AN: Wow, thank you so much to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, or even just read my first chapters! This is my first fic, and it's been so encouraging to know that people are enjoying it. I also had no idea what an international place this was - I had always assumed that most of the readers and writers in the English section were American, British, Australian, Canadian, etc., so it was very neat to look at my story stats and see my readers were literally all over the world! I never expected to have the opportunity to write for people as far away as Peru, Finland, Portugal, Liberia, or Indonesia, and certainly not all at once! (As a travel nerd, this is a very cool thing for me.)
Reviews do mean a lot, so if you are so inclined, please drop me a line at the end. (I feel really guilty now for all those months that I lurked on this site and never left a review - I will definitely do it in the future!) :-)
Also, bonus points to anyone who can remember who Viscountess Branksome is.
"I trust you found our English Christmas festivities agreeable, Lady Downton," the Viscount Lonsdale said, taking a sip of his wine.
"Of course, Lord Lonsdale. The Abbey was particularly beautiful in December," Cora replied. The reality, of course, was that she had not realized how much she would miss the bright lights of New York, the pumpkin pie and the familiar treats of her childhood, the late-November Thanksgiving celebration that kicked off the whole season, and, of course, her family. Nor had December seemed quite the same without the soft glow of her father's menorah in a window. But she knew it wouldn't do to mention any of that now—especially not the latter.
The new year of 1891 had arrived a few days earlier, and this luncheon was the last event of the shooting party that had gathered at Downton for the holiday. Cora was more than ready to see the visitors off—at nearly two months pregnant, she found she tired easily. Yet a house full of company had made it easier to hide her symptoms from her distracted in-laws. She and Robert had agreed to keep the news to themselves for the time being. The thought of a baby—perhaps even an heir—so delighted them both that they could not yet bear to share with the world a secret that felt so sacred.
"Is the celebration very different here?" Viscount Lonsdale asked.
She almost laughed: she'd arrived in England more than two years ago now, but she still could not get over how very foreign the country seemed. In her imagination it had been a smaller version of the United States, only with titles, older buildings, and different accents, and she'd been stunned how wrong she'd been. She was beginning to suspect that she'd always be culturally wrong-footed here. "The menu was different," she said. "And a few of the carols were new to me. I think being in the countryside makes it feel very different, too—I'm used to Christmas in New York."
He smiled. "What did you find you liked best?"
But she missed his question as a sudden, sharp pain shot across her stomach, and she gasped.
"Lady Downton, are you quite all right?"
"I–I think so," she said after a moment. It had gone as quickly as it had come, and she did not feel the slightest bit odd now. "I'm sorry; I don't know what came over me. You were saying?" She gave him a dazzling smile, hoping to distract him. It worked, and the conversation continued on.
The man she could not distract, she realized, was Robert. He'd had at least one nervous, protective eye on her since she'd told him her suspicions last month, and he was, as usual, more in tune to her than he was to his own lunch partner. He was now studying her carefully from across the table, and her mouthed, "I'm fine," had done nothing to remove the concern from his face.
By the time the meal had ended, Cora had nearly forgotten the incident. She rose and followed her mother-in-law and the other ladies from the dining room, knowing the men would follow shortly.
She took a seat in the drawing room next to Viscountess Branksome—she'd grown to like the other young woman quite a bit over the last few days—as she listened to Lady Grantham expertly guide the conversation.
And then she felt it again. An odd clenching in her stomach, punctuated by another stab of pain. She sucked in her breath and received an odd look from Viscountess Branksome. Then it was gone, and she breathed out, only to feel it return with a new strength—it felt this time as though something in her had been quickly ripped in two. She cried out, and then felt it settle into a dull ache.
Every head in the room turned to face her. "Cora?" her mother-in-law said. Violet's expression was an attempt at concern that looked more like a grimace, but her voice was dripping with irritation and disapproval.
"I'm sorry," Cora said quickly, knowing that something was wrong, desperately wrong. "I feel–a bit lightheaded–the heat from the fire," she said, casting about for an excuse. "I think I may go lie down. Please excuse me."
"I may step upstairs for a moment, too," Viscountess Branksome said as Cora stood. "These gloves—they're new, and a bit smaller than I'd thought. I think I'll change…" And she followed Cora from the room.
"Here, take my arm if you need it," the other woman said as soon as they stepped into the hall. "I didn't want you walking up alone, unwell and in your condition."
"Is it that obvious?" Cora took her arm, grateful for something to steady her as her stomach muscles seized again.
The viscountess smiled gently. "I wouldn't say obvious. I doubt the Countess of Grantham has noticed. I'm not sure noticing others is her strong suit."
Cora heard her remark only distantly. It's nothing, she told herself. Just a stomach cramp. You've overexerted yourself, and you need to lie down. Yet her heart told her that wasn't the case.
She let Viscountess Branksome lead her up the stairs and down the hall to her bedroom, where she sank onto her bed and asked the other woman to ring for Miss Moore before she returned to the drawing room.
