely wanting to hold her close and kiss her. Of course, a hundred things that he liked about his wife had come to mind over the course of the day since that conversation with Shrimpie. He'd gone so far as to consider writing her a letter; a few brief lines of poetry had flitted through his mind, but he'd shaken off the foolish notion to write his wife of over thirty years a sonnet. She'd likely laugh at him. He never felt quite confident in his ability to express himself through words around his wife - she had an endless capacity to unnerve him, which she always seemed completely unaware of - and he felt much more inclined to show her what he liked about her. To kiss and caress and kiss again the parts he liked about her.

But she looked pointedly at him now, her eyes searching his, and he could tell that for whatever reason, in that moment she really needed to know what he liked about her. You could love someone out of habit, because it was familiar, and because you were supposed to, he knew. But to truly love and like someone, and sustain that over time was a rare thing indeed. Something to be celebrated, he supposed. Something he should find the courage to verbalize.

He took a breath and looked away for a moment, unable to start with her eyes on his. "I like to hear you sing, I've always liked to hear you sing to the girls, and now just little lines when you think no one is there or forget I am. I like your handwriting, and your hands, and how you hold your teacup. And your beautiful hair that only I ever get to truly see." He looked back to see the glisten in her eyes and an incredulous smile spreading across her face. He found it was easier to keep going now that he had started, but he had to close his eyes to continue, images of the last three decades of their lives spent together flashing before him. "And when you stand up to Isobel or Mary or Mama. And your laugh. And sitting across from you at dinner. How you always seem to read my thoughts, how you humor me into a better mood. And I like you as a mother, and how you care for all of us on the estate, and your toes under my legs to get warm."

She swatted her hand at his chest, but her voice wavered with tears as she spoke. "Robert! You always complain when I do that!"

He shrugged. "That is my privilege as husband - to complain about things I secretly love about my wife."

She clucked her tongue at him, but then burrowed her face into the crook of his neck. He paused for a moment before he continued slowly and softly, whispering his affection for her into the dark. "I like your kindness, your heart for everyone you've ever met, your sense of humor. I like being out somewhere and catching your eyes across a crowded room. Your beautiful eyes. It amazes me every time that you are looking for me as often as I am looking for you."

"Oh, darling," her voice was muffled against his skin, and she trembled just a bit before pulling back to look at him. Her eyes were filled with tears, spilling over as she kissed his face slowly - his forehead, first one cheek and then the other, the tip of his nose and then his lips. "I'm sorry I asked. I don't deserve all this, don't deserve all the love you give me."

She moved to kiss him again, but this time it was he that stilled her motions and tilted her chin up so she looked to him.

"However impolite it is to contradict one's wife, Cora, you absolutely do. And more. I'm only sorry that I'm not a better husband at telling you more often just what you mean to me. I love you, Cor. I love you and I like you. Very much."

Her smile wobbled and fresh tears caught the firelight as they traced her cheeks. "I love you. And I like you, Robert. So very, very much."

And as she rolled more firmly on top of him, and their kisses sparked a new layer of feeling and urgency to express how very much they felt for one another, and hands moved with more intent and more urgency, as night clothes scattered and skin moved against skin and the fire burned lower and lower, every time their lips met he felt as though they were both repeating their promise to each other - "I love you and I like you, I love you and I like you, I love you and I like you. So very, very much."