A.N. Thank you Hillevi for leaving me such kind reviews. I really love the encouragement!

And thanks to all those who've stuck around until now. Enjoy your read. We still have two chapters to go after this one.

Chapter 7 – Close to the Wind

O'Brien had been brought back to her room, with Anna and Gwen taking turns guarding her to prevent her from wandering off again. Thomas was confined to his own while waiting for Robert and Cora's decision. Cora didn't know yet whether she would intercede in his favour. On the one hand, she was thankful to him for trying his best to keep her lady's maid from harm; on the other hand, he was the one who wreaked havoc on their Christmas preparations, turning Downton Abbey's grand hall into a disaster zone and nearly squashing the mother to the heir. It really was a nasty dilemma.

But there was one thing Cora knew – her maid was actually a victim, drugged without her knowing, and she would not stand by and watch Robert use the opportunity to get rid of her. Tomorrow, she would have a talk with O'Brien in order to lift the veil on the circumstances surrounding the discovery – or possibly the theft – of Dr Clarkson's cigarettes and the result would determine Thomas's fate.

Dr Clarkson had come and gone and right before Isobel had nearly dragged him into the small library for a private talk, he had told Mrs Hughes and Cora that it was better to have someone watch over O'Brien, not only to keep her from doing anything stupid, but also because there was a possibility that she might get sick. And against her principles, Cora had found herself doing something she had never done before – she had gone up into the servants' quarters after dinner in order to pay her maid a visit.

Past the first moment of surprise, Anna had been rather happy when Cora had suggested she could have a moment's break while she was here, confiding without much prompting and with thinly-veiled lassitude that she absolutely must help Gwen tidy up their room, since Miss O'Brien had apparently felt it necessary to turn it upside down at some point during the afternoon.

Cora bit her lip to hide a smile, mentally chastising herself for finding the idea of her maid shamelessly rummaging about in poor Anna's things vaguely amusing. She suddenly found herself uncharacteristically nervous as the housemaid went away and she was left alone standing at the threshold to O'Brien's room. The woman was lying on her bed, fully-clothed, and was currently staring up at the ceiling with an unreadable expression.

Cora suddenly wondered if she was being disrespectful by entering O'Brien's only sanctuary from her hectic life... from Cora herself. Then her maid looked down and saw her. She smiled like the sun, and Cora momentarily cast her doubts aside.

"Are you a dream?" O'Brien asked.

Cora was a little taken aback. She had nearly forgotten that O'Brien was still under the influence of the drug she had smoked.

"No, I am very much real."

She walked in and went to sit on the chair at O'Brien's bedside, smiling at her benignly, making sure that the maid could see that she was no longer angry. She did feel slightly guilty for yelling at her earlier.

"Oh... That's a shame. I really hoped you were my dream coming true... Well, like they say, that's the way it is. You'll have to do, I guess."

There was no sense to be found in the woman's ramblings, Cora knew it perfectly well, and still she couldn't help but feel hurt by her maid's disenchanted reaction. O'Brien was supposed to be fond of her, not to wish for her to be a mere illusion she could wave off at will...

"Sorry if am a disappointment," she murmured, more to herself than to the other woman, but O'Brien nevertheless heard her.

"Oh no, Milady! I didn't mean it that way," she said, her voice trembling with emotion in a manner Cora had never heard before. "Please don't be sad. You know I hate it when you're sad."

This was undoubtedly the strangest, most obscure exchange Cora had ever had with O'Brien, or with anyone else for that matter. And witnessing her seemingly trying to trample as many rules governing proper interaction between a lady and her maid as possible in a single conversation certainly did not help.

However, it wasn't the total lack of decorum that disturbed Cora the most – Violet would likely have blamed it on her American blood... Rather, for some reason she couldn't help but feel from the bottom of her heart that O'Brien's words must have a meaning, and she desperately wanted to uncover it. Her maid was trying to tell her something important and she needed to know what it was.

"What is your dream?" she asked, but the other woman shook her head.

"That's the thing. That's something I can only ever say to the dream you."

For a second, Cora felt a bitter taste in her mouth, like she had failed to achieve something, but she was distracted when O'Brien suddenly sat up and, with swift but clumsy gestures, started to pull pins out of her now not-quite-so-immaculate bun.

"It's too bloody uncomfortable," she muttered.

Cora could barely look away from the brown wavy locks that cascaded down her maid's back as she shook her head from side to side. She had never quite suspected that O'Brien's hair could actually be so long when it was piled up in its usual rigid manner.

