AN: The first section of this is M rated. I am sorry. I promise this is the last M rated section of this story.

Updates are going remain at fortnightly. I'm really struggling to find writing time at the moment. Please, please review this, even if you just leave a few words. Reviews give me a focus to continue writing and I have been receiving less of them recently.

Cobert love to you all x

Chapter 39

She eyes Henderson in the mirror, trying to decide if she should say anything. This woman was her maid, and was meant to be serving her. After this morning, when Henderson had spread word to Lady Grantham and the other servants by the sound of it, about Robert having slept in her bed all night, she wanted to give Henderson a dressing down. The trouble was, she knew that anything she did or said would be reported back to Lady Grantham. Henderson might be employed to look after her, but her loyalties lay with Lady Grantham. There was infuriatingly little she could do about it.

She hated arguments at the best of times. Henderson would only deny her involvement, knowing there was nothing she could do about it. She sighs and applies some of the cream to her hands as Henderson finishes braiding her hair. Maybe it was enough for now that she knew what Henderson was capable of, and Henderson must know that she knew. The woman must therefore know, that as soon as Cora could possibly manage it, she would be replaced. That would have to be enough for now, knowing that Henderson must fear for the longevity of her job.

She remains at her dressing table when Henderson leaves, straining her ears towards the adjoining door to gauge whether Robert had even come up yet and if he had, whether Carson was still with him. She wanted to speak to him, and she thought it was unlikely (after his mother's interventions today) that he would come to her willingly.

She thinks she can still hear the muffled voices that indicate Robert is not yet alone, so she continues to cream her hands before taking the fashion brochure Rosamund had sent to her and starting to flick through the pages. She would be in London in a little over a week for Dickie's wedding – it might be nice to purchase something new whilst she is there.

She's so busy slowly smoothing her hands over each other, inhaling the gentle fragrance of her hand cream, and slowly turning the pages of the brochure and trying to imagine herself in the dresses, that she misses the opening of the adjoining door.

"Good evening." She almost visibly jumps out of her seat, his voice startling her. She laughs at herself.

"You made me jump, sorry, I wasn't expecting you." She watches as he frowns, his hands hesitating on the tie of his dressing gown.

"Oh, well, I mean, I can go – " He gestures in the direction of the dressing room. She quickly stands and shakes her head.

"No. No, don't go. That's not what I meant. I meant I thought after this morning you might choose to stay away."

"Don't you remember what I said on our wedding day? I can fight my own battles. I can also avoid them. If we are discreet enough, I see no reason why we can't continue our little ritual." She steps towards him as he steps towards her. He takes her hand and pushes his thumb gently over her knuckles. She finds herself dropping her gaze to look at their hands. She lets the fission of excitement at his touch fizz through her. For a millisecond she finds herself transferred back to the Paris bookshop and that first time his hand had touched her wrist. The difference was now, she knew exactly how far that electricity could take her. She understood the place it shot to as the coil in her abdomen that wanted nothing except Robert. With the fuzz of need simmering within her, she flicks her eyes back up to his and reaches for his dressing gown tie with her other hand.

"If you're really sure, I suggest we really give ourselves something to be discreet about. Sleeping is hardly very exciting." When his cheeks flush an instant red, she wonders if she had ever truly seen him blush before.

"Cora – " She knows his next question is going to be asking whether she is sure.

"I'm sure Robert." He smiles, dropping his forehead down to hers.

"Of course you are, you're so fearless and sure about everything." He chuckles a soft, almost nervous laugh.

"Only about you." She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it isn't what happens, that's for sure. His hands drop hers and grab her waist, half lifting her from the floor as he pushes her backwards. She grabs at his shoulders to stop herself from tripping on her nightgown. His lips are already on hers, insistently pushing them apart and his tongue diving against her own. The kiss is different, she had never felt so out of control when he had kissed her before. Normally she knew where he was going and what was going to happen next, she doesn't now.

