AN: As promised my update for today - it seemed right to post the weekend of Elizabeth's 60th Birthday! The next chapter is still going to be the first Saturday in August and then it will be back to weekly.
Be aware that the first half of this chapter heads into being M-rated again. If you don't like that you'll want to stop and skip to the line break once they stop talking.
Cobert love to you all.
Chapter 35 – Early October 1889
The day that had started with talk of love and had seen her take Robert to her crag of rock and be held in his arms was also the day that saw the death of her father.
She and Robert had made it back from the beach in time. She had been able to hold her father's hand and murmur her love.
It transpired afterwards that he'd had another seizure. The first one had subsided, but had immediately been followed by another three. Upon finally recovering from them his breathing had become increasingly laboured and the doctor had grown concerned that the prolonged seizure activity had affected his breathing detrimentally. He never regained consciousness.
The afternoon winds had dropped, the sun had set and the moon was shining when her dearest daddy had passed from this world into the next.
The thing she doubted she would ever forget, however long her life went on, was the hollow silence that had filled the room.
By the time the moment came, none of them gathered – her mother, brother, herself and Robert – had uttered a word for nearly two hours. The room had been consumed only with the sound of her father's rattling breaths. When it had cut off it had been like what she imagined sustaining a serious injury might be like – initially it did not register, and then suddenly the silence of death had been all-consuming.
There was a moment, where it almost felt as if the world had stopped and all of them stopped breathing and thinking, all of them lost in the sudden understanding that the next rattling breath had not come.
Death then encroached through the silence, settling over all of them one at a time.
Robert had turned away to look out the window. Harold had reached across and taken her hand. Their mother had taken a long, deep breath before standing and leaving the room – her hand had been shaking as she had lifted it to her face.
The doctor had confirmed the death and she had fallen against Harold. They had held each other, at the foot of their parents' bed and cried. Sometime after that she had looked up to find Robert gone. Harold had murmured his excuses about sleep and disappeared. She had followed, returning to her room in the daze of empty thoughts.
Robert had come to her room that night, to sleep the night with her, as he had promised he would. She had asked to sleep in his room, the memories of her father that had already minimised the comfort she found in her old bedroom and that night it was clear they were going to be too much. She hadn't spent another night in there since her father's death a week ago.
The funeral had proceeded the following day, following the Jewish traditions that her father had requested. The rest of the week had passed in a daze of all sorts of things. She couldn't recall any of them. The only thing that stuck was the hollow, empty feeling.
She sits in the bed in Robert's bedroom now, gently twisting her hair where it is tied at the bottom of her braid. She watches as the sleek strands move as one, tied together as they are. She studies the colours as they flicker between auburn and chocolate in the half light. With each flick of her hair, her thoughts turn over.
She had always known Robert was a good man and a very kind one, but it had never occurred to her, even after she had fallen in love with him, that she would rely on him emotionally so heavily. She had assumed she would be able to maintain her strength and the courage that had filled her childhood. The last week had taught her that in falling in love with him, she had given herself over to only ever feeling emotionally content in his company.
That first night he had held her as she had cried and stayed awake until she had finally fallen into sleep. He had been there when she had woken. The new dawn beginning had only served to remind her what had been lost the day before, and he had comforted her as she had cried once more. The remaining nights had fallen into a pattern: he held her if she cried and then he read to her until she was asleep.
She had thought the pain would get better. She had assumed that the first night would be the worst. It turned out the first night was just the beginning. The emptiness got heavier as the days passed by. The routine of going to sit with her father was gone. His presence and the gentle shuffling of the nurses or sound of his coughing that had echoed around the house was lost. He was conspicuous by his absence and in that her grief and mood had sunk.
They had continued to plummet. Every part of the house brought afresh some memory of him. Not helped by the condolences that were beginning to arrive. Robert's parents had sent a return telegram and she imagined a letter to her was already in the post. She couldn't bear all the words.
Words meant nothing.
Her father was dead. Words would not bring him back or ease the pain.
Nothing made the emptiness go away. It only seemed to get bigger. The veil of uncertainty had started in her mind. She had found that she could stare at things for ages and not see them, or be spoken to and not hear. It had spread from there, she now found it almost impossible to even think about things for more than about a minute before thoughts of him would encroach, followed by the emptiness as she banished thoughts of him away. From her thoughts the emptiness had spread through her – it seemed sometimes she had to check her heart was beating because it didn't feel like it was there.
