"Another glass of wine, darling?" Robert asked heartly as he moved over to the drinks trolly to refill his own glass.
"Oh, I don't know if I should, I feel a little woozy and I don't want to waste my day tomorrow. Especially if we're going to go riding"
Robert lifted the bottle and gave it a delicate shake, casually assessing how much of the liquid remained.
"This bottle is only about half full, we could easily finish it between us"
Cora looked at him thoughtfully.
"It's up to you, darling" he said playfully and with an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders.
"Go on then. As you said, there is nothing wrong with the occasional indulgence; and this wine is most delicious"
"A wise choice" he smirked as he filled up his glass before bringing the half-empty bottle to the sofa and filling up Cora's too. There was still a fair amount left, so he placed the bottle on the table, ready for later.
"A toast?" Cora suggested.
"A wonderful idea!" he exclaimed, "what would you like to toast to?"
"You know, I didn't quite think that far ahead" she breathed – shaking her head at herself, "you decide, darling"
Robert chuckled along with her self-deprecation, but he strove to fulfil her request.
"A toast to us, I think. To the wonderful life we share, the delicious wine we drink, and to my equally delicious wife" he toasted, his voice a deep, rumbling baritone as he complimented Cora.
He watched as Cora's cheeks flushed with the delectable shade of red that he had always loved, and she titled her chin down to smile bashfully at him. Married for over thirty years and he could still turn her to putty just by complimenting her. They clinked their glasses together and sipped their wine.
"You shouldn't flirt with me so much; you make me blush" she giggled.
"I know, I can see" he said lowly as the ran the back of his index finger down one of her cheeks, "and that's exactly why I do it"
"You're an incorrigible child" she jested.
Robert laughed at her mock-insult and sipped his drink again.
"You know what we should do?" he began excitedly, and his outburst almost gave Cora a heart attack.
"What should we do?"
"We should dance!" he announced.
"Dance? What, right now?"
"Yes, right now!"
"But there's no music"
"Ohh, we don't need music, Cora. Come on -" he beckoned as he scrambled to his feet and held out his hand, "- dance with me"
Had she been more sober, he might have chastised him and told him to go to bed and sleep off the wine, but she was far from sober, and she had to admit that the excitable look in her husband's eyes was truly endearing, and it beckoned her to him in a way she couldn't explain. Besides, she adored dancing.
Cora took his hand with a wide smile and wobbled to her feet, and he instantly guided them in a sloppy-footed dance that was far too quick for their level of drunkenness; but in that unbridled and spontaneous moment, neither of them cared.
"Doesn't this make you feel marvellous?" he beamed as he spun them around the drawing room.
"It does!" laughed Cora, "though I do wish we had some music"
"Think up you own rhythm, darling"
"I tried, but it doesn't seem to match whichever one you're dancing to" she teased.
"I'm dancing to my own beat"
"I can tell!"
"I could always let you lead" he challenged.
"Very well" Cora replied with an upward tilt of her nose.
The switched their positions slightly, and Robert placed his free hand on her shoulder and prepared for her to lead their 'waltz'. It started off shaky, Cora had never led a dance before and doing so after several indulgent glasses of wine was not the time to learn, but she rose to the challenge and kept them swaying and twirling in an erratic freestyle around the drawing room.
"Well, are you eating your words yet?" she teased before tripping slightly on her husband's foot.
"I'll probably be eating the rug if you keep making us stumble like that" he jested.
"I am not responsible for the clumsy movements of your feet, Robert" she retorted, and she rolled the R in his name in a way that she only ever did privately and after a few too many glasses of alcohol.
They kept moving to their imagined rhythm, dancing their carefree mixture of the waltz and foxtrot until one could hardly call it a dance at all; still, they didn't care, they just wanted to ride out the bliss that they had found in their intoxication. They would've kept dancing, potentially until they could no longer stand, but unfortunately for them, Robert's foot caught the corner of the table and the pair of them went tumbling down into a heap on the sofa with a shriek. Their roars of drunken laughter filled the air as they regained their breath and checked for injuries. Cora rolled off of her husband, still giggling, and watched as he sat back and placed his palm to his forehead.
"Golly, the room is staring to spin a bit"
"That's probably from all the wine" Cora teased.
"I'm sure it's more to do with your erratic prancing"
"Erratic prancing that you started"
"Touché"
They sat in befuddled silence for a while and allowed their breathing to slow, and Robert had hoped that the gentle tilt and spin of the walls would cease…it didn't.
"It was nice to see Mary and Matthew so happy this evening. There was a lot of strain between them when they found out about the estate" Robert commented as he blinked slowly in an effort to steady the spin of the drawing room.
"It was. I'm glad they aren't at odds anymore"
"They could be a little more subtle, though" he tittered.
"Matthew could be a little more subtle, you mean" Cora laughed – her head heavy from all of the wine.
"It's nice to see them happy, I just hope they don't flaunt it in front of poor Edith too much"
"If they do, I'm sure they don't realise it. Don't you remember what it was like to be young and so in love?" Cora asked him dreamily, her eyes now half-lidded from her inebriation.
Robert gave her a sloppy smile of his own. He didn't always like to think of the early days of their marriage, as his reasons for pursuing her would often wrack him with so much guilt that he felt like he'd been unfair to her. And the first year of their marriage had been filled with formality more than bliss. No, he didn't like to think of those times. But after their first year, when he had realised that he'd fallen in love with her, oh that was when the bliss truly began. When they realised what it was like to love each other and to feel that love so strongly.
"I remember it very well" he purred – inching his way closer to her.
"All those dinners we spent desperately avoiding each other's eye so that your mother wouldn't chastise us"
"Or when she caught us kissing in the library"
Cora gasped at the memory and once again blushed ferociously.
