Cora Levinson stood before the looking glass stock-still and silent as a young maid adjusted the pink roses threaded through the back of her hair. The woman, her new lady's maid, was quite young indeed but was—according to Lady Grantham—exceedingly capable.
And so, catching Lady Grantham's eye in the mirror, she smiled encouragingly and turned gingerly as the maid stepped away. "Does it look alright?" Cora asked, turning so that she might see the back more completely.
Lady Grantham nodded, stepping forward to inspect the intricate work, and gestured for Lady Rosamund to come closer as well. "It looks very fine, my dear, very fine."
"Quite fine," Rosamund added in agreement, smoothing out her dress and yawning, much to her mother's annoyance.
"Rosamund, might you keep your composure until after the wedding?"
Rosamund sighed and flounced back over to the chaise in the corner of the room. "I am composed, Mama. I'm simply tired of sitting in this stuffy room; we're certain to be late if you order the maid to fix her hair again." Rosamund rolled her eyes, adding, "not that I mean any offense, Cora," with an after-thought smile.
"None taken, Lady Rosamund," Cora replied, smiling shyly in return. "And, anyway, I think Lady Grantham was right. The flowers look much more understated now," Cora looked once more in the mirror for confirmation, looking hopefully at her soon to be mother-in-law for approval.
"Indeed," Lady Grantham answered, smiling rather brightly. Rosamund fixed her mother with an odd stare, but Cora was far too preoccupied with her newly attached veil and gloves to notice. "Pay no attention to Rosamund, my dear. She may have attended her very own wedding just last year but she does not understand what is entailed when a future Earl and Countess marry."
Cora nodded enthusiastically, her expression breaking into the most brilliant of smiles at Lady Grantham's words. The future Earl and Countess. She and Robert. It was all too perfect for words.
Everything was all too perfect for words.
Three months ago when she was invited to tea at Grantham House by Lady Grantham herself, and happened to meet her son, Lord Downton, freshly home and graduated from Cambridge, it had seemed fate. He was charming and kind and had been the one to show her all around London. And his family was terribly welcoming, too. Lady Grantham had made sure that she was at every important ball of the season, and Lady Rosamund had most conveniently invited Robert over to tea so that they might spend a few hours alone together on more than one occasion.
When he had proposed on the lawn of Downton in the middle of a picnic with his parents, nothing in the world could have stopped her from saying yes.
Though if something had wanted to stop her, Cora knew exactly what that something would be.
Her mother had been conspicuously absent from the "bridal suite" (as Rosamund jokingly referred to it) all morning. In fact it had been nearly a day since she had last seen her mother at all. Their conversation had not ended on a particularly kind note. But Cora could only shake her head. Her mother simply did not understand how the world worked. Not the way Lady Grantham understood, or the way she and Robert did.
It had been her mother's idea to come to London after all. And for all her teasing about how the royalty would try to "sweep her daughter right away from her," perhaps it was fitting that in but an hour or two she would be the mother of a Viscountess. And even with all her teasing and all her warnings about being careful, Cora had never expected to see her mother as angry as she was when Cora announced her engagement to Robert.
Looking in the mirror now, standing in a confection of lace and tulle beside her almost-family it was easy to push it to the back of her mind, but Cora knew it would be impossible to forget the words that passed between them over a month earlier.
"—Those people are making a fool of you, Cora; you're allowing them to make a fool of our family."
"Mother, you don't know what you're talking about. Robert loves me and wants me to be his wife. You of all people should be happy for me. I'll have a title, a position. Aren't you proud?"
"Proud? Cora, my darling, you must not marry him. That boy wants but two things from you and once he claims the first after your wedding, it will be only the second that keeps him from running in the opposite direction—"
"—Mother, please, you're being vulgar and terribly unfair. Robert loves m—"
"Robert Crawley loves your money, my dear. He may think you pretty and he may not be cruel, but that boy is marrying you for your money. And if you think his family is any better, if you think that woman is any better, then you are not nearly as intelligent as I raised you to be, Cora Levinson."
"It's Cora Crawley," she had shouted, storming out of the room.
Cora could still feel the burn of the tears she'd cried that night licking the back of her throat. But shaking her head and pulling herself back to the present moment, she pushed those awful thoughts as far back as she could possibly manage. Her mother was being impossibly stubborn. Even now, the morning of the wedding, she had elected to sit in the drawing room rather than see her only daughter get ready.