The bed dips and she is startled by Robert climbing into the bed beside her. She doesn't smile, but a lightness settles over her. She can see him, she can hear him and lying against him to fall asleep was the only time she didn't feel completely empty. She could hear his heart in his chest and she could feel his breathing and his touch.
He wraps his arm around her shoulders and she comes to lie with her head on his shoulder. He kisses the top of her hair. He doesn't say anything, expecting her to succumb to the tears that usually plagued this moment. She takes a deep breath, her nose twitching upwards to snake over his neck.
He must have had a bath because the skin on his neck smells of his bath soaps and has that texture that skin only has after its been washed; waxy but smooth. She can feel his pulse beneath the skin on his neck against her nose. It was a dark reminder that life goes on, even when other life has been lost. Her life was going to go on.
"Would you like me to read to you?" He is already reaching for the copy of Little Women that had for the last week sat on his bedside table. She lets him pick it up, but she knows it isn't what she wants. She doesn't want to slip into the familiar world of fiction – of the comfort of a world that even after all its troubles works out. That wasn't real life. Real life did not always work out. It brought heartbreak and grief and emptiness.
"You know what he wrote in one of his letters to me? He wrote 'I'm going to die Cora. Just as we all will. My time has just come sooner than I would like.' He was far more prepared than any of us were." She doesn't know why she says it. Talking about it was not going to help. It just made her feel emptier. It brought those thoughts of her father to the surface and she would now have to make the effort to banish them, replacing them only with empty ones. Maybe one day she would be able to recall those memories with fondness.
"I think it's always the way with death. Those left behind are always going to be worse off. There will always be that gap that the person was always in." She sits up a little to look at him. He places the book back on the bedside table.
"I feel so empty." He reaches forward and traces his fingers down her cheek. Her shoulders flinch at the contact, but not because she was averse to it, but because she can feel it. She had uttered the word 'empty', but as his touch graces her skin, she can feel. Her skin shimmers. Her heart quickens and around her brain some of the fog lifts.
She acts without thinking. She lifts her own hand to his cheek and adjusting her position in one swift motion she takes her lips to his.
The fog is swept away.
She pushes her hand to the back of his head and leans back towards her pillow, attempting to coax him on top of her and his tongue into her mouth.
She can feel her heart begin to beat in her chest. She can see lights in front of her closed eyelids rather than just dark emptiness.
She flicks her tongue over the seal of his lips. They don't budge. Her heightened senses catch up with her and she realise dimly that he is not kissing her back. His lips are immobile against hers. As she hesitates he takes her hand from where it is pressed in his hair and detaches his lips.
"Cora, that isn't a good idea."
"I want to feel Robert. Please." She had never begged before, but the tone of her voice now is undoubtedly a beg.
"Cora, I can't…it would not be right for us to be together at the moment. "
"Why not!?" She can hear the tone in her voice that denotes her frustration. Trust Robert and his morals to get in the way. "I want to feel something Robert. I feel empty all the time. I exist in a state of constant nothing. Please, will you not just let me feel?"
"It would be wrong of me Cora to give in to your demands. You're not yourself – "
"Not myself?! No, of course I'm not, my father is dead and I feel like an emotional black hole. Please, just the once, so I can feel something! So I can prove to myself I'm still alive somewhere deep down."
"You are grieving Cora. It would not be – "
"I am asking for this. Please. How can it be wrong if I am asking? Or do you think grief is making me mad?"
"Not mad Cora. But you are unhappy and I am not convinced this is the way to finding happiness again."
"I don't want happiness Robert! I want to feel something. I want to be lost in something that is not my empty, hollow thoughts. Please?"
"I could never forgive myself Cora, and you wouldn't thank me if after some ill thought out moment of lust whilst you were grieving you conceived a child. That isn't what we want. I won't do something I think you will regret in the morning." His thoughts bring her up short briefly – she had not thought about the possibility of a child. It is only a brief hesitation, the feeling of his touch and the spark of light that had raced across the black hole of her emptiness resurrecting itself. He is settling back against the pillows, content in his victory.
"Aren't there ways to avoid that, for me to find the connection I want without the risk of a pregnancy?" His eyes shoot up to hers. He doesn't say anything and his silence (and the look in his eyes) gives him away. "Can't we do one of those?"
