AN: I apologise this is a day late. Please review, all comments warmly welcomed. Cobert love to you all.

Chapter 6

So what changed? What tipped her over the edge and into running away?

Well, I suppose we all knew Mr Gregson was dead but the confirmation must have been very upsetting.

And Mrs Drewe was being difficult. Clearly the child couldn't stay there indefinitely. So, we thought...

What did you think? That it would be better and safer if the girl was sent abroad. Now, we have it. Edith was told her child would be taken away.

Are you going to say anything to Robert?

No. I agree with one thing - the secret is not ours to tell. Somehow, we must find Edith... and we must hear from her what SHE wants.

He watches as she repeats her usual process of creaming her hands. She was distracted. She had been distracted all day. It wasn't that which struck him particularly though – that was to be expected with Edith missing – it was the darkness that seems to have settled behind her eyes. It hadn't been there yesterday when they had returned after the horse racing and Tom had told them she had gone, it had only appeared after Mrs Drewe's visit. She stands and walks to the bed, climbing in beside him. He's about to ask her about Mrs Drewe when she speaks herself.

"I'm going to go to London on the early train tomorrow, to try and find Edith. Atticus suggested to Rose that the magazine must be able to get hold on her."

"Yes. Yes, I suppose so." He answers almost on reflex, his eyes still searching hers for something that might answer his musings. "What did Mrs Drewe want?"

"Oh, nothing really. She had been concerned that Edith hadn't turned up today to see that little girl as they had planned. She was concerned because it wasn't like Edith not to keep her promise."

"I see." Robert's brow furrows for a second, it seemed reasonable enough, he knew Edith had been helping them out when she had to take the other children to the dentist or whatever. His thoughts once again are drawn back towards their missing daughter. "Do you think Edith has done this just because of Mr Gregson dying or do you think something else is going on?"

"I think it's all very much to do with Mr Gregson." She seems to emphasise the words strangely and he looks at her quizzically but she merely reaches across the gap and takes his hand, sadness settling in her eyes. He recognises the sadness. This was the same sadness that he had seen whenever they had discussed Tom, Mary or Edith lately. How was it that they had all lost the people they loved? He squeezes Cora's hand.

"We're alright aren't we Cora?" He repeats those words that she had used to him as she had awoken from Spanish flu. She answers not with words but by scooting across the bed and pushing her head into her crook of his shoulder and pressing a kiss to his cheek. Her arm comes across his chest and fingers his neck as she settles her head against his chest. He rubs her arm and presses a kiss to the top of her head. He relishes in the contact. This was the closest they had been in months.

"Of course we are."

"Only I thought there might still be some things to discuss after the business with Mr Bricker. I know you were keen for us to discuss that and learn from it." They had started their conversation last week, but they had not returned to it. Robert felt that he now understood the key points that she had raised – he had even involved her in looking at the housing plans for Pip's corner the very next day.

"Well, is there anything you wanted to ask, about what I said the other day?" She lifts her head from his chest, rolling over onto her stomach so they face each other. She keeps her hand rubbing gently on his pyjama top. He holds her hand there, enjoying the simple contact of her hand. He furrows his brow, wondering if there is anything he really wants to ask her. They had got to the bottom of it in the main – she had felt neglected and Mr Bricker had listened to her when he had not. The parallel to his situation with Jane at the end of the war had made it all too easy to understand the feelings she had explained.

"Not really, I think on the whole I understood what you meant about feeling isolated. I will endeavour to make sure that doesn't happen again. If it does though, can you please just tell me? I know I'm not very observant at times, so just tell me. I'd rather you got cross with me than witness another Mr Bricker."

"I did try, but I never put it plainly, I see that now. I just hate it when you're angry and I knew if I tried to force myself into finding out about the estate things or telling you I wanted your attention you would have been angry."

"Not as angry as I was about Mr Bricker." That seems to settle that, her gaze dropping from his, but not before he spots the guilt that rests in them. He didn't need to lecture her, she felt guilty enough without him trying to inflict more guilt on her. The lapse into silence, their hands entwined on his chest. He methodically rubs his thumb around the soft skin at the base of her thumb, just as she had done earlier when applying her cream. She was so delicate; so beautiful and delicate. His mind slips back to that night, seeing Bricker stood before her at the base of their bed.

"What would you have done if I hadn't come back that night? How would you have made him go away?"

"When he had eventually stopped trying to tell me what he thought my feelings were, I would have told him what they actually were and I am sure he would have left." He opens his mouth to question her logic, to ask what she would have done if he had refused to listen, but she anticipates him. "I don't think he would have hurt me Robert." He nods gently, she was probably right. She had known him better than he had, and it did seem unlikely that he would have tried to hurt her, he hadn't seemed a vindictive or mean man.

