AN: Thank you for all the reviews. I thought on the day Downton Movie 2 is confirmed it seemed fitting to update (even if this is very angsty).

A little reminder to anyone following From Paris to Yorkshire. That one was updated at the weekend, but now falls under an M rating. So make sure to adjust your filters if it looks like it's vanished.

Chapter 2

I think everything about Downton is beautiful. Including its mistress.

You mustn't say such things

I have to, or I'll burst.

What's burst?

I was just saying that being able to touch a painting like this will make me burst.

It's wonderful to show it to someone so appreciative.

Yes. No one can say that you're not appreciative Mr Bricker.

He knows.

He heard.

The realisation pounds with each beat of her heart.

She can feel his hip where it brushes against her skirt. He doesn't look at her, he only looks down at the painting from where he stands between herself and Mr Bricker. Mr Bricker is talking but Cora doesn't hear the words he says, she can only focus on the pounding in her head.

He heard.

He heard Mr Bricker flirting.

The moment he had stepped into the room she had known he had heard. As Mr Bricker made up some terrible excuse about the touching the painting, she had seen it in his eyes. They didn't need words, he didn't need to say it, it was in his eyes, he had heard it all. As he had stared at her he was telling her that he had heard and he was challenging her to amend her behaviour.

He stood between them now as a stark reminder to her that she should take some time to consider her options. He was teasing her, he was reminding her that whatever she might try, whatever she might be thinking he was here and he was watching.

The fact he feels the need to physically stand between her and Mr Bricker and remind her of this makes her heart ache. As if she would ever contemplate any kind of extra martial relationship - did he know her at all? Recently, it felt like the answer to that was a very disheartening no.

The brief hope she had held that him realising his jealousy of Mr Bricker and acting on it by paying her more attention is dashed as he stands beside her. He would not see his own mistakes in this. She can see that now. He will just stand beside her and give her that look. He will not reflect on the situations that might have led her to this situation, he will only see the actions she is taking. The way she allowed Mr Bricker to flirt with her. This was Robert, seeing beneath the surface of a situation was not his strong point. She should have realised that, she should have seen this coming.

She had seen this coming. She had always known that the only way through this was for them to talk about it. She knew that because it had always been the only way.

The question that remained was why she had kept hoping that he would reach the realisation on his own. Why she had been living in this hopeless hope that he would realise he was ignoring her and make some grand romantic gesture. She could count the number of times Robert had made grand romantic gestures in their marriage on one hand. That wasn't his way. Not that he wasn't romantic when he wanted to be, but it was subtler – it was words, stolen kisses and the well he held her. It was in the small touches and looks that had developed between the two of them. It was their love, their romance, rather than other people's preconceived ideas.

That was all she wanted, she would settle for anything at this point. She was just asking for a little attention, and a little acceptance of her thoughts. This wasn't about their love for each other. Not at one moment in the last few months had she doubted his love. What she did doubt was whether he appreciated her for anything other than being the person who stood by his side through everything without resistance. She had felt in the last months that she had simply become his shadow, there to follow him around and be there always, but never to be consulted.

The calm his close presence normally instills within her is absent today. The brushing of his hip against her own only alerts her to how large the gulf was between them. Physically they are standing as close as they had in weeks, but mentally they had lost each other.

The light was fading around their relationship.

She knew how to make it shine again, they needed to talk. But she also knew that trying to talk to Robert whilst anger clouds his focus was never going to be successful. He had been quite angry a couple of weeks ago in London but she knew nothing compared to the anger she had seen in his eyes a few moments ago. The anger that had flared at overhearing Mr Bricker flirting with her. That anger would take some time to simmer down.

Her own anger flares at the realisation. He had been overlooking her disquiet for months and yet now, now she was standing beside him concerned about his own thoughts and feelings. Worried that she had upset him. How had their relationship become this one-sided? Whilst she was worrying about his thoughts and feelings he hadn't asked her opinion about anything important for months.

Mr Bricker smiles at her as Robert leans backwards away from the painting. Cora can see the concern ebbing from the edges of his smile. He is checking if she is alright. He was aware of the tension radiating in the room then. That embarrasses her for a second before she realises that it wasn't going to change anything for Mr Bricker. He had been blatantly clear about his admiration of her almost from the very beginning, he was unlikely to be put off because Robert was bothered by it. That had not put him off prior to this point. He had no doubt drawn his own conclusions about her marriage. That he probably didn't understand her marriage as well as he thought was only the result of the fissure in her marriage. She could not blame him for that and there was no point destroying her own enjoyment in her time spent with him because he was simply a little overzealous in his manner with her. Goodness, she spent enough of her time at the moment churning through upsetting and miserable thoughts. Why waste Mr Bricker's pleasant company? A mild flirtation had never hurt anyone.

Robert loiters, clearly unwilling to leave the room. She can feel his eyes on the back of her head, but she ignores the sensation, keeping her eyes keenly fixed on the painting. Mr Bricker excuses himself quietly, muttering something about a walk which Cora hardly hears.

The blood pounds between her ears, she turns slowly to meet his waiting gaze.

"Robert, I –" She stops. The look on his face stunning her into silence. His eyes are steely and hard, they are grey, the blue seemingly lost in the disappointment that shrouds them. She swallows. She didn't deserve that. She wasn't the only one of them that had not ignored the flirtation of another person. He could give her all the steely glares he liked, but she had done nothing wrong. Goodness, she hadn't even touched Mr Bricker's hand. Whereas he…

She stops her own thoughts. She doesn't let them go there. The look in Mrs Hughes's eyes as she had made some terrible excuse regarding the departure of the maid had told Cora everything she had needed to know. A few brief questions later and Mrs Hughes had divulged what she knew. It wasn't much, but it was enough for Cora to understand what had probably happened. Cora had never confronted Robert about it, there had been no reason to, if it had been serious he would have told her. He never had, so it was clear he both regretted it and it had not been serious.

Now though, standing here, looking into his eyes of judgement she is very tempted to let him know that she knows.

"I suggest you tell Mr Bricker to tread carefully. I wouldn't want to burst his little bubble about the beautiful mistress at Downton." He emphasises the words he had heard Mr Bricker use. She feels the tears prick at the corner of her eyes and she grips the edge of the table where she stands, letting her knuckles turn white. Anything to make sure she doesn't cry. He shouldn't be making her cry, she had done nothing wrong. She doesn't let herself drop his gaze, waiting for him to look away at her defiance. She would not defend herself when he was being so hypocritical. Society might place him above her, the law might, but in their marriage, they had always been equals.

What can only be a few seconds later, but feels like a lifetime, his grey eyes drop her gaze and he leaves the room. She falls back against the table, her knees giving way.

He flatters her. He keeps asking her opinions on everything.

Don't you ask her opinion?

Of course I do. Sometimes.

…...

All I've proved is that Lord Grantham would like us to stay in our allotted place from cradle to grave.

There is only one thing I would like and that I would like passionately. It is to see you leave this house and never come back!

He watches the napkin fly through the air in Cora's direction, it gets caught on the centrepiece and comes to rest nearer his seat than her own, but the intention was there.

The anger coursing through his veins now might be directed at Miss Bunting. His words might have been tossed in her direction but the napkin heads towards Cora. To the source of the steady burning frustration that had been there long before Miss Bunting had opened her mouth.

It had been bleeding its way through his veins since last night when Mr Bricker had invited himself to stay an extra few days. It had spread with uncontrolled precision into his arteries this morning as he had stood outside the room and heard him call Cora beautiful. The man had a nerve. But it had been the soft laugh, the laugh he knew was accompanied by a luscious pink blush that had pushed the frustration into his heart and from there it had been allowed to thump to the corners of his body all day long. And then Miss Bunting had held a match beneath him and that was that, he was alight.

Cora's gaze catches his and he can see the concern etched into her features, but there is also disappointment. He heads for the door without a backwards glance or meeting the gaze of anyone else.

The cold gust of air in the hall allows him to take a long deep studying breath, he exhales as though he is smoking a cigar. Long and deep. The anger at Miss Bunting dissipates before he has even reached the top of the stairs. She wasn't the worst guest they had ever had to dinner and it was not entirely her fault that her timing was terrible. She wasn't to know that his marriage was seemingly falling apart in front of his eyes.

It was Cora he was cross with deep within his bones, he knew that well enough. He would apologise to Tom in the morning.

He sits in his dressing room for some time stewing in his own thoughts. The anger diminishes to nothing, leaving behind the ache of frustration that he had been carrying around since that evening in Rosamund's drawing room and today had strengthened to a firm, brittle feeling in his veins. It seemed to stay fixed there, stiffening them, making them inflexible to further stresses. This heavy feeling had the ability to expand to anger (as he had realised too late this evening), but what he didn't know was how to make it go away. Well, that was a lie, he did – fix things with Cora. The issue was he wasn't sure how to do that. He certainly couldn't do it with Mr Bricker still in the house and being all over her. They needed their own time and space to figure things out. His outburst tonight will not have helped things.

He realises with sadness that if this moment had played out when he and Cora had been getting along she would have been up to check on him the minute she had exited the dining room. He doesn't need to check his pocket watch to know that she had clearly forsaken that this evening and gone into the drawing room regardless. No doubt Mr Bricker was making some flirtatious comment as this very moment. She was probably giggling, a warm blush he thought was reserved for him, rising on her cheeks.