"Cora…" He is leaning forward, raking his hand through his hair.
"Please Robert. I am asking, and your grandmother did say you should give me everything I asked for." He drops her gaze to stare at the ceiling. She knows, even before his eyes flicker back to hers that she has won, he was going to give in.
"Fine." She hesitates. For all her boldness she had no idea what came next. He seems to realise this and swallowing scratches his head again. "It might be best if you lay on my left-hand side." He shuffles across the bed as she sits up to move. He props himself on his elbow, leaning over her. He doesn't try to kiss her, but his eyes hold hers. "If you want me to stop, or if you change your mind – "
"I know. I just need to say." He nods. The he leans forward and he kisses her.
His tongue presses at her lips and she opens them to him. His tongue swirls in her mouth and entices hers to play. She pushes her hands into his hair to pull him closer. Just as had happened before, she feels the fog lift from around her mind. It doesn't vanish, but it lifts and behind it her body feels alight. It burns. Light seems to resurface in front of her closed eyelids and she can feel her heart beating. She kisses him harder.
The kiss has thus far been the same as every other kiss they had ever shared in their marital bed, but then it changes. His hand, that usually spent time in her hair, reaches down to the hem of her gown and finds its way beneath. He pushes his fingers against her undergarments to the places he would normally join them together. She gasps, and her lips drop from his.
He had touched her there before, but not like this, not with purpose. She can feel where his finger presses at her opening. She separates her thighs with the intention of giving him better access. She can feel herself developing that wetness that she had learnt to understand was always increased as they were together. The knotting her abdomen takes hold too; she feels the coil flinch as it settles into the rhythm of his fingers.
She is just getting used to the feel of his fingers kneading the fabric against her, and how the friction made her push her hips up into his hand to try and coax him to be firmer, when his fingers move away. Her eyes open, ready to demand that he returns to his attentions.
"May I?" His fingers have come to rest on the waistband of her underwear. She nods and lifts her hips so he can pull them down her legs. His lips return to hers in a slow luxurious kiss as his hand trails up her leg to the inside of her thigh.
The fog around her pushes back further, right to the peripheral barriers of her being, as his fingers now touch her without the barrier of her undergarments. This wasn't like the touches he made before he entered her, he is touching her to make her gasp and she does.
She can't find the concentration to kiss him and he instead dips his mouth to the hollow of her collarbone where his lips and tongue kiss, lick and suck as his fingers swirl, dip and rub. There is a certain place that when he pushes his wet fingers over makes her buck her hips and gasp without thinking. It's when he dips inside her, just a fraction that she finds herself humming in satisfaction. She wanted him there, inside her. The thought would make her blush if she wasn't so consumed. The fog was still there at the edges, but in the central space all she can feel, see and think about is his touch and the fire it is building.
The coil within her has reached the palpable stage that normally she dreaded. It was the stage that usually meant it was about to reach its almost completely tensed moment and would never reach the release she was waiting for. Today, she doesn't dread it. She can somehow feel the shape of it, the edges of it. She can feel the way to move her hips to place his fingers in that place that she wants them.
She begins to feel too warm. She lifts her hips gently from the bed and she pulls her nightgown up and over her head. His darkened eyes are watching her intently now and she bucks her hips again when his finger teases at the place she wants him to go. He smiles at her, almost a smirk, as his hand stills. She is about to open her mouth and urge him to continue when his finger pushes, in one smooth motion, inside her.
A sigh of contentment combines itself with a moan and she has to bite her lip to control herself.
The coil in her abdomen tightens before flexing open in a little wave. Then it pulls itself tight again, settling around the feeling of his finger. She had expected him to pull his finger back, to move it in and out of her, but that isn't what he does. He does move backwards and forwards to some extent, but that is not the motion that captures her attention. The movement that captures her thoughts, makes her lips part involuntarily and causes the coiling in her abdomen to spasm is the way the tip of his finger moves within her.
There isn't time to work out the orientation or the movement. What is important is what she can feel. She bites her lip as he continues to push his finger there, but her whimpers still pass through them. The coil stops flexing now, it only tightens. It doesn't tighten much with each of his touches, but it tightens enough. Miniscule amount by miniscule amount she can feel it coming to its tightest point. She can feel her body tightening to be awoken. It doesn't just tighten in the one direction that she had grown used to. The coil seems to contract from all sides down, pressing itself into the smallest space possible.
