Yearn

With the door now closed behind her, she pushed out a breath she hadn't realized she held. There. She said it. Years of keeping mum, telling herself it was better to bite her tongue, had come to this. It had been her last resort, her last defense, and she had used it. All in. And now to await the response.

She padded quickly over to her bed, pulling away her dressing gown as she walked, shrugging it from her shoulders, her arms instantly prickling at the cold of the room. She had the gown in her hands when she heard the dividing door's familiar click, and she turned.

He stared at her and she at him. Silently. Just staring, really. She noted he did not look angry anymore, and a fluttering happened behind her ribs - but she remained quiet all the same.

They both seemed to break their gaze simultaneously, Cora placing her dressing gown at the end of her chaise lounge, and Robert - who'd come in without his housecoat - picking up his feet and with a practiced swing, slid them under the sheets.

Cora climbed in after him and didn't wait to turn out her lamp.

The room was enveloped in black. She hadn't had a fire lit in four days.

The darkness amplified the silence, and Cora listened closely to the sound of his breathing. An involuntary smile tickled the corners of her mouth at his company.

How she had missed him sleeping beside her. How she had missed the way her mattress dipped toward him, ever so slightly. How she had very much missed his warmth when she rolled more to the center of her bed.

Taking a chance, she did just that, and found to some surprise that he didn't move. He lay on his back, wide awake, letting her shoulder touch his.

This physical contact, however small, set her abdomen aflame with a sweet sort of heat. She closed her eyes, somewhat embarrassed. She hadn't wanted him in here because of that. She'd missed him, really missed just his presence and the way she felt safe by his side. He made her feel whole.

But, of course, it'd been a while. Much longer than they'd been used to refraining.

No. He was angry at her, or he had been. And the only reason he'd come back to her tonight was a guilty conscience. He'd done something once, maybe more than once. He'd led a woman on, perhaps he'd flirted with another, and any other night Cora would have felt hurt. But not tonight. Tonight she didn't care.

He was her husband. And he was sleeping in her bed.

Cora pushed out a breath at the next warm pull deep within her center, and she shimmied her hips further into the covers. Further down next to him. Further down next to his own hips. She sighed again.

Robert moved his head at her sigh, moved it so his eyes were on her head, and she could sense his want for her to look up at him. She did.

They stared again, their eyes adjusting in the dark to see the other, and Cora knew that it was useless to try any longer. She could no longer fight the urge to kiss him, to feel his lips on hers and his body pressed against her own. So, against all rationality that told her to allow some time, against all her better judgment to let him come to her, she pushed herself over him, and with her braid lying on his shoulder, pressed her mouth to his. She kissed him softly at first, tentatively, to test his reaction. He kissed her back, and he kissed her hungrily.

There escaped a moan at his eagerness and she brought herself atop of him, straddling him in one slow fluid motion, her lips never leaving his.

She pulled up her dress, her need for him growing and warming her, and kissed him harder. And harder. Her hands were around his face, then trailing to his chest, and then she lifted herself by her knees to feel his hardness beneath her. As her hand grasped him firmly, she melted at the way he lifted his hips and made that throaty noise he always did when he wanted her.

"Oh God," she swore into his parted lips, "Robert." She kissed him again, relishing in the way he returned it. Her thoughts whirled happily around her head. She loved him. He loved her. After all these years the only person who could ever make her feel this way was him. And just as she had told him, in not so many words, Robert could never be replaced. Their union may not have been based solely on love, but now, after everything - after rich splendor and counting pennies, after wars in the South African heat and cold English libraries, after too-young deaths and too-old pregnancies - the thing that held them together was solely love. And God, did she love him. And although he didn't prod her mind for her opinions, although he didn't always consider her thoughts on matters of the estate, he did look at her knowingly at dinner. He did seek her out to tell her matters of importance, and matters that were of no importance at all. He did sometimes raise his brow, meaningfully, when Isobel spoke out against the status quo, his eyes communicating the things they'd snicker about later on in her room.

He hadn't ignored her. Not really. In Robert's way, she was what he called her those weeks ago: his companion.

Cora pulled away and looked down into his face, both of them catching their breath. She studied his eyes and saw in his the same emotions she felt in her heart. She was sorry. She was sorry, and embarrassed, and so longing for him to take her in his arms.

She brought her fingers to his hair, running them through the thinning locks that she had swept back tens of thousands of times before. She stilled her movements and whispered to him, still catching her breath from the desperate way they'd kissed.

"Please," she breathed looking into his eyes, "put your hands on me."

She moaned again when he didn't hesitate to perform: fingers through her hair, a grasp at her waist, a caress of her breast, a bite at her lip. And when they had become skin-to-skin, when Robert hovered over her and pushed her leg up further with his arm, sighing her name sweetly as he entered her, she felt her eyes tear at the sensation.

It was only the next morning that she'd realized what a mess of her bed they'd made. When Baxter came in with Cora's tray, her eyes growing slightly from the disarray of the sheets and the mussiness of Her Ladyship's braid, Cora thought she may blush red. But she didn't, at least not from shame. She smiled at Robert over Baxter's proffered tray as he came into her room, rosy-cheeked and less irritable than he'd been in weeks. And although she noticed the peculiar way in which Baxter shifted her eyes between the contented spouses, especially Robert as he plopped into her chair - something he hadn't done in close to a month - Cora didn't care.

Robert was speaking to her again. He was sitting in her room making small talk as she spread jam on her toast. And he was sleeping in her bed.