Cora knocked gently on the door and then peered around it into the bedroom. There her eldest daughter lay on the bed with her back to the door. Cora closed the door behind her taking in her daughter's dishevelled state. Mary had not changed from her evening clothes from the day before and her hair looked a tangled mess. Cora's heart hurt for her daughter.

"Go away, Mama. I don't want to look at you right now."

Cora had expected anger, tears at the very least, but not this cold nothingness that seemed to have engulfed Mary. Cora sat gingerly on the edge of the bed stretching her hand out toward Mary's back, but not touching. "You don't have to look at me, but I will ask that you might listen."

"Why should I?"

"Because there is something very important I want you to understand." When Mary remained silent, Cora continued, "Your Papa-"

"Which one?" Mary scoffed. Cora took a moment to compose herself.

"Your Papa is who he's always been. He loves you and always has, no matter what happened between Carson and me."

"Of course he does," Marry spat finally turning to look at her mother with fire in her eyes. "That's why he's challenging the entail!"

Mary leapt from the bed to stand arms-crossed to stare out of the window. "At least now I know why neither of my parents want me to inherit Downton. Papa because I'm a servant's bastard and you because of Pamuk." She laughed humorlessly turning back toward the room. "It's funny. Now that I know what I do about you I don't see why you were so shocked about Pamuk. You're worse than I am. Nothing but a cheap American whore!"

Cora had sat almost passively throughout Mary's tirade, but her eyes had turned to ice at those last words. She did not move from her seat on the bed, but when Mary looked to her she realized she had crossed a line she wasn't even aware had existed. Mary held her breath waiting for the explosion she knew was to come.

But it did not come. Instead, Cora turned her head to look across the room and began to speak calmly.

"It's true that when you're father and I first married, there was no love lost between us. We both knew why we had married. He had married me for my money and I him to get away from America. We liked each other's company well enough, but in those first years of our marriage there was no great romance."

"That still doesn't explain Carson."

At this Cora began to look ashamed. "I was lonely, Mary."

Mary's face wrinkled in disgust, but Cora continued anyway.

"I was alone in a new country. I had no friends and no one to care what I did. Most days I spent alone in this house. Your grandparents were always off visiting friends or managing estate affairs. Your father spent as little time with me as possible. Even the servants were borderline disrespectful. To them and everyone else I was the American heiress who had sold herself for an English title. Everyone except for Carson."

"So you seduced him?" Mary sneered.

Cora looked across the room again for a long moment before she turned back to meet Mary's eyes. "Yes."

Silence fell on them as Mary processed this new information about her mother. She hadn't thought her capable of seducing any man nevermind straight-laced Carson. She was trying to find a way to ask how it had happened when Cora spoke again.

"I'm not proud of what happened, but I can't be sorry that it did. It gave me you." She smiled wistfully. "Your Papa loved you as soon as he saw you and in time, he came to love me as well. I am sorry that you found out the way you did. Perhaps I should have told you years ago, but I had hoped to spare you this. I suppose it was naive of us to think we could keep it a secret forever. The truth always seems to find its way out eventually."

Cora stood from the bed to ring the bell for Anna. "You should bathe and change before you come down to luncheon."

Mary groaned. "I don't think I can stand being in the same room as both Papa and Carson."

Cora looked down guiltily. "You'll only have to worry about your Papa. Carson was sent away last night."

A/N Thanks for sticking with this story. Let me know what you think if you have the time.