She grabs at his shoulders, anything to hold her in the real world. She feels as if she might collapse into the coil in her abdomen. She knows the fog of grief is still hanging somewhere above her, but she had been right, the emptiness disappeared by embracing her love for Robert.
She isn't sure which of the two things he does she should attribute the release of her coil to. She isn't sure she cares. Either way, as he murmurs the word 'beautiful' somewhere near her ear, and his thumb comes around to press at the delicate place above where his finger is pushed inside of her, it happens.
She gasps, moans and sighs in one complete exhalation. Whilst the coiling in her abdomen opens and fills the space within her, she feels her body tighten around his finger and her wetness encircle him. She can't explain the sensation beyond that, not with words she can find in her muddled head at this current moment.
She can hear the blood pounding around her ears and the waves of complete pleasure keep washing over her. The body continues to shimmer and quiver. Eventually she allows her eyes to flutter open as a complete satisfied stillness settles over her. His eyes are dark and wide and watching her. His eyes trace over her face.
"You're beautiful." She curls her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. She rolls onto her side to face him. Tracing her fingers from his hair around his neck to his collar. Her fingers feel alive with life.
"Isn't it your turn?" He blushes, and then traces his thumb over her cheekbone.
"Not tonight. Tonight was about you. I should have made it about you a long time ago." She can see the sadness in his eyes, the guilt that never seemed to quite lift. She shakes her head and kisses him again, once softly on the lips.
"I don't mind."
"But I do." He kisses her forehead and climbing from the bed retrieves her nightdress from the floor. She pulls it back on, the fabric feels harsh and grainy against her skin compared to his hands. She feels a tiredness settling over her as she moves back to her side of the bed.
As she lays down she feels the fog beginning to descend around her again and the emptiness begin to fill her once again, replacing the rippling of pleasure. She had been right though, it worked to help her feel again. Robert settles into the bed behind her and she is surprised when his arm reaches across her waist to hold her. He murmurs his goodnight, and as he had for the last week assures her that she can wake him in the night if she needs.
"Thank you for tonight Robert. I love you."
His eyes flutter open in response to the blotches of light that had been shimmering behind them for the last half an hour. He sighs softly, the dawning of yet another day that would be much the same, and equally stifling. He pushes his thumb and index finger over the bridge of his nose to the corners of his eyes and presses, hoping that the infliction of pain will make them him feel more awake. It doesn't work, it just serves to make him feel even more bleary eyed.
He had got used to his bedroom in Newport. It was a nice room; large and masculine. The walls were a rich forest green and the furniture a deep mahogany. It was unlike the light, bright rooms he had seen more often around the house and he was pleased that it was. The darkness seemed more fitting for the current state of his life.
He turns his face away from the seeping of light that are trying to weave their way between the gap in the curtains. It is then that his eyes fall on Cora.
He had uttered the word beautiful to describe her last night. Beautiful didn't seem adequate enough to describe what she looked like asleep. He had decided in this last week, that if there was anything mortal that could get close to being called angelic, it was Cora asleep. She had two sleeping positions he had learnt; on her back and on her left side facing him. She was on her back this morning, her chest was gently rising and falling beneath the covers with her left arm laid across her stomach. Her braided hair falls over her far shoulder, it's ends splayed in different directions.
He had kept the promise he had made the day her father had died of sleeping with her to aid her sleep. It had seemed to work, although he wasn't sure if it was his company or the removal from her old bedroom that had been the deciding factor. She had said she had been sleeping better, and for that he was glad.
However, in giving into her whim he had presented himself with a number of problems, one of which had only made itself apparent the night before. The first problem was that this newfound habit of sleeping together had been embarked on as a temporary fix to her grief. It had been a gesture of good will and kindness and a way for him to go some way to fulfilling his desire to embrace her love. The trouble with this plan he had made was two-fold. He had not intended it to be something he would do every night for the rest of their lives together, but he feared that Cora might believe this to be the case. Secondly, he had never envisaged that he himself would become somewhat attached to the idea. There was something pure in the process of falling asleep together after reading to each other, her body leaning against his and her perfume tingling in his nostrils. He shakes his head to push the sensations from his memories away. They would have to come up with some sort of routine once they were back at Downton. Emotions could not continue to govern them in this way.
