"Are you all right, Miss Levinson?" Robert said, his voice soft, when Montville had gone.

She could not seem to get her breathing back to normal in order to speak, so she merely shook her head.

"Should I fetch you a doctor?"

She shook her head more violently at this. No, she did not want a doctor. She did not want any more made of this incident. She could feel in her body that her wrist was merely sprained, and that was nothing that would not heal.

"Please," Robert said, "your wrist—"

"No," she gasped at last. "No, it's not broken. I don't need a doctor. Please, I'll be all right."

She continued to gasp for breath, and he continued to stare at her, his gaze both sad and tender, and it almost hurt to look at him. She was not sure what to say—she knew she ought to thank him, but she could not find the words.

And then she felt a great sob rise into her throat and force its way out. It was followed by another, and another, and then there were tears, until she was standing in front of him in his library, bawling.

Robert came towards her and embraced her, bringing her head against his chest. "Oh, Cora," he breathed, and the warmth in the way he said her name only made her cry harder until she thought her own sobs would suffocate her.

So terribly much was wrong that she was not even sure why she was crying: whether it was because she'd just seen her only chance at marriage walk out the door, or because she'd realized what a hellish, brutal marriage it would have been, or because she'd been so frightened, or because she did not know what in heaven's name she would do now, or because for the hundredth time she had been reminded what a colossal mess she had made of her life, or because she was just so, so tired and miserable and now her wrist hurt, too. But it felt good to cry, she realized slowly, to let go of the tears that had been building for weeks.

It also felt good to be held by Robert, to know that he at least did not hate her for her sin and understood now why she'd pushed him away. It reminded her of the time months ago when he had soothed her in the field after their horseback ride, back when life had been so much easier and she had feared something as simple as height.

She felt her knees begin to weaken as she sobbed, but before she could grab a better hold of him, he felt her start to slip and tightened his arms around her waist. "You're all right," he said. "I've got you." And she let him hold her upright as she cried some more.

At last her sobs began to slow, and her weeping turned to sniffling. "Let's sit down, Miss Levinson," he said softly, leading her to one of the couches.

She expected him to question her about Montville or the baby, for she was sure he had heard at least some of their conversation, but he did not. "Will you let me see your arm?" he asked instead, and she extended it to him.

"I'm sorry—this might hurt," he said, and she could hear in his voice that it pained him. He prodded her wrist gently and bent it slightly, drawing a whimper from her. "I'm sorry," he said quickly. "But you're right. It isn't broken." He stood and went to the bell pull, and a footman appeared a moment later.

"Yes, your lordship?" If the servant thought it was odd that one of the guests was seated on the couch, her eyes swollen from weeping, his face did not betray it.

"Miss Levinson has fallen," Robert said evenly. "Will you bring us some bandages and some ice?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Also, one of our guests will be leaving in the morning. Lord Montville has had a bit of family business come up. Please see that his bags are packed and he is ready to be taken to the station before breakfast."

"Yes, my lord," the young man said again, and then he nodded and left.

"What will your footman think?" she asked hoarsely.

"I don't care what the footman thinks," he said. "And you've nothing to fear from Charles regardless. He lives and breathes for this family."

Charles returned a moment later, and Robert sat back down and began to wrap her wrist. Now that she had recovered, her embarrassment at the entire situation was growing, and she looked down at his hands the entire time, too humiliated to glance up at his face. When he had finished, he took a pillow and set it on the couch between them, placed her wrist there, and then covered it with the ice the footman had wrapped in a towel.

"Thank you," she whispered, feeling the throbbing ease.

"I've never understood what sort of brute hurts a woman," he said quietly. "But to harm one who's with child takes another level of monster."

And with that, the elephant in the room could be avoided no longer.

"I hope you'll forgive my eavesdropping," he said. "I was passing the library, and I would have gone on when I heard voices, but then I realized it was you, and you said something about having a baby in six months. I can't deny it shocked me—it froze me in my tracks—and I couldn't help but listen to the rest of it."

She did not know what to say to this. She was mortified to think of the Viscount Downton hearing such an intimate conversation, but she was also deeply grateful that he had been there to step in, for she had had visions flash across her eyes of Montville striking her across the stomach.

When she did not respond, he went on. "Why are you marrying him?" he asked, his voice strained. "Why would you marry a man who hurts you and threatens to ruin you? It didn't even sound as though it was his baby."

Well, she wouldn't marry him now. She didn't know what she would do, but it would not be marry Lord Montville. "No, no," she said. "It isn't his baby. And I was only marrying him because he was…willing."

"Forgive me, Miss Levinson, but he didn't sound very willing."

She blushed and did not reply.

"What of the father? Will he not take responsibility?"

She shook her head. "He's married."

Robert's face clouded over, but he did not comment on her answer. "What happened?" he said after a moment. "Will you tell me what's happened?"

"I met a man when I first arrived in London, and he convinced me to…" She trailed off, unable to say the words in front of him.