"Anyone would have thought she'd caught us doing the dead itself" she laughed.
"Well, we've certainly done that in the library before" Robert hummed, his eyes beginning to darken with the first stages of arousal.
"And a few other places around the house" added Cora as her cheeks became flushed with a brilliant shade of red.
She caught her husband's eye and instantly knew the look that he was giving her; it was the look he always gave her when he wanted her. She had seen it countless times throughout their marriage, often in the privacy of their bedroom, but it was not uncommon for her to catch a glimpse of it across the dinner table or when they found themselves alone in the house with nothing to do. Suddenly the air between them grew thick like tar, and the growing want between them became suffocating.
He was on her in a moment, practically pouncing on her and crashing his lips into hers hungrily. Cora responded to the kiss instantly and moaned beside herself at the contact, a deep moan that came from her chest and rippled through her entire body, and her hands immediately laced into his greying locks. She felt him run his tongue along her bottom lip and she opened her mouth to grant him access – allowing their tongues to battle for dominance. Soon they were a blur, a whirlwind of lips, tongues and teeth clattering together as hands gripped at clothing and limbs, fighting for as much contact as they could possibly find. There was no tenderness in the kiss, instead there was only a ravenous need for each other, and it was a need that they had already fallen victim to.
She felt him move away from her lips, but before she could mourn the loss of contact, she felt a trail of fiery kisses being blazed across her jawline and up to the sweet spot behind her ear. She whimpered with delight as he took her earlobe into his teeth and nipped playfully.
"Robert" she breathed – her voice hoarse and already filled with desire.
Robert continued with his trail of kisses down her neck, leaving the occasional bite before soothing the areas with his tongue and he felt Cora grip the back of his head tighter with each lustful nip at her skin. He could smell her floral perfume, and he took a moment to let it fill his nostrils; it intoxicated him more than any wine ever could. Soon he was kissing and nipping at her throat and he found himself thinking that he may explode if he didn't have her now. He gave her one more sloid and dizzying kiss on the lips before finally pulling away and giving them both a chance to catch their breath.
Cora fought hard to try and find something to say – anything – but as she stared at her husband, her chest rising and falling at a forceful rate, she found that her mind had been completely wiped by the force of his kisses and the heady sense of arousal that had now consumed them both. Her thoughts, feelings and sense of the world around her contained only him…and she loved it.
"God, I want you" he growled.
Cora squeezed her legs together in an attempt to alleviate the ache that was growing in her core, but the contact only heightened the feeling and she let out a minute whimper, but it hadn't been quiet enough for her husband to miss, and when Robert caught the sound, he looked at her like fire.
"Cora…" he rumbled.
"Then take me to bed" she breathed.
"No" he smirked, "I have a much better idea"
And then he dropped to his knees on the floor.
"Robert what are you –" she started to question, but he silenced her with kiss on her stocking-clad calf.
Her head rolled back, and he continued to kiss up her leg, and she found herself cursing her stockings for being a barrier to his kisses. It wasn't long before Robert disappeared beneath her skirts and pushed her legs apart to grant him better access.
"Robert…" she breathed, "…what if someone should find us?"
"No one will find us" he assured, and she felt his words more than she heard them.
She wanted to protest again, to try and convince him to take her to their bedroom and their luscious bed, but when she felt him drawing the delicate white fabric of her underwear down her legs, she was bereft of all coherent thoughts. He hastily stuffed the offending garment into his pocket before kissing up her inner thigh. She rechead down to grip his head through her skirts, eagerly anticipating the pleasure he was about to give her. When his lips finally made contact with her core, she arched her back and hips away from the sofa and released a cry that echoed through the library before biting down hard on her lower lip. Robert smirked against her and the ferociousness of her reaction, and he felt his own need for her increase tenfold. He relished in the uniquely tangy taste as he continued to kiss and lap at her centre before he sank a single digit into her warmth and noted with a smouldering intensity how she thrashed from his ministrations. She whimpered and moaned filled the room after each of his movements; and when he added a second finger, he almost lost all sense of control at her helpless cry. He set an urgent pace with his fingers as his tongue descended on the small bundle of nerves that he knew would make her shudder.
He could feel as Cora's thighs tightened around his head, how her breathing was sporadic and how she found it more and more difficult to muffle her own cries of ecstasy. It aroused him to no end hearing her take such pleasure from his actions, and he was desperate for her to reach her peak and to cry out his name. He continued to pump his fingers in and out of her while he moved his tongue is fast swipes across her centre, and Cora was beginning to lose it. She could feel her pleasure climbing rapidly, higher and higher and closer towards the precipice of the great release she knew was awaiting her. It was so close, it was within her grasp, she arched her back in readiness–
It was the sudden closing of a door that ripped them both out of the moment, pulling them away from their elicit tryst and back into their drawing room. Cora began to desperately tap Robert's head,
"Robert, quick, someone's coming!" she hissed and in a great flurry of movement – especially considering how much he'd had to drink – Robert was back on the sofa, seated next to his wife as if nothing was amiss. They listened intensely once they had straightened themselves out; they could hear heavy footsteps out in the hall, and they moved melodically as if the perpetrator were inspecting each and every corner of the house. Then they realised who it was,
"It's only Carson doing his final check like he said he would" Robert said, and Cora fell back against the sofa with a great sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness, I haven't panicked like that since that time your mother almost caught us"
Robert grinned at the memory.
"It's a shame, I was rather enjoying myself"
Cora turned to face him, her expression once again showing her desire for him.
"So, was I" she purred, "take me to be, please?"
"How can I ever say no to such a request?" he grinned.