Morning Glory: Unrequited Love

She tasted very faintly of wine, but he supposed he did, too. He chuckled a bit at her mouth, and his wife — his Viscountess — laughed back as she pressed her body against his in their bed at Grantham House.

"What is it?" Her bouncing words moved against his lips, and Robert smiled wider. He sighed, feeling her, spreading his fingers around her waist and then pulling them down to her hips.

"It's you," he answered, and his grasp traveled again, to her bottom.

"Me?"

"Mmm. You were marvelous," he confessed, for she was. "All evening."

He kissed her again, deeply, and began to inch her nightgown up into his fists. "From your curtsy before the Queen to your waltz with Papa. Lady Downton," he laughed again. "You're truly Lady Downton now."

He rolled his weight from his side to his belly to cover her, slightly, partially, his face at hers. He spoke as his right hand felt underneath her nightgown for her breast: "The Lady Cora Crawley, Viscountess Downton." Her nightgown covered little more than a scarf would now.

Cora shook her head, snickering, and swatted his right hand playfully. No matter. He let it drop lower and relished in the velvety feel of her inner thigh beneath the pads of his fingers.

"Robert! All this flirting!" Her teeth touched lightly at his bottom lip. "I think you've had too much to drink," she giggled.

"And you have not?" He drew away to look down at her face, her features soft and lazy. Her eyes seemed half-closed, and then fully closed when he watched her pull herself up to kiss him. He drew back again. "You have had too much to drink."

"I'm not drunk," she argued, and he could see she was not. But she was uninhibited.

They both were.

He rested against her again. He kissed her cheek, the side of her mouth. His hand found her breast, and instead of swatting at him, she arched her back into his touch. He smiled. "I should have warned you."

"Of what?"

"It was your first At-Home, after all. Seems you didn't know how long they could last. Copious amounts of wine. One must pace oneself."

"Mmm," her hum vibrated against him, and Robert closed his eyes, too. He took her nightgown off of her and buried his face in her neck.

Oh, she smelled divine.

"I told you. I'm not drunk," she continued to hum. "Although," she lifted her chin to grant him better access, "the feel of you against me is quite heady."

"I quite agree," he answered against her throat, the last word lowering deeply into a small moan as he gently brushed the soft swell of her breast with his thumb.

And then they didn't talk for some moments more, moments in which they'd taken off Robert's pajamas, too; moments in which he'd allowed his mouth to roam to every curve of hers he could find, her hips bucking a bit and laughing aloud when he reached her stomach.

"That tickles!" she laughed, and he laughed too, letting himself rest beside her, back onto the mattress, wondering only for the briefest second what it meant that his mouth watered to taste every inch of her.

Her low noise of desire, tucked deeply in her throat, shook away the thought, though, and he took in a deep breath as his wife's lithe body covered his right side.

Her knee drew into the space between his own.

Her soft palms found his cheeks as the roundness of her hips, and that deliciously warm space between them, pressed firmly against his thigh.

Instinctually, his arm wrapped around the small of her back as she kissed and pressed against him again.

Robert hadn't been sure of this at first, when on honeymoon Cora had rolled to lie on top of him one night. He had only allowed it for a few moments, kissing her, before shifting her beneath him again. He remembered wondering if it was right.

Wasn't it a bit vulgar – a bit animalistic or base? It was nearly something that would take place in one of those places James had offered to bring him to before.

But it had only taken a few more times of it — of her moving herself over him, kissing and stroking their bodies against one another until it was time for him to enter her — for Robert to dismiss his concerns. Practically, it made the next part of the marriage act, their physical joining, much easier. And if it all resulted in their ultimate goal — an heir — did it really matter the steps in the process used? How would anyone know, anyhow?

Besides, and much less practically, Cora seemed to enjoy their coupling now, and that was good, wasn't it?

Yes, he decided. After all, her enjoyment certainly made him enjoy it even more.

His hazy thoughts drifted away just as easily as they'd drifted to him when he felt Cora's weight press against his leg, her own now wrapping around him. He found her mouth and kissed her deeply, felt her hips move against him. Her fingers were at his chest and then his shoulders, pulling herself over him, her hips shifting to be even with his own.

Oh, but he was stupid to worry about decency. This was as it should be. He felt … they felt happy just now, doing things that felt … very nice, indeed.

And then, he didn't realize he was laughing, it rumbling beneath the soft length of her fingers that ran themselves through the hair at his breasts, until his newly-presented wife peered down at him, frowning.

"Are you not sure? After all I … that is … Is this all right?" Her lips moved so prettily, her open-mouthed As so deliciously American.

He nodded, and he looked down at himself, his desire plain and very much ready for her. "I say it's more than all right. I'm reaching desperation."

One of her dark brows quirked as he pulled at her waist to direct her to lie down again. But she didn't. Instead, she lifted herself on her knees.

"What if we…" he thought he saw her blush. She tilted her head and drew in a breath. "That is … Don't you think it would work this way, too?"

Robert blinked. "With me lying on my back?"

She nodded, and then Robert's eyelids felt immediately heavier, warmer, as she gathered his desire in those same long fingers and held him. "Can't we try?"

He looked at her pinker face and then slowly down at her bare shoulders and stomach, all glowing in the sole candlelight at the bedside.

No one would know. Even if it did seem rather … no. Cora was not lewd or indecent. She was his wife.

He nodded. And then slowly, working together to adjust themselves, she slowly sunk down upon him.

"Oh," he exhaled.

She said something unintelligible and then his name.

How did this feel different than her lying beneath him? It did, somehow, feel different. And then she began to move against him, on him, and Robert found himself biting into his lip, casting his eyes away from how she looked on top of him, bare and strