As planned, they left for Normandy the day after the wedding, where the Crawleys had a small, pretty summer home on the coast. There were only a handful of staff, but no more were necessary as they would hardly be entertaining, and Griffin and Robert's valet of course accompanied them.
The rest of the summer passed in a haze of walks along the ocean and beautiful sunsets and long hours in bed together, and soon the fall was slipping by, too. They had more of each other's attention now than they would ever have again, Cora knew, once they returned to Downton and faced their responsibilities to the estate, and thus she found herself wishing that these days might never end.
She had wondered how Robert would take to the rest of her pregnancy, fearing that a theoretical baby that belonged to another man might be one thing, but one that filled her figure into an ever-present reminder that she had not always been his might be something else entirely. And yet he delighted in her blossoming belly, rubbing his hand over it and telling her how pretty she was and how "our" baby made her glow.
Nor could he have been more solicitous of her health and welfare. It was quickly apparent that his request to take care of her had not been a half-hearted, flowery addition to his proposal, for as her belly grew, so did her discomfort, and Robert was soon offering her backrubs and building nests of pillows to make her more comfortable in bed and fetching and carrying for her and telling her to stay off her feet. And I'm not even carrying his baby, she would tell herself at first, but the thought gradually faded from her mind as she saw how intent Robert was on being the child's father.
"I'll go down to meet your mother at the train station with the carriage tomorrow morning," Robert said. "I expect she'll be in quite a hurry to get here."
"Mmm, she's always in a hurry," Cora murmured. "Tonight's the last calm we'll have until she leaves, you know."
They were lying in bed, Cora on her side with a pillow under her belly and another between her knees as Robert rubbed her back, as he'd taken to doing every night in the later months of her pregnancy. It was the evening of 23 December, and they expected Martha Levinson's arrival on Christmas Eve morning.
He kissed her shoulder. "Let me know if it gets to be too much for you, and I'll…I'll…"
"You'll what, Robert?" asked Cora. She'd yet to meet the person who could take on her mother and win.
"I don't know; I'll throw a net over her, or make her go sit on the front step," he said, and Cora giggled.
"Would you go a little further down on the right?" she asked, sighing with relief as he did so. "Oh, right there's good."
"Are you sorer here?"
"Yes…my back aches all over, but it's just awful right where your hand is. I've had the worst knot there all evening." She closed her eyes, moaning slightly as he dug in deeper. Her lower back had been hurting for weeks now, but it had throbbed worse than usual for the last few hours, and she hoped it wasn't going to stay this way until the birth.
"You should've said something, sweetheart," he said. "I could've rubbed your back earlier. There's no once-per-day limit, you know."
Cora could hear the concern in his voice, and it was almost as comforting as the massage itself as she thought once again of the man she had almost married. She had wanted to forget Montville, to forget that night in the library, but she could not quite push the feel of his hand on her wrist out of her memory. In recent days, she had considered more than once what a nightmare it would have been to be nine months pregnant and married to such a beast.
"Cora?" Robert's voice broke into her thoughts. "Is this helping?"
"Yes," she said softly. "Yes, it helps a lot…thank you." She sighed again. "I'll just be glad to get this baby out of me. I'm so tired of my back hurting all the time." And she was tired of her sore legs and aching hips and swollen ankles and of not sleeping well and having her insides kicked and feeling as big as a whale.
"I'll bet," he said sympathetically, pressing another kiss to her shoulder. "But it won't be much longer, darling. And you've done so well."
"That's easy for you to say. The doctor told me yesterday it would be another two weeks at least."
No sooner had she spoken than she felt it: the pain in her back suddenly shot through her stomach as well, and she felt the muscles in her abdomen tighten. She gasped at the sensation, her body going rigid.
"Cora?" She was vaguely conscious that he had taken his hands off her back, afraid to hurt her.
Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the pain in her stomach eased, and she slowly let out the breath she'd been holding. She rubbed her belly, but nothing felt wrong there.
"Cora, what's wrong?" Robert said again when she still did not speak.
"I–I'm not sure," she said. This was too early, wasn't it? Surely it was too early. And pain was nothing unusual at this stage. "I just…I had a sudden pain in my stomach, but I think I'm all right."
"If you're sure," he said skeptically, beginning to rub her back again.
But after a few minutes had gone by, her muscles tightened a second time, accompanied by the same searing pain, and suddenly she knew it was not merely a knot that she had been feeling in her back: this was labor, and it had been labor all evening.
"I'm having the baby," she said, her voice climbing with panic as she struggled to sit up. "Robert, it's coming right now!"
"Oh, God," he said, sitting immediately. He reached out to help her into a sitting position as well, quickly pushed pillows behind her back, and then scrambled off the bed, staring at her as though he expected the baby to emerge that second. "Oh God, you weren't due for another couple weeks! I…I…this isn't supposed to happen tonight!"
"Well, it is happening! It's going to be here soon!" The fact that it had taken her several hours to recognize her own labor had her in a panic that she would give birth in the next five minutes.
"What…what am I supposed to do?" he asked. "I don't know anything about babies!"
"Of course you don't, Robert!" she said, exasperated at his inability to think. "Go and fetch the doctor! Or ring for someone else to fetch the doctor!" They'd only discussed the birth fifty times in the last month.
"Oh yes, the doctor!" he exclaimed, as though he'd just discovered electricity. "Yes, I'll get the doctor! But are you all right? Can I go?"
"No, I'm not all right!" she almost shouted. "But I'll be even less all right if you don't get the doctor in here! Now go!"
AN: Yes, I know I'm cruel to stop there...but I thought the baby's arrival should be its own separate chapter. :-) It's my last, and I promise I'll have it up by tomorrow afternoon or evening (US time).