The backs of her knees come into contact with the bed, but he doesn't let her fall backwards, he holds her waist more firmly with one hand and starts to tug at her nightgown with the other. She takes her hands from his shoulders and reaches to help him, pulling the nightgown over her head. When she turns back to him, he has removed his dressing gown and is starting to remove his pyjamas. He reaches for her as soon as he is done, not giving her a chance to properly look at him.

His kisses are hungry, that she thinks is the difference. He wasn't being gentlemanly anymore. His body presses into hers and she can clearly feel his arousal pressed between them. Despite his undergarments still being in the way she can feel the shape of it where it rests against her stomach. Equally as tantalising is the way his chest is pressed to her own. Her nibbles brush over his chest as they kiss each other. She wraps her arms around his neck, and winds her fingers into his hair. He adjusts his hold on her and one of his hands now runs up her side and to the underside of her breast. She gasps inadvertently, waiting with baited breath for him to push his thumb or finger over her nipple and tighten it to the peak she liked so much. He does, but not nearly hard enough to satisfy her.

She pushes a hand into his hair to hold herself up as her legs begin to buckle beneath her. His hand slides down from her hip to her bottom. She gasps in shock, but it gets lost somewhere in his mouth, his lips seemingly unwilling to detach themselves from hers for a second.

She'd got used to the stirrings of desire within her. Today she felt as though she was already at the point where she needed him and wanted him.

She trails one of her hands down his back. Tracing her finger in the groove of his spine. His skin is smooth and silky. It's also warm, on the edge of breaking out with perspiration. She reaches the waistband of his underwear and smooths her thumb around the top of them to the front. Her fingers reach the bulge of the front of his underwear and she thumbs it gently. She pulls the waistband of his underwear away, spurred on by the desires strengthening in her abdomen.

Her fingers find the velvety skin and it's now him that gasps a hot sticky breath into her mouth. His hand grips at her bottom so she pushes her hand down him a little further, smoothing her fingers along his length.

Things escalate quickly then. She falls backwards onto the bed when one of his hands lets go of her waist to help her tug his undergarments off. Before she has completely re-orientated herself, he is straddling her waist and kissing her.

His hands seem to find their way to every place he had learnt that stirs her need for him. Now seemed like the moment to let it all out.

The coil in her abdomen that was her physical need for him paled in comparison to the number of hours she had spent in love with him. She'd learnt about her desires only since being married, but she had loved him before that. She loved him so much more now, and she had never really shown him that. They had begun to explore each other more in a physical sense recently, but she had not shared her love. She had let the springs of her desire guide her and that had allowed her to find the peak she had so desperately sought for so many months, but she had not yet allowed her love to play a true part in the act of sex. She had uttered the words, but she had not let it guide her.

She kisses him hard, pushing one hand down his chest and down to his hips. She lets a finger dawdle on his bottom for a moment, before she sweeps her hand back around to find his hardened arousal. The moment she takes him in her hand, he sighs without hesitation.

"Cora." It's the first time he has ever uttered her name in this setting, with their bodies tangled together. She smiles, it sounded nice, hearing him say it when his words are thick with desire. His hand smooths over her stomach and down to her waist, tugging at her underwear. She completes the practiced manoeuvre of getting them off – lifting her hips and wiggling them down.

He pushes his hand under her bottom, massaging the skin there repetitively before trailing around her thigh to the wet centre of her womanhood that is now exposed. She parts her legs to give him better access, but his hand comes down to catch her knee, pushing it upwards towards her chest. She copies the movement with her other leg and pushes her heels into his bottom, coaxing him closer to her. He acquiesces.

Their bodies start to move in tandem then. The ministrations of their hands are replaced by their hips being sandwiched together. He doesn't enter her, but he positions himself so that his arousal is sweeping over her own. What she had intended to be about love, begins to be driven by the fire in her abdomen. Her body moves without her conscious thought. She wants nothing more than to come undone, but she wanted to do it properly now. She wanted him properly.

"Robert, please – " She had never asked before. She had never spoken before. Her voice scares her a little. It sounded so far gone, shrouded in the mist of her conscious whilst the rest of her is buried deep in the subconscious parts of her mind that are only concerned with Robert and the searing fire of love and lust in her stomach. His lips stop caressing her own, and lower themselves instead to her breasts as he adjusts his position. She closes her eyes, lost in the stirrings of her need.

