AN: Sorry it has taken me so long to get this updated! I've had a busy last several days, but I hope to have 13 up as well before the week is over. Also, the historical detail about what was done to rapists in William the Conqueror's day is true, and I liked it too much not to throw it in. (I found that while doing a bit of research on what could happen to Bricker in 1920s England: if convicted, he likely faces life imprisonment, an imprisonment that may include hard labor.)

"What are you going to do?" Cora asked.

After they had awakened, Robert had been dressed quickly by Bates and then returned to Cora's room to hover as she ate her breakfast. He realized that his new unwillingness to separate from her was completely impractical, but he could not persuade himself to leave her even long enough to go down for his own breakfast.

He smiled at her. "I'll go down once Baxter comes back to dress you."

"No, Robert, not about breakfast—although you should eat something, too. I meant about…all this. What are you going to do about Mr. Bricker?"

Not a question he had expected to hear from her lips.

"Robert, I know you," she went on. "I know that look in your eyes, and I know you won't let this rest."

"Of course I won't let it rest," he said. Surely she wanted nothing different. "He's a dead man."

"So you're going to kill him," Cora said quietly.

"Of course I'm going to kill him." He was not sure when or even how, but he was more certain that he would kill Simon Bricker than he was that the sun would set.

"Oh Robert, please don't," she begged, and he looked at her in surprise. "Please, don't go after Bricker. Please let this go—for my sake."

"Let it go? Let it go?" Had she taken leave of her senses?

"Robert, please—"

"I will certainly not let it go. Whyever should I? You tell me you've been brutally beaten and raped—" she jumped at the word, and he regretted it instantly— "and then you sit here, bruises still visible, one of your bones broken, for God's sake—and you ask me to let it go?"

"Killing Bricker will change none of that!"

"I want him to pay for what he's done—"

"But what will that accomplish? What?"

Why did she beg for mercy for this bastard? "Cora, no man has any right to lay a hand on you, to use you as he did, to hurt you—"

"I know," she said, starting to cry. "But punishing him will change nothing. You'll only be arrested, and I can't live without you here, not now!"

"Shh," he soothed, moving to comfort her, "I'm not going anywhere—"

But she pulled back from his embrace, setting the breakfast tray aside. "No, promise me you'll leave him be. Promise me, for my sake."

"Cora—"

"Do you love me? Because if you love me, you'll do this for me!"

Robert sighed and took a seat on the bed in front of her, gently caressing her leg through the covers. "I do love you, Cora. More than anything, and more than ever now. That's why I want to rip this animal in two for what he's done to you, for what he's taken from you—"

"I know that," she whispered, wiping her eyes. "And I love you for it. But Robert, you can't. It won't bring me any comfort at all to know that he's dead if you're in prison for it."

"You don't know that I'd be caught."

"Of course you would be! You don't know a thing about how to commit a crime and get away with it! It's preposterous that we're even discussing this. Please, Robert, say you won't…" He looked away, unwilling to make a promise he could not keep. "I'm frightened," she said softly.

And that, he realized, was the magic phrase. He met her eyes and saw more tears shining in them. She looked, as she had yesterday evening, like a child, propped up in bed under the covers with her hair in a long braid, and he did not think, after last night, that he could ever bear to see her weep again. Nor could he bear for her to be afraid. She had felt enough fear for a lifetime.

He sighed, hating himself for the plans that continued to creep through his mind of how he could murder Bricker without her ever knowing. "I'll do as you ask, darling," he forced himself to say. "What if we went to the police instead?"

Her eyes widened. "Oh, no, not that! Anything but that! Please, I can't have the police called!"

Cora's dismay did not shock him—he understood her fear of the scandal it would cause, and he was not greatly desirous for the potential to drag her name through the mud, either. "I know you don't want that. But if you won't let us call the police, what else do you expect me to do?"

She bit her lip. "I don't know, Robert—I want us to go on like it never happened, but I also know you can't, and I can't."

"If you want me to keep my hands off this monster, I want us to go to the police. I can't let him walk free." He couldn't, and he wouldn't. Even if the prison sentence the bastard would end up with was too good for him—he wished rape were a capital offense, wished for the days of the Conqueror when the penalty was castration and the gouging out of a man's eyes.

"I don't see what difference you think it will make whether he's free or not. What's happened has happened, and there's nothing we can do about it. It will make no difference for me."