The anger twitches at the edges of his fingers again and he finds he has balled the blanket on his dressing room bed between his fingers. All he can hear in his head is her soft laugh from earlier. The soft laugh that she used to emit when he whispered something naughty to her in the company of others. It was a laugh that murmured of joys to come. It was a laugh she would repeat lying in his arms at night but that would lead to intimacy that Robert had never dreamed he would enjoy when they had married. Yet now she was sharing that laugh, that blush, with someone else.

He takes one of the pillows from the bed and hurls it at the door adjoining their rooms. It falls to the ground limp and deflated, much like how he felt.

There is a soft knock at the door leading out onto the landing. Briefly his heart flutters that it might be Cora, but his thoughts are quickly dashed, Bates entering the room just after he has knocked.

"I wondered if you might want my assistance m'lord?"

"You mean that Carson and the footmen have told you about my debacle and you've come to save me?" Bates was always so discreet. He never asked questions and never said anything that might offend. Best of all, he was not a gossip, which given his current state of mind was important. Bates was likely to be privy to things that Robert did not want other people knowing. Some of that was through their discussions, but other parts of that Robert knew were in the subtle things that Bates picked up – body language, tone of speech.

"They simply said you had retired to bed early."

"On this occasion I doubt even Carson was that polite about it." He stands and Bates begins to help him take his jacket off. Robert begins untying his own tie and shirt buttons. Bates's silence confirms that he had indeed been right, he would be the talk of the servants' hall for at least a week. The silence stretches onwards as Bates dusts the jacket down and hangs it in the wardrobe. "I feel a little silly if I'm honest Bates. Miss Bunting is infuriating, but I'm not sure she was quite the source of my anger." Bates begins the process of unclipping his cufflinks. As he unfastens the second, he looks up for half a second, his deeply thoughtful gaze meeting Robert's.

"I am not often impertinent m'lord, as you know, but might I hasten a guess that the source of your angers lies with Lady Grantham?" He drops his gaze only as he finishes the question, turning and placing the cufflinks back into their case.

"You're very perceptive Bates."

"Not especially m'lord. More logically thinking. I have been your valet now for the best part of twelve years and I served with you. I have learnt that your anger usually stems from a personal matter and that the personal matters which affect you the most are those relating to Lady Grantham." Robert concedes to his logical thought process, Bates did undoubtedly know him well enough to have reached this conclusion without any input from him.

"It's the ghastly art salesman. He's all over her. He says some frightfully forward things to her." Bates takes his clothes from him as he removes each layer. "And she seems to like it and I don't understand why or how. She seems to think he is interested in her opinions about art, when of course he is only interested in flirting with her and doing goodness knows what else! But she just doesn't seem to see it. She laughs with him Bates, she laughs." He isn't sure Bates had followed all the words, he had struggled himself, they all just seem to come hurtling out of his mouth in a stream. Finally having someone ask him about it, someone impartial giving him an easy way to try and figure out his own confusion. "The Dowager Countess seems to think she likes him because he asks her for her opinions. But that makes no sense because I ask her for her opinions as well." At dinner he had briefly wondered if his mother had been right, but he had quickly brushed it aside when he had glanced up to see Cora still flirting with Mr Bricker. He did ask for her opinions when he wanted them, he always had. During his early days as the Earl he had negotiated a lot of situations by seeking her advice. And the way she was giggling with him must have something to do with Mr Bricker being something that he is not.

"Why do you think she doesn't see those things in Mr Bricker's behaviour?"

"Because if she did she would not be leading him on so naively. I'm not a vain man Bates, but I do know my wife loves me and wouldn't have an affair."

"No m'lord, I don't think we need to question Lady Grantham's fidelity. But she might have other reasons for ignoring Mr Bricker's blatant flirtation."

"I can't think what. Why lead a man on when you're not interested?" But his question goes unanswered. Bates merely collects up the things he needs and heads for the door as Robert finishes buttoning his pyjamas. He turns as he reaches the door.

"As a word of advice from one married man to another m'lord. Maybe you should ask Lady Grantham to explain her reasons to you." The door shuts softly behind his valet.

Bates was right of course, the only way to get an answer was to ask. Trouble was, he didn't feel much like asking. Why should he when she was the one fluttering her eyelashes at someone else?

He opens the door to her bedroom. Contrary to the tiny bit of hope that had still been sustaining his thoughts, she isn't in her room waiting for him. She hadn't come to check on him. She was still downstairs and no doubt Mr Bricker was still flirting. He reluctantly slips into the bed and reaches for his book on the side, desperate to think of anything other than what sort of game Cora might be playing. Bates was right, there must be a reason for her behaviour. She must be trying to tell him something, he just didn't have a clue what is was.