Robert rubbed his hands together, sweaty despite the snowflakes that had begun to fall down on him. Hamish sat beside him, looking into the distance, as though listening to a voice only he could hear. Adrenaline trembled through Robert, urging him to jump out of his seat, to run as fast as he could until he'd found some way to get back to where he had been less than twenty-four hours ago.
Hamish slapped Robert's knee, causing him to startle. "Come, they are waiting for us."
"Who?" Robert demanded as he bounced up, jogging to catch up to Hamish who was getting ahead of him.
Without answering, Hamish took a set of keys from out of his pocket and walked to a black cab parked down the street from Grantham House. He unlocked the passenger door and motioned for Robert to get in. Wordlessly, Robert followed his command and Hamish walked briskly to the other side of the car and slid in, starting the ignition. From the side of his seat, he produced a cabbie's hat and plopped it on his head, turning to Robert with an innocent smile.
"We're going to drive a cab? My world has dissolved around me and we are going to drive a cab?!" Robert stuttered, but Hamish didn't answer.
Sighing heavily, Robert slumped back in his seat, watching as they sped through the London streets. Hamish slowed down outside the steps of a church. Parking, Hamish turned off the car and exited, leaving Robert in his seat dumbly, until he also scrambled out of the car just in time for the church doors to open and the congregation to exit. Hamish leaned against the car, arms folded, watching. Robert looked at him curiously, before also turning. His breath stuck in his throat and his legs trembled as he saw her framed in the doorway, walking carefully down the stone steps. Robert felt himself leaving Hamish's side, transfixed, unsure what to do but drawn to her like a magnet.
Cora reached the bottom of the steps, a man he had never seen before standing near her shoulder. A younger couple with a child stood facing her, looking grim and distant. Cora's smile faltered before she pulled it wide again and stooped to the child. They were close enough for Robert to hear the younger man blow out an exasperated sigh.
"You had the best voice in the choir, Victoria. Grandmama is so proud of you." Cora bent to the level of the child. She reached a delicate hand out towards the child's head, as though she intended to lovingly stroke the braid that was woven on top. The hard grip on her shoulder by the man standing behind her halted her movement and her hand stuttered in mid air, before patting the child quickly on her arm and standing once again.
Robert's nails dug into his palms as he watched the tears that welled in her eyes hang there without release. He saw the way she drew herself up, stiffly straightening and with a slight shake of her head banning the emotions that were playing out on her familiar face.
"We must be going." The younger gentleman barked.
"William, couldn't you come over for just a little while?" Cora quietly begged the man who's lips drew into a bloodless line.
"Mother, get a hold of yourself!" And with that, the younger man took the woman by his side by the crook of her elbow and led her in the opposite direction. The young girl's hand was taken by her mother. She looked a moment longer at Cora and gave her a small wave before turning as well.
Cora stayed in her spot, eyes intent on their retreating backs. The man beside her commanded, "Come," without looking at her and to Robert's surprise headed in their direction. Robert's jaw tensed and he took a step forward, all of his tension winding up into his arm, causing the fist made by his hand to throb with the need to land on the man's smug face.
"Right this way, your grace." Hamish said, opening the door. The man climbed in. Robert scrambled to open the other and Cora reluctantly made her way to his side.
"Your grace," Robert said softly, stuffing his hands in his pockets to stop them from stroking her sad face. This close she looked so different than his Cora. She looked deflated somehow, her eyes a pale version of the one's he had looked into for so many years. Her brow bearing the creases of a permanent furrow. She smiled tightly at him before bowing into the car.
"Where to your grace?" Hamish asked while starting the cab.
"Pratt's. On Park Place for myself. Hambly House for the duchess." The duke said, adjusting his jacket and looking out the window.
Robert watched through the rearview mirror as Cora's face twisted into shock. "David, you're going to the club on Christmas Eve?"
"Yes," the man spat out, keeping his eyes out the window. Hamish parked in front of the gentlemen's club. The duke opened his door and without another word closed it behind him, leaving Cora to blink rapidly at her hands, which gripped each other tightly in her lap.
The car started again, the silence heavy with her embarrassment. Her downcast eyes and the way she licked her lip and then swallowed hard before covering her mouth with her hand and turning to stare out her own window flipped Robert's stomach. The picture she cut, alone in the back seat, slumped and dejected, made Robert shake with a need to hold her.
"Actually sir," her timid voice, stripped of its usual confidence, was a heartbreaking interruption. "I wonder if you could drive me to Hambly Manor instead. It's just outside of London, in Reading."
"Know it well, your grace. Reading it is." Hamish replied, and the car returned to quiet.
Robert kept peering over his shoulder or glancing in the mirror, trying to steal a look at her, though each one caused his chest to constrict a little more. The snow fell at a steady pace as they drove, the greyness of the snowy day soon overtaken by the darkness of night fall. The bustle of London gave way to the gentleness of the country and Robert desperately tried to think of something that he could say now that he was a stranger to her. The shortness of the drive worked against Robert and sooner than he realized, they were driving through the front gates of the estate in Reading.
The darkened house remained unmoving as Hamish parked the car. Robert shot out of his seat and opened Cora's door and she emerged gracefully, wrapping her coat tighter around herself as the night's chill rushed around them, her eyes red rimmed and desolate. A growing sense of alarm tingled Robert's senses as she dug in her purse for money. There was no staff waiting for the lady of the house, only shuttered windows and a dark door.
"Your grace," Robert began, "are you sure you should be spending the night here. There doesn't seem to be any staff."
Cora looked up at him for a moment, curious by his forwardness, before shrugging. "I don't require much so I shall be fine."
She paid Hamish the fare and then walked toward the house. Robert started after her and caught her arm. Cora turned, her eyes wide at his touch. "But there's no one to light a fire. You'll freeze. What will you do for food? Let us take you back to London!" Robert begged.
Cora stepped back, tugging her arm out of his grasp. The fear in her eyes propelled him to let her go. "I appreciate your concern, but I'll be fine." And with that she hurried into the vacant house.
Robert, unable to let her go, moved to follow her, but Hamish held him back. "You can't Robert."
"Like hell I can't!" Robert cried. "Something is going to happen in there. She's going to do something, I know it."
"It isn't your place to intervene." Hamish said calmly.
"Cora!" Robert yelled into the opaque night. "Cora!"