AN: I wanted to give you all a quick warning that this is an intense chapter. Cora tells Robert the details of the rape, and while I don't think I've been hugely graphic, and I don't think it justifies an M rating, if you're sensitive to this kind of thing, you might want to skip over this chapter. Not that I want to discourage people from reading my work, but I do want to protect people from being upset. So, reader discretion advised.

Robert blinked in the dark bedroom, not sure at first why he was suddenly awake. He had not slept easily or soundly as he held Cora and worried over her—her neck was still straight, wasn't it?—but he had thought he'd finally drifted off.

Cora, on the other hand, had fallen asleep immediately—this was, he thought, likely the first sound sleep she'd had all week. He had rejoiced at how relaxed she had felt in his arms…only, he realized slowly as his senses awakened, she was no longer relaxed. Her body was tense, and she groaned slightly—a sound, he realized, that had awakened him.

"Cora?" He shook her arm. "Cora!"

She woke with a gasp and jerked away from him.

"Cora, you were dreaming. You're all right." She was sitting up next to him now, trembling, and he wanted to reach out to her but was afraid to frighten her further with his touch.

She drew a shaky breath. "I know," she said. "I know."

Did she dream about the rape every night? She must, he thought, his heart breaking anew at the realization that she'd relived it many times over.

"Thank you for waking me," she said, and he heard tears in her voice again.

"Darling, it's okay now," he said, reaching out to embrace her. "It was only a dream."

"No," she said tearfully as he took her in his arms, "it didn't happen this time."

"What?"

"He didn't…we didn't get that far. We were on the path, and he had my arm, but then…you woke me up. I'm so glad." She began to cry in earnest now and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, thank you."

He was deeply ashamed to be thanked for stopping the rape in her nightmare when he'd failed to stop it in real life. "Shh," he said, stroking her hair as she wept. "Nothing's happened, and you're safe. I'm right here…" As I wasn't the night it really mattered.

"Thank you," she said again as her sniffling began to slow. "Thank you for staying with me and for holding me all night. It does make me feel safe." Her words were like knives in his heart. He hadn't kept her safe. He'd left her alone for the night with a man he hadn't trusted.

She sat up and wiped her eyes. "Can you turn the light on?"

"Yes…" He reached over and flipped it on. "Why? Do you need something?"

"No, I just need the light. I always turn the light on after I have one of those dreams…I know I won't be able to sleep for a while anyway, and it all seems less real in the light."

"It's not real," he said, laying a hand on her knee. "It's over, and it's never going to happen again. Nothing will ever happen to you again."

"Thank you," she said softly.

If only she would stop thanking him! "Do you dream every night?" he asked gently.

She hesitated. "Yes, most nights. I think it's because…I can't help going over and over it in my mind during the day, so it always feels so fresh, like it's just happened. I thought…" She lowered her eyes and her voice. "I thought with you here, and your arms around me, I wouldn't have one tonight, because I did feel so safe, but…I guess I won't be rid of them that easily."

"Do you think it would help to talk about the…about it? To tell me how it happened?" He held his breath, almost afraid of how she might respond to his question. He wanted to stop the wild speculations that would not leave him, but he was not at all sure he wanted to know the truth of the attack.

Cora was silent for a long time, and eventually he spoke again. "You haven't got to tell me, if you don't want. We don't have to do it now, and we don't have to do it at all."

"No," she said slowly. "I do think it would help to tell you. To know I wasn't the only person on earth besides—besides him who knows what happened that night. I think it would help if it were all living somewhere besides just my head." She paused, biting her lip. "But Robert, you must promise me…you say you still love me, but will you really, after this? After you know how it happened, after you've envisioned it all, after you've heard the details? It won't be…too much for you?"

He stroked her cheek. "Cora, what did I say this afternoon? There is nothing you can tell me that will ever change how much I love you. Nothing at all."

She hesitated. "I'll see if I can…manage it." Another silence, and then finally she began to speak. "Baxter had just gotten me ready for bed when Mr. Bricker came in. I told him he had to go—I told him several times he had to go. I think he thought…this was all some game I was playing, and eventually I would say yes. But I threatened to ring for Baxter, and then he took me seriously—or rather, I thought he did—and he left.

"But I felt so guilty that I'd behaved in such a way that I'd led him to think I wanted him in my bed, and I couldn't get it off my mind. So I lay in bed forever, and finally I decided I'd get up and go for a walk. The room was stuffy, and I thought–I thought the night air might clear my mind, and I'd be able to sleep. So I got up, and I didn't ring for Baxter because it was past midnight, and I dressed and I went downstairs and outside."

Her voice was flat and emotionless, and he wanted so badly to tell her to stop talking before she went any further. But she seemed all right, so he held his tongue.

