The day after they returned to Downton- and after an afternoon meeting to discuss the latest arrangements of the estate with Mary and Tom- Robert was finally free. They were doing their best for the estate, and he had to admit that they were doing a very good job of it. Downton was safe, and his family was completely able to manage it without him. He couldn't be happier.
He searched for his wife in every possible room, but couldn't find her. Then he remembered she had an important business meeting at the hospital. He knew she would be back in time for dinner. Her new job made him very proud of her. He could see how interested she was. His Cora was the type of woman you meet once in a lifetime: she was intelligent, sweet and caring. She wanted the best, not only for their own family, but for the village as well. He knew she had already sensed a kind of jealousy from his side because she didn't have many free hours to spend with him anymore, and so she always tried to involve him in her decisions, and asked often for his advice. But he knew that now the situation was reversed. In the early months of their marriage, it was Robert who was so very busy with the estate and didn't have enough time for her. Even when he could have spent some quality time with his wife, it felt so strange to be around her that he usually preferred to avoid her company. How foolish he had been. If he had known from the beginning the depth of his feelings for her… But no; he kept ignoring her and acting like a child in front of her, because he didn't know what love felt like. He didn't know that when he was feeling his heart burning in his chest, or butterflies in his stomach, or the feeling of lightheadedness he felt when she was near him that it was love. For him it just felt "strange", and he was scared. Scared to feel so dependent upon a person he barely knew. The more time he spent with Cora, the more his heart, soul and body were aching for her. And this feeling had scared him to death. He was a Crawley, he was an English lord. He couldn't let his feelings control him, and so he inadvertently made her suffer. There was a point in which he thought she would have died of heartbreak, and for this reason he would never forgive himself. Never.
Now, it was him who was looking for her in every room of the Abbey, and it was him that had to walk alone because she had something else to do.
"Well deserved," he thought. "Now you know what it feels like." But there was no anger in him. On the contrary, he found himself smiling and his smile grew wider and wider when looking at Cora's favourite rose bush. He was suddenly reminded of the previous night when he had seen the calendar on the bedside table.
Now he knew what he had to do, as Rachel had reminded him, he had to move on and not waste any more time. Cora was his life, and he was determined to show her; to remind her that he had always loved her, and for this purpose he had already a plan in his mind: a short trip to the city of love on a very particular "anniversary".
She could take a break from all this hospital business, he could pamper her in every possible way; give her more happy memories and, if he was lucky enough, he could even surprise her.
Full of joy as he was, he quickened his pace as he headed back to the house. He had some important calls to make. He wanted to plan everything in detail. He would have put all of his heart and mind into the organisation of his surprise.
Finally, he had a purpose: everything had to be perfect, and he couldn't wait to see her sapphire eyes and her beautiful smile light her face up when she discovered the reason for this trip.
