Robert stirred in the middle of the night, a sinking feeling in his chest as he realized he was awake. It had been his habit for twenty-some years, when he stirred to roll over in bed, to wake Cora and turn her as well. The German doctor who had operated on her after the accident had stressed the importance of doing this at least once a night, and every other doctor the family had ever had concurred—with no sensation in the lower half of her body, Cora would feel no compulsion to change her position on her own, and she was thus at risk for pressure sores that could develop easily into deadly infections if she lay in the same position all night.

It was a practice that he'd always known was more disruptive to her sleep than to his, for he did it when he naturally awakened, but at times when she might be in any stage of deep sleep. Yet Cora did not complain, and she often did not fully wake, merely snuggling up to him as he turned her and then drifting back to sleep.

At least, that had been the case before her pregnancy. Clarkson now estimated Cora to be a month or so from delivery, and the last few weeks had been difficult ones. Her body ached, the weight of her belly and the changes in her body were playing havoc with her spine, and she barely slept as it was…and Robert felt like the worst husband in the world when he purposely woke her, making her groan in pain as he turned her.

He'd begged Clarkson for a few weeks' reprieve from this duty…was there really such great risk that he couldn't let her lie peacefully at night until the baby was born? But no—the doctor had been adamant that pregnancy made pressure sores more, not less, likely, and it was essential that he continue moving her as he always had.

"Darling?" he whispered, reaching out to touch her shoulder. He shook it gently. "Darling, I need to turn you."

Cora was lying facing him, and he saw her eyes flutter and then shut again. "No," she murmured, her grip on her pillow tightening, as though holding onto her hard-won sleep. "Please no."

Oh, how he wanted to leave her in peace. But he forced himself to get up—at eight months pregnant, she was too big and awkward for him to easily roll her over while in bed himself—and walk around to her side of the bed.

He carefully slid an arm underneath her at her waist. "Sweetheart, can you lean backward so I can get you onto your other side?"

She didn't shift an inch. "Robert," he heard her choke after an eternal second, "please don't make me move."

Oh God, now she was crying. How he hated this! He cursed himself for getting her pregnant, cursed Clarkson for being mistaken about her fertility, cursed every warning he had ever heard about pressure sores, cursed the horse that had stumbled on the fence all those years ago.

He took his arm out from under her, wanting to calm her first. "Shh," he soothed, rubbing long, firm strokes up and down her back. "It's all right. Just relax."

"I can't," she sobbed. "You keep waking me! Oh, please stop waking me—please stop!"

He wanted to crawl under the rug at that. "Darling, I haven't any choice," he said softly. "It's not safe to leave you in one position all night."

She did not respond, and he let her cry as he continued to rub, wincing at the tightness he could feel in her muscles. He doubted he'd want to move either if he were her.

"I know," she said after a few minutes. Her sobs had slowed, but her speech was still thick. "I know you have to…it's just…it's so hard to fall asleep, and then when I do sleep, you wake me, and I'm so exhausted!"

"I know, darling," he said softly. "I know."

"I'm sorry I'm so difficult," she said, and he could hear the guilt in her voice.

"Oh, sweetheart," he breathed, feeling his heart tear at her words. He bent and kissed her hair. "You're not difficult—but you're allowed to be as difficult as you need to be."

She drew a shaky breath. "You can turn me now."

Robert slid his arm back underneath her, turning her hips as she leaned back so that she was lying flat, and then helped her shift again onto her left side. She hissed as he moved her, her face crumpling as she settled into position.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as she began to weep again. "It's just…it hurts."

"Oh, Cora." He brushed her hair back and laid a kiss on her temple. "My sweet darling." It hurt him, too, to watch her hurt, a dull, throbbing pain in his chest. "Here, let's fix your pillows." Months ago, Baxter had shown him how to build Cora a nest of pillows in bed, telling him that keeping them between her knees and using one to prop up her belly would ease the strain on her spine. And it did help, Cora claimed…although nothing seemed to help enough.

After rearranging the pillows, he climbed back into bed, sitting up behind her so that he could work his hands over her back. He knew it would help, but not as much as it had a few months ago. Not now that the forced sway in her posture had pinched her damaged nerves, not now that she was straining to carry the weight of a nearly full-term baby.

