It began at Christmas. At least, that's when Rosamund started to notice the change.
She and Marmaduke had come for most of December to spend the holiday season at Downton. Now that she was married and had established her home in London, Rosamund did not come up to her birthplace in Yorkshire all too often. There was often an event of some kind in the spring or late summer, after the London season, and otherwise they only stayed during Christmastime. Marmaduke came up far more often due to his work with Mama, but Rosamund rarely accompanied him. She wasn't very interested in the business, after all.
And, of course, Rosamund was no great supporter of the American that her brother had married, so she did not seek out opportunities to come to Downton and see the family. She'd disliked Cora almost instantly when they had met. Marmaduke had gotten cross at her once and said she was jealous of her sister-in-law. That was laughable. What did Rosamund have to be jealous of? Cora was pretty and charming and well-liked, but Rosamund had never been bothered by women like that in the past. Cora was a trained assassin and had more freedom than most women, freedom and independence in the work that she did and the power she possessed as a result. But Rosamund wasn't interested in anything like that. She didn't want to be an assassin. Violence was a rather vulgar thing, and Rosamund was not interested in it in the least. No, Rosamund's dislike of Cora had nothing to do with jealousy. Cora's privileges were not Rosamund's concern. Not at all. Certainly not.
Because Rosamund did not much like her sister-in-law, she was constantly bemused by the fact that her dear brother always seemed so off-balance around his wife. Cora practically worshipped him, and Robert was uncomfortable with the attention and affection. And that, more than anything else, maintained Rosamund's superior attitude toward Cora. Cora might be Countess of Grantham, might be off contributing to the family business, going out on her own to kill those who threatened the Granthams, might be the subject of admiration of everyone who met her, but Rosamund had one very important thing that Cora did not have and likely would never have: Rosamund had a husband who loved her.
At least, that's what Rosamund had hung on to for the last ten or so months. Only now, at Christmastime, something was different. Robert was different. The awkward discomfort he'd shown when stuck with Cora wasn't there anymore. There wasn't any meek, stammering awkwardness. Instead, Robert was comfortable and confident and happy. None of which were adjectives Rosamund would have ever used to describe her brother.
On Boxing Day, Rosamund cornered him before they went into the library for tea. "What's happened to you?" she demanded bluntly.
"Whatever do you mean?" he asked warily. He never did trust her, not with the way she'd delighted in teasing him all his life.
"I mean look at you. You've been Earl of Grantham for years, and you've never been particularly commanding or confident in things. Suddenly you're so relaxed and charming and happy. So I want to know what's happened," she explained.
A little smile appeared on Robert's face, which Rosamund instantly found quite irritating. "I'm not quite sure. I suppose I've just gotten used to things. And things are quite good," he said. As he spoke, his gaze drifted over Rosamund's shoulder, and his whole expression went rather soft and moony.
Rosamund turned to see what he was looking at. It was Cora. She whipped around back to Robert. "My god, you've fallen in love with her!"
Robert's jaw dropped. "I…oh." He closed his mouth and furrowed his brow. Obviously such a thing had never occurred to him.
With a huff, Rosamund turned away from him. "You can contemplate that later. Mama will be cross if we're late to tea. Come on."
It took a few days for Robert to really consider what Rosamund had said. She'd noticed that he was different, that he was happy and at ease and confident in a manner he'd never been before, and that was quite true. In all honesty, Robert felt different than ever before in his life.
And it was because of Cora.
Being married wasn't at all like he'd expected. But his wife wasn't at all who he'd ever expected to marry. She was gentle and charming and bright and lovely and oh she had a smile that gave him a feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn't quite explain. And the nights he spent tangled up in the sheets of her bed were beyond his wildest dreams. She was utterly remarkable in every way, and in the months they'd been married, he had grown to know more and more how special she truly was. And so, too, he had fallen in love with her.
Robert wasn't quite sure what to do about it, actually. When it came right down to it, Rosamund had been correct. Robert had fallen in love with his wife. He wanted to tell Cora, wanted to renew their relationship with this new knowledge, that he loved her and she loved him and they could be happy together for all their days. But how on earth did a man tell the woman he'd been married to for almost a year that he was now, finally, in love with her? It wasn't something one could just blurt out.
In the end, however, that is sort of what happened. Robert found Cora blissfully alone one day and not being lectured by Mama or dragged to some charity or other. She was sitting in the library, bathed in the bright white winter light streaming through the window from the melting snow outside. She was working intently on her needlepoint and was looking quite fetching in a pale blue dress. Robert stood quietly in the doorway for a few minutes just watching her.
"Cora?" he called out softly.
She raised her head from her needlepoint to look at him, and she smiled immediately. Robert felt his heart flip in his chest. "Hello, darling," she greeted happily.
"May I join you?" he asked, entering the room.
"Please do. I'm always happy to have a little time with you in the midst of all the things that seem to occupy us each day," she answered.
"I agree. We were so inundated with events and guests and such over the holidays, and now everything is quiet and nice," he noted.
Robert sat down on the settee beside his wife, and she put her needlepoint to the side. "Tell me about your day," Cora said, turning her attention to him as she shifted her entire posture to face him.
A smirk made its way to Robert's face. "I can think of nicer things than talking about my uninteresting day."
Cora's eyes sparkled as she obviously caught his meaning. She was clever, his wife. "Oh please don't bore me then," she teased.
He laughed and wrapped his arms around her. Cora's lips met his in a passionate, all-consuming kiss. Her kisses were quite heady, and Robert counted himself lucky that he had a wife who was so enthusiastic about physical affections.