The bigger problem, the new problem, was in relation to last night. Last night had stirred within him waves and waves of guilt. He didn't think it was possible for him to feel guiltier about their marriage, in fact, he had been beginning to feel as if he might learn to be content with Cora despite his guilt about his motivations for marriage, but last night had shattered that. He had truly failed her, this young woman who had given him her heart and her money, had not even been fulfilled in his bed. He had known that of course, he'd experienced enough sex before to know what it felt like when a woman reached her peak. But the point was, he had not tried to take Cora there, not once, he had never even considered her in their moments together. Last night had been the first time, overcome by her insistent plea and his head ringing with Marmaduke's words from the other week about asking Cora what her preferences were, that he had taken her to the place he should have taken her months ago. He had vowed to embrace her love just days ago, and yet, until last night he had allowed her to exist in a marriage where he had never even attempted to fulfil her love for him physically.
He was aware it was not normal for a husband, and certainly not one of his class, to worry about the intimate desire of their wives. If anything, it was frowned upon, women were not entitled to those sorts of rights and freedoms and displaying them gave them all sorts of society labels. But what he also knew, and what Clarisse had taught him, was that women still felt those things and wanted those things just as men did.
He had fallen asleep last night feeling hopeless and idiotic. He had vowed to try and make their marriage work and he had never even made any attempt to please her, this beautiful young woman who had given up so much. He had never even attempted to satisfy her in the most basic of ways. Possibly worse than all that was the fact that he then done so in her most fragile moment. She was grieving for her father, and he had allowed her pleas to break his resolve to look after her and comfort her. He might have managed to refrain from a completely intimate moment, but had it been any better to take advantage of her pleas in a subtler manner. He wasn't sure.
His thoughts and his guilt are disrupted by her gentle movements beside him. He had become attuned, just in the one week they had shared a bed to the sound of her awakening. Her feet and hands twitch first before her head moves and her eyes flutter open with a soft sigh. She blinks a few times, rubs her eyes and pushes at the hair around her forehead and cheeks. Only after all this is done does she turn to him, her blue eyes sparkling. This morning, her blue eyes meet his own and she blushes.
"Morning Robert."
"Good morning." She is biting at her lip, which only stirs in him memories of the night before. She had bitten her lip, her eyes closed as he had rhythmically found her hidden depths. He had wanted her to release her own hold on her lips and let the murmurs that had escaped her mouth be let free in their entirety. It had probably been a good thing for his sanity and his determination to not take advantage of her, that she had not. He might not have been able to control himself if he had been able to hear as well as feel her passion. It had taken all the strength he had to turn down her offer to pleasure him. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes, thank you. I don't think I've ever slept better." It is his turn to blush now, her insinuation was clear in her tone and her eyes.
"Cora, about last night, I think – "
"Please don't apologise Robert, and please stop any guilt that might be making you doubt your actions. I asked for it, and it was exactly what I needed. I wake this morning a happy woman, or rather as happy as it is possible to be at the moment, and that's because of you." She reaches across and takes his hand. "I think, maybe, we should do that again at some point." Her boldness does not surprise him, he had grown more accustomed to it now.
"We can probably find some other things to try too." The blush spreads across her cheeks just as he had hoped it would. This moment of grief and heartbreak might be upon them, and he knew that for Cora it was completely stifling and still something she was trying to understand, but he took his lead from her; if she was flirting then he could too.
"My, my is that my husband talking, or has he been replaced by his less prim and proper twin?" He laughs softly at her teasing. It's as if she remembers herself then; where she is and why she is there. Maybe it is because she turns to the window, and in doing so realises that the light outside and the noises beyond the thick drapery belong to her home country and with that come the memories of the last week. Whatever it may be, he cuts his laugh short as her face falls, the sparkle extinguishes from her eyes and is replaced by the harrowed look of grief and loss. She lets go of his hand and exhales slowly, with a sigh. "I suppose it's time to face the day." He reaches across the gap to take her hand again.
"You're not facing it alone Cora, remember that, I'm right here."
"I know and I am so pleased that you did come with me. I know in my bedroom before we left I said some not very nice things and – "
"It's forgotten Cora. I probably deserved them." He settles a little more upright against the headboard as she turns to appraise him. He fiddles with the edge of the bedding, trailing his thumb along the stitches and flicking at them with his nail. He didn't much want to think about all that ridiculous business Evelyn had generated and how much hurt the woman seemed insistent on spreading. It seemed the hurt she had caused him during their season was not enough and she had turned her attention to inflicting hurt on his wife too.
