I want to grow older with you, still

They were lying in bed, both entangled under the sheets, with his arm wrapped around her slender body. She had always been slender, but this was not healthy, and the realization pained him to no end. He was lying next to her in bed every single night, and most of the time he had her in his strong embrace to give her some warmth and comfort. How had he never noticed that she had lost this much weight?

Robert looked down at the woman who was still sleeping soundly in his arms, her face more relaxed than he had seen her in a long time. Now that he knew of her secret, he realised how often she had had that pained look on her face, how often she had looked so exhausted, but she had never said a single word. She had done it to protect him, of course. She had kept it hidden from him out of love, he was so sure of it and the mere thought of her wanting to protect him by keeping it to herself hurt him. She had always been there for him when he needed her, and where had he been when she had needed him so desperately?

Like most mornings he had woken up before her, but this time he had no intentions of letting go of her and getting out of bed to start his day. Sure, he would have to leave their bed at one point, but today he would wait, he would only leave the warmth and comfort of their shared bed after he had looked into her mesmerizingly blue eyes and had seen that signature smile she gave him every morning when she greeted him. How will he ever be able to start his day in any other way? When her Good morning was all that was giving him the energy and the motivation to go about his day, when it was her Good morning that made him look forward to the time that dinner had come and gone, and he finally got to have her all to himself - to talk, to kiss or to just lie in bed in comfortable silence with her by his side.

The early sun´s rays were peeking through the half-drawn curtains and illuminated the beautiful light blue room in soft and gentle hues. A hesitant beam of light shone directly on her face, and how it had not woken her up yet was quite beyond him. But it gave him a chance to look at her sleeping, relaxed and oh so beautiful face.

He looked at her closed eyes, her long eyelashes softly grazing her cheeks and he thought of how they always fluttered coyly whenever he complimented her. When he had first noticed this little habit of hers, he promised himself to do so more frequently, if only to see her blush and smile at him shyly. He glanced at her nose and had to think of how cute she looked when she was overjoyed about something and it scrunched up ever so slightly, giving her that young and gleeful look he had always admired. He marvelled at her rose-coloured lips and thought of the truly countless times he had kissed them - sometimes only fleetingly, barely touching at all, at other times deeply, eagerly and hungrily for her, needing her closer still. He could have sworn he even felt her lips on his at that moment, he was so familiar with them. He looked at her beautiful, dark brown hair that, as usual, had been tied neatly into a braid the night before and in his mind, he recalled the soft feeling of it whenever he would run his fingers through it as gently as he could.

But then, in the soft morning light, he saw them. The few and barely noticeable grey hairs. Small streaks of silvery-grey were appearing in her long, dark hair. He had never seen them before, or he had never noticed them. They were not all that visible from afar, he thought in his own defense, there were too few of them still, but being so close to her at that moment, he could see them - and he felt this strange sense of pride.

His eyes flickered back to her face as she slightly stirred in his arms, and he studied the lines on her face. He had seen them before, obviously, especially during the days when she was displeased with something, or when she was attending some of her work and had to think thoroughly. He had to smile at the adorableness he always perceived when she would furrow her brows when thinking of how to address a difficult topic in a letter she was writing. But most importantly he saw them when she was happy, when her eyes were twinkling with mirth and she had that wide, toothy smile on her face. Usually, this was when their grandchildren came down for tea and she got to spend time with them, reading them stories or telling them of adventures she had had with their grandpapa in her younger years. Or sometimes she just talked to them about their day spent with Nanny. It always warmed his heart to see her interact with their beloved grandchildren. The valuable hours they spent with Sybbie, George, Marigold and little Caroline were usually when she was the truest version of herself, apart from the time they spent together just the two of them.

She was his. His beautiful, darling Cora. And she had been his for so long.

"Robert?"

Her soft voice called him back to the present and he found himself looking into her blue eyes, her eyelids still drooping heavily with sleep, as she turned her face more in his direction.

"Good morning, my dearest," he replied, smiling softly down on her as he placed a soft kiss on her temple.

She closed her eyes, relishing in the feeling of his lips on her while his arm was wrapped loosely around her, pulling her close to his chest.

"It is indeed a good morning when I get to wake up with you still in bed next to me. How long have you already been awake?"

"Not too terribly long. I did not want to wake you after our long journey home," he whispered. "You must be exhausted, for I know that I certainly am. Besides, I had the loveliest, most beautiful view to wake up to and I intend to cherish that for as long as I can."