"My spine," she sobbed. "It's so much worse than it ever was. I–I don't think I can make it, Robert. I don't think I can!"

He didn't know how she could last another thirty days, either, for another month sounded like an eternally long time. And Clarkson wasn't sure…perhaps it would be longer. The thought terrified him, and, as much as Robert feared the birth, he was praying fervently for an early delivery, for he desperately wanted it over so that Cora could heal.

But surely even an early baby was at least another fortnight away!

"You're almost done," he forced himself to say, his fingers trying to press into a muscle that felt like a stone. "You've come so far, and there isn't much more, darling." She didn't respond, and he was glad for it, thinking she might be justified in striking him for calling another month "not much more."

"What if…" he began a moment later, "what if…I gave you a bit of laudanum?" Cora had been given the drug when she'd first been injured, but she'd quickly begun to refuse it, saying she didn't like the hazy way it made her feel. To his knowledge, she hadn't taken it since, and he was glad of it, knowing addiction was all too common. But now he was desperate to stop the tears that he suspected had been building for weeks.

"No!" she exclaimed. "No, I don't want that."

"Darling, I think it would—"

"The baby—I think it wouldn't be good for the baby. You wouldn't give a baby laudanum, would you?"

No, he probably wouldn't.

They fell into silence, Cora's sobs slowing as he worked. "Are you feeling better, darling?" he asked with a kiss to her shoulder.

"Yes, it's easing," she said quietly, "but it'll start up again as soon as you stop."

"Then I won't stop." He pressed another kiss to her shoulder. "You try to go back to sleep, and I won't stop rubbing until you do. Just close your eyes and rest."

"Robert," she said after another few minutes of silence, "can we talk about something that's worrying me?"

"If it will upset you, let's wait till morning. But if it's keeping you up, go ahead."

"It's the latter," she said. "I lay awake thinking about it when I can't sleep."

He kissed her shoulder again, signaling for her to continue.

"It's…I'm wondering if I…it might be very wrong, but…I think maybe we should sack Baxter."

"What?" Had Cora lost her mind? Why on earth should she want to sack a maid who'd been so very, very kind? "Has she displeased you in some way?"

"No, no…I–I'm afraid I've gotten hysterical because of the baby, and I'm not thinking clearly…"

He was suddenly afraid of that, too. To his knowledge, Baxter had taken excellent care of his wife. He'd liked her from the beginning, at a time when he'd begun to despair of finding a maid he felt he could trust after the O'Brien fiasco. In fact, he'd decided he favored her before he'd even spoken with her himself, having overheard the last few minutes of her interview with Cora.

Cora had asked if she'd had any questions about the position, as she had asked each candidate. Most of the ones Robert had overheard had asked about the increase of their responsibilities compared to a lady's maid to an able-bodied woman—how much Cora could do for herself, how much would be required of them, what role the nurses played, and so on. He did not begrudge them that, for obviously they would want to be certain of what the position entailed.

But the first question out of Baxter's mouth had given him pause. "Does your injury still pain you, milady?" he'd heard her ask. "Is there anything that eases it? I'll want to help you, if I can."

At the realization that her first thought had been what Cora's handicap meant for Cora, and not for herself, he'd decided she must be hired immediately.

"Baxter's been very kind," he now said carefully, "and she's always seemed to genuinely care for you. Is there something in her work that's caused you to doubt this?"

"No, she's wonderful! And that's why I feel so guilty—I don't want to sack a woman who's been a very good maid. And I don't—I don't even know if I should worry as I do, because I wonder if I haven't just made it all up, but…but…"

"What is it, darling? What do you think you've made up?" He tried to imagine some wild, criminal backstory for the maid, but nothing in his mind could have prepared him for Cora's next words.

"I think," she said in a small voice, "that she might be Charlotte's natural mother."

"What? Cora, she doesn't even look like Charlotte." It frightened him to think Cora's pregnancy was breeding such irrational thoughts, but he could imagine little basis for such a bizarre theory. "Baxter has an almost Latin look to her, and you know how fair Charlotte is."

"Baxter isn't that dark, Robert," she argued. "It's mostly her hair. And children don't always look like their mothers."

No, of course they didn't. He took a deep breath. "Why do you think this, darling?"