"What was it all about, Evelyn at the bazaar? You never really said." He had not, on purpose. When they had finally spoken about it on the crossing, he had merely cleared his blame regarding the misinterpreted kiss. Cora had not asked about anything else relating to Evelyn and he had not chosen to tell her. She knew about the parts before their marriage, but she did not know about the substance of the conversation at the bazaar. He sighs, his eyes flicking back to hers. It wouldn't do any good to lie.
"She wrote me a very indecent letter after Rosamund's wedding. I ignored it, hoping it would go away. Which was stupid, but I just didn't want to face it. She then wrote another indecent letter, repeating her requests from the first – "
"When you say indecent, what exactly do you mean?"
"I mean she proved herself to be very much not a lady, her suggestions were scandalous. She had some idea, that once the both of us, she and I that is, had secured our respective family lines, we could – "
"Become lovers." He swallows hard, and he feels a blush of embarrassment settle over his face.
"Yes." He turns to her, ready to explain that he would never have considered such a proposition, but she has lent back against the headboard, and turned to face him. He watches transfixed as her hand reaches forward to his and she begins to slowly ghost her fingers over the cuff of his shirt. Her finger dips beneath the edging and slides over his wrist. There was something amazingly comforting in the gesture.
"So, at the bazaar, Evelyn was trying to persuade you into this idea?"
"Essentially, yes."
"It's not that scandalous really. She loves you, and you grew up together and half the aristocracy have extra marital relationships." She sighs. "I always thought we might have had some children before it came to having this conversation Robert. But, you do know, that however much I love you…" Her voice seems to almost crack, as if whatever she is about to say will cause her pain. He furrows his brow, he had no idea what she was about to say. She was meant to be scandalised that Evelyn had written him such a letter, not gently caressing his arm. "I would let you go if you found love. It would hurt, but – " He takes her hand by the wrist and rotates his body to face her, shaking his head. Her intentions suddenly obvious to him.
"Stop Cora. Please stop. That is not a conversation for now, or ever. I will – "
"Robert, you can't say 'ever'. You don't know that. You don't know what life will bring or who you might meet. I won't let you be unhappy just to save myself." Her tone is firm and insistent, as is the look she gives him. But the look is also clouding with tears. She makes to remove her wrist from his grasp but he holds it firmly, forcing her to keep looking at him.
"Cora, I promised you, we promised each other, that we would do our level best to make this marriage work. I would not be doing my best to make it work if I stamped all over your heart by taking a mistress." She opens her mouth to protest but he shakes his head. "If, and I say if, it ever comes to it, we will have that discussion, we will talk about it. But it very well might never happen, so let's not trouble ourselves about it. Now is certainly not the time, you've got much more important things to be worrying about." Her eyes close in resignation and he leans forward to kiss her forehead.
"You're right. We better get up." She shifts to the edge of the bed, and sweeps the covers off herself.
"You could have breakfast in bed." He knows her answer will be a negative before he even finishes the sentence. Since arriving in America she had not taken her breakfast in bed. He knew this was a combination of returning to her old home and her old routines; the difficulty she'd been having sleeping and increasing the time she could spend with her father by rising sooner (not that this was a factor anymore).
She disappears through the door back to her own bedroom. As he waits for Charles his thoughts return to his earlier musings. How was he going to return to Downton with this new sleeping arrangement of theirs? How would he convince her that sharing a bed every night was simply not proper? Better yet, how was he going to convince himself? He was quickly concluding it had its perks.
If there was something wonderful about watching her awake from her slumber there was something even more comforting in being able to have these quiet conversations together as the sun comes up. This he knew, was the friendship and companionship he had dreamed about. He just wished it hadn't taken death to bring him to the point.
He can almost hear his mother telling him he is going soft, that Cora's American traits were affecting him. Maybe they were. Goodness, she would have fainted if she'd heard him utter his decision to embrace Cora's love for him. She would have given him a wide-eyed look, shaken her head and then promptly told him he must be either, drunk, mad or both. He laughs at the thought. She might have told him not to break Cora's heart, but she would be scandalised at the idea of him actually embracing the love and trying to understand it better.