"Don´t make it sound so final, my dear. We do not know anything with certainty yet. I am still here, and I hope I will be for a while to come. And I am not as beautiful as I once was, Robert. You and I know that."

She smiled softly at him as her hand moved on top of his, lacing her fingers into his and squeezing them reassuringly, as if to reassure him that she was indeed still there in his warm embrace, looking at his kind and gentle eyes that were equally as blue as hers.

Robert closed his eyes for a second, taking a moment to ponder the words he wanted to say.

"Our opinions on that seem to differ, my darling. You are every bit as beautiful as all those years ago when we first met and I was almost too intimidated to even ask you for a dance. You may not look the same, but you are still the most beautiful woman in every room you are in."

A small chuckle escaped her lips. Robert only ever said these kinds of things when they were alone, and she still felt her heart flutter as excitedly as the first time he had ever let his guard down so completely.

"What is so funny?" he inquired, totally oblivious to the effect his words had on his wife.

"Oh nothing, I just never realised I had married such a romantic."

"I am not a romantic, Cora, just an old man who is still madly in love with his wife, even after almost forty years of marriage."

Cora now turned around in his arms, sitting up straighter in bed with her head propped up high by the plush pillow beneath her. This prompted Robert to shift his position in bed as well, now propping himself up on his right arm, his head angled up at her.

"Thirty-eight years of marriage. It sounds so surreal, doesn´t it?" She sighed; her voice laced with melancholy. "Still, I am not the same woman you married, Robert. My body is old now, it starts to betray me, and I don't dare to think about what Dr Clarkson may uncover later."

"It feels surreal. To think that we got to spend more time in our lives with each other by our side than apart warms my heart to no end. And it makes me appreciate the life we have lived together. When I woke up today, I watched you. And I saw your hair, with the grey streaks that slowly emerge. And I saw the wrinkles by your eyes. I have never consciously noticed them before, but they made me realise how fortunate we are to have been granted so much time together. No matter what Dr Clarkson may find, we got to grow old together, you and I."

"It is not very gallant to remind a lady of the many wrinkles on her face and her hair going grey, I know well enough how old it makes me look," she replied slightly snappy, but with her eyes twinkling and Robert knew that she was teasing him.

"No, they do not make you look old, my dearest. They are just evidence of a life truly lived. They show that you worried, that you grieved, but also that you smiled and laughed to your heart's content. Look at me, my hair has been greying and thinning for many years now and my face is so very wrinkled. I have looked this old for over a decade, when you were still an image of youth. But you have aged gracefully, and I feel this resounding happiness within my chest now that I have realised how incredibly lucky we are. When you told me about-"

Robert´s soft and hushed voice broke as he tried to reign in his emotions again. No matter how happy he felt being back home, lying in bed with his wife, most of their worries far away - the mere thought of their conversation in the gardens of little Sybbie´s villa in the south of France got him all choked up and he felt overcome with all these big emotions. Unable to word things the way he first intended to, he tried again.

"When we talked during the garden party, I was overwhelmed. I kept thinking of all the things we did not do and of all the things we might not get to experience in future. I kept thinking how I was robbed of the chance to grow old with you, but that is not true. Because I did. I got to watch our children grow up and even their children are getting older now. Take a look at our darling Sybbie - I cannot believe that she turned 8 this year. And George is 7 already. And I got to do it all with you by my side the entire time. I still remember very vividly when Sybbie and George were as little as Caroline and baby Peter, and yet those days seem so far behind, like we led a completely different life. And it was a different world back then, but I got to brave the raging seas of change with you by my side. I have no idea how Mama has been holding up for so many years without Papa, I don't think I could ever do that. And I don't want to do that. I want to grow older with you, still."

Robert was rambling, he was letting go of all the things he had kept inside since his outburst in the gardens. He had not wanted to trouble his darling wife with any of this, not until they knew more about her health. But he could not keep it in any longer, he wanted her to know all these things. He wanted her to know how much their shared years had meant to him, how much she truly meant to him. He wanted her to see that she was everything to him, just like he had said that night.

Cora was sitting there, unmoving in her position, looking at her husband as he was finally letting out what he had kept in the entire journey back to England. She had felt him stewing in his own thoughts since the night she finally let him in on her secret, but she did not want to pressure him into voicing his thoughts. She would not pressure him, she knew that he was not ready to talk about it yet, with the dread and the feeling of utter hopelessness looming over him, following him like a shadow. The entire journey home from France had been rather silent, they had not talked much. And they did not need to, for they knew each other too well.