"It's only…there have been so very many odd things. When she first saw Charlotte she–she stared at her in the strangest way. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but when I look back on it—"

"If she gave Charlotte up as an infant, how would she have recognized her?"

"I don't think she did recognize her—I think perhaps she already knew she'd be here, and when she first laid eyes on her, she couldn't help but stare."

A long look that Cora herself admitted she'd barely noticed at the time was hardly evidence as far as he was concerned, and he said nothing.

"And she seems so very capable with pregnancy," Cora went on. "But she tells me she's never had a pregnant lady, so I can't help wondering if she hasn't given birth herself."

"Well, perhaps she has." It would not be unbelievable to imagine a maid falling pregnant, hiding the disgrace, and making her way back into service after giving up the child. For all they knew, Baxter might have even been married at some point and given birth legitimately. "That doesn't mean her child was Charlotte."

"I know, but…she knew Charlotte's birthday, or rather, she almost knew Charlotte's birthday, which made it even stranger." She paused. "Right after the wedding, Baxter mentioned Charlotte turning twenty-three on October eighteenth."

"But her birthday's the twenty-second."

"Yes, of course, and I told her that. She said she thought Charlotte had mentioned the date to her but that she must have jumbled it."

"Then I'm sure she did. Your birthday's the eighteenth of July—perhaps she knew that and combined the two. People jumble dates all the time."

"You don't find it odd? Why would Charlotte have even discussed her birthday with my maid? I'm not sure I believe she did."

"I'm not sure I understand what you think it proves that Baxter didn't quite have the birthday right. If she were the natural mother, wouldn't you think she'd get the date right? Oh…" His hands stilled momentarily as the realization hit him.

"You think she did get the date right, don't you?" she said.

"Not necessarily," he said carefully, starting to rub her back again. He still thought Cora's theory too far-fetched for his own credulity, but he saw how the circumstantial evidence had aligned and troubled her. "Yes, we know Charlotte wasn't born on the twenty-second…we got her on the twenty-second, so her birth would have had to be sometime before that." The Foundling Hospital had had no birthdate noted for Charlotte, and thus her birth certificate had been filled out with the date of her adoption instead. She could not, it was assumed, have been more than a few days old anyway.

"Yes, and it could very easily have been the eighteenth!" Cora exclaimed, the pitch of her voice rising. "She arrived at the hospital on the nineteenth, and I think she was likely born the day before."

He hadn't remembered that. "You knew the date of her arrival?"

"No, I went back through old letters I'd saved, and I found the one the hospital first sent us about her. They said she'd come in on the nineteenth of October. And I looked back at what Baxter sent when she applied," she went on, talking faster now, "because I wanted to see if she'd even been in London at the right time. And she was—she said she worked as a lady's maid in the capital from 1888 to 1901."

If Baxter had made this comment at the time of the wedding, then it had weighed on his wife's mind for two months as she'd dug for evidence to support her theory. He sighed. "Cora, I think this is all very coincidental and circumstantial."

"But it might not be! It might not be…and I just…I don't want…"

"Shh," he said. "Even if this is true—and I don't think it is—Baxter's no threat to you. Charlotte knows you're her mother, and she loves you. Nothing's going to change that."

"It's not that I…I don't mind if she knows who her natural mother is; I don't! I just…I don't want that woman, whoever she is, living in our house; I don't want Charlotte growing close to her! And I'm so afraid it's Baxter." There were tears in her voice again, and he heard her stifle a sob. "I know it's selfish; I just…"

He kissed her neck. "It's not selfish, darling—it's not selfish to fear losing Charlotte, although I promise that won't happen." It was irrational, perhaps, but he could see how, in the stress and discomfort of Cora's condition, her imagination had run away with her. "Please don't cry. I'll speak with Baxter in the morning, if that will settle your mind."

"Will you?"

"Of course, darling. I'll ask about all of this and see what she has to say, and then we'll go from there. Now sleep." He kissed her neck again. "You need rest."

"Milord?" Robert looked up from his desk to see Baxter lingering in the doorframe. "Mrs. Hughes said you asked for me."

"I did, I did. Please—come in."

Hesitantly, she made his way toward the desk to stand a respectful distance in front of him. "Is her ladyship all right, milord?"

Bless her. He could not have imagined that that would have been O'Brien's first question had she been unexpectedly called before the earl.