Robert pulled away to catch his breath and moved his kisses to her jaw and down her neck. She moaned breathily, sending a shockwave straight through him.
"Oh my Cora," he said, worshipping the pale, delicious skin beneath his lips.
"Robert," she gasped in answer. Her nimble fingers tangled in his hair, keeping him anchored to her.
"Cora, I love you, my darling." The words slipped from him in such easy adoration that he hardly realized what he was saying.
It took a moment to realize that Cora had gone rigid beneath him.
"What did you just say?" Cora demanded. Her heart was racing, her blood aflame from the way he'd been kissing her and touching her, but her mind was now spinning. He had said he loved her. Hadn't he?!
Robert lifted his head and smiled. "I love you," he repeated. His voice was clear, and he smiled with such earnest affection that Cora had no choice but to believe him.
Cora could not hide the beaming smile that spread over her whole face. "Oh Robert!" she exclaimed. She leaned forward and began kissing him again. Robert smiled and laughed and kissed her back.
Soon their giggles and grins were replaced by more important things as the passion between them grew once more. Cora felt herself lowered onto her back on the settee. Her needlepoint was quite close to her hair, but it didn't matter.
Robert's hands wandered over her clothes, one sliding up over her corseted waist to massage her breast. The other maneuvered the voluminous skirts and petticoats to find her legs. Cora was more than happy to accept his attentions and skilled, erotic touches. Oh she loved him so much! And he loved her! Her dreams had come true. It was all she'd ever wanted, for Robert to love her as she loved him, for them to share this beautiful life together at Downton Abbey and be happy for the rest of their days.
She felt Robert's hand on her knee, inching up over her stocking. And then she realized what he would soon find if his hand went up any further. Cora gasped and recoiled, scrambling away from him.
They were both breathing heavily, and Robert sat up, looking bewildered. "What's wrong?" he asked with concern.
Cora could hardly tell him the truth. She could couldn't tell him that he had nearly groped her thigh and instead of just finding her hot, wanting flesh, he would have found a small but very sharp and deadly knife in a scabbard strapped to her.
And thank goodness this hadn't happened when they were away from the house, because Cora always had more than one knife on her when she left home. Her training wouldn't allow her to have nothing on her even while spending a day in the library with her needlepoint. She would never be caught unarmed, even in the safety of their home. But Robert certainly couldn't know that.
Quickly, Cora came up with a plausible lie. "Someone might come in. We shouldn't be doing this here. What if Mama sees us?"
Robert agreed without question. He did tease her, saying that Mama wanted an heir to the Grantham line, and they obviously had to make one somehow. Cora chided him that there was a time and place for such things and the middle of the day in the library wasn't either. But they laughed and shared some gentler kisses. Robert decided to sit with her and read a book while she did her needlepoint. Crisis averted. For now, at least.
"I wanted to wait until we were alone to discuss something very important, and this is as good a place as any," Cora said as the carriage started down the drive away from Downton Abbey.
"Discuss what?" Violet asked warily. Cora had been acting oddly lately. As had Robert, as a matter of fact. Hopefully Cora would reveal the cause of it now. Hopefully it wasn't anything too inconvenient.
"Robert told me he loves me," Cora explained. "Three days ago, in fact. And he loves me, and I love him, and I can't lie to him anymore."
Violet felt her heart sink in her chest. This was exactly what she'd feared would happen. "You can't," she said. The Dowager Countess did not want to have this conversation. She did not want to explain, yet again, that the Earl of Grantham could not know about the criminal activities of the family. He needed to be kept away from it all. The entire operation depended on it.
"He deserves to know, Mama," Cora pressed.
"He deserves to be protected from it," Violet countered.
Cora sighed sadly. "It was one thing when our marriage acted as a formality more than anything else, but things have changed. Surely you've seen how Robert has changed in the last month or so. He told me that he realized he had fallen in love with me when Rosamund spoke to him at Christmas. She said he was confident in a way she'd never seen him. And she's right, isn't she? He's going to start noticing things, either about me and the so-called charity work I do or else he'll see something in the estate's accounts. He's going to ask questions. To me, to you, to Marmaduke. It's only a matter of time before he finds out."
"So what would you have me do, then?"
"Let me tell him. Please. I want to be the one to explain my part in all of this, how I came to meet him and how I contribute to the family. And I know you'll have to fill in more of it, because you're in charge of it, after all. But please, let me be the one to start it. I couldn't bear it if he found out from anywhere else."
Violet looked at the young woman sitting across from her in the carriage. Cora was wearing black today, which she always did when they went out on official business. And Violet also knew that this particular black dress had about four hidden parts of it where Cora concealed various knives.
This was the Countess of Grantham. Her head high and her body strong and graceful. Cora Levinson had come to England as an assassin for hire, powerful and secure in her own right, but since she had married Robert and been brought into the family, she had learned her place and become much more submissive and subservient. Lately, though, she had started to gain confidence in that position. The confidence of a countess.
"Fine," Violet finally said. "I can't deny that it is inevitable that he will find out, and it will be better to tell him ourselves before he stumbles upon something he shouldn't."
"And I can be the one to tell him? Alone?"
"Yes," she conceded. "But he will have more questions, and I should be around to answer them."
Cora nodded. "I'll be sure it's during the day sometime when all three of us are home." A gentle expression crossed her face. "Thank you, Mama."
Violet just hummed and looked out the window. She'd had quite enough of this conversation.