Rating: K

After episode 8 following the moment Robert finds out Edith is going to Switzerland, I imagine.


"Robert, there is nothing sinister about Rosamund wishing to take Edith on a visit to Switzerland with her. Edith's been spending so much time there since she's always in London, and your sister has no children of her own to dote on." Cora doesn't let herself so much as let the thought escape the box in the back of her mind that says Robert might be right. She grants the timing is a little weird but it will be good for Edith, she's aware of the fact the girl has been distraught since Mr Gregson went missing and she also knows that her and Robert perhaps don't pay quite enough attention to their Edith.

"I'm just saying are you sure this isn't about Gregson again?" Her anger and her tiredness mount. Robert seems to have forgotten while he's been galavanting around America how much work she was left to do. And since his return she hasn't exactly got much sleep. She snaps the lamp off.

"Why would it be? He's lost in Germany, that's the long and the short of it." That Cora doesn't believe that is hardly a necessary point to this argument.

"So, you think she's over him? Because I don't."

"Robert, why are you saying all this now when you never liked him, or saw that Edith had fallen for him in the first place. Besides she would have made you send a detective to Germany if she really loved the man."

"Not necessarily. The company have detectives over there, she thought that was enough. I'm convinced she loved him. I've been missing for a few weeks and she looks a lot worse than when I left." Cora is aware their voices are rising but she's the adrenaline racing in her veins stops her from thinking clearly and lower her voice.

"She's just tired, she's been working flat out like the rest of us since you went away and abandoned the whole running of the house to us."

"That's unfair Cora, I went to America for you in case you'd forgotten. I sometimes wonder if you appreciate anything I do for you. I give you a home, food, money-" he stops as he watches her turn away from him and slide beneath the covers. Cora can feel the tears pricking in her eyes and she tries her best to steady them. She's not surprised Robert takes no notice and just turns out his light, she annoyed him, he wasn't going to give her his attention now. When he does so she lets the tears fall freely, but quickly it becomes too much and she can hear her own sniffles and sobs. A moment on two later when her shoulders shake with her tears and her mind swims with his words for the thousandth time she feels his hand on the back, she shrugs it off. Why does she want a man who thinks she doesn't appreciate him touching her? "Cora, please I was angry. I don't mean it."

"It sounded like you did." She feels his hand weave into her plait and his lips touch her neck. The touches warm her but she ignores it, desperate to make him realise that what he said hurt. "Darling, that's not going to make it any better." She knows her slowing tears and the stillness of her shoulders deceive her though. His touch always makes her better.

"When I was in America Harold told me something I didn't know about you." Cora's interest pikes, no doubt exactly what Robert wanted. Her mind begins to reel, what had her brother been saying? "He said that you'd received an offer of marriage from that Prince who'd courted you." Cora gulps, she'd never told Robert that, always keen to keep it from him, particularly at the time, mainly because even she wasn't sure in her own mind whether she was completely sane to turn him down for Robert.

"Yes, he did. I never told you because I didn't want to alarm you, besides, I didn't want to marry him."

"Why not?" Cora knows her resolve to keep the cold shoulders is vastly slipping from her reach. "He had a never ending pit of money, I did not. He could give you everything you could ever want, I could not. He was not a fortune hunter, I was. He has goodness knows how may houses and a palace, I have a draughty house in Yorkshire." She turns around to face him, forgetting her charade from earlier.

"No, your right. In your mind I went for all the wrong things. I went for the man and not the money. You're telling me the things my mother was always thinking rather than looking at this the way my father persuaded me to. I have no idea if my father had realised I was in love with you, I think in hindsight he probably had. But anyway, I remember him coming to me and telling me what he thought on marriage. I remember the words even today they were so powerful and emotive. He said 'Cora, I want a good man for you, one that could grow to love you as a proper husband should. I am not saying the Prince would not. But is that what you want, a life in the eyes of a nation that isn't even yours? Cora, promise me, you'll choose the man that ignites in you every emotion you currently know. Choose the man who could make you laugh out loud at a funeral. Choose the man you'd worry about the most if he went away. Choose the man who'll laugh at you jokes, and cry when you do. Choose the man, who when you agree to marry him, will take you in his arms and kiss you. Choose the man whose proposal you can almost remember word for word. Choose the man who will be the last thought in your head before you close your eyes at night, that's every night Cora, every night for the rest of your life, regardless of whether you marry him.'" She wipes the tears from her cheeks as memories of her father cloud her thoughts. She looks at Robert, who has similar tears on his cheeks.

"I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything, I was explaining why I chose you rather than the Prince. And that was why, you fulfilled all those things, and many more." Robert just looks down at her. Staring at nothing, she's well aware he's over thinking it, she did that the first time she heard the words. All her father had said could be summed up in one expression, 'go with your instinct.' She strokes his face and wipes the tears slowly from his cheeks. "I don't suppose you'd kiss me? An apology for earlier?"

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry for that and my distraction just then, I was just-" she cuts him off with her lips, desperate to show him that in all the time that's passed she hasn't regretted the decision she made, not once.