When the Countess of Grantham burst into her son's study unannounced on a Saturday afternoon, it was not Robert who greeted her as she had expected – and indeed as he should have done! – but his little wife, sat stiff and flushed behind his desk and looking rather like she had been caught doing something she shouldn't have been doing.
But what?
Violet narrowed her eyes.
"What are you doing in here? Where's Robert?"
She glanced around keenly, looking for something, anything, which might indicate what the girl had been up to. She had known instinctively the American would be trouble, but had Robert listened to her? Had Edward listened to her? Heaven's no! Their heads had been turned by the pretty little foreigner, but Violet could see right through the charmingly clumsy façade!
"Ripon," her daughter-in-law breathed, though the words sounded decidedly shaky and not at all convincing; at least not to Violet. Cora grimaced to herself, and kept herself firmly rooted to the chair behind Robert's desk with her hands curled tight around the oak edge. There was a flicker of something in her eyes that Violet's sharp stare did not miss. Did the child really think she could hide from her? "I think."
"Well is he or isn't he?" She sniffed. "Are all American's so inarticulate?"
Cora bristled at that, despite the blush overwhelming her cheeks and, in truth, every other part of her – she usually allowed her mother-in-law's insults to roll over her but she loathed interruptions, particularly at a moment as critical as this!
She spoke as sternly as she could manage...under the circumstances.
"He is in Ripon. Will I do in his absence?"
If Violet had been determined before, she was even more so now, her suspicions enflamed by the sheer audacity of this child, speaking to her as if she owned the place! She had not run Downton for thirty long years for a silly little upstart, scarcely twenty-two, to speak to her in this manner! She was not Lady Grantham yet.
She opened her mouth to give the American a piece of her mind, only to blink in confusion as she heard a thump from underneath the desk. She would have willingly believed the sound was nothing more than the clumsy girl hitting her knee against the wood – she had been known to trip over her own feet on occasion – had the thump not been followed by a suspicious shuffling noise, like ruffling satin or fluttering silk, and a girlish squeak from Cora's lips.
"What in god's name are you-"
Violet froze in horror as a head, a terribly familiar head of red, curly hair, appeared from beneath the desk and between her daughter-in-law's legs and offered Violet an insolent little smile that would have her blood boiling if she had not been so utterly scandalized.
God in heaven.
"Mama." Rosamund's eyes twinkled back at her. Dear god, was this what a heart attack felt like? "Did Granny never teach you to knock?"