Bit of a longer one today once again, but splitting it up would not have made much sense.

This one is about Cobert in their natural habitat - the bedroom.

Cora had just slipped into bed and crawled under the covers, waiting for her husband to walk through the dividing door that connected the familiar comfort of their bedroom with his dressing room. In hindsight, this day had felt almost like a dream. It had been full of many great surprises, joyful and sad alike. Rosamund's revelation had certainly knocked the wind out of her sails for a little while, and Robert's, too. But falling apart had not been an option, not for any of them — there was a whole party of people waiting to celebrate her birthday.

The fact alone that her brother and Madeline had made the trip across the ocean still had not quite settled in. Neither had Robert's present for her. It would take a lot of trips to the gardens to take this beautiful building in for her to finally acknowledge that it indeed was there, planned and built with her and only her in mind.

Almost as if on command when she thought of him, the door opened and her husband quietly stepped inside, dressed in his nightclothes and his favourite dress robe. He had never said as much, but the sheer frequency with which he chose to wear the dressing gown embellished with hundreds of little roses was proof enough for her to know that it was indeed his favourite. And she liked to see it on him.

Robert's brow was furrowed as he entered, his mind somewhere miles and miles away. Cora watched him as he untied the sash of his robe agonisingly slowly, taking it off and then proceeding to fold it neatly over the back of his chair before sitting down there with a low grunt.

"A penny for your thoughts?" Cora smiled shyly as she looked at him.

His eyes were still unfocused, staring into nothingness ahead of him, as he began to take off his house shoes. Before slipping out of them, though, he stopped and reclined in his chair, his arms coming to rest on the armrests on either side of him. "I'm afraid that would not quite cover it," he retorted absent-mindedly.

Right when Cora saw that he was slipping deeper into whatever hidden depth in his mind that was occupied with whatever was troubling him, she spoke again. "Come to bed, Robert. It's been a long day."

Maybe it was her soft tone. Maybe it was the truth behind her statement. Maybe it was her thinly veiled concern. Whatever it was, it finally snapped him out of his daze and he quickly sat back up, put his shoes away and slipped into their bed beside her. Turning out the nightlight, he came to lie on his back next to her, his arm raised to prop up his head some more. It had always been his way of inviting her in to cuddle up to him and she did so without hesitation. The crook of his neck had always been the perfect fit for her to rest her head in, and her hand found its way to his chest more subconsciously than not, just the way it always had.

"What is it, my dear? What is troubling you?"

She felt his chest rise and fall beneath her hand with each of the deep breaths he took. Whether that was a good or a bad sign would have to remain to be seen for her. Either it meant that he would share his concerns with her and needed to muster up the courage, or it meant that he was racking his brain for an excuse that would allow him to keep silent on the matter weighing so heavily on his mind. Cora hoped it was not the latter, but she had no way of being sure with her husband.

"I just can't believe that she kept this from us. From everyone. All these years, she carried the weight of this all on her own. To lose Papa and Marmaduke within a few years was such a great test for all of us already, but to lose a child then as well? While her husband was fighting on some distant shore, only to never return home to her, either?" His voice was quiet, but full of desperation as he finally spoke. "Do you think we should have paid more attention earlier?"

"Darling, if she had wanted us to know, she would have told us."

"But it is not right that Mary knew and we did not! I am her older brother, I should have been there for her. I should have protected her. I-"

"Robert, you can't be there for everyone all the time. You could not have helped her, and you could have prevented it even less. You had just become the Earl — so many years before you should have. You suddenly had all these responsibilities to shoulder while grieving for your father. You were thrust into this new life years before you should have. We all were. You heard Rosamund, not even your mother knew for quite a while. And you could not have helped her, you know how you are with anything medical."

He knew that she was right. He was aware of the circumstances; Rosamund had explained them in all detail that afternoon, not without tears. It had been uncomfortable for all of them, but such conversations were almost always bound to be. Robert thought back to the tearful hug he had shared with his sister. He remembered how small and vulnerable this usually strong and independent woman had seemed as he simply held her in his arms. Involuntarily, he had to think of the two young boys that could have been part of their lives had fate not decided differently many years ago, and he could feel his eyes beginning to sting and water.

"She named him after me," he whispered.

"Yes, she did."

"She named him after me, and she did not tell me about him. All these years I have spent telling her how she had no idea what having and raising children is like whenever she interfered. I told her how she had no idea what that meant — when all along she did. Sort of. I just feel so stupid, so brainlessly arrogant, so -"

Cora had known he would be feeling like this as soon as realisation would hit him, it was simply who he was. And if her husband was anything, then predictable about how he dealt with his emotions. The thought of this conversation alone had unnerved her ever since they had joined their family again after everyone had composed themselves enough that afternoon. She was just surprised he had not indulged in a few more glasses of whiskey in the drawing room after dinner, especially with Harold there as well. Cora would have expected the two of them to go slightly overboard with the decanters nearby unsupervised, but her husband had clung to the one single glass in his hand the entire evening.