"I don't think I walked for very long. I was a bit away from the house, on the path near the trees, when I heard something behind me—and I turned and it was Mr. Bricker. He said I shouldn't be out alone, and I told him I was going back inside, because—I wasn't frightened yet, but it made me very nervous to be out alone with him. And he told me not to go yet, and I said I was, and I tried to walk past him. But then he grabbed my arm, and I tried to tell him to let go, but then he–he kissed me." She wiped her mouth roughly, as though she could still feel his lips there.

Her arms were crossed across her chest, but he stretched his hand out, offering it to her, and she grasped it immediately. He wrapped her hand in both of his.

"So I pulled away from him, and I tried to run—really, I did, I tried to get away—"

"I know," he soothed.

"But he caught me by the arm again, and I struggled, but he was so much stronger than me, and then his arms were around my waist, and I just couldn't—I couldn't get away from him. And then he struck my face, and he said–he said–he said…Robert, he said the most awful things." She squeezed her eyes shut.

"Cora…"

"Over and over…"

"Cora, what did he say to you?"

"No, I can't repeat any of it, I can't!" she exclaimed, shaking her head and wincing at the movement.

"All right, all right," he soothed, stroking her arm.

"And he pushed me to the ground," she continued, her voice speeding up now, "but I leapt up again—he had my dress, and I heard it tear—and I tried to run…but he grabbed my hair, and I tried to pull away again, but he was so strong, and he pulled me back down to the ground by my hair."

Her neck, he thought instantly, nearly sick at the description. He'd thought that an odd injury to have come away with.

"I screamed—I screamed again and again, I screamed the whole time, and I thought someone would come, anyone—I thought they had to be able to hear me for miles. But no one came.

"And I tried—Robert, I tried so hard to get away, really I did—I did try, desperately—"

"I know," he said, hating that she felt she had to convince him, "I know. I don't doubt that. You couldn't have fought any harder, darling." He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

In truth he was amazed at how much she had fought—she was stronger than he would have imagined. And yet he only wished she hadn't fought, had submitted immediately when Bricker had first grabbed hold of her, and perhaps she would not have been injured.

She gave a dry sob, and he squeezed her hand. "Cora, love, you haven't got to go on." Lord knows, he didn't know how much more he could stand to hear.

But she seemed not to hear him. "Once I was back down, he pushed me—hard—into the ground, and he held me down by my sides and my chest—I almost couldn't breathe—and then I heard—I heard my rib snap. God, it hurt, and then I couldn't fight him anymore. And then…and then…and then…"

He knew what was coming, and he wanted to run, as far away from this horror as possible. Her grip on his hand tightened, her body trembled, and she began to draw short, quick breaths, her eyes closed.

"Stop, Cora," he said sharply. "That's far enough."

But it was as though she couldn't stop. "And then…and then he was undressing me, and I wanted to close my eyes so I wouldn't see his face, but I couldn't look away, and then…" She began to sob, falling willingly into his arms when he reached for her.

"Shh," he said, kissing her hair. "It's all over now." What an empty reassurance.

But she was not finished. "I felt like…he was inside me for hours," she sobbed. "I didn't think it would ever end—and then I prayed I would just die there—and then it happened again and again and again…" The rest of her words were lost in her sobs, sobs deeper and harsher and more violent than he had ever heard from anyone.

He wanted to say something to comfort her, but his throat felt blocked with the rage that had choked him at her words, and his hands were shaking with too much fury to stroke her hair or her back. He settled for simply rocking her gently in an effort to soothe them both, for he felt now that he might die of pain as well.

Cora was awash in a sea of tears, and she clung to Robert as though he was all that would keep her from drowning. She had hated every syllable of giving voice to her ordeal, hated the images she knew she'd forced into his mind, but something about this, this weeping in his arms, was more soothing than it was painful. And thus she was in no hurry to calm herself.

But at last she sat up, her sobs now nothing more than quiet tears. Robert's own cheeks were wet, she saw, and it eased her heart to remember that her grief was a shared one.

She sank back against the pillows, and he took her hand, their fingers lacing together. "I'm sorry," she said softly, remembering herself. She had always felt there was something unladylike—and very American—in any strong emotion.

He kissed her forehead again. She thought she'd been kissed more in the last afternoon and evening than she had in years. "Don't be sorry. Cry all you like. Your English husband is giving you permission to cry as much and as often you need to," he said.

She gave a laugh that was still half a sob.

"I hate what I've done to you," she said, guiltily noting that she did feel a certain peace in the fact that the horror was no longer solely her own. "Now you've got to think about all of it, too."

"You have done nothing to me," he said firmly. "This is far too heavy a burden for you to carry alone, and I mean to carry it with you. God knows I'd carry all of it for you if I could."

It was her turn to kiss him, and she wrapped her arms around his neck to draw his face closer so she could kiss his cheek. "Thank God for you," she whispered, echoing his words to her from years earlier. "Thank God for you and for your love."