His fingers join his arousal at her centre. He pushes his fingers inside her and her eyes flash open as she hums in contentment. She finds him watching her. He smiles softly before she closes her eyes and he returns to kissing her nipples into peaks.

He returns to kissing her lips after a few moments, his chest now resting on hers and his elbow somehow stopping him from crushing her.

She had never felt so hot before when they had been together.

Her whole body is bathed in heat. As their bodies move together the sweat between them in thick and sticky. She becomes unsure where her body ends and his begins.

Her tightened coil begins to reach the place she knows is its peak. She can feel it testing its boundaries, ready to uncoil itself. She pushes her hips more decidedly with his rhythm. She can feel the tip of his arousal pressing at her entrance, teasing her.

"Robert, I'm –"

"It's alright, let go my dear." If she had been close with a chance of holding on to herself, she loses it at the endearment. Her body gives in to her desires and she shatters over him, her breaths comes in gasps, one hand grabbing at the back of his head, the other on his waist. Her body stops moving, but his does not. She continues to sigh and murmur incoherent noises into his ear as he kisses her neck. Her body is still flexing and stretching, the fulfilment spreading within her.

Without any warning, he slips inside her.

She bites her lip, the need to exhale in some version of a moan overwhelming her. She feels her body ripple at the feel of him inside her. It was the first time in almost three months. No doubt that was part of it. But it was also the first time he had ever been inside her since she had learnt what it was to come undone at his touch. She understood her own body better now, and by extension, this felt so much better.

The fullness of him was no longer a little tight and uncomfortable until he found his rhythm. It thrills her. She can feel him in all the places his fingers were unable to reach. When he does start to move, slowly and steadily, their chests still pressed together she is unable to contain her moan of pleasure. He had never remained at such a slow pace before, he was usually eager to race to the place he wanted to go. But the slow rhythm makes the coil in her abdomen tighten again, its early release felt like a lifetime ago, rather than minutes ago, and she knows that she needs him again. She needs to go to the edge of her oblivion again.

He continues at the slow pace, his fingers now sliding between them to press at the juncture above where his body is moving inside of her. She can feel her body already beginning to ripple against him. She knows he can feel it too because he is murmuring incoherent combinations of moans and gasps into her ear. She runs her hand around his back to grip at the soft skin of his bottom, it coaxes him a little further inside her. He moans softly and she repeats the movement with her hand.

It might be a minute after that, it might be ten – time seemed to be lost to her now – but when he sucks at the racing pulse beneath her neck her body takes her to her oblivion once more.

He slumps against her as he finishes himself. It was the same movement he had done countless times in the months before their trip to America. But it is different this time. He kisses her cheek at the edge of her jawbone.

"Oh Cora, you're so beautiful." He murmurs the words against her lips, his gaze unwavering from her own. She knows she smiles, she can see it reflected in the inky blackness of his eyes. He leans forward and kisses her.

They untangle themselves, put their nightwear back on and climb into bed in silence a few minutes later. The room felt as though it was vibrating with energy despite the silence. She didn't know what to make of it, but something felt like it had shifted. The silence isn't the awkward post-coital feeling she had grown used to, which lasted for the seconds it used to take him to return to his own room. This silence seems natural, but also somehow, heavily emotional.

He lets her come to lie against him as they settle against the pillows, but he doesn't reach for the book to read to her. Instead he kisses the back of her head.

"I thought I had been doing so well at being married. I was doing terribly Cora. I'm so sorry."

"Considering it was new to you, I don't think you've done that badly."

"Your lack of denial gives you away." She doesn't correct him, he wasn't wrong after all.

"I was coping Robert. Please don't think I was unhappy. I wasn't. I just wasn't as content in this marriage as I am now." The truth was she had not realised how distressing it had been to be preached at by his mother and then have him seemingly so disinterested in her. Their trip to America had changed things and he seemed to have his priorities in a different order. The result had made her realise how lonely she had actually been feeling before.