Miss Moore had barely had time to arrive, call out to a passing footman to fetch the doctor, and help Cora into a comfortable nightdress when Robert came bursting in.
"Cora!" He was out of breath, as though he had run up the stairs two at a time. "What's wrong? Viscountess Branksome told me you weren't well—"
"I told her not to make a fuss," Cora said, half to herself. Of course, the viscountess probably hadn't taken that to mean what it really had: please leave my husband out of this.
"Never mind that; tell me what's wrong." He sat down on the bed, and she saw her own fear reflected in her husband's eyes.
"I'm not sure anything's wrong," she said, forcing herself to breathe calmly and willing it to be true. "My stomach hurts a bit, so the doctor's coming to see me. I really think it's quite all right, though." She was aware of how feeble this must sound to him, and how feeble it sounded to her, as she lay in bed, curled up against the growing intensity of the pain.
"But Cora, what if the baby—"
"Oh God," she murmured softly. She had felt that awful tearing sensation again, but there was something more this time: a rush of liquid, and she sat up, terrified, only to look down to see the blood suddenly staining the sheets in a rapidly growing circle beneath her. Blood. Her blood.
"No!" she heard herself cry out—a harsh, strangled sound.
"Cora—" She heard the anguish in his voice, and the humiliation of his presence only multiplied her horror.
"Go!" she shouted. "Just go!"
"Cora, please—" He reached for her, and she pulled away.
"No!"
"My lord, you'll make her more agitated. The doctor will be here soon," she heard Miss Moore say in a soothing tone as she drew him away and out of the bedroom.
"Cora's miscarried," Robert said to his parents later that day after the New Year's guests had departed and the doctor had gone. Miscarried. The word had a strange, sour taste to it, and his mouth did not seem to want to fit around it, as though he had accidentally tried to swallow a large bit of bone with his meat.
His father looked up sharply, but it was his mother who spoke. "What? She hasn't even been pregnant."
Of course she hadn't as far as his parents were concerned, but the sentence made him irrationally angry. How many veiled jabs had Cora heard from his mother in the last year about her fertility…
"Yes, she was," he said, swallowing his anger. This wasn't his mother's fault. "We hadn't told anyone, but she was. She would have delivered…" He trailed off, unable to finish with the words this summer. There would be no delivery.
"How is she?" his father said.
"I'm told she'll recover," he said. He cleared his throat in an attempt to hold off his own emotions. "I am going to go up and see her."
He found her propped against the pillows in bed, tears streaming down her face, her breathing the jagged sort that meant she'd been at this for some time. "Oh, Cora," he said softly, but her only response was a small shake of her head.
"How are you?" He took a seat on the side of the bed next to her and took her hand, quite literally: when he reached his hand out, she did not extend her own to grasp his, and he had to physically pick up her hand to wrap it in his own. She gave another small shake of her head and still said nothing.
He lifted her hand and kissed it. He was grieved for their child, yes, grieved beyond measure at the thought of the baby he had already grown to love. But his terror all afternoon had not been so much for their son or daughter, but for Cora. It was a cold thought, perhaps, but at their age, of course they would conceive again. Cora was what was irreplaceable—irreplaceable in his arms and in his heart, and the thought of living on without her frightened him more than anything ever had.
"Darling…" He brushed her hair back, but she responded with nothing but more tears. How he wished she would say something. "Can I hold you?" She shrugged, and he took that as an indication that he at least would not hurt her.
"Tell me if anything hurts," he said as he drew her slowly into his arms. It was, he realized, like holding a large doll—she made no movements on her own and did not snuggle up to him or bury her face in his neck as he expected. Yet she did cry harder, and as he leaned his head against hers, his tears mingled with her own.
By evening, Cora felt she had cried every tear she had, and they seemed an almost trivial response to the grief she felt. What she wanted to do was sleep, for days and weeks and months, until the world seemed normal again.
She expected Robert would return once more to tell her good night, and she dreaded it. She had wanted children for their own sake, and she had grown to love the small being inside of her with an intensity that had almost frightened her, but most of all she had wanted to give Robert children. She had wanted to produce an heir and a spare and go on to have further sons and daughters, so that she would fulfill her duty, secure Robert's line, and prove her worth to him. Perhaps, she had let herself think, he might love me if I give him a son.
She had known that almost a year of childlessness was in some way a disappointment to him, and she had been sure he'd think of her as a complete failure if that continued much longer. But now she was faced with a situation she hadn't considered. She was not merely slow to fall pregnant; she couldn't carry a child to term. Her body's decision to eject the life inside it seemed a far deeper failure than simply a refusal to create life in the first place.