She drops her gaze and Robert wonders what she is thinking. She wriggles her hand out of his and starts twisting one of the buttons on his pyjama shirt. He waits, knowing that the fidgeting was a sure sign she was mulling over a thought and working out how to express it to him.

"Besides, I quite liked you playing my hero." She lifts just her eyes, her face stays tilted down towards his chest, but he sees the blush that spreads across her cheeks as she states these words. He feels a blush of his own burning on his. He couldn't remember the last time either of them had flirted, even if her flirting was rather misplaced on this occasion.

"I don't think it was very heroic Cora." He had merely been jealous and angry, as she was well aware.

"Maybe not in every way. But in a tiny way it was. You've never hit a man for me before." Not that there hadn't been a few that Robert had warned off at various house parties in the past.

"Well, my knuckles would rather I didn't have to again." He means it as a joke, but he isn't sure she finds it funny.

"You won't." Her tone is assertive. She continues twiddling the buttons on his shirt and he waits patiently for her to continue. It would be better in the long run if she explained everything she wanted to out loud. The whole debacle had shown them that communicating their concerns was important. "The girls and Tom must have been watching me in horror. There they all are, each without the people they had chosen to love, and there I was openly ignoring my marriage as if it wasn't important."

"I am sure they didn't think that."

"I would if I was them. Look at the cruelty that life can bring, Mr Gregson, Matthew, Sybil, all taken long before their time and yet I have been fussing about my husband not paying me enough attention. It was petty Robert, and I am sorry." He stills her hand where it is still circling on his shirt and brings her knuckles to his lips.

"I wasn't petty. It wasn't on the scale of what Tom, Mary and Edith have suffered, but that doesn't mean it doesn't count. I once told Bates that any marriage between two intelligent people has to sometimes negotiate thin ice. We have made mistakes, and we will probably make more, but we have learnt from them. We're the lucky ones, we've been given the hurdles to face and been able to reach the other side of them with both of us and our marriage still whole. Your scruples with me were not petty, they were merely different to the challenge set for Mary, Tom and Edith."

"Still, I am sorry Robert."

"And so am I." He reaches to turn his lamp off and she does the same. He adjusts his position and is surprised when he feels her weight cuddling up beside him. He lets her place her head against his shoulder, turning to kiss the top of her head. He fixes his gaze on the ceiling, watching where the diminishing light of the fire makes patterns dance across the ceiling. He hears her breathing deepen beside him after some time, her body relaxed in sleep.

Papa must never know the truth.

I've thought about it and don't agree. It would take time for him to get used to the idea, but he would make it.

He'd never look at me in the same way again.

Very well. If that's how you feel, he doesn't have to know.

Nor Mary. I couldn't have her queening it over me.

No-one has to know who doesn't know already – your grandmother, Rosamund, you and me. Everyone else will be told the story.

The bed is cold.

She twists her toes against the bedclothes, desperately trying to warm them up. It doesn't work. She glances to her left and the empty space in the bed beside her. She sighs and drops her book onto the bedside table.

What a day it had been. They had found Edith at least and the plan had been settled to have her and Marigold return to Downton. Cora had been hurt that Edith had not allowed her to meet little Marigold this evening, but tomorrow was a new day. Edith had promised her she could spend some time with Marigold before they took the mid-morning train north.

She wriggles her feet again, but it doesn't warm her. She knows it won't when she isn't truly cold she is simply lonely. Her bedroom at Rosamund's seemed to be filled with that feeling these days. On her last trip she had spent the night alone in here – crying as it happens – after Robert had been so hurtful. Now, she was alone in this room once again. She twists the bedcovers beneath her hands and switches the lamp off.

As she stares at the empty space beside her she wonders at the irony of what she had promised Edith. She didn't want her father to know that Marigold was her daughter, she understood that. She thought Edith was rather underestimating her father, Robert would probably understand a little better than Edith might think, but she understood her reasoning nonetheless. She wouldn't break the promise she had made to Edith. Naturally though, like most secrets she had ever kept for her daughters, they put her in an awkward position, and never more so than now. Her and Robert were only just beginning to recover from the Mr Bricker incident and now she was going to be keeping secrets from him.