She angled her head up and pressed feathery light kisses to his jaw. Her fingers began to ghost patterns across his chest, both playful and calming at the same time. Talking did not seem to be getting her anywhere with him tonight, so maybe distraction could work. And for the first time in months, she felt old desires begin to blossom within her again like a flower that blossomed in spring. Her desires for him were still there, they had been hidden and now they slowly came to light again, as if they had only waited for her to finally feel ready.

His brooding expression softened slightly when he realised what she was trying to do. It had become an unfamiliar sensation to feel her touches on him like that, but not at all unwelcome. He knew that she was only trying to distract him, and yet he relished in her attention. When she tried to kiss his jaw again, he quickly turned his head some more to meet her lips.

For a split second, Cora was confused when she did not feel the slightly stubbly skin of his jaw but instead his soft lips on hers. But once she realised what he had done, she closed her eyes and smiled into the lingering kiss he had initiated this way.

When they parted, Robert kept his head close to hers and whispered: "I don't deserve you, Cora. I deserve to feel all the pain, all the guilt for what I put Rosamund through all these years. I don't deserve your calming presence here. I don't."

"Oh, my dear. But you do," she whispered back, looking sternly at him in the hopes that he would take her words to heart and not listen to the voices in his head that were trying to convince him of the opposite.

Then she reached out her hand and pulled him closer for a much more heated kiss than the innocent one he had tricked her into before. She pushed herself up and closer to him while her hand played with the top button of his shirt as they lost themselves in each other. Suddenly, Robert pulled her even closer, and she somehow found herself straddling him when they broke apart, desperately gasping for air.

He had a smile on his face, the same sort of boyish, almost stupid grin that he had always had tugging on his lips when they were younger. He looked her over, his eyes darkened by passion as he lay beneath her, half propped up by the pillow underneath his head.

And then he realised.

The seductive and playful smile she had not seen in months was gone as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished into thin air and was replaced by a look of concern and alarm. The tension that had filled the room, that had made the air feel electrified, that had made her feel so alive like she had not in months — it was gone.

"What?" she asked almost too quietly, her eyes wide.

"I just- I am sorry, I don't know what came over me," he mumbled, looking ashamedly at his hand that had found its way to her hip, keeping her upright on his lap while they had been kissing. He wanted to take it off, as if he had burned simply touching her there. It felt wrong to hold her like that.

Albeit being more than slightly confused by his sudden change in demeanour, Cora quickly figured out what had suddenly got into him. She had known him for forty years now, and it was only typical for her husband to feel and behave like this. "There is nothing you need to apologise for, Robert. I kissed you first, remember?" Cora smiled softly before bending down to capture his lips with hers once more.

He was clearly hesitant at first, but he kissed her back. Eventually, all the doubts that must have filled his head when he had stopped them before must have disappeared, for he began to kiss her back just as eagerly and fervently.

When she broke off their kiss in favour of taking a deep breath, she rested her forehead against his and smiled at him, an almost lovesick look in her eyes.

"I have missed this. I have missed you," she whispered against his lips.

Her left hand had quickly found its way to his neck, her fingers wound into the slightly curly hair at the nape, while her other hand toyed with the button on his shirt once more. Teasingly, she twisted and turned it this way and that, before finally popping it through the buttonhole and moving on to the next one along.

His hands still rested on her hips as he held her steady in her place, but even his earlier doubts could not keep them from wandering, either. Her nightgown had been bunched up when he had pulled her onto his lap, and the amount of fabric now sort of pooling there had been bothering him ever since. Without giving it much thought, he gripped the skilfully embroidered hem. Fleetingly interrupting their heated kiss, Robert quickly pulled it up and over her head. Then, his mouth crashed back onto hers.

Cora worked more on his buttons, playfully and quite teasingly undoing one after the other, while her fingers began to touch his exposed chest.

With closed eyes, he relished in her delicate touches as his hands ran up and down her sides, feeling the softness of her skin underneath. When his left hand tantalisingly grazed her side and slowly wandered up, she suddenly broke off their kiss and backed away.

Reluctantly, he opened his eyes and looked at her in question, unaware of what he had done wrong.

She felt as if she had been fast asleep and someone had emptied a bucket of ice water over her head. She felt wide awake. A newfound sense of clarity washed over her when she realised what they were doing, what she was doing. It had not been her plan, and she had not planned to see her nightgown discarded on the bed next to them. She felt awful for this. For doing this to him. She knew that he would think he had done something wrong. She could already see that on his face. But how was she to tell him that it was nothing he had done? How was she to get out of this situation now?

"Cora?" he asked quietly, concern evident in his hushed voice as he looked her over.

"I am sorry, Robert," she only gave back.

Quickly, Cora moved and tried to get up from his lap and back into her side of the bed. Her fingers were already stretched out to reach for her nightgown when his hand held her back.

"Cora, what is it?"

"Nothing, Robert. This has nothing to do with you," she said hastily, trying to pull her nightgown back over her head without further ruining the braid Baxter had put her hair into earlier.

Robert could not help but keep staring at her incredulously.

