A/N: There seems to be an influx of young Cora and Robert in our Cobert universe this week! Which I love, because they're extra adorable when they are young. :)
Imagine your OTP seeing each other naked for the first time, and both being a bit nervous.
He looked down at his hands and was surprised to find them shaking. It wouldn't do to have shaky hands at a time like this. But looking at the bottle of scotch stowed on his dressing room cabinet, he knew that would be no good either. He could not very well go to his new bride's bed smelling of alcohol. His mind seemed to be a jumbled mess of images—all brief instances of the day replaying in his mind. There was the moment he woke up, the eternity it seemed as Cora walked down the church aisle toward him, and then, much later, the way she blushed at him before excusing herself from the dwindling festivities to get ready for bed.
He'd stayed, of course, as was customary. He had another drink with his father and cousins and endured some good-natured ribbing about what was about to happen. He realized, sometime through the conversation, that all the men—his father included—seemed to think he had already experienced this particular life-event already.
He wanted to kick himself for being so stupid.
There had been opportunities, of course, the most recent being during the season when he went out for a particularly raucous night with his cousin James. He was not exactly sure how he'd managed to live through nineteen years without bedding a single woman (his friends made it seem as though they took a new woman to bed each night) but nevertheless here he was, already incredibly nervous.
He clicked open the door and was surprised to find the room completely dark.
"Cora?" He ventured, half-wondering if she'd fallen asleep.
"Yes?" She replied, her voice without a trace of sleep.
"Do you…I mean, could you perhaps turn your lamp back on?"
She said nothing but the room was bathed in the soft glow of her oil lamp a few seconds later. It took a brief pause for his eyes to adjust to the light, but when they did he nearly passed out right on the spot.
Cora, he realized, was not wearing a stitch of clothing. The tops of her pale shoulders protruded from above the sheets and he could tell by her expression that she was trying desperately to make sure the blanket she clung to covered her sufficiently.
He crossed the room and sat beside her on the bed, fiddling with his nightshirt as he spoke. "I don't want you to be uncomfortable," he said softly, afraid if he looked at her he would lose all good sense.
"Nor I, you," she replied.
He winced, knowing that his lack of eye contact made her self-conscious. Turning to her tentatively, he leaned close and kissed her lips. He knew his presence unnerved her; he clung to the hope that someday his presence in her room would be natural, that someday she would not give it a second thought.
And before he knew it, wrapped up in a haze of nerves and wonder and excitement, they were both lying in bed completely nude, gazing curiously—almost studiously—at one another before doing what they both knew needed to be done.
In the morning, when he blinked his eyes open in an unfamiliar room with Cora asleep beside him, it felt a bit surreal. So, just to verify that it was not simply the most wonderful dream of his entire life, Robert lifted the sheets very carefully and peeked beneath.
He grinned widely upon learning it was all even better in the light of morning.