She sighs and pulls the pillow down further beneath her head. She had called home earlier, after she had spoken to Mr Drewe, and conveyed the good news that she had found Edith and they would be returning tomorrow. Robert hadn't been available to speak, so she had simply left the message with Carson. Now though, she felt a disappointment about that. She had left before he had been awake this morning and she hadn't spoken to him all day. A few weeks ago that would have quite pleased her, every conversation they had been having then had mainly been acerbic, but tonight she felt more alone than she had in a long time. More alone, and more in need of his emotional support than ever. The thoughts that stir at the mere thought of Marigold terrified her. Edith had been going through so much turmoil the last two years and she had failed to notice. How had she failed to notice? How terrible a mother was she?

She wanted nothing more than to cry whilst Robert held her and told her it would all be alright. She couldn't though, because she couldn't break her promise to Edith. But last night, with the conversation with Mrs Drewe and her confrontation with Rosamund and Violet still swirling in her mind she had been able to curl up beside him and he had comforted her. His mere presence, without him even realising it, had comforted her from her worries about Edith and had allowed her to sleep.

She chews the inside of her lip for a brief second, before flicking on her lamp and checking her alarm clock for the time, eleven fifteen. Dinner was normally served at eight and finished by nine when they didn't have guests. They usually all went to bed between half ten and eleven. Robert would probably still be awake. She pushes the covers back and slides out of the bed. She quickly dons her dressing gown and slips into the corridor, not bothering to find her house shoes. She scurries down into Rosamund's hallway and half skips to the phone, the floor was frightfully cold.

The call is connected and surprisingly is picked up after only a couple of rings. It is Carson, no doubt doing his last checks before locking up. She quickly apologises for the inconvenience but asks if he might know if Lord Grantham is still awake and if so whether he could come to the telephone. Carson assures her he had only retired a few minutes ago and tells her to hold.

The silence at the other end of the phone seems to last longer than she had anticipated. How long does it take to walk up the stairs, get Robert and for him to walk down them again? Five and half minutes, according to the clock in Rosamund's hallway. Finally, she hears the cracking of the receiver as it is picked up.

"Cora?" His tone is anxious, she had scared him calling so late. Normally she would rush to assure him that she is fine, but tonight she simply closes her eyes and relishes in the sound of him saying her name.

"Robert." She is embarrassed by the way the word falls from her lips. It's almost a sigh.

"Are you alright?" She shakes her head out of her daydreams and turns her attention properly to his tone.

"Fine. I'm fine. I hope I didn't wake you, Carson thought – "

"I wasn't asleep. I was half ready for bed, hence I took a little while to get to the telephone." She twists the cord around her finger, a small chuckle escaping from her lips at the thought of him being half dressed when Carson went to tell him she was on the telephone.

"Are you in the hall in your pyjamas?"

"I am. I doubt Carson approves." She chuckles again.

"Well, he would be shocked to learn that Lady Grantham is also on the telephone in a hallway in her nightclothes and no shoes." He laughs this time and she smiles at the sound of his laugh, they hadn't laughed together in so long.

"He'd be more than shocked Cora, he'd be scandalised."

"I don't know, he's witnessed our entire marriage. I doubt there is much we do that shocks him anymore." A blush tinges her cheeks at the thought of things that Carson might know about them. Judging by the half laugh that Robert emits, he is thinking about the same thing.

"You are alright though? You don't normally ring when you're away." She can hear the concern edged into his voice again and her heart beats a little faster knowing that he does still care for her and that at some point he might even forgive her for the business with Mr Bricker.

"I'm fine. I just wanted to hear your voice." The silence stretches between them, amplified by the miles between them. She doesn't know what to say next, it had been so long since either of them had been so openly sentimental. "I suppose we both better go to bed. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes. I'm pleased Edith is alright." Cora tips her head back, blinking away the terror as she stares up onto the landing of Rosamund's home.

"I'm not sure she's alright. But she's coming home." There is another pause, both of them seemingly reluctant to end the call. "Goodnight Robert."

"Goodnight Cora, and…" He hesitates and her heart seems to jump into her throat, wondering if he might say the three words they hadn't yet uttered between them yet. "It was lovely to hear your voice. Sleep well my darling one." The receiver emits static as he ends the call.

She stands with the earpiece in her hand for a moment, the ceiling she had been staring at going blurry as the tears accumulate in her eyes. Next to him declaring his love for her, hearing him call her his darling in the soft English accent she had adored for so long, was enough for her to know that their marriage was well on its way to healing.

She drops the earpiece back onto its hook and aimlessly wanders back to her bedroom. The cold she had been struggling with earlier is forgotten, even though her feet are now freezing from the tiled floor. The warmth that radiates from her chest is what she had been seeking, and she had found it.

So, should I take her? Papa?

I'll leave it to your mother.

Well... I believe we should offer little Marigold a home here.

Do you really, darling?

Well, then, I suppose that's settled.