"It would have made a difference for you if the last woman had spoken up, wouldn't it?" he asked. "And it will make a difference for whoever would have been next." He hoped it was an argument that might sway her, but in truth he could not bring himself to care for nameless, faceless future victims as Cora sat and suffered before him.

"There won't be anyone else," she said bitterly. "No one else would be as stupid as me."

"You were not stupid, Cora. You did nothing wrong."

"I should've known what he wanted. I should have been able to see it coming—"

"No civilized person could have seen what was coming. Interest from a man should not be a sign that he plans to force himself on you."

"But I should have known what he wanted from me. I was a fool not to see that—"

"I did see that, but I thought it wouldn't go anywhere because I knew you wouldn't let it. And then I was foolish enough to leave you here alone with him." He had been in a jealous fit over the whole matter and had thus been glad to be gone for the evening, and the memory sickened him. "I'll never forgive myself for not protecting you."

"Don't, Robert," she said, in a tone that told him she was all-too-familiar with blame. "It's too exhausting to go down that road."

"Darling," he said after a moment, "please let's call the police."

"No."

"Are you afraid to lose the case?" he asked, stroking her leg.

"Of course I'd lose! It's my word against his. Don't you know how they'll see it? I took him as a lover, and when my husband found out, I claimed that he'd forced himself on me. There's no evidence otherwise. I'll forever be the countess who was seduced by the traveling art salesman, or whatever it was you called him!"

"If it were only a case of your word against his, you'd still have a stronger case than you think. It would be the word of the Countess of Grantham against that of some unheard of art historian. The deck would be quite stacked in your favor. But there would be plenty of evidence. Your injuries alone—"

"Which have only been seen by a relative."

"We would have Clarkson come and look at you as well. I'd like that to happen, regardless. But he would testify, and Baxter would testify to the state she found you in. And there's others on the staff, and the family, who could testify that you never showed any interest of your own in Bricker. They'd testify to the state of our marriage as well, and how unlikely it would be that you would have an affair—"

"That's only sounding worse and worse," she interrupted. "The girls would have to know, and the staff, and—my God, Robert, it would be so humiliating!"

"You have nothing to be ashamed of."

"But they'd all…look at me differently."

"Does Baxter? Do I?"

"No…it's only…" She shrugged. "Oh Robert, I don't know…" She started to cry again, reaching for him this time, and he quickly moved to embrace her.

Cora was thankful that he did not raise the subject again that day, leaving her to contemplate it quietly as she followed him from room to room. It did make her day far easier to be able to remain in his presence, and it comforted her to see that his soft gaze did not leave her for long, regardless of how full a room was. She climbed into bed that night far less exhausted than she had grown used to.

"May I lean against you again tonight?" she asked when Robert joined her a few minutes later. She felt slightly guilty at her constant neediness after a week of cold indifference.

"Of course," he said as he got into bed. "I'd intended that."

"But is it hard for you to sleep?"

"Not as hard as it would be to lie down and know you were in pain. And this is more comfortable for you, isn't it?"

"Yes, thank you," she said, settling herself against him. She felt his arm move as he raised it, and then she felt his hand begin to rub her neck. "Oh, thank you for that," she sighed.

There was a moment's silence as she gathered her courage, and then she spoke again. "Robert? I've been thinking."

"Yes, love?"

"You may call the police tomorrow."

His hand stopped moving. "What?"

"Don't stop, please. You may call the police in the morning."

He started to rub her neck again but did not speak immediately. "Are you sure?"

"Yes…I thought it was what you wanted?"

"I want justice for you, Cora, but I want that justice in a way that isn't horribly difficult for you."

"Well, I'd rather go through with a trial than worry about whatever else you're planning." And she would, she had decided. She did not trust him not to go after Bricker if left to his own devices.

"Cora—"

"I'm not upset with you." And she wasn't. As sure as she was that she could not forgive him if he got himself arrested, she also wasn't sure she could forgive him if he did as she asked and let it go. "I understand why you want to kill him. And I—I do want him to suffer." She did not think she could stand for Bricker to go free, either. "I just don't want to lose you in the process. Do you promise you will leave him for the police?"

"I do. And I promise I will be with you every step of the way. We will win this case," he said fiercely, kissing her. "I give you my word that we will win this, and that beast will never see the light of day again."