"…How easy it would be to show me how you feel
More than words is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me…"
Robert stood with his back to the dividing door, his fingers grasping desperately at the knob, his one escape. Cora's gaze, terse and unrelenting, had forced him this far backward, and he felt—not for the first time that evening—that he'd much prefer the quiet sanctity of his dressing room to yet another argument with his wife.
"Is that all you have to say on the matter?" she asked again, raising an eyebrow. Her arms were crossed tightly around her waist, and the faint outline of her stomach could just be seen beneath the loose fabric of her nightdress.
"I—" Robert scratched his head, feeling a faint buzzing there, and frowned in thought. "Cora, I love you," he insisted after a pause, enunciating the words with careful precision.
She rolled her eyes and then, kicking her slippers off in his general direction, stomped over to her bed and drew back the covers.
"Cora!"
There were few things Robert disliked more than being ignored. And tonight, after what seemed arduous hours of argument, it only irked him more intensely to see her behave so flippantly at his declaration.
"What, Robert?" She sighed, raising her still narrowed eyes to his gaze.
"Didn't you hear what I said?"
Another sigh. God, how he hated not knowing what those brief sounds of displeasure meant. There were, he had realized since their marriage, myriad emotions one could display. And his wife was adept at displaying them all, though he was not nearly as adept at deciphering them.
Looking at him as though he were particularly dense, Cora answered, "yes, I heard you."
"And you don't care?" he asked.
"Once again you seem to think that you can end any argument with a declaration of love. But that isn't how it works, Robert."
"But, I—"
"Actions speak louder than words. Hasn't anyone ever told you that? I'd much prefer you show me that you love me, and stick up for me with your parents," she interrupted, ignoring his open-wide mouth that was ready for more argument.
Silently, Robert racked his brain, remembering all the times Cora had poked, prodded, wanting him to verbalize what he now knew had first blossomed a month or two after their marriage. Love, love, love. It was all she ever said to him those first few unsteady months. He'd have been drunk on it, had the word had the power that Cora had so desperately wished it to. But now, ever since he'd told her (months ago, now), she seemed to want something entirely different. And ever since the emergence of the almost imperceptible bump, and talk of nurseries and names, and heirs, what Cora wanted seemed to change at every hour.
She was still looking at him.
"I understand," he said slowly, finally, understanding absolutely nothing.
"Good," Cora replied simply, patting the empty space beside her. "Then you may come to bed."
He feared, as the light was turned low and he slipped into bed, Cora turning away from his attempt to kiss her goodnight, that he would never understand the intricacies and painfully narrow rules of being in love.