Thankfully Lady Grantham and Robert's sister were so wonderfully supportive. Though Lady Rosamund—Rosamund, as she kept reminding herself—was often quiet and seemed to regard her family curiously, she supposed it was just her personality. Robert's parents were endlessly helpful. Lady Grantham had insisted on planning the entire affair so that "she and her mother would not be burdened." And when most of Cora's relatives and friends from home were, rather surprisingly, unable to attend, it had been Lady Grantham who had helpfully offered to invite more of their extended family and London acquaintances so that the numbers would round out.
Just last night Cora had overheard Lord and Lady Grantham inside the library discussing the impending nuptials.
Though she heard just a bit of it, she had caught a glimpse of them looking over some paperwork—wedding details, no doubt—and Lady Grantham talking about how the "bond between the Levinsons and the Crawleys" would be stronger than ever, that "their family would be stronger than ever."
Cora was so pleased she had nearly floated off to bed.
If only her mother could see reason.
If only she could see that everything was too perfect for words.
Martha Levinson stood in the drawing room of Downton Abbey, staring intently out the window at the grassy plain beyond the glass. It was a beautiful day, a rarity in English summers, and was most certainly weather befitting the wedding day of her only daughter.
She shook her head at the thought, her gaze turning bitter.
It was too late.
The groom had walked down the main staircase and into a waiting carriage but ten minutes before. She had caught a glimpse of his expression, which was far more nervous than seemed appropriate, and he had muttered something to his valet before brushing past her without even noticing.
He was handsome, she'd give him that. Robert Crawley, Viscount Downton stood taller than any American man that had dared to ask Cora for a dance back in New York. His dark hair and light eyes gave him a regal appearance to match his title and the estate he called home was enough to enchant any young woman into believing she loved him.
Martha never counted, though, on her daughter being the one enchanted by Robert Crawley.
It had seemed too perfect, from the moment Cora came home from that first tea at Grantham House and exclaimed that she had met "the most perfect man in all of the world."
It had seemed far too perfect when Cora was suddenly invited to every ball in London and that she was conveniently placed on the arm of Robert Crawley for every important dance, eschewing any other possible match in favor of his company.
And her suspicions had been confirmed, it was indeed far too perfect for anyone's good, when she overheard two women seated adjacent to her at The Criterion talking of how the "Crawleys were in a deep hole…"
Cora, her darling daughter, it seemed, was to be their rope.
The sound of doors closing and footsteps across the upper hall drew Martha from her thoughts and back to the present moment.
It was too late to stop the wedding, no matter how desperately she wanted to. But perhaps, she thought as she approached the door to the main hall and spied her daughter approaching the top of the staircase, perhaps it was not too late to save Cora all the same.
Violet watched from her perch at the top of the staircase as Martha Levinson traipsed across the main hall and out to one of the carriages without so much as a glance at her daughter. Thankfully Cora did not notice her mother; she was too busy allowing Rosamund to re-adjust the skirt of her gown once more. And it would do no one any good for that woman to cause a scene.
She needed Cora looking as perfect as possible at that church. She needed Cora looking ethereal and elegant, the image of nobility, as she walked down the aisle to marry her only son.
She needed to make sure Robert's face was alight with excitement starting the very moment he locked eyes with his bride. Anything less than palpable excitement just would not do.
Cora descended the stairs and greeted Lord Grantham happily before taking her own father's arm. Mr. Levinson was rather quiet, but that was perfect fine; if Violet were honest, she wished all of the Levinsons were as quiet.
She looked on silently as the bride was led from the house, speaking in hushed tones to her father as she, Rosamund, and her own husband regarded them.
"Well, Mama, I suppose your show is about to begin," Rosamund interrupted, narrowing her eyes almost imperceptibly.
"You're in the carriage behind Miss Levinson's," she answered evenly, not removing her gaze from Cora until she heard the door to the carriage close.
Rosamund leveled one last glance at her parents before nodding slightly and trudging out in the direction of the door, never looking back.
Watching her daughter, Violet's attention was only drawn at the sound of her husband chuckling slightly beside her. "You know she has a point, Violet."
"No, I do not know, Patrick." She fixed her husband with a gaze as steely as the one Rosamund had offered them moments before.