Robert knew that the wind was howling outside and the rain was probably falling by now – it had been trying to all day – but he was perfectly warm and comfortable. Dickie's wedding breakfast was in full swing. He still wasn't entirely convinced about the new Lady Merton, there was something frightfully confident about her that Robert wasn't quite sure went with Dickie, but the thing was done now. Besides, he was all too aware of the complicated reasons that led to matrimony. He supposed that they would get used to Lady Merton in their circle in Yorkshire, and with time to get to know her better things would be easier. It was always going to be awkward to be introduced to her new husband's closest friend only on the day of her wedding, but that was the way of things given Robert's recent trip to America, and that could well have made her a little spiky. He knew how much planning went into weddings, and it can't have been nice for her to have been unable to meet Dickie's best man.

"Do you think we can leave yet?" His mother speaks under her breath from beside him. She had been complaining about the location of the wedding and the inconvenience of London in the winter on repeat since he and Cora had returned from America. This had been made worse by the wedding itself, which according to his mother was not 'at all as she had expected'. There had been something 'wrong' with every element of the day according to his mother.

"I think Cora and I are obligated to stay a while longer, but I am sure Dickie will understand if you and Papa want to leave."

"Um, you mean his new bride will keep him so busy fetching her drinks and canapes that he won't notice." He follows his mother's gaze to where Lady Ada Merton was once again patting Dickie's jacket in that way he might pat Cleo, whilst muttering something to him. His mother says her goodbyes then, leaving Robert to his own thoughts and his champagne. Cora was currently having a discussion with Sir Antony and Lady Strallan on the other side of the room and he was quite happy to admire her from a distance for a little while before going to join her. It was nice, in such a busy day, to have just a single moment uninterrupted by repetitive comments about Lord and Lady Merton.

Almost three weeks had elapsed since their return from America, and their marriage had taken on new life. Cora seemed happier. Her father's death still lingered, and there were moments of painful recollection that swam across her face, but generally he saw mainly joy in her eyes. The decisions he had made in America had been the right ones. Accepting Cora's love and learning to embrace it was bringing him more joy than he would have supposed before. It wasn't just the newfound compatibility they had found in their marriage bed (Cora was far more adventurous than he had even imagined), it was the subtle things he enjoyed now too. He liked walking her down to dinner in the evenings, and kissing her cheek before he left her in the morning, reading to her before they fell asleep or watching her read her favourite book in the window seat of her bedroom in the afternoon. All of it brought a smile to his face.

"Robert, how lovely to see you. It's been too long." He turns to the soft voice of the Duchess of Dascombe.

"Duchess, likewise."

"Oh, do call me Isabella. We are practically family now." He smiles softly. They were not family at all, Isabella was simply Cora's friend and the woman who had hosted the Levinson family during Cora's season and presented her to the Queen. The American simplicity of the sentiment makes him smile though. He had always liked Isabella, and had got to know her fairly well at her season the year before Cora's. It was nice to know that his marriage had brought them closer together in a way that might never have happened otherwise. "I know you've had rather a tough few months. I can't quite tell how Cora is coping."

"Better. The first few weeks were rather rough."

"She was very close to her father."

"But I think, we have weathered the worst of the storm."

"Good. I thought I got that impression from her letters but I wasn't sure." It was such a motherly line of enquiry. He always marvelled at how grown up Cora was, but it was nothing to the Duchess. She had always struck Robert as a woman mature well beyond her young age when he had first met her, her marriage to Lord Dascombe had only made her appear even older.

"How is little Henry growing? I know Cora was enthralled when she saw him on her last visit." The Duchess' face lights up.

"Oh you know, like any doting mother, I think he is wonderful. Growing too fast, but wonderful." Robert smiles, but he knows it doesn't quite reach his eyes. He didn't like to think what might have come of Isabella without her little Henry. He worried what would become of her when her son was sent away to boarding school. "I'm actually expecting another baby, Cora probably forgot to tell you." He pinches the bridge of his nose and shakes his head from side to side.

