AN: Thank you for all the wonderful reviews! I really appreciate them.

Kat

"Not at all. It would rather explain a lot. It is a reason as to why my mother agreed to being your mistress, for lack of a better word. I don't like calling her that, don't worry and I know that she is more than that to you, but it explains why she would do something like that."

"Don't be angry with her." Why would he be? His mother is an adult, she didn't cause a scandal and even if she had, they could have lived with that.

"Should I be angry with you?" He isn't really angry with Lord Grantham either, he knows that in many ways this man has made his mother rather happy. Not perfectly happy, but that had been due to very unfortunate circumstances, circumstances that could not be helped for many years but that have changed now.

"Yes. I take complete blame for this." How chivalrous.

"How ridiculous. It was her doing just as much as yours."

"I know this must be hard for you, but please, your mother and I, I don't know how to explain it." He feels so sorry for the poor man that he decides the let him of the hook.

"Lord Grantham, I have had the suspicion that my mother was having an affair for over four years now and I was also almost sure that the affair had been going on for much longer than that and I was also sure that a man she would be willing to have an affair with for years and years must be a very good man. I had no idea it was you until we had lunch yesterday and I was surprised to say the least, because although we had never met, I had heard about you of course and not only from Matthew. But what I know about you from Matthew fits my estimation that you must be a very good man."

"I don't know what to say." The poor man looks totally confused.

"What I am trying to say is that I don't mind. I am not angry at you."

"Your mother and I have committed adultery for almost two decades."

"Are you trying to make me like you less?"

"No." Well, the man is not successful.

"I don't care whether it was right in the eyes of the law or the church what you have done. I want my mother to be happy, that is all."

"I want her to be happy too." He believes Lord Grantham without a doubt.

"Has she told you about" he stops himself because if his mother hasn't told Lord Grantham about the baby yet, then he doesn't want to take that from her.

"The baby? Yes. But I thought you didn't know. That is what you mother said."

"She hasn't told me yet, but I live with her. Lord Grantham, I don't mean to be presumptuous, but neither my mother nor you are married."

"I'll propose, don't worry. I've been thinking about it for months, I just didn't want to do it too early. But I'll do it soon. Very soon."

"Good. It'll make her happy."

"I think so. Might I ask you something?"

"Sure." Lord Grantham smiles at him again and he wonders why.

"How did you know that it was me?"

"Because there are only two people in the world who have ever called me Sam."

"What?"

"When we had lunch yesterday, you called me Sam. My mother and my, well, future wife, are the only ones who call me Sam. And Lilly only calls me Sam because she heard my mother call me that. But my mother would never call me Sam when talking to me to someone who she wasn't very close to. She usually refers to me as 'the Duke' or William. So there was only one reason why you would call me Sam. My mother must be very close to you and as she has never mentioned you to me, I knew she must have had a reason and the reason, well, it is obvious."

"I am sorry for calling you Sam. I don't know why I did that, but it was presumptions and I," Why doesn't this man stop apologizing? Because he really doesn't care.

"Lord Grantham, please stop apologizing for everything you have ever done in your life. You called me Sam because you have heard my mother talk about me for 18 years. I am not a stranger to you, although we only met yesterday. But you probably know quite a lot more about me than anyone besides my mother does."

"She knows a lot about Mary too."

"I'd like to meet her. Matthew has told me about her of course, but I think we should all have dinner together. You and my mother, Lady Mary, Matthew and I. How about tomorrow? You'd have time to break the news to Lady Mary and Matthew then."

"I am not looking forward to that."

"I don't envy you the task. But I doubt they'll be too shocked. And I will break the news to Lady Elizabeth."

"Who?"

"The woman I want to marry. Lady Elizabeth Shackleton."

"Oh, you are going to propose to Lilly?" This takes him by surprise. How does the Earl of Grantham know his future wife?

"What?"

"Her grandmother is a good friend of my mother. Lilly and Mary sometimes spent time together when they were younger."

"I suppose you don't fancy breaking the news to your mother either."

"No. She'll have my head. She'll say 'Robert, I thought you'd be more sensible than that. How could you. I won't ask you why you didn't think about what you were doing, because apparently you lack the ability to think.' Something along those lines."

The Earl now looks like a little boy and he has to laugh about him but apparently the Earl doesn't seem to mind and begins to laugh too.

She wakes up to an empty bed beside her and because she knows that she won't fall asleep again, there is just too much to think about, she decides to go downstairs to have breakfast with Sam. She doesn't need to do her hair for that, as long as it just them, she sometimes joins him for breakfast without getting her hair done or being dressed what society would call 'decently'. She just puts on a blouse and a skirt and braids her hair. When she walks past the table in the entrance hall that the mail is usually placed on, she sees that there is a letter for her and she picks it up and begins to read while she is walking towards the breakfast room. What she reads astonishes her rather a lot and so without looking up or greeting her son she says

"Sam, you won't believe it. Your uncle wants to get married."