"Yes, her ladyship is quite all right, thank you. She is, however, troubled, and I hoped to put her mind at ease."

"Yes, milord?"

He thought for a moment, unsure exactly how to approach the subject and not wanting to insult her. "Lady Grantham seems to have gotten the impression that you have some sort of…connection to Miss Charlotte…to Mrs. Crawley."

"Connection, milord?" Baxter's face was an innocent blank. "I barely had time to know Mrs. Crawley at all before she left for her honeymoon."

"Of course, of course," he said. "But did you…you didn't know her before you came here?"

"How could I have, milord?"

As unfounded as he believed Cora's suspicions to be, he could not help but be struck that this was not a denial. "Miss Baxter, I do not wish to insult you—and I will say that I don't put much stock in this theory—but her ladyship believes you're Mrs. Crawley's natural mother."

He felt himself blushing at his own words, but then Baxter did the most unexpected thing: she laughed.

"I'm sorry, milord, but I wouldn't have thought…no, of course I'm not her mother. I'm not her mother at all. But…I did know her mother, sir."

Robert gripped the edge of the desk hard, too shocked to correct the title she'd given the other woman and suddenly almost afraid. What had been the plan? "Is that why you sought a position in this house? To have access to Mrs. Crawley?"

"No, no, milord! No, I give you my word, no. I didn't have any idea who her ladyship's eldest daughter was before I was hired. But when I saw her…you could have knocked me over with a feather."

"Had you seen Mrs. Crawley elsewhere, and you recognized her?" His mind was now racing with images of spies who had lurked behind bushes in the village for years, watching his daughter grow up.

"Not since her birth, milord—not since I left her at the Foundling Hospital."

Had the woman standing before him truly been the one who had handed an infant Charlotte off, to pass into their arms three days later? His head spun at the thought, but before he could question her, she went on.

"But as I said, milord, I knew her mother. And she's the spitting image of her—when I first saw Mrs. Crawley in her ladyship's room, I thought I'd seen a ghost."

"Her natural mother," he corrected. He would not cede the title that rightfully belonged to Cora, rightfully belonged to she who had raised Charlotte. "And I take it she is deceased?"

"Yes, milord. Died of influenza that had become pneumonia, a good ten years after Mrs. Crawley was born."

It troubled him to note that this information pleased him, as there was now no other mother for Cora to worry over.

"And you are sure Mrs. Crawley is this woman's child?" he asked, but of course she was sure. He was sure. She had asked Cora about Charlotte's birthdate to confirm what she already knew.

"I am, milord. I asked her ladyship about her birthdate, and when she said it was the twenty-second, at first I thought I must have the wrong young woman, and she merely looked strangely like a woman to whom she was no relation. But then I realized her ladyship likely never had Mrs. Crawley's real birthdate, and perhaps you celebrate on a day near it…perhaps the day you adopted her."

He nodded. "We do. The day we adopted her."

"She was born on the eighteenth of October," Baxter added unnecessarily. "And I took her to the Foundling Hospital the next morning."

It suddenly occurred to him that there might be solid proof of this, proof beyond Baxter's words. "Have you got…?"

She nodded. "Yes, milord. Would you like to see it?"

"Of course, of course," he said, suddenly excited to uncover his daughter's history. "Please, go and fetch it if it's here."

Baxter dropped a short curtsy and left, returning with a faded, striped red ribbon,* which she passed to him. "Is it a match, milord?"

"I'm sure it will be." All Robert could remember about the ribbon attached to Charlotte's admission form was that it had been red, but he had no doubt that this was the other half of it. "Her ladyship has the forms in her dressing table, but I'm sure this will match when we show it to her."

"Will her ladyship not be upset to know this? I've known it for months, but I haven't wanted to upset her in her condition."

"No, I don't think so," he said thoughtfully. It was the idea of Charlotte growing close to a natural mother who now lived at Downton that had so frightened Cora, he thought, not the idea of knowing Charlotte's history. Indeed, they'd wondered many times about the women who had given birth to both their children. "I think she'll be pleased to have it, and to hear your story. Who was this natural mother?" he asked. "How were you acquainted? Was it a relative?" It suddenly hit him that perhaps Baxter was even Charlotte's aunt.

