1914

Sarah was the first to know about her Ladyship's pregnancy. Both she and Cora had noticed how she hadn't bled for six months now and neither had commented on it. Sarah knew from the melancholic look on her lady's face that she must have realized her last hope of producing an heir for the estate was slipping away from her. She had not been pregnant in twenty years, but now the moment was nearing when she would have to tell her husband that they had finally run out of time.

It all changed when Cora had morning sickness two days in a row.

"Milady... do you need a doctor?" Sarah asked and wondered at Cora's strange attitude.

The countess had a faraway look in her eyes, as though she was thinking hard about something. Sarah watched as her long, pale fingers came to rest on her flat stomach, almost clutching it, and she suddenly stared down at it as though she could scarcely believe it was there in the first place.

"I've felt the same before, O'Brien," she said, looking up at Sarah. Her eyes were sparkling in excitement. "I can hardly believe it, but I've felt the exact same before. Thrice. Please send for Dr Clarkson."

Lady Grantham's pregnancy made her as anxious as it made her happy.

"What if it's not a boy?" she told Sarah. "His Lordship will be so disappointed."

Sarah felt a stab of pity, not for Lord Grantham or even her mistress but for the potential 'disappointment' – a baby who wasn't even born yet but who must shoulder so much responsibility already. She hoped it would be a boy for its own sake.

It was also a time of anxiety for Sarah. The last of the girls was about ten when she had started working as Cora's lady's maid, which meant that she had never seen her through a pregnancy before, and she was especially careful not to do anything wrong, fussing over the countess like never before. And Lady Grantham seemed to enjoy the attention thoroughly.

"You're so good to me, O'Brien," she told her once. But apparently, Sarah mustn't have been good enough for her, because the very next day she heard her toying with the idea of sacking her. She didn't want to believe it at first. Surely, Cora's question must have been purely rhetorical, a bit of banter to prepare his Lordship for the flat refusal that would have inevitably followed. And if Sarah hadn't interrupted them, she would have known for sure. Unfortunately she had. Stupid her. And the doubt was nagging at her.

The more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed that the countess had been about to stand up for her in front of her darling husband. The two of them were deeply in love with each other, madly, sickeningly so, and Sarah couldn't see Cora deny him a favour if he wheedled it out of her. She was suddenly reminded of the incident from two years ago, the one and only time she had quarrelled with her mistress. Sarah remembered the steely determination in Lady Grantham's eyes, how she had fought to salvage what was left of her battered pride, and how she had ended up surrendering completely in the face of Cora's cold fury. For all her defiance, Sarah had got scared when she had suddenly realized that her future at Downton hung by a thread. And if Lady Grantham had been ready to give her notice when she had merely spoken out of turn, no doubt she would be more than willing to get rid of her over something as serious as setting a fellow servant up for a theft.

A few days later, Thomas confirmed her worst fears and she was left reeling in the wake of the revelation – Lady Grantham was about to send her away, and worst of all, she didn't even respect her enough to discuss the matter face to face with her. Years of desperation reached a paroxysm, and she all but sleepwalked through the next week, seeing no point in searching for a new job, because in the end she only lived to serve Cora, and if Cora didn't want her anymore, then she had nothing to live for.

Things always come in three. For Sarah, the last glimmer of hope finally faded away when she heard her Ladyship talk about her replacement with the dowager countess. Hearing the words come out of her mouth made the betrayal feel so much more real.

She probably wouldn't have hurt more if Cora had thrust a cold metal blade into her heart. How ungrateful the countess really was. How heartless. In that moment, Sarah knew that the small voice in the back of her head that had been repeating her for years that she was nothing at all to Cora had actually been right all along. She thought about how hard she had worked to make herself seemingly indispensable to her mistress... Most of all, she remembered those treasured moments when merely seeing Cora happy and knowing that she was the cause had been nearly enough. Those moments had been priceless, like small nuggets of true happiness in her otherwise long and miserable days. In those moments, Sarah had even allowed herself to believe that there really was some good in her after all, that she could actually be selfless.

A fat lot of good all of that sentimental nonsense had done her in the end.

She didn't want to be that Sarah anymore, that foolish girl – woman – who was completely besotted with a bloody countess, who looked after that little bugger of a footman just because he reminded her of her third brother, who let some goody two-shoes of a housemaid get away with defying her time after time because she was cute of all things... She didn't want to love anymore; it hurt too much.

Fifteen years ago, when she had stumbled upon Cora Crawley in Downton Abbey's library, something had taken root within Sarah – something that was both beautiful and painful, like a wild rosebush that bloomed with every one of Cora's smiles and ruthlessly scraped her heart. Now that the flowers had withered, there remained only the thorns. This, her hatred, cost the baby its life. There was so much hope resting on that baby, and Sarah killed him.

"Oops! Sorry…"

Cora had just dropped the soap on the floor. It felt like for the past ten years, all Sarah had been doing was pick up a variety of objects that somehow found their way out of her delicate hands. That bloody woman was weak right to her fingertips.

Just how clumsy could you get? Sarah wondered, and wished she could have yelled at her for being so careless. Soap was slippery, what was it about that simple fact that Lady Grantham still failed to grasp?

Of course, carelessness didn't matter one bit, not when you had an appointed slave to clean up after you. Sarah wished she could have told her mistress to get her lazy arse out of the bath and pick up the bar of soap herself. But Cora never did anything for herself. Never. Not if there was someone else to do it for her. And that someone else happened to be Sarah. For the time being.

The thought had always been mildly frustrating, even at the best of times, but now that she had seen the light, it was simply unbearable. The countess didn't even regard her as a real person, a living, breathing human who was capable of feeling love and hurt... and hate. She had only ever seen her as an extension of herself. A hand or an arm that could be traded at any time for a more efficient, brand-new one. A useless limb that was about to be hacked off.

Sarah wished she could have run out and slammed the door. The question about her perfect Parisian replacement, asked with such cruel levity, rang in her ears as she walked calmly over to the other side of the bath and crouched down to pick up the soap, obeying the unspoken command of the liar who claimed to be her friend. Her Ladyship lounged in her bath like a queen, as warm and comfortable as could be, while the brambles in Sarah's chest were spreading and growing, hugging her heart in their prickly, poisonous embrace.

The bar of soap had split in two. Sarah glanced down at her own hand, wrapped around the first half, then looked away, suddenly knowing that she wasn't going to reach for the second one. Cora enjoyed hurting her; she was going to enjoy hurting Cora.

Sarah straightened up and handed her the soap.

"The other half is under the bath…" she lied.

She was painfully aware of how Cora hardly spared her a glance before she took it, uttering a distracted thank you. When their fingers brushed for the briefest of moments, Sarah wondered how Lady Grantham could not feel the fury drifting from her, conducting through her skin like electricity. The thorns were tearing into her heart so hard that they threatened to rip it apart.

Let her slip. Let her slip and fall. Let her adorn that lovely porcelain skin of hers with a bruise or two.

Why should Sarah care? Cora certainly didn't. She did not love her, and she didn't even like her. Cora Crawley couldn't care less about honesty or so-called friendship. All she had ever done was to order Sarah about and lull her with her honeyed, empty words until she could stab her in the back.

She nudged the soap with her foot, making it slide a few inches so that it reached the area where years of going through the same daily ritual told her Cora's feet would land upon stepping out.

"I'll just go and sort out your clothes, Milady."

Lady Grantham was nearly finished and this time her devoted lady's maid would not be there to narrowly catch her if she chanced to fall...