AN: Reviews are really warmly welcomed! Thank you all for the love for this story so far. Cobert love to you all.

Chapter 7

I'm going to sleep in the dressing room tonight. I'm not cross. I just want to have her with me.

Stay here.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure she won't last till morning and I don't want her to be frightened.

Then lay her here between us. And she'll know she has someone who loves her very much next to her.

Two people who love her and each other very much on either side.

I only hope I can say the same when my time comes.

Robert's fingers accept her outstretched hand and she feels him squeeze them gently.

He had forgiven her.

The look in his eyes and the words he had spoken confirmed his forgiveness. She was no longer living under the shame of Mr Bricker.

She combs her fingers in Isis's fur, her thoughts drifting to the melancholy that tonight will bring. Death was inevitable and yet it never got any easier. She had thought it would after Sybil, that no death would touch her again. Indeed, no death had touched her as much as that one, but it didn't mean the passing of Matthew, Mr Gregson or, imminently, Isis passed without notice. Life was fragile. She glances back up to Robert, the person who had been her constant, her certainty for almost all her adult life.

The guilt at her actions was becoming easier to live with. She had been a little naïve in accepting Mr Bricker's compliments and more than a little stubborn in ignoring Robert's well-meaning advice – even if his choice of words was terrible. She knew him well enough to see his true concerns, she had just chosen to be pedantic about his phraseology.

"We're both here now, that's what matters." She takes a moment to process the comment, to realise he is replying to her earlier remark. She smiles softly, aware that neither of them could answer with any clarity if they would be surrounded by people that loved them when they passed away. Certainly one of them was going to die without the presence of the other. She pushes those thoughts away, running her thumb over the knuckles of his fingers.

"We should adjust Isis so you can get in the bed." He nods his agreement and using the blanket beneath her they move her to a more central position on the bed. They each return to their petting of Isis, the sound of her stuttering breathing accompanied by the crackling of the fire the only sounds in the room. "You've given her a wonderful life Robert." He merely nods, tears quickly filling his eyes and beginning to leak silently onto his cheeks. "Oh, my dear." She adjusts her position so she can reach up and brush the tears from his face. It was not often Robert cried, he had been raised to be stoic and unemotional, most of the time he managed it. She was sure he had never cried in front of anyone but her, and possibly Bates. He stills her hand with his own, pressing a kiss to her palm.

They lapse into silence again, Cora gently rubbing Isis's ears whilst Robert strokes her neck. Cora realises dimly that Isis is not as soft as she is used to, no doubt due to her sudden decline in health. Her thoughts flash to her long-departed father for a brief moment, lung cancer had taken him far too soon from this world. She didn't think of her father often, not like when he had first died, but whenever she does she always wonders whether he would be proud of her, whether he would be proud of the family she had created and his grandchildren. She would never know, she only hoped that he would be.

"It's silly really, she's only a dog." His words are murmured in that tone that only comes after someone has been crying.

"When you care, there is no such thing as 'only'." She turns away and turns out her lamp, settling down against the pillows, her hand still massaging Isis. "I'm not going to fall asleep Robert, I'll be awake as long as you need me."

"You don't have to do that." She doesn't choose to answer him. Now was not the time for explaining all her long and convoluted reasons as to why she felt she must take this time to support him. The bottom line was that this was how their marriage worked best, when they supported and loved each other and this was one of those moments for her to support him. "Do you think Isobel will still marry Dickie?" Cora is a little surprised at his change in topic, but welcomes it nonetheless, it was nice to get back to their old ways of discussing the current developments in the family together at night.

"She should, if only to put Larry and Tim in their places."

"Not because she loves him?"

"Well yes, that as well. But I fear that she will have been perturbed by them."

"I doubt it. She's been fighting battles with my mother for over a decade now."

"This is different. Marrying someone is different. It's very difficult to marry into a family knowing you are not wanted, despised even. They are Dickie's children, however dreadful they might be, Isobel cannot escape them. I'm not sure she will want to give up the happy existence she lives now for one where she is having to put up with that sort of treatment."

"Is that how you felt? Not wanted, I mean, when you married me?" She takes a deep breath and reaches to where his hand is on Isis and squeezes it firmly.

"Not exactly. I was wanted by you and your father, or at least my dowry was." She chuckes softly but he doesn't laugh at her attempt at a joke, she wasn't expecting him to, the basis of their marriage was still a guilt laden topic for Robert. "I was in a unique position Robert, I had no power, but ironically I held the monopoly of honour. Your family couldn't have survived without me so they had to learn to accept me."

"I'm not sure that's quite the point."

"No, it's not, because as I have told you over and over again, it doesn't matter. Look on the past only as it gives you pleasure. Look at the pleasure we have had in our marriage Robert. If I hadn't had a large dowry you would never have married me and I can't bear to imagine what my life would have been like." Silence envelopes them again, it was the closest she had got to uttering her love. It wasn't unusual for Robert to beat her to declarations of love after their rifts, just as he had tonight. He got angry more quickly, but also forgave more quickly. She was more prone to taking time to ensure he really had listened to her concerns before she fully forgave him. Not that it would be long, he had already starting having more open discussions with her about the housing at Pip's corner.