He sighed, absently running a hand over his brow. "I suppose it doesn't matter. Not now, anyway. He'll do his duty. I spoke to him this morning and he—"
Violet interrupted, frowning obviously. "Patrick, I told you not to speak to him again. You're only putting ideas in his head that need not be there. Of course Robert will do his duty. I sent him to the church nearly an hour ago. If he feels the need to unburden himself, he may speak to the Vicar before the service. But our son was never one to verbalize his emotions, thankfully."
Patrick hummed noncommittally. "He's a sensitive boy, Violet. You know how this has all weighed on his mind."
Rolling her eyes, Violet took her husband's arm and began leading him toward the door. "He reads too many novels. Everyone goes down the aisle with half the story hidden. Why should Robert and Miss Levinson be any different?"
Patrick shook his head and helped his wife into the carriage. "Well, Violet, thanks to us, they shan't be." He did not seem particularly upset at the notion, though Patrick did sigh once more as he slid in beside his wife. "I should hate to think Robert would be unhappy because of my folly."
"Don't be so terribly remorseful, Patrick, it doesn't suit you. Robert will be fine."
The two rode silently for the rest of the short ride to the church.
When they arrived and stepped out of the carriage, Cora was positioned under a beautifully flowered magnolia tree as a photographer took a picture of her, canonizing the moment into their family history.
"See Patrick?" Violet nodded at Cora as they approached the entrance to the church. "Everything is too perfect for words."
Her husband did not reply.
Robert stood at the head of the church, pacing nervously.
His cousin had told him several times that he was on the verge of wearing a hole into the floorboards, but he couldn't help his anxious movements. He was about to be married, about to be someone's husband.
But it was more than that.
And it terrified him more than he could say.
As soon as he said those vows there would be no going back. Once he promised himself to her, once he promised to care for her for all eternity, it would be official—he would be a liar.
He hated lying to her.
Robert had never thought himself a bad person. His friends had always teased him for being too soft, too gentle. But now here he was, about to marry a woman who believed that he was in love with her.
He had never said the words. Perhaps that would be his saving grace.
But she had. Repeatedly.
"I love you, Robert."
"My love."
"Our life will be so lovely, so full of love."
Her words rang in his ears, in her soft melodic voice, threatening to make him ill. Had he strung her along? Should he ask her and explain the extent of the situation, he feared her answer would absolutely be yes, followed swiftly by a slap.
He had not intended to deceive Cora. She was so lovely, the physical manifestation of what he imagined the perfect wife to be. But he was not ready to be a husband. Just eighteen, Robert did not think he had it in him to care for himself properly, let alone anyone else.
He had not been home for even a month after finishing at Cambridge when his mother and father explained what his next life steps would be. They had left little room for interpretation or argument. And though he had stormed out, shouting about how he couldn't do it, when his mother instructed him to attend tea two days later, a tea where he was introduced to Miss Cora Levinson, he also found it difficult to find the prospect of her as his wife entirely unpleasant.
And then, suddenly, before he even realized what was happening, the music began to play. And just as he had done at their first ball, Robert stood tall and took a great deep breath, hoping to look confident even though he could feel his hands shaking.
She was a vision in white, gliding down the aisle like a goddess from the stories he had read as a child. Her dark hair and the delicate flowers woven into her locks made her look every inch the beautiful Viscountess she was about to become.
And when she wrapped her hand around his arm, squeezing ever so lightly as they faced the Vicar, Robert was surprised to find that rather than intensify, his fear began to abate.
His hands still shook as he placed the ring, his grandmother's ring, onto her finger, but when he repeated the final words back to her, he found his voice sounded remarkably calm.
"With this ring I thee wed,
with my body I thee worship
and with all my worldly goods I thee endow."
If someone was to ask him how he felt, standing before his family and the church and staring down at the beautiful woman who was nearly his, in that moment, he would have told them the truth—that it felt too perfect for words.
But as Martha Levinson sat in the first pew and looked upon the scene before her, it was all she could do not to scream. So she held tightly to her husband's hand and tried to ignore the way Harold tapped his foot with annoying regularity.
It was a mess. It was a disaster. It was more awful than she could say.
But she would make it better.
As she watched the Vicar pronounce them one, "now and forever," she made a silent promise.
She would fix everything.