And then there was how…repulsive the whole thing had been. She had always been taught that men wanted no part in a woman's issues, and she had been told to be coy and euphemistic about her monthly courses even in front of her husband. Childbirth, and the unpleasantness that came with it, was a field reserved for women and doctors—her husband, she knew, should enter the room only after she had been washed and dressed and the sheets had been changed and the child was lying peacefully in her arms. So the thought that Robert not only knew she had failed but had witnessed the beginnings of her miscarriage, had seen the blood spreading out beneath her, was a humiliation that she was sure would seal her fate. He could never learn to love her. She could only hope that he did not hate her. The attention and regard she had received from him in the last few months, she knew, were over.
As she'd expected, he returned later that evening in his own bedclothes. He seemed relieved to see her sitting calmly, with no hint of the tears that had engulfed her today, but she could hear the worry in his voice when he spoke.
"How are you feeling tonight?" he asked.
"Well enough," she said. In truth, there was still a sharp pain in her stomach, and she was so weak from the loss of blood that she doubted she could walk across the room on her own, but if she told him that, he would be alarmed, and he would want to call the doctor back, and she would have to explain that it was normal, and that she would recover in the next few days, but that there was nothing to be done for it right now, and she simply did not have the energy for this conversation.
His forehead was still wrinkled with concern. "The doctor said you'd probably have pains all night. Is there anything I can—"
"No!" she snapped. "There's nothing! There's nothing you or anyone can do. I just wish you'd all quit asking!" She knew she was almost shouting, but she didn't care. It was what Moore had been asking all day, and it was what her father-in-law had asked when he'd come to see her, and hearing the question from Robert was one too many. It wasn't even so much the irritation of the repetition—although her nerves were raw today, and it was irritating. It was the answer. No. No, there's nothing you can do. You can fetch me as many blankets and hot water bottles and drinks as you like, and you won't put my child back in my womb or ease the pain of his loss.
She choked back another sob, the first she'd felt in hours. "I'm sorry," she whispered after a moment, squeezing her eyes shut and covering her face with her hands to force back the tears. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so harsh. This is your loss, too."
"It's all right," he said softly.
She could not bear the shame of her failure in his presence any longer. "I think we should both just go to bed," she said. She turned off her bedside lamp, adjusted the pillows so she could lie flat, and lay down.
"Yes. You should rest." He took off his dressing gown and laid it on the chair.
She stared at him. "What are you doing?"
"Going to bed?" There was a question in his voice, as though he weren't sure what answer she was expecting to hear.
"In here?" she asked. But his intention could not have been clearer: he was pulling back the covers on the other side and sitting down.
"Of course in here. I've slept in here nearly every night since last summer." He gave her a small smile. "Since the day you fell off that blasted horse. Do you not want me to sleep here tonight? Would you be more comfortable if you had your bed to yourself?"
"No—I just…you don't have to sleep with me!" She could feel her face growing warm and hot tears gathering in her eyes. "Aren't you…aren't you disgusted with me?"
"What?"
"With my–failure. With the fact that I can't hold our child in my body. With the way my useless womb expels the baby we've longed for all year in a mess of blood in my bed." Her tears were flowing again, but she ignored them. "I'm useless to you in securing Downton, and I know that's what matters most. What good is my money if there's no heir?"
Through her tears, she saw Robert staring down at her, and his expression made him look almost ill. Good, she thought. It was somehow calming to see him look as she knew he felt.
"Cora," he said, and she was almost comforted to hear the new harshness in his voice. He reached across and covered her mouth with a firm hand. "Do not ever, ever, ever say any of that ever again."
She stared at him, not comprehending, but he went on. "Not a word of that is true. Nothing about you is useless, nothing is a failure, and nothing about you could ever disgust me." He lifted his hand to dry her tears with his thumb. "I'm ashamed I ever looked at you with an eye to securing this estate. I don't love you for what you've done for Downton. I love you for having the kindest, warmest heart I've ever encountered."
She gasped, and for a second she thought she might choke on her tears. What had he just said? She seized his arm. "You—you've never said that to me before. You've never said you loved me."
"Didn't you…know?" he asked, turning pale at the look on her face. "Oh God, I'm sorry. I didn't think… How awful." He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "I do love you. Cora, I love every last inch of you." He went on to kiss the fresh tear at the corner of her eye, the damp tracks of tears on her cheeks, her quivering lips, her neck, her collarbone…and then he drew back the covers.
"Robert…"
"Shh." Slowly, he laid his hand at the base of her abdomen and gently stroked her stomach. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she thought she could feel the muscles relaxing for the first time all day.
Her body was fully covered, and there was nothing sexual in his touch, but having his hand there, so near to the center of her failure and directly on top of her pain, made her feel as exposed as if she were standing naked on the front lawn. She was suddenly afraid to speak, and she began to tremble as he slowly bent down. He laid another kiss just below her navel, where she knew her empty womb lay. "I love every bit of you."
A wild sob tore through her throat, and he lay down and took her in his arms. She had lost the most precious thing in the world to her that day, but she knew she had also gained what she had longed for most.
