AN: At the halfway mark of this story we begin the healing and we have both perspectives in this chapter again. Any mistakes are my own. Please leave your thoughts, I only apologise for the lack of time to reply individually at the moment. Cobert love to you all.

Chapter 5

I wondered if you might like to change your mind and come back? You heard Mr Bricker say that he was not in my room by my invitation.

How do I know that wasn't just his gallantry?

Because I'm telling you. Nothing happened.

I'll tell you what did happen. You allowed him into your private life. A man who thought he could step into my place, just like that.

He thought it, and he was mistaken. Very well, if you can honestly say you have never let a flirtation get out of hand since we married, if you have never given a woman the wrong impression, then by all means stay away. Otherwise, I expect you back in my room tonight.

She slides into the bed and waits. She doesn't need to be able to hear the gentle padding of his feet in the dressing room to know that he is coming to join her. She knew that he would, because she had dealt her last card. She had been trying to avoid it. She hadn't wanted to say that, to admit that she knew about Jane. She had never discussed the maid with him, there had never been any point. She had taken the responsibility on herself – she had pushed him away during those months of war. She had seen no reason to embarrass him about it when she had been equally at fault. But she had used it now as leverage because he had left her no choice. She would not be treated by him so badly when she had ignored his own transgressions.

He stands in the doorway, his dressing gown simply bundled in his hands, he drops it onto the chair. She feels some of the pain lift, finally having him walking towards her across the room. He slides into the bed beside her. He doesn't meet her gaze.

"I assume you knew that would make me come." He runs his hands through his hair and finally turns to look at her. He is expecting to see some semblance of disappointment in her eyes but he doesn't. She looks almost relieved. He closes his eyes briefly, he doesn't need her to answer to know that, yes, she did know. She had used those words because she knew they would work.

"Of course in many ways I hoped it wouldn't." There is a slight edge of disappointment in her voice, but only slight. He wonders for half a second which one of them had let their transgression go further.

I want you with every fibre of my being.

He swallows hard. He could accuse Cora of flirting more than she ought to have done, but there was very little doubt in his mind that he was probably the one who had let his transgression go further in both actions and thoughts. He leans back against the headboard and turns his face a little towards her. She mirrors him.

"How did you know?" She lets a small laugh fall from her lips, he was decidedly naïve sometimes, even now.

"We've been married for thirty-four years Robert. I know you better than I know myself." He nods his head, and she watches him rake his hand through his hair. The truth of the matter was rather more mundane, she had made an assumption about Jane based on comments Mrs Hughes had made to her, her own thoughts about her marriage at the time, and Robert's behaviour.

"I'm sorry." She is surprised he utters those words. It was not like him to apologise so simply. It was not the approach he normally took, he normally only apologised when she bullied it out of him. She certainly wasn't expecting an apology when she knew full well he was waiting for her to apologise to him. He wasn't one for casting the first stone.

"I'm sorry too." She meets and holds his gaze. He relaxes a little, but only a little. She had apologised and that was a great relief to him, to hear her admit that she had done something wrong. He doesn't completely relax though because he knows that this is not a conversation she was going to let pass. It was clear that all those years ago she had known about Jane but for whatever reason, maybe her illness, she had not confronted him and they had never openly discussed why their marriage had taken a tumble. He knew that now the same had occurred again she would not pass up the opportunity to discuss her thoughts on the matter.

"I know you probably don't want to talk about it. But I think we should. I think we've done better in the past when we've discussed our problems. When we've realigned ourselves with one another."

"I'm not sure my mother would share your enthusiasm for talking about it." He isn't entirely sure he does, they had made it through last time without really discussing it, why did they have to do so now?

"You mother is not one of the two people in this marriage." She knew that getting him to discuss this was going to be difficult. It was why last time she had never discussed Jane or what had happened to them. She had simply accepted that he had felt ignored and rectified the situation. But it was different this time, she knew Robert, and he would not change his behaviour without an explanation as to why she had behaved with Mr Bricker as she had. It would eat away at him and their marriage would suffer more in the process. In contrast, she had been able to understand his transgressions because she had reflected on what had led him down that path. Robert would not reflect on what had led her to do something similar, he needed to be told. Whilst she had been able to see where she had treated him badly during the war, he did not have the same ability of self-reflection. "I felt rebuffed Robert."

