Upstairs, in their room, she sat at the vanity while Baxter unraveled the pile of hair stacked at her head. Cora watched it come down, a little at a time, and she silently wished her maid would move even more slowly. Baxter's slender, practiced fingers felt decidedly comforting in Cora's hair, and she looked down at her own hands lying in her lap. Her eyes studied them for a moment, the growing thinness of her skin, before catching the golden glint of her wedding band in the lamplight. The earlier comfort evaporated instantaneously and she looked up into the mirror, watching her dark locks tumble down again.
The dividing door opened with a small click and Cora saw Robert's reflection in the mirror. He hadn't yet looked her way, but rather rearranged the books he held in his hands, finally setting all but one on a table near a creamy colored settee.
"Will that be all, my lady?" Baxter's soft words startled Cora and she nodded suddenly, without checking her braid. She opened her mouth to thank her, but couldn't produce a sound.
Her maid stood still for a moment afterward, though, and furrowed her brow thoughtfully. "Good night, my lady," she finally said, whispering really, and Cora heard her tell Robert the same on her way through the door. Another metallic click, and they were alone.
Maid gone and Robert so near, Cora didn't move from her spot. Not for a while. She heard the tired and familiar movements of her husband behind her: disrobing, climbing into their bed, opening a densely creaking book, flipping through fluttering pages. The noises she'd heard for years, decades, and her throat constricted as she thought of days past.
"I need to say something."
The noises stopped as she spoke, the silence louder than she anticipated. She pulled in deep breaths but couldn't yet turn to him.
Robert rustled in the sheets. "Yes?"
When she didn't respond, the rustling ceased. Expectancy filled their room.
She pulled in her trembling hands toward her sides and willed herself to turn. There he was, greying hair, softening chin, but the same broad shoulders. The same blue eyes that she had gazed into a thousand times over.
I kissed Simon Bricker. I kissed Simon Bricker. I kissed Simon Bricker.
The thought raced through her mind and pulsated on her tongue, but she couldn't say it aloud.
It had been a mistake. She'd even tried to say so to him afterward, after he had been so flattering and after he had leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. For only a fleeting moment, as he had leaned in, there was the smallest sensation of a thrill. But then it had happened, his lips on hers, and it wasn't his face that had sprung to her mind. It was Robert's. It wasn't the present she had felt, but the past, the first kiss that she and Robert shared. In the garden. She had been the one to lean in then. Next came the sickening drop of her heart into her stomach, and she tasted the kiss afterward. She was disgusted. It had been wrong.
"I won't apologize for what I said." Cora closed her mouth that she hadn't realized was opened. She listened to him. "I won't retract it. That woman can do any scandalous thing she chooses, but I'd rather if my family were not associated with it."
She watched him bring the sheet further upon his lap, resting his book atop it.
"And before you say anything about it, Mary can have her own opinions, however disappointing, and I will keep mine." He tilted the book up and looked into it, saying more to it than her, "Lady Anstruther indeed. She's no lady."
Her ears were ringing. Time passed, but she wasn't sure the length.
He closed the book and heaved a breath in the way that beckoned her beside him. Not in a desirous way, but a routinely way. A way that meant he couldn't go to bed without her near him, not because he wanted her there, but because that's what he was accustomed to. She rose, swallowing her guilt and nerves, and folded herself beneath the covers and by his side.
Wordlessly he rolled to his side to switch off his lamp and the room was covered in darkness. He nestled down. Cora stayed still.
Moments ticked by, but neither were asleep yet, Cora lying flat on her back, Robert beside her, his back to her.
Quiet, quiet, and then, she spoke. She said it softly, but it was ladened with meaning. It was heavy as it fell from her lips. "Perhaps she longs to feel wanted."
More silence. Deafening silence until at last, "She would do better with a charity." He punched the pillow into shape beneath his head and tossed the next words above him and toward her, "They're always in want of volunteers."
For some reason, that hurt. She bit her lip.
In the darkness, it grew. The hole she felt. The yearning.
Cora could hear his rhythmic breathing and she pulled in a breath of her own. She knew better than to ask. She knew she shouldn't even think it, much less go through with it. It was sinful. But then, sometimes one does things one knows are bad just to hurt oneself.
"Mr. Bricker's invited me to an exhibit. Tomorrow evening." She swallowed. "Do you want me to stay instead?"
She felt him reposition himself and sigh. "No. Go." He settled further into their covers. "I'll be at the club."
The test was over. There were no questions, no speculations, no clarifications needed. Come to think of it, he never asked what she had needed to say. And then, he never even asked why she had left the drawing room the way she had and suddenly, and furiously, Cora fought back the tears that she had trained to keep dry. He had forgotten to even say good night.
Tests. All tests. And he had failed.