She had moved her hand to his again, searching for some comfort as she processed the things he said. She knew he always felt these things so terribly deeply, and sometimes that was something she did not know how to handle. He always bottled his emotions up, until at some point, they became unbearable and when he then finally confided in her, sometimes in a manner one would not associate with an English earl, she did not know how to respond.

Maybe they were too alike in that regard, because just like him, she had been raised to keep her emotions inside, to never reveal what she truly felt and that was one of her, and his, biggest flaws. They always tried to keep their emotions to themselves, to handle them on their own and not burden each other. But now she felt that she did not need to handle anything, not when they were in their room, together, unseen by the rest of the world. So she just held his hand and let go of her inhibitions.

She cried, but they were not tears of sadness or grief. No, these were mostly tears of joy and gratitude, of love.

If anyone would have told her on her wedding day thirty-eight long years ago that she would one day be finding herself in the bed she shared with her husband, feeling more in love than ever before, reflecting on the life they shared, she would not have believed a single word. She had loved him then, had loved his kind and gentle nature, his attentiveness and even the shyness he had had when he courted her. And she knew that he had not loved her, not on their wedding day and not for a few months after it, for that matter. But still, he had been kind and caring, and she had convinced herself that she could do with that, that she could find some sort of happiness this way, with him. She could have lived that way, but she never had to, because love came. It started as a tender bud that was nurtured throughout the years and then blossomed in this beautiful way that had made her life so much sweeter. And what a life they had lived.

They had stayed in bed for a while longer that morning, and Robert had had his breakfast on a tray next to his wife. They had not talked much during and after it, the both of them already silently worrying about her appointment with Dr Clarkson later that day. She had wanted him to stay home, wanted to spare him all the medical talk and practice that had always made him so uncomfortable.

Robert, however, had wanted to hear none of that. He wanted to be there by her side, every step of the way, and he had been. He had even stayed in the room when the doctor ran his tests and took her blood, just the thought of her being stuck with a needle made him feel queasy, but he endured it for her.

She had astonished him when she told the doctor that she would be able to face whatever it was, knowing that she had not wasted her life. Of course, that had been linked to the morning they had spent together and the things they had said, but he was surprised she would express it to the doctor. It was rare for her to share personal feelings, even within their close-knit family.


Robert had barely left her side the entire time they had been back from France, only leaving when something could not be handled by either Tom or Mary, which luckily was very rare these days. And this evening was no different. He was standing right beside her when Dr Clarkson arrived at the abbey with the awaited test results. He had stood close to her, his hand almost clutching her own and he waited for the doctor to speak with bated breath, mentally preparing for the worst. So when the doctor told them that it was not cancer, but indeed pernicious anaemia, he could not hold off anymore. Propriety could wait for just a few minutes. For now, a kiss to her temple would do, but it was not what he wanted. He wanted desperately to wrap her into his arms, embrace her tightly and never let go of her. He wanted to kiss her with all the love and passion he had in him. But he could not.

Doctor Clarkson had stepped away slightly, to give them a brief moment for themselves. The doctor knew too well about the worrisome thoughts that had kept the earl and countess awake at night. When the test results had arrived that day and he had managed to take a look at them in between treating patients, even he had felt relieved. Pernicious anaemia used to be a death sentence until a few short years ago, but now there was a cure. The therapy would prove to be anything but pleasant, but he knew that anyone in their right mind would try anything just to be allowed a little more time with the love of their life. He had not been able to save their daughter - no matter what he thought he could have done all those years ago, he ultimately had no way of knowing if it would have worked. But he would do his utmost to ensure that the rest of the family stayed healthy while under his careful watch, he owed it to them, he thought. They had already suffered through so much.

While the doctor had turned away, Robert took hold of both of Cora´s hands, turning her to face him fully. There were a myriad of things on his mind that he wanted to say to her, but he did not know how to voice them. So instead, he smiled at her, his gaze full of love and gratitude. His smile was wide, his eyes were shining with unshed tears of relief, and he saw the happiness in her eyes, that familiar sparkle ever so present that he had always adored.

Cora looked up at him, her face mirroring his, displaying the same heartfelt emotions. She drew their joined hands close to her chest, pulling him closer to her in the process. Standing there like that in the great hall of their home, she had to angle her head up at him, just like she always had to do. Her voice soft, she whispered so lowly that only he could hear her: "It now seems we will still get to grow old together. You and me. Like we always hoped we would."

Just as softly, his voice thick with the emotions coursing through him, he replied: "You and me, together."