"She didn't, but I forgot. I'm sorry, congratulations. I'm sure Lord Dascombe is delighted." A frown settles over her face then. She looks down at her feet for a second before levelling her gaze to his.

"Robert, I think we both know, he really couldn't care less. I would rather in the future we leave my husband out of our conversations. He is not worth the energy or the air. Besides, it makes things easier for me, to forget he even exists except when I need to." It is his turn to look at the floor now. He twists his champagne glass around at the stem between his fingers.

"Is it really that bad?"

"It could be worse. I might have had to actually share a house with him. As it is, I get to live my life almost exactly how I want to."

"But surely, you want – "

"Robert, please, don't. My joy is in parties, balls, friends and Henry. That has to be enough. Like I said, mercifully he leaves me largely alone so I can pursue my own life." Her resilience did her credit, he had always thought that. Many a woman would have crumbled in her position – Isabella was almost borne to it.

"Doesn't it get lonely?"

"You mean being the only adult in the house?" She laughs and twists her wedding ring around on her finger. It reminds him of Cora. He scans the room again in search of her. He finds her, now talking to Dickie and Ada. He turns his attention back to Isabella, but she is watching Cora too. He returns his attention to her slight frame, draped tonight in a dark plum dress. She had accepted that wearing black to a wedding was not suitable and had managed to get a dressmaker in London to make her a new gown in less than two weeks – the dress allowance from her mother serving her well.

"I hadn't thought of that. I meant more not having someone around all the time to discuss things with or read with, or share a joke with or even simply to ensure you have a dance partner at every ball." Isabella laughs again.

"Oh Robert, I doubt there are many marriages in the aristocracy in which a couple could be found reading to each other." He finds himself blushing as thoughts of what it feels like to have Cora laying in his arms as he reads to her flash before his eyes. Isabella's soft laugh halts all of a sudden and he sees her turn towards him in his peripheral vision. He stops admiring Cora as she tilts her head back to laugh at something Dickie has said and turns his attention to Isabella. She reaches out her hand to his wrist. "Promise me something Robert, if you've managed to marry a woman with whom you do all those things, please realise how lucky you are."

"I already know that. I've known that since before I married her."

"Does she know that you know that?" He frowns. "Tell her. She would like to hear it." Isabella's tone is insistent. He was sure Cora did know those things. He probably hadn't said them in such a simple phrase, but she must know, surely? "She loves you very much Robert, and it would do her good to hear your feelings too."

"Isabella, I think you're rather overestimating me – "

"Am I?" He resists the urge to sigh. It was bad enough having to live with his own confusing thoughts about Cora without having to explain them to everyone else. He was trying to work out whether the changes in their relationship could be the grounding of him falling in love with her, but it was all much too complicated when he didn't really have any idea what falling in love was meant to feel like.

"I admire Cora very much, but I do not love her, or at least, I don't love her as she loves me."

"Do you not?" He can't hold back the sigh this time, he fixes his gaze on Isabella.

"Isabella, I know you mean well. But please, you asked for me not to talk of Lord Dascombe, well, my feelings about Cora are my equivalent. I spend enough time trying to work them out, without having all my conversations turning into further analysis of them."

"And maybe, as an Englishman, you need some assistance understanding them!" Her tease is sincere, she laughs, and he allows himself to smile with her. She stops laughing somewhat abruptly, her face turns in a way that he knows is her musing over how best to phrase the next words she wants to say. "You're a good man Robert. You're intelligent and kind. But I also know you're rather a traditionalist. Please don't let tradition stop you reaching for something that is far greater and far more important. When it comes to love it matters very little what other people think, or how one ought to behave. Remember that." She doesn't wait for him to answer, practically before her lips have closed over the last word she steps away from him, leaving him to his own circling thoughts. Even without Isabella's nose dive into his marriage and his feelings, his thoughts were never far from Cora these days.