But the maid laughed again. "Oh no, milord! Heavens, no. She was my lady."

He started, for Cora's statement that Baxter had never served an expectant mother had erased that possibility from his mind. "Did you not tell her ladyship that none of your ladies had had babies while you were in their employ?"

Baxter blushed. "No, milord. I didn't tell her that, not exactly. I told her all of my ladies had been past childbearing age, or unmarried—as this lady was. Her ladyship drew her own conclusions, as I'd hoped she might. I did not wish to lie to her, but…my former lady's pregnancy was not widely known, and I did not want to spread rumors, even so long after her death."

Of course she would be loyal. "Charlotte's mother was a lady, then," he said, considering the idea. It was perhaps the most surprising bit of all of this—he and Cora had always envisioned her as an impoverished mother who could not feed one more mouth, or a fallen woman in no position to keep a baby, or a young working class girl desperate to hide her shame. Wealthier women generally had better ways of settling unwanted children than foundling homes.

Baxter smiled sadly. "Yes, milord, she was. And she wanted—she wanted to give the baby to a family, and she had married friends who she thought might have taken it, but her own mother wouldn't hear of it. Said she wouldn't be able to keep quiet about it—perhaps she wouldn't have—and the family was desperate for the scandal not to get out. My lady was the only daughter, and they'd had—they still had—such high hopes for her marriage. And the natural father—I never knew who he was, but I gathered he'd been a servant in another household. No one she could marry. So I was sent off with the baby the next day, to deliver it to London's Foundling Hospital. I'm not proud of it, milord, because my lady did want the baby, but if I hadn't taken it one of the housemaids would have. And I wanted—I wanted to be sure my lady was given the ribbon."

"Why did she give birth in England? In London, of all places?" He'd always understood that the thing to do in these cases was to take a lengthy holiday abroad.

"That had been arranged—her parents had intended to send us both to France. But my lady got so ill during her pregnancy that she couldn't travel, and she refused to risk it—she was afraid to lose the baby, you see."

The baby, Robert marveled, that was ruining this young woman's life. "She did love it, milord," Baxter went on. "She wanted it, but…"

"But her parents were determined to save her reputation." Guilt was creeping over him that he likely would have insisted on the same thing for an unmarried Charlotte or Eleanor. How wrong and heartless that seemed now.

"Yes. I brought her back the ribbon, milord, and she kept it with her always. Talked of the baby often—Jane, she'd called her. Wondered what she was doing, where she was living… I confess I wondered about her, too, milord, and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I might one day attend her wedding! Or wait upon her new mother—I'm glad to look after the woman who became Jane's mother.

"My lady knew Jane had been given to a family—I'd gone back to the hospital a few weeks later to check on her and been told she'd been adopted. She was so, so pleased to know her baby would grow up in a real home, but she was never the same. She did want Mrs. Crawley, milord—in another world, she would have happily been her mother. I hope it isn't too bold, but I think Mrs. Crawley was very much loved, and very much wanted, by all of her parents—you and her ladyship and her natural mother. She's always been very much loved."

"It's not too bold," Robert said quietly, moved at the thought. "What became of your lady?"

"Very little, I'm sorry to say. Never married—never had much interest. Her parents passed away, and then she too died young…and when she died, she gave me the ribbon, and asked me to find Jane. I'd decided years ago that would be impossible—the hospital could or would tell me nothing—and so I can't tell you how shocked I was, and how glad, to suddenly stumble upon her."

"Had she wanted you to tell Mrs. Crawley—Jane, as she called her—what her history was?"

"Not exactly, milord. She wanted me to tell her the news of her inheritance."

*I learned at the Museum of London this spring (where I saw one on display) that when a foundling was left at the hospital, an admission form was filled out with a list of the child's birthmarks and the clothes he or she was wearing. Then a ribbon was cut in two, with half stuck to the form and the other half given to the person who had dropped the baby off. The idea was that the staff would know which child belonged to which mother if the mother ever came back, but it was very, very rare for a woman to return.

AN: Just a heads-up that it may take be a bit more than a week to write the final chapter, because I want to be sure to get it right. But it definitely won't take me more than 2 weeks-I have someone from the fandom coming to see me (you know who you are ;-) ), and right after that I start grad school, so I definitely have a deadline of June 15 to get this story finished! :-)