Chapter 6- I Think That Possibly I've Fallen for You

January 1890

Cora sat in the library, her leg bouncing under the weight of her skirts. She wasn't aware of chewing her nail until Violet reached up and carefully removed it from her mouth. Looking up quickly, she expected the disdainful scowl that Violet usually reserved for her but was shocked to see a soft sympathy in her eyes. Cora glanced down at her lap and noticed that Violet had stilled her trembling hands with her own.

"My dear, Robert will be fine. You'll realize soon enough when you have sons of your own that broken bones come with the territory. If I grew frightful every time the doctor was called, I would have been medicated long ago." Violet's laughter settled Cora's fears slightly and she tilted her head back and forth, trying to release the tension that had built in her shoulders since Robert had been thrown from his horse.

"This is what Robert gets for trying to show off for his pretty wife." Lord Grantham's chuckling voice entered the library before he did. He waved Cora forward and she sprang from her seat. "The doctor is done setting his leg. Robert's asking for you, dear."

"He is?" The words flew out of her mouth before she could think and she cursed inwardly at the sound of her eager tone.

"Of course he is. Who wouldn't want to see this lovely face in their time of need?" Lord Grantham patted her shoulder affectionately before going to his wife. Cora walked quickly from the library while still in the view of Robert's parents and then flew up the stairs when she was no longer in their sight.

She knocked carefully on Robert's door, waiting for his permission before entering. Cora found Robert on his bed; his leg encased in wet plaster from ankle to hip and propped up on pillows. Cora gasped at the enormity of the cast.

"It looks much worse than it is." Robert said soothingly.

"I'm so sorry Robert." Cora replied, going to his bedside and sitting down gingerly, trying not to jostle the bed. She took Robert's hand in hers and brought it up to her lips, giving it a tentative kiss. Robert watched her, fascinated by her actions and the way her simple care made him briefly forget the pain in his leg. He quickly grew confused and concerned when she choked back tears.

"I was so frightened. When I saw you fall, I thought…"Cora's voice faded off and she turned away from Robert. Her fear for him was touching, if not a little overwrought. He stroked her cheek.

"I am alright Cora. Really. I think my pride is more wounded than anything else." Robert said with a sigh and Cora laughed softly, pushing the terror she had felt away.

For the next few weeks, Cora spent most of her time in Robert's dressing room, tending to his needs. In the mornings she would read to him, lying against him as he absentmindedly played with the curls of her hair. Her voice lulled him to an almost catatonic state and he grew to love her foreign tones more than he thought possible. This close, her perfume enveloped him while she read, the press of her body warming his. Robert tried to name the feeling that overcame him during their hours together spent in repose, her melodious voice the only sound in the room. He knew he had never experienced it before. It began in his belly and rose up in his chest. Sitting with Cora, listening to her read Henry James, he thought he may have finally found true contentment.

She took her lunch with him, and while he ate, he gently probed her with questions; the two of them still such strangers. He was upset with himself for spending so many months trying to manage his feelings and his duty without trying to learn more about her. Cora told him about growing up in Cincinnati and the large expanse of land they owned and running wild over it for hours on end. She spoke of hijinx with her brother and her grandfather who snuck her licorice. In turn, Robert shared snippets of his own childhood, spent terrorizing governesses and Rosamund.

Two weeks into his convalescence, Robert captured Cora's hand while she kissed him goodnight, keeping her in the spot near him before she could retire to her own room. She looked at him questioningly and he took a deep breath, gaining courage.

"I wonder if you might stay here." He blurted out. Cora blushed and looked down.

"Robert, I don't know that we can….that is to say with your leg you might…."

Robert shook his head. "I don't mean to be….intimate. I wonder if maybe we could just lie together...and fall asleep."

Cora could not prevent her shock from showing on her face and Robert let go of her hand, ready to apologize for implying that she would want to share his bed. Before he could speak she removed her robe and gently settled under the covers beside him. He smiled and laid back, drawing her into the crook of his arm. She rested her head on his chest and let out a little hum of sound before kissing the underside of his chin and burrowing herself deeper into his body. He closed his eyes and found sleep quickly.

Robert sat uncomfortably in his bed, succumbing to the indignity of a sponge bath. He silently urged Carson to get on with it, knowing that Cora would be in soon for the next installment of Portrait of a Lady and he was impatient to be in her company. There was a timid knock on his dressing room door followed by it's opening.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Robert. I didn't…." Cora's voice faded off and she looked away from his bare chest. Robert sat up at the tremble in her voice, and smiled slyly to Carson as the color in her cheeks rose.

"Carson, would you excuse us?" Robert asked his valet softly. The man nodded and slipped out of the room.

"I didn't mean to interrupt. It's silly really. I could come back." Cora turned to leave but Robert held up his hand.