Things had changed when they were in America. The events that had unfolded there and the grief that had followed had made him understand her better, and they had allowed him to reflect on what life was really about. He had embraced her love, he had tried his best to accept it and even seek it. This he knew had done wonders for their marriage. He was less pleased with his inability to keep his promise of not returning to their marital relations until she was way passed her grief. But, he didn't feel this had adversely affected Cora's recovery. He had promised to support her in whatever way she wanted through her grief, and on some level, he could tell that the physical nature of that part of their relationship was helping her. The fact she now found infinitely more pleasure in it than she had before, she expressed to him freely, and he didn't doubt helped her to use it as a mechanism for remaining in the world of the living.

It was a dangerous line though. He still felt like he was walking a tightrope. In giving into her wishes he had ended up giving into his desires and Marmaduke's advice. The results at the moment were tremendous, but he was worried about what that might mean for the future. If he never did fall in love with her, what was their marriage going to be? It was going to become this strange friendship that was trying, with its physical nature, to reach for an intimacy of the heart that it might never attain. Would that scar them and eventually make the whole thing crumble around them?

"You seem rather transfixed Robert." It is Dickie's voice that lures him out of his reverie. He shakes his head from side to side and takes a sip of his champagne in an attempt to bring him back to the present.

"Sorry." He finally meets Dickie's gaze properly. "Congratulations Dickie, I'm not sure I've said that properly yet. But truly, I hope your marriage works out well for you."

"Strange aren't they, the formalities of weddings? You have to congratulate me and wish me well and yet I haven't really done anything. We wish each other good luck and good fortune, but marriage has very little to with either. For a marriage to truly work a couple have to have a certain number of things in common, and then they must work to make the rest work."

"I'm sure these realisations will stand you in good stead for making a success of it. I can't say I was that wise about marriage on my wedding day!" Robert chuckles to himself, but Dickie does not join him. His friend is strangely stoic and silent beside him.

"You didn't need to be." Robert finds himself frowning. "You already had the most important thing. The promise of Lady Downton's love." Robert closes his eyes and sighs.

"What is everyone's fixation on my marriage today?! This is your wedding day, not mine, we should be talking of Lady Merton, not Lady Downton."

"Everyone's fixation Robert, is on the fact that without any effort on your part you've created the perfect marriage."

"Then looks are deceiving!" He could feel his anger growing. Why could people not just leave him alone? "It has not been without effort, and it is not perfect!" He puts his glass down on the table rather more heavily than he ought to have done. He freezes for a second, looking around to see how many people were looking in their direction. Thankfully he doesn't find any more than two sets of eyes on them. He had forgotten that his distress was not the main focus for most people – thank goodness.

"Maybe perfect was the wrong world. Maybe strong would be better. You have built a strong marriage. I fear mine is destined to crumble before it has begun." Robert swallows, sensing that Dickie had come, in his roundabout way, to the crux of the matter.

"I doubt that Dickie. Any woman would be lucky to be married to you. I am sure Ada will realise that. Besides, you said yourself marriage needs work and I can attest to that well enough. You can't possibly fail before you have begun."

"Oh I think you can. You can't build a house without foundations. By extension, you can't build a marriage without at least some things in common." The silence stretches before them, Robert unable to think of anything to say to reassure his friend. Words were empty and hopeless, if he was already doubting his decision. There was nothing to be done about it now. Clearly this can't have been a new realisation for Dickie, he must have been feeling this way for a while. Robert wondered if he might have heard about it before now if he had not had to travel to America, and he might have been able to help his friend, but that line of thought wasn't going to get them anywhere now. Besides, Dickie had plenty of reasons for marriage and Robert knew well enough that money came into it. He knew well enough that if money was a factor, one's choices were limited.

The sound of her laugh captures his attention then. He had become attuned to the pitch of it. He turns his head in the direction it had come from. Cora is stood laughing with Rosamund and Marmaduke. She is leaning against Rosamund's arm as she laughs, Marmaduke has the look of a man pleased with himself for managing to make two ladies laugh so heartily. Robert finds himself smiling broadly at the sight. My goodness he was a lucky man.

"Go Robert. Go and enjoy her smiles and her laughs. Go and live your life, it's waiting for you." He had forgotten Dickie was still stood beside him. He didn't need the encouragement, he was already walking towards her. His Cora, who was changing his life for the better with every passing moment