"To whom?" She thinks that her mind must be playing tricks on her because it sounded as if both Sam and Robert had asked that question, but that can't be. When she looks up and sees that they are both sitting at the breakfast table, looking quite jovial, she is so surprised that she drops the letter.

"Robert, what are you doing here? I thought you went home. I thought that's why you set the alarm so early."

"Yes Mama, he did. But I anticipated that and caught him before he left. He couldn't very well leave this house wearing last night's clothes. I ordered for some of his clothes to be brought here from Grantham House last night."

"You knew?"

"I am neither deaf nor blind, so yes, I knew."

"Deaf? What did you hear?" She is mortally embarrassed now.

"You two walking past my door. Nothing else, Mama." Sam rolls his eyes at her now and she wants to swat him but only shakes her head at him.

"Well, I better leave now, there is something rather important that I have to do today."

"She'll say yes. The two of you have been in love for four years. She's waiting for it."

"Yes. But I will have to tell her about all of this before I ask her. She has to know what sort of family she is marrying into. Although I doubt she'll be bothered too much." She doubts it too, because she knows that while Sam is certainly very careful and she can rely on him not producing a child before he is married, she also knows that Lilly has spent more than just one night in his room. She should have stopped them, but it would have felt wrong to her. How could she tell her son to not spend the occasional night with the woman he loves when she spends two or three nights a week with a man married to another woman? So she just made sure that Sam knew how to careful by handing him a book that Robert had first recommended to her, and then because she was too embarrassed, also bought for her.

"She'll say yes. But still, good luck."

"Thank you." She watches her son leave and thinks how weird this all is. He is about to get married and she is having a second child. But it must just as weird for Robert. Mary has been married for some time after all.

"How are you?" he asks her.

"A bit sentimental. He is an adult about to start his own family. But to me he sometimes still is a small boy. I know he really isn't, and I would never treat him like a child but," she stops speaking because she can't put her feelings into words.

"I know what you mean. I am very happy for Mary and Matthew, but sometimes I still see a little girl in Mary."

"I'd like to meet her."

"You will at dinner tomorrow. Sam has invited her, Matthew and me. I am not looking forward to telling them about us, but I will have to do it before tomorrow night, so I best just do it today."

"What do you think they'll say?"

"About us? Nothing. Mary hated her mother, she won't mind. But they won't be too happy about the baby. Because should it be a boy, Matthew wouldn't be my heir any longer."

"I hadn't thought about that."

"I feel rather guilty towards Mary and Matthew."

"Even if it was boy, he could only be your heir if the child was legitimate."

"Oh, it will be. Unless you don't want it to be. Cora, the only reason I haven't proposed to you yet is because I haven't come up with a good way to ask the question yet. I've been thinking about it for months, in truth ever since the day she died. But I want to do it in a meaningful way, because that is what you deserve." She smiles at this and takes his hand. Of course she knew that he would propose to her eventually and she also guessed that he puts himself under quite a lot of pressure to make it perfect.

"Robert, I love you and I know you love me too. We've been together for more than 18 years, you are the father of my child. I don't need a huge proposal, you don't have to go through any trouble."

"I know I don't have to, but I want to because that is what you deserve. I made you my mistress for almost two decades because I couldn't get a divorce. Now that I am free and can finally make things right, I want to do it perfectly, I have got 18 years to make up for." She has to fight rolling her eyes at this. He always feels so guilty about their affair. It isn't his fault. It was his father and father-in-law who tied the prenup so tight that divorce wasn't possible. And she always could have said no, she could always have backed out.

"Robert, I was a more than willing participant. I knew what I was getting myself into after that first night, you were honest with me right from the start. And I didn't really care. Of course I would have preferred to be your wife instead of your mistress, but that just wasn't possible. But the alternative just wasn't possible either, for neither one of us. And you did make me very happy, don't ever doubt that. So stop beating yourself over the head with it, please darling." He squeezes her hand and smiles at her.

"I do love you. So very much. I just wish this wasn't so complicated."

"It isn't complicated. Sam obviously doesn't care and I am sure that he would love to have a brother or a sister. And Mary and Matthew will be happy for you as well. They got married for love, not because Matthew is your heir. And even if he isn't any longer, neither one of them will lose their position in society with Mary being your daughter and the step-sister of the Duke of Suffolk."

"My mother will have my head."

"She'll get over it."

"I better leave and get telling Mary and Matthew out of the way. Now that I have to do it, I'll feel much better once I have actually done it."

They both get up and before Robert leaves the room he holds his hand out to her and she takes it. He pulls her close to him and wraps his arms around her.

"I love you, my darling," he whispers in her ear, kisses her and then leaves.

"I hope it is understood that no one will breathe a word of any of this," she says to the head butler who has been in the room for the past ten minutes.

"Of course not your Grace. Although I will be sorry to see you move to a different house."

"His Grace will stay. And it won't be long before Lady Elizabeth will stay here too."

"I know it is impertinent, but I may offer my sincerest congratulations your Grace?"

"You may. And thank you very much. Please tell my maid that I am ready to get dressed now."