The thought had her squirm slightly – how utterly inappropriate for a woman of her rank to see a servant with her hair down like that. Cora felt like she was peeping at something she had no right to see, something that O'Brien would normally not have permitted her to see. It was even worse knowing that the woman was about to go to sleep without the obligatory braid.

Under normal circumstances Cora's obvious discomfort would hardly have escaped her maid's keen eye, but tonight O'Brien appeared to be completely oblivious. Judging from the way she was frowning, undoing her hair had not helped making her comfortable, and she seemed fairly agitated all of a sudden, twisting her bandaged hands in a way Cora was convinced must have been painful.

"Are you going to dismiss me, Milady?" she asked without preamble.

Cora stared back into her maid's pleading eyes, wondering if she had brutally and unexpectedly come back to her senses.

"I'm not," she replied in all honesty. "But we will discuss everything in more detail tomorrow, once you are feeling better."

She had meant to be reassuring, but the anguished look on O'Brien's face told her that her answer must not have been persuasive enough. And Cora didn't want to scare her needlessly, not when she was in such a fragile state, and all because of another's carelessness...

"I promise," she added.

She smiled softly and reached out for her maid's hands, covering them with hers with as much gentleness as she could manage and effectively putting an end to her fidgeting.

"Thank you..."

By then, Cora was ready to believe that the effects of the drug had finally dissipated and was already relishing the idea of being back in charted territory. O'Brien's next move told her that they actually hadn't, not in the slightest.

"Goodnight, Milady," she said, and without further ado she drew closer, bringing her head near Cora's and planting a single kiss on her cheek. Then she simply slipped her hands out of the astonished countess's hold and sank back down onto her mattress, curling on her side and closing her eyes.

For a few seconds Cora remained rooted to the spot. Then she let out a breath she hadn't even realized she had been holding. Gingerly, she raised a finger to her face, absently stroking the spot where her maid's lips had touched her. Cora knew it was a ludicrous thought to have, but when O'Brien had come so very close to her and she had felt her breath on her skin, for a second she could have sworn that she was aiming for her mouth. Cora wondered – out of pure curiosity, of course – what it would have felt like to have the other woman's lips on her own. She knew that there existed some women who kissed other women, but she had never been one of those scandalous creatures. She had always been a good girl and good girls kissed their husbands.

She allowed herself to imagine it for just a second… Her lips would be soft, as Cora already knew from the pleasant sensation on her still tingling cheek, and she would be true to herself, tender and gentle, treating Cora like she was made of glass. Like she was dear and precious, and worthy of adoration. But Cora wouldn't settle for mere gentleness, and she would deepen the kiss somewhat forcefully, showing her that she was stronger than she looked. O'Brien would let Cora slide her fingers through her long silky locks and then she would give in and wrap her arms around her mistress, pulling her flush against her body with the same eagerness, with the same passion Cora would be feeling. The skin of her arms, of her neck, of her bare stomach would be like velvet under Cora's hands, and her breasts would be just as soft as the rest of her. And how Cora would love it, the exquisite contrast between the slightly callused hands that brushed against her every day and the smooth expanse of skin hidden underneath the black dress, between the impossible softness of her maid's curves and the urgency of their embrace.

Cora brutally snapped out of her thoughts, blinking and shaking her head in alarm, horrified at the direction in which she had allowed her mind to wander. O'Brien wasn't in her normal state, she was intoxicated by the strange plants in that cigarette, and in that drug-induced state, she had ended up taking her devotion one step too far. And – thank God – that was all there was to it. A kiss, a mere kiss on the cheek, not unlike the ones Cora exchanged with her daughters… No, it certainly was nothing to fret about. After all, it was not like O'Brien had tried to do any of the outrageous things Cora's perverted mind had been so vividly picturing. Her cheeks were flushed, though she couldn't have said if it was from the burning shame or from the strange feelings that had been awakened in her and that were making her heart race.

What O'Brien had done was out of bounds, Cora thought to distract herself, even more so than badmouthing a family member or ransacking a fellow servant's room. For both of their sake, it would be best to avoid the subject altogether in the future. In truth, it would even be better if O'Brien remembered nothing of today's insane events. After all, Cora only ever needed her to recall exactly what happened before the drug had taken effect.

For some unexplainable reason, Cora suddenly felt sad and tired, so much so indeed that she had to take a moment to compose herself before she left the room, throwing one last look at the peaceful face of her sleeping maid.