"Who?" he interrupted sharply. "Who was this snake who seduced you?"

She hesitated, fearful after what she'd seen between him and Montville. "A Mr. Andrew Marks. Do you know him?"

"No, and he should hope for his own sake that I never do."

"We left London right afterwards," she went on. "My mother didn't know, and she brought me up here to Yorkshire—that's when you invited us to Downton the first time. And it was right after we left here that that I found out…about the baby. I wrote to Mr. Marks, and he told me he was married and could do nothing. So I decided that I must marry. I hadn't any virtue, of course, but I knew I still had some value in my fortune, even if I had less than before, and I thought a baron might take me because it would be a larger dowry than he might reasonably have expected."

"I think I've known cattle that had a greater sense of self-worth than all that conveys," he observed. It was not said unkindly, but she was not sure how to respond.

"I asked Lord Montville if he'd marry me, and he agreed," she continued. "I didn't want to marry him—and I wanted it less and less the longer we were engaged—but I didn't have any other choices."

"What do you mean, Miss Levinson? You could have married me!"

Her head jerked up to meet his eyes for the first time since the conversation had begun. At first she took it for a cruel bit of sarcasm, but no—there was no jest in his expression. "I–I don't understand," she said.

"You could have married me," he repeated. "Didn't you understand, when you were last here, how I felt?"

"Yes, but that was before—"

"What has this changed? What, Cora? It wasn't your virtue that I'd fallen for."

"But you're…you're going to be an earl," she said, trying to restore some normalcy to the conversation. "You could find another heiress, someone who hasn't ruined herself—"

"There is nothing about you that is ruined," he said, leaning forward to lay a hand on her knee. "And I don't want another heiress—it wasn't your money I fell for, either. I want you, Cora. I've always wanted you."

"But–but I'm going to have a baby."

He smiled. "So you've said."

"Yes, but it—it isn't your baby."

Robert looked at her as though she were a half-wit. "It wasn't Montville's either."

"Yes, but he already has a son. He wouldn't have been risking having another man's child as his heir. Suppose I bear a son?"

"I thought about that," he said, and she could hear in his voice that he truly had. "But I'm not sure it would really matter to me that I wasn't the one who created this child. You would be my wife, and I would watch him grow inside of you and watch him grow up and be the only father he ever knew. I can't see what difference it makes whether or not I'd done the initial act. Do you think in the long line of earls of Grantham that there's never been an heir fathered by another man? Do you think in centuries of arranged marriages, that none have ever strayed and that it's the unbroken bloodline we'd all like to pretend? What I want most for my children is that you're their mother, and you would be."

At some point in this speech she had realized that he was serious, that he was not speaking of hypotheticals or of what could have been but of what he truly meant to do, and her tears began to flow again.

He seemed unsure how to take her reaction, and his tone turned almost to pleading. "Will you let me marry you, Cora? Will you let me take care of you, and of this child?" She could only nod through her tears, and he took her in his arms again, this time with a soft kiss to her cheek.

This was mercy, she knew, and this was grace, and—although Robert had not used the word—this was even love. What Montville and Marks had offered her had only been cheap imitations of any of the three.

"Thank you," she whispered against his neck.

"Do not thank me," he said firmly. "You've made me the happiest man in England, Cora."

When they separated, he laid a hand to her cheek, and she smiled shyly as he studied her face. "I only wish you'd come to me as soon as you discovered your condition," he said regretfully. "I would've made you my wife within the hour if I'd known." She bit her lip, thinking how much easier this would all have been if she'd been married—and married to Robert, married to this very good man—two months ago.

"What will we do now?" she asked him. She had no desire to prescribe dates or time limits or press him for anything—not because she feared to push too hard, but because she knew she could rest in the knowledge that Robert would do what was best. And what a relief that thought was.

"You deserve to be wrapped in gossamer and silk and looked after, not rushing about the country to balls and house parties, so you will start by going to bed very soon—it's late, and you should have been asleep hours ago. And tomorrow you will sleep as long and as late as you like, and your maid can bring you your meals on a tray, and you can rest all day if you wish, and we will tell the others you are unwell…I'm sorry; have I upset you?"

She realized tears had come to her eyes again, and she brushed them away. "Not at all. I'm sorry—it's only that that sounds so very wonderful, because I've wanted to rest for months now."

"Then we will get you the rest that both of you need. I will come to see you after luncheon, and we will make decisions about the wedding. But I will say good night for now, because you are far too exhausted to stay up talking any longer."

He kissed her cheek again and walked her to the stairs.

AN: I think this should be fairly obvious in this chapter, but I also know that the "Robert married Cora for her money and fell in love later" narrative from canon is really ingrained in Downton fans, so I wanted to explicitly state that in this AU, Robert does love Cora, and this isn't more manipulation in an attempt to get his hands on the money. He does need money, but as she says, he could marry another heiress, but he's fallen in love with her. (He probably wouldn't say that himself, though. He'd just tell you that he cares deeply for her.)