Rebuffed. The word swims angrily in his head.

He would laugh, if her tone wasn't so serious. It was infuriating to hear her speak like that. He would accept the responsibly for his own poor actions as regards Jane, and he was happy to take responsibility for those, but he would not take responsibility for her poor actions with Mr Bricker. They were her mistake, just as his with Jane had been his.

"You felt rebuffed! You were the one ignoring me and twinkling your eyes at some other man." His anger fires and hits its mark, she feels her face contort. His anger had always been an enemy to them having straightforward conversations. It had been one of the first things she had learnt to understand when they married. She had learnt to gauge his expressions and work out how much she could get away with, and how best to keep his anger in check. The most effective method had always been to maintain her own calm.

"Robert. Please. This will only work if you let me speak and don't get angry."

"Fine. But I don't see the point in discussing it. I think it's fairly clear you made mistakes with Mr Bricker, just as I have made mistakes in the past. Aren't we even?"

"Perhaps. But surely to avoid these situations in the future we should talk about what led to them? I'm sure we can both think of examples of other people who have flirted that we have been able to ignore, because we felt secure at those times with each other." He swallows and meets her imploring eyes, she was right, of course. Jane had been a product of timing, it seemed she was trying to suggest Mr Bricker had been the same. It seemed Bates had been right, Cora had her reasons. He gulps, just as he had lied to himself about having reasons with Jane.

"Very well." She mulls over her thoughts for a second before deciding where might be best to begin her narrative. She doubted they would get to the bottom of this in one conversation, it was likely to take some weeks to sift through the fallout from this, but she knew that they could, and he was giving her the opportunity to begin.

"Before Mr Bricker arrived, I felt rebuffed. You refused to include me in discussions about the estate. Every time I asked you told me it wasn't something I needed to worry about. I wasn't worrying. I wasn't checking up on you. I simply wanted to share it with you. To discuss it like you discuss it with Mary and Tom. I would like to play my part, however small, in understanding the decisions you are making." She pauses, having observed his brow furrowing.

"But why? It's boring financial stuff." She swallows her own disappointment. Of course he didn't understand, of course he didn't know. She had been stupid to keep sitting around thinking that he would figure it out. This was Robert, he did not figure these sorts of things out on his own. She mentally kicks herself, she should have stopped trying to force something out of him weeks ago and just spoken up about how she was feeling. She should have been assertive and blunt with him rather than using Mr Bricker to try and circumnavigate her way back to Robert.

"Because it's part of who you are Robert, and it's the livelihood upon which our whole existence rests. Downton runs in your blood and you've always refused to accept that it runs in me. Always seconding me to the position of the outsider. That may remain true in many ways. I am not a blood member of this family and I never will be. But George is as much my grandson as yours. His future is as much my concern as it is yours, and thus, what happens at Downton is important."

"I see." He means that, because he can understand that. He probably had shielded her from the management of the estate, he always had, it was his duty, not hers. But times had changed, Mary was the co-owner now for heaven's sake. Cora had been at his side all these years; her dowry had saved it all those years ago. It was probably more than time that he gave her a role, or at least discussed it with her. He runs his hand through his hair, a nervous habit he had developed years ago when he is thinking. "That doesn't really explain why you flirted with that ghastly man though."

It had taken her the time since Mr Bricker's departure to reach her own realisation about this topic. She had flirted. Not with words perhaps, but with her looks and her laughter she had not been clear about her intentions. The guilt she felt about that wasn't going to disappear in a hurry, even if she and Robert talked it all through for hours. The guilt was hers alone to deal with.

"I'm not sure I know the answer to that. What I do know is that he asked for my opinions and he listened when I gave them. That's what I really liked. Not his flirting, just the simple fact he listened to what I said. He was hearing my voice when everyone else around me was not." She watches the realisation spread across his face and continues. "There is one part of it all I'm not proud of. I tried to avoid flirting back, but I think as time went on I saw it as a way of making you jealous and I stupidly thought that would spur you into some kind of romantic gesture. I should have known you well enough to know that's not exactly within your nature."

"I did come to London to take you out for dinner that evening."

