Cora stared sharply at her lady's maid, still bothered by the things she'd heard the woman say. "Mr. Crawley is His Lordship's cousin and heir. You will, therefore, please accord him with the respect he is entitled to."
But Miss O'Brien refused to be chastised. She looked Cora squarely in the eye and said, "But you don't like him yourself, milady. You never wanted him to –"
"You're sailing perilously close to the wind, O'Brien," Cora said firmly without letting the woman finish. Ordinarily, she believed in listening to everyone servants, and family members alike, but these insults were too much. "If we are to be friends, you will not speak that way again about the Crawley's or any member of Lord Grantham's family. Now I'm going up to rest. Wake at the dressing gong."
With that, she turned around and walked out of the servants' hall.
Cora loathed to talk to her ladies' maid so; O'Brien was the first maid she'd hired without her mother-in-law's influence, and as a result there was a tremendous amount of trust between them. Cora knew the other woman wouldn't be reporting things back to Mama, and therefore, O'Brien was one of her closest friends.
But friends or not, she couldn't tolerate anyone disrespecting people in Robert's family. Her husband had such a strong sense of loyalty, especially to their relatives. He wouldn't even allow people to speak unkindly about Cora's father, much as he and her husband didn't get on very well. Love swelled within her as she thought about that.
So, Cora knew how upset Robert would be if he'd heard such insults about his new heir. She could picture him unleashing his nasty temper about how people could be so ill mannered and unwelcoming. Later that night, his gloomy eyes would show just how hurt he truly was.
Climbing the stairs, Cora tried to focus on just that. Protecting her husband from insults that were certain to hurt him. Not the fact that Mathew Crawley was Robert's new heir. He was here purely because she hadn't produced a son. Mathew and his mother's presence prickled at Cora's insides, no matter how much she pretended otherwise.
She took a deep breath as she reached the top, reminding herself how pleasant Robert's new heir had been when they'd met him last night. He was a better man than Cora had thought he would be, and just as importantly he was a Crawley.
No matter what may or may not happen with the entail, she and Robert would always defend a member of their family.