"I just don't want you to see me like this," she whispered after that, barely audible even to him now sitting up right next to her.

Still, no matter how quietly they were spoken — her words hit their target and his hand loosened its grip on hers almost on instinct. She could clearly see the cogs turning inside his head, and then it hit him like a freight train. She saw the moment he realised what she meant. And she hated herself for doing this.

"If this is about -" he trailed off. Slowly, his eyes left her face and wandered to her breasts. Or rather what still remained. Most of her left breast was gone, amputated. And in its stead was only a long and curved, very fine scar. One that would fade with time.

Then, he realised that he was seeing her for the first time like this. She had never allowed him there when the dressings on her wound had to be changed or when the doctor had examined the site. He had never seen her after the operation, she had always sent him away. Not even when Baxter had to apply the salve had he been near. In the beginning, that had bothered him — to no end. With time, however, he had grown accustomed to being sent away at every turn and the sting caused by her rejection had lessened every time. Eventually, he did not even take notice of it any more. It had just become routine for him to leave the room before she even had to utter a single word. He felt stupid, he should have known. He should have been there.

Now that he had realised all of this, finally seeing her scar months after her operation, he could not seem to be able to look away. If he had not still been holding onto her hand, she would have likely fled the bed, fled the room. He could tell that by the way she tried to subtly wriggle herself free, her eyes darting to the bathroom door. But he could not let go, he could not bring himself to. The fine scar captivated him. To him, it was unreal that such a small and delicate scar could be all that was left of her fighting for her life, the only reminder of what she went through.

Unable to look away, his hand stretched out again and his index finger traced the curved line gently, almost feather-like. He felt the slight swelling where the sutures had been placed so expertly after hours of precision work by the doctors. He knew he could never thank them enough for all they had done.

"Robert, please don't. I am not-"

"If you mean to say that you are not beautiful, then please stop right there. I won't listen."

His tone left no room for discussion, she knew that well enough.

She wanted to flee. She wanted to run from him and his delicate touch. She wanted to hide. He should not see her like this. But Cora also did not have the heart to stop his hand from continuing its slow and tender caress, so she let him carry on. This attentive side of her husband had her weak, she found she could not deny him anything in moments like these.

Cora looked at him. He was so focused, his gaze fixed, looking at the scar with such intent as his fingers stayed near, ghosting over the pale pink skin.

He felt her gaze resting on him. Gulping, he slowly removed his hands from her and sighed. With nimble fingers, he popped open the last two buttons previously left untouched by her and shrugged out of the lightweight fabric.

"This," he said motioning to the big scar that ran over his stomach, "this here is what I am carrying with me. I have for years now, and it keeps reminding me how narrowly I escaped death that night. It reminds me that life is short and not always easy. Our life has never been that, a walk in the park. It has never been easy, but we always had each other. And we always fought for each other."

Robert smiled at her innocently. He gently took her hand in his and guided her fingers to his abdomen. Cora's fingers began to run along the prominent scar, like they had so many times in the years that had passed since that fateful night. She had cared for it, had done the wound dressings, and had kept reminding her husband that this scar did not change how she saw him, that he was still the same man to her — because he was. He was still her Robert.

"This is ugly, so very ugly, but I am grateful for it, nonetheless. This scar is just a small price to pay in return for my life. The life that I get to spend with you. My body is old. It is battered and bruised, and when all of this happened, you were there to help me through it. This is ugly and it will never fade away. It is a constant reminder. And it has not changed anything between us. Neither will yours. Your scar will fade more as the months and years go on, and nothing could ever change how beautiful you are, my darling, not even the passing of time of this treacherous illness. I know it will take a lot of time for you to accept this, to accept your changed appearance and that this is now a part of you, just like this illness was. But you will eventually. And I will be there to remind you just how rare and beautiful you are to me until you can see it yourself."

Robert did not know if she had even been listening to a word he had said. Her eyes had been fixed on his stomach, following the movements of her fingers. She had seemed miles away. Not even when he took hold of her hand and guided it to his mouth had she reacted other than following his moves with her eyes. He kissed the back of her hand, not letting go of it, and then the tips of his fingers. Slowly, still holding her hand close to him, he reached out his fingers and ever so gently pressed the tips he had just kissed to her silvery scar.

She seemed trapped in a daze, unable to come out of it. Her movements were slow, delayed. He saw in her eyes that she was tired and confused. Maybe she had listened. Maybe she was trying to find the right words to reply.

He smiled softly at her, carefully letting himself fall back into the pillows as he held on to her. She followed suit, her body moulding to his like it always had, and he pulled the covers up over the both of them. He did not care about his sleep shirt lying discarded somewhere next to the bed, there to be found by Baxter when she would come to wake them up the following morning. He did not care how this looked, how frivolous and scandalous this must seem.

All he cared for was the woman in his arms.

"Sleep well, my dear," he whispered. One last time that night, he bowed his head and kissed the crown of her head that rested on his chest as her hand covered his beating heart. His heart that beat solely for her that night.