Imagine your OTP are at a bonfire party and they haven't met before. Person A sees Persons B face on the other side of the flames and when they meet, they stay up all night dancing by the fire and getting to know each other 'til the fire goes out and the sun comes up.
"He's staring at you," Laura Winterbourne giggled, nodding at Robert.
Cora suppressed the urge to roll her eyes and shook her head as she, and the other ladies assembled around the large fire, stood and watched the men parade around doing silly amateur acrobatics fueled by the copious liquor they all consumed. "He most certainly is not," she muttered in half-hearted response.
There were myriad things Robert Crawley was likely to do at a bonfire with his London pals, and staring at her was not one of them. Newly married, just over a month, Cora often wondered if he even remembered that she existed in his world.
She was the one always caught staring, not him.
But he had invited her to this silly, raucous event—likely thinking her wild American nature would lend well to the festivities—and had only explained it vaguely as something called Guy Fawkes Night and insisted it was tradition. Cora wondered if they were in process of enacting a new tradition: attending events and playing the happily married couple while expressly ignoring one another. She didn't dare look up to see what he was looking at, for it would break her heart should his gaze happen to be directed at someone other than her. The women kept on giggling, though, sipping sherry from tall glasses brought out to the field by servants, and teasing her about her "loving husband".
Cora was just about to fetch a third glass, wondering what the point of abstaining would be when everyone around her was already one step from throwing themselves into the fire, when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
And there he was, her tall and handsome husband, standing before her with two glasses of sherry. His hair was mussed from the wind and he was standing close enough for her to smell the earthy scent of the fire on his clothes. She must have looked bewildered, utterly confused as to what he might want, for she saw an expression of confusion reflected back at her before he bowed his head ever so slightly and grinned. "Robert Crawley, Viscount Downton," he chuckled, handing her a glass. "And you are?"
Cora rolled her eyes, not entirely willing to play along with his little games. He was rarely this unguarded with her, and never was without a helping gulp of scotch. "Cora Crawley," she retorted, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, er— Miss Crawley, they are about to play some music," he explained, nodding to a laughably small band that was struggling to set up in the dark field. "I wondered if you would like to dance?"
She rolled her eyes again. "My husband might object—" she started, but he took her free hand and pressed it within his own.
"He won't," Robert replied, grinning blithely at her.
He'd drank too much, was already swaying just a bit, and had the oddest smile plastered across his face. But, despite it all—silently damning him and his utter charm—she still wanted nothing more than for him to hold her close. So she refrained from rolling her eyes again and set her glass down, taking the arm he offered and allowing him to lead her closer to the glowing warmth of the fire.
One dance couldn't hurt, after all.