"No, no. Stay." Robert encouraged her toward his bed.

Looking anywhere but his bare chest, Cora tentatively sat on his bed. She had never seen Robert so nude in the daylight, and never while just speaking to him. The sight of him made her a little breathless.

"What was it you wished to tell me?" Robert asked.

"I...that is to say...Rosamund accepted an invitation for her and I to a luncheon at Haxby for today. I wonder if you wouldn't mind…." Cora made the mistake of looking to the side. The muscles of Robert's chest were a fingers touch away.

"Of course. Go." Robert said softly. "But, may I get a kiss first." Robert hoped he hadn't pushed her too much but he couldn't resist as she sat next to him, staring at him with heavy lidded eyes and rapid breathing.

Cora startled. "Yes." She leaned in and he captured the base of her head, guiding her gently. When her lips yielded to his he deepened the contact, tasting her. It had been too many weeks since they had been together and the unexpected touch they shared now made his blood rush under his skin. Robert struggled to keep his hand away from the breast that leaned against him, knowing they would need to stop. He cursed his leg and leaned back slowly, prolonging the kiss but putting an end to it before he lost his will to let her go.

Cora remained where she had been, eyes closed and lips parted. Robert traced her lips with his finger, the contact making her sigh. Sometimes he was so gentle she wondered how they hadn't gotten things right from the start. If they both could just let go she believed they could be happy, all the time.

"You should go before you are late. Rosamund will never let you hear the end of it." His words broke the spell his hand was casting and she looked at him with dreamy eyes before getting up and kissing him goodbye.

"Charlotte, tell Cora she's being silly!" Rosamund implored their hostess. Cora swatted at her sister in law under the table, praying that she wasn't referring to what she had spoken to her about in confidence.

Charlotte looked at the sister in laws in expectation, her eyebrows raised at Rosamund's indulgent expression and Cora's horrified one. Rosamund rolled her eyes and leaned in, lowering her voice so the servants wouldn't hear. She shushed Cora's moan before opening her own mouth.

"She's quite worked up that she and Robert aren't expecting yet." Rosamund stated.

Charlotte's chuckle was kind and she turned to Cora with sympathetic eyes. "Oh Cora dear, has Lady Grantham been pestering you?"

"No!" Cora was quick to defend her mother in law, out of a sense of familial loyalty, which she had quickly learned was of great importance to the older woman.

Charlotte shook her head. "You've only been married for a handful of months. Give it time." The woman stroked her own distended stomach and Cora took in the unconscious movement, envious. "It took us twice that long! It will happen."

Cora exhaled. "It's just that everyone makes it seem like it happens so easily, before you are married. And then when you actually….try...it doesn't seem such a sure thing."

"There are….ways….to speed the process along. If you're impatient for Mother Nature to take her course." The fourth woman had been silent throughout their exchange. She sat back in her chair, her expression purposefully unreadable. Cora hadn't cared for the woman when she met her at the hunt and her second meeting was leaving her skin cold as well.

"Oh Julia! And what would that be pray tell?" Charlotte asked.

"Well, there is a doctor in Thursk that sells a tonic that helps fertility. I know people who swear by it." Julia shrugged as though bored with the conversation.

"A charlatan, you mean." Rosamund said.

Cora chewed her lip thoughtfully. "Does it really work?"

"Cora, please! Don't even entertain such thoughts. Everything will work out in the end." Rosamund patted her sister in laws shoulder and glared at Julia. She had heard the rumors about her and Robert and she believed the vicious woman was playing with her naive sister in law for sport.

Julia smirked at Rosamund before continuing in a dramatic tone. "I've heard it said that there's also a mixture for assuring the baby's a male."

"No!" Cora's eyes widened at the idea.

"That's enough! I'll not let you say any more such nonsense to her. Cora, she's lying and even if such things exist, they don't work! Who knows what they're made of?" Rosamund's anger was palpable.

The rest of the lunch was filled with strained silence and the occasional neutral remark. Cora remained deep in her own mind, mulling over what Julia had said. She knew it was probably a sham, she wasn't stupid after all, but she was desperate. To Charlotte and Rosamund, they saw a young couple, still practically newlyweds, with time on their side. But Cora believed that she was close to winning Robert's heart. The past weeks had been filled with tenderness and affection that hadn't been present but for fleeting moments before. As their fragile happiness stuttered along she became addicted to the kindness Robert could be capable of. If she hadn't been fully in love with him before, she was impossibly devoted now and she was eager to please him. She was sure a baby would be the thing to sway him, finally, into giving her his heart and so she yearned for it with a fervor she had never had for anything else. She was impatient for it.

While waiting for the carriage later that afternoon, Lady Pembroke approached her and pressed a piece of paper into her palm. "If you'd like to give it a go," the older woman whispered in her ear before stepping away and taking the arm of her driver.