"You did, but you also barely acknowledged our wedding anniversary, for a brief moment you even seemed to forget which date it was. By the time you'd made that impromptu trip to London I had felt isolated from you for some months." It hurt to hear her say that she had stooped to the low level of trying to provoke him into action, it spoke of how low a point their marriage had reached. That night in London had been the turning point, he can see that now. He could have made everything right that night, instead he had pushed her further away. His thoughts flicker back to that evening, it was not hard to see how he had said the wrong things, the anger had been intense.

"I'm not sure you would have liked arriving in London to find me out with another woman. Imagine that Cora! Imagine how it felt, to have come all that way. To want to spend my undivided time with you and find you would prefer the company of another man."

"You can't say prefer Robert when you know full well I was oblivious to the fact you were in London. If I had known, if it had been a choice, you know without doubt you would have won." It was as close to a declaration of love as she is willing to get to tonight. She knew the strength of their love, they had been tried and tested so many times. She knew without a doubt that they could get through this, now that his anger was under control, but there was no need to break the healing process by admitting the deep feelings too soon. If Robert heard those words from her lips he would accept the situation as resolved and she did not want that, she wanted them to work at this and for them to improve before she completely admitted aloud how much she loved him. "You know, I would have dropped the whole Mr Bricker thing there and then that night in London if you hadn't got so cross with me. I was so overjoyed to see you. But then you said those things."

That an expert would find your observations on the work of Piero della Francesca impossible to resist? Yes, I do find it hard to believe.

She gulps away the pain that surfaces as those words swim in her head. They still make her heart accelerate with fear and disappointment. She wasn't sure there had ever been a time in her marriage when Robert had disappointed her as much as that night. It had been his final act in showing that he did not value her. Before that, she had just felt that way, but to hear him utter those words and to confirm her fears had been heart-wrenching. Remembering them now doesn't make their bitter taste any easier to swallow.

"I think I would have been better at discouraging his flirtations if you hadn't hurt me so badly that night." He watches the tears accumulating in her eyes and knows she is thinking about the things he said. His heart aches to reach out and pull her into her arms, to murmur his love into her hair and let her fall asleep peacefully in his arms. But he can't. Not because he doesn't love her, but because he can't quite forgive her yet. She was his Cora and she needed his love and embrace, but she was also the woman who had let another man think he could enter their bedroom. Forgiving her completely would take some time.

"I don't deny what I said was wrong Cora. And I think you know me well enough to know that things I say in anger I often do not mean. That was certainly one of those instances. But you can't wipe away all your actions by blaming me for ignoring you or being cross with you. You have to bear some responsibility yourself." It was too much to expect him to forgive her in a few short minutes, and she had not expected him to. She could not forgive herself, so it was unlikely for him to do so. She had laughed and flirted with a man that was not Robert. The last time she had flirted with another man who was not Robert had been during her London Season. Other men had flirted with her since then, of course they had, but she had never before given the man the wrong impression herself. She had done that with Mr Bricker, and that would take a long time to heal. But she knows that this is the beginning of their healing process. He had admitted he had done something wrong and she had admitted likewise. They were already steadily moving in the right direction.

"I never said I wasn't taking responsibility. I am simply trying to explain my feelings so we can move forward with our marriage. There is no point discussing the actions of the past if we do not take some time to reflect on how we arrived there. The actions are the actions. They are unchangeable. The past is the past. But, by understanding the underlying feelings and thoughts that led us there we can try to avoid making the same mistakes again." Her words mirror what she had said earlier. Her logic was irrefutable.

"How do we begin then?"

"We've made a start Robert. You're here and we have started talking. Let's just start with that." She turns to switch off her bedside light and adjust her position in bed. "We can talk through some more of it later." She pulls the covers up to her chin as he turns his own light out. "Goodnight Robert."

He stares up at the canopy of the bed. He thinks back over the conversation they have had. He realises with regret that she had described the exact feelings he had felt all those years ago during the war. She had transferred her thoughts and attentions to Mr Bricker, just as he had done with Jane. He adjusts the pillows behind his head. There are still things to discuss, but they had made a start. For the first time he felt that maybe things might look better in the morning after all. He reaches out his hand as he adjusts his position and finds her hand beneath the covers. He slips his hand into hers, giving it a gentle squeeze.

They fall into their slumber, their hands still entwined