He struggles to keep his eyes open, the grandfather clock in the hallway distantly chiming three in the morning. Cora had fallen asleep some hours ago, he had let her, despite the protestations she would make later. She had wanted to stay awake, he knew that, but there was no need for her to sacrifice all her sleep. She had wanted to be there for him, but as far as he was concerned watching her slumber in peace was one of the most comforting scenes in the world. He gently rubs her shoulder now though, and murmurs her name, the time had arrived.

Isis's breathing was faltering and he needs her now. Her eyes flicker open, adjusting to the light from his lamp, she squints. He watches as realisation suddenly hits her and she lifts her head abruptly from the pillow.

"You shouldn't have let me fall asleep. What's the time?"

"About three."

"Three! Robert – " Robert sees the moment she hears the stuttering breathing coming from Isis in her eyes, a millisecond before she cuts herself off mid-sentence. Her expression drops at the same moment her hand grabs his.

Turning his attention to his beloved Isis, he rubs her head gently, holding Cora's hand firmly in his other hand. The two of them hardly move. Robert keeps his gaze fixed on Isis as he freely lets the tears fall and cloud his vision. They drop onto the bedding, one at a time at first and then a little faster. He lifts his hand to wipe some of them away, but Cora's hand holds his firm, through his bleary eyes he can see her shaking her head. She was encouraging him to cry, to not wipe the tears away and hide away from them.

Isis struggles on for about ten more minutes and then with very little warning, her next breath doesn't come.

Three become two.

Robert inhales deeply through his nose instinctively trying to fend off the emotions that he can feel threatening him. His dogs had always been a great love of his, ever since he had been a boy. He had been drawn to them. He had sought out their silent affection when he went down to tea to see his parents as a toddler. He had bonded with his father over dogs. Later they had been his only companion on long walks and visits around the estate. Isis had been his companion through those dreadful months of the war, the months of panic about Matthew and then the arguments with Cora. She had been there in his dressing room in those long nights alone after Sybil had died. Isis had seen him through more horrors than any of his previous dogs. He only hoped that she had indeed had a good life with him.

As he muses in his thoughts he hardly notices Cora getting out of the bed and silently moving around the room to perch on his side of the bed, when he fixes his gaze on her she smiles pitifully before leaning forwards and taking him into her embrace. He pushes his nose into the crook of her neck, inhaling the faint traces of her evening perfume still nestled in her skin. They don't have to say anything, comporting each other like this was something they had done for decades. She rubs his shoulders and back, he breaths in her scent and lets her hair brush at his face, all the while kneading her nightdress against her waist and hip.

"I don't think I'll be able to sleep here now, with her just – " He breaks off, a sob rising in his throat and cutting of his words.

"It's all right. We can leave her to her peace here and sleep in your dressing room." He lets her pull back from their embrace. He watches as she takes a spare blanket from the end of the bed and drapes it over Isis. Then she turns to him and takes his hand as he stands from the bed, nudging him gently in the direction of his dressing room as she switches off the lamp behind him.

The room descends into darkness and he hesitates for a second, a reflex action to the loss of vision. Her hands touch his back a second later, guiding and comforting him without words.

They don't turn the lamp on in the dressing room, he pushes the covers on the bed aside and slides into the bed, she slips in beside him. There is only one way they can sleep in the narrow dressing room bed and without saying anything they find their position, her back pressed to his chest, both of them facing the window and his left arm resting on her hip.

The moonlight shines across the room. He studies the curve of her jaw and the soft lobe of her ear from behind her. He brushes his hand along the point of her hip. Her dark hair falls down her back, some of it escaping from her braid. He moves it aside with his nose to expose the skin between the top of her nightdress and the base of her neck. He kisses her there gently and then lowers his head back to the pillow.

Sleep, he knows, is a long way off, even now the dreaded moment with Isis was over. His dressing room was a room associated with a handful of good memories, this would be one of them, sleeping curled together with Cora. But it was also the room that held so many memories that he would rather forget. Whilst Cora's bedroom had become his sanctuary, his dressing room had become his prison. Yet, he could not have one without the other. His thoughts return to his most recent stay in this bedroom and the dreaded Mr Bricker.

Why had he been so stupid not to trust Cora? Of course she hadn't been interested in Mr Bricker. Of course she hadn't invited him to her room.

He had been the idiot for not trusting her and ignoring her – just as Mr Bricker had said.

They still had some distance to transverse to return their marriage to a steadier state. Robert still felt the tension between them. He had seen it in her eyes tonight when he had said he loved her. She had accepted that, and blushed, smiled even, but she had not reciprocated. Not yet. He knew that she loved him, he didn't doubt that for a second, but she was not ready to say it again yet. He was not wholly forgiven. He had to prove himself to her before she would give herself up to him again.

He closes his eyes with thoughts of how to achieve this, breathing in the scent of her hair where it lingers in the almost non-existent gap between them. He would prove himself to her because there was no other option. A life with their marriage not whole was not a life he liked, enjoyed or wanted.