March 1890

The bottle had arrived in the post almost two months ago and Cora had taken the tonic every day, as advised. After taking a dropper of the disgusting liquid, she would say a silent prayer that this time it would work, promising any number of things if she could just carry Robert's baby. Then she would lay her hands on her flat stomach and imagine a child growing there. The books she had ordered had all told her that positive thoughts and a pure conscience would help her, and she worried that something sullied her soul when no baby seemed present.

One morning, her routine was broken by a tightening in her stomach and she sat up in bed. The movement was followed by a slight watering in her mouth and a tidal wave of nausea. Stumbling out of her bed she fled to the commode as sickness overtook her. She endured three days of the same kind of morning before letting herself hope. Cora waited until Robert would be out on the estate before calling the doctor to Downton, not wanting to raise his suspicions or hopes before she was sure.

Violet watched her daughter in law carefully as she sipped her tea. The younger woman had looked a little peaked all week and, despite excusing herself every afternoon for a nap after luncheon, appeared exhausted. She took a cautious bite of biscuit before placing it down and resting her hand unconsciously over her stomach. Violet wondered when the young couple would share their news with the rest of the family. She made a mental note to pull Jenkins aside and instruct her to refrain from tight lacing Cora's corsets from now on. Smiling behind her teacup, Violet felt some of the anxiety she had over forcing Robert's marriage dissipate. Perhaps everything would work out after all.

The pain started as soon as Jenkins closed her door after helping her out of her tea dress. Cora braced her vanity table and bit her lip as the sharp stabs began in her back and radiated around her sides, gripping her abdomen. The intensity stole her breath momentarily and she swallowed the instinct to scream as she felt the trickling of something wet down her legs. Cora ran into her bathroom and with shaking fingers unlaced the bows to her dressing gown. She eased her hurting body into the empty bathtub and brought her knees to her chest hugging them close. In the solitariness of the white room, she finally allowed her sobs to come, her child's life and the elation she had felt over it, lost down the drain.

Moments, or hours had passed, Cora wasn't sure. She washed the dried blood off of her herself and then tackled the porcelain of the tub, viciously scrubbing. Every action made her body scream in protest but she ignored it, determined to erase the evidence of what had happened. Robert hadn't even known she was pregnant. She had thought to tell him on his birthday tomorrow and so for a week had kept the secret to herself. And now, he would never know that for a brief moment, they were to be parents. She couldn't say anything now.

Cora was so lost in thought and task that she failed to hear her bedroom door open. The gasp at the bathroom threshold startled her and she looked up wildly, letting out a relieved sigh at the sight of her maid.

"Milday?" The woman's voice was soft and sympathetic but Cora ignored her questioning eyes. She had suspected that the older woman knew of her condition when she had begun tying her corsets looser.

"Burn those." Cora said stiffly, pointing to the bloodied gown and underclothes that still lay in an abandoned heap. She pushed herself up and walked gingerly past the maid and into her room.

"Has the dressing gong gone off?" Cora asked, standing in front of her vanity and refusing to meet the woman's eyes. The maid continued to stare at the pile of clothing before shaking her head and coming up behind Cora.

"Do you think maybe you should rest, milady?"

Cora pushed her shoulders back and straightened herself, schooling her face into a neutral mask. "I'm perfectly fine, Jenkins. Please dress me for dinner."

Robert kept glancing at Cora throughout the meal, concerned by her lack of participation. She had to be addressed several times before looking up, dazed and asking for the question to be repeated. His father laughed good naturedly at her absent mindedness but his mother was studying her with an unreadable look and Robert was becoming frustrated. Just as they seemed to get to a place where he thought he understood her, where they were moving forward, she would confound him. It was disconcerting to be so unsure in his own home. Only this morning she had talked excitedly about his birthday tomorrow and now she was a million miles away.

Violet also watched Cora as she pushed the food around her plate without taking a bite. Her eyes remained cast down and unfocused and when they stood to pass through, she walked tentatively. She had never let on to what she suspected the week before, mainly because it soon became apparent by Robert's unchanged habits that he was as in the dark as the rest of them were.

Violet was sitting in the morning room discussing the weeks activities with Mrs. Temple when Jenkins appeared in the doorway, hands clasped in front of her. Both women acknowledged her with silence, waiting, and were surprised when she turned to Lady Grantham.

"Milday, I was wondering if I could have a word." Jenkins asked timidly. When the head housekeeper made no move to leave, she added. "It's about the Viscountess."

"Mrs. Temple, perhaps you could check the stores to make sure we have everything for the menus we have outlined." The older woman pursed her lips and sighed getting up and leaving the room.

"What's the matter Jenkins?" Violet beckoned the woman forward. Jenkins came closer and stilled her hands.

"Well, a few afternoons ago I found Lady Downton scrubbing her bathtub. There was an alarming amount of...blood...and she was very upset. And knowing what you asked of me last week, well I suspect that the situation has...changed. And she's not rested although I can tell by the way she carries herself she in a great deal of pain. And she no longer eats her meals. I thought maybe someone should know…." The maid tapered off, her courage leaving her. She had crossed a line, not only to speak so frankly about her mistress to the Countess but to question the decision made by a member of the family, but as she thought of the young woman crying alone in her bedroom she could hold her tongue no longer.

Violet stood up slowly and approached her. "The first duty of a ladies maid is discretion, but I don't think I need to remind you of that Jenkins. The second, of course is to know when discretion should be thrown to the wind. Thank you for coming to me with this. While I do not wish to invade the privacy of my daughter in law in her own home I think this is a special circumstance. Is Lady Downton in her bedroom now?"

"Yes, milady."

Cora sat on the settee, her arms wrapped tightly around her middle as she gazed out to the grey sky. She thought of nothing really, her thoughts were dangerous most times. She wished her heart would take the lead of her mind and stop feeling, but the grief that had settled there weighed it down. The soft knock followed by the metallic click of the door opening shook her out of her haze and she turned to see Violet walk in, her face unreadable. She leapt up quickly, plastering a false smile on her face and dug her fingernails into the arm of the settee as the movement jostled her still tender body.

"Please, sit back down."

Cora faltered a moment before obeying, self-conscious before her mother in law in just her dressing gown. Violet sat on the settee as well, and Cora stared at the spot where their legs touched. She held her breath as Violet cupped her chin and lifted it up so that they were looking eye to eye. Cora wondered what ungodly transgression she had made to have the woman here like this but all she saw were eyes that suddenly were kind and sad.

"Have we been so awful to you that you thought you must bear heartache alone, in your room?" The older woman asked softly.

Cora swallowed convulsively, unsure that she trusted herself to answer but her vision went blurry and her eyes burned as her tears spilled over. When Violet stroked her cheek Cora could no longer hold her composure and a sob escaped her, followed by the strong arms of her mother in law as she embraced her.

"I suspected last week that you had news to share," Violet said quietly, "and now I suspect that something has happened. Cora, you are a Crawley now. We stick together."

Cora clung to her mother in law as the woman stopped speaking and rocked her slightly. The soft hum of comfort in her ear was so like her own mother's when she was a child.

"Does Robert not know?" Violet asked as Cora's crying slowed and she wiped at her eyes. Cora shook her head.

"I was waiting for his birthday." Cora whispered the first words she'd said since Violet's entrance. "But the baby was gone by then….and I was afraid…..and ashamed."

"Cora, you're not the first young woman to have a miscarriage." Cora looked up and saw nothing but sympathy in Violet's eyes. "Unfortunately, creating life is a delicate process. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Some things a just not meant to be."

Violet had hoped to lessen the girl's burden but her face crumbled before her and she shook her head before dropping it in her hands. She wept in earnest now and Violet was at a loss until her muffled words reached her.

"But what if I killed it?" Cora's hands remained over her face.

"What?" Violet gasped.

Cora looked up, her eyes hung with misery. "I think I killed it. Lady Pembroke told me about this tonic that would help me conceive and so I took it and I kept taking it for a month not knowing there was already a baby and I think it poisoned it!" Cora's words came out in a rush of hysterics.

"Where is it?" Violet asked evenly. Cora opened a draw within her vanity and her shaking hand placed it into Violet's waiting one. Violet studied the bottle before opening and sniffing. She shook a drop out onto her finger and then brought it to her lips, touching her tongue to the roof of her mouth. She sighed and replaced the cover before pinning Cora with a stern look.

"There is nothing more sinister in here then a little whiskey, rose water and honey."

Relief caused Cora's shoulders to sag forward and she closed her eyes. Violet was tempted to leave her be, seeing how miserable the poor thing was. However, that just wasn't her way.

"This time you were lucky. But I don't ever want you to seek medical counsel from Lady Pembroke or any of those other ninnies Rosamund surrounds herself with again. Some of these tonics are poison! Never mind a baby, you could have killed yourself. And I'll not be saddled with burying any Americans any time soon." Violet let her lips turn into a smirk and Cora's twitched before breaking out into a shy smile.

Violet patted her daughter in law's leg before getting up. "Now, I want you to rest and take care for the next few days."

"Are you going to tell Robert?" Cora asked in a small voice.

"That is your decision my dear. I will let you in on a secret, however. Just because we don't prose on about every emotion in our hearts does not mean we don't feel them. This is especially true of Robert. I think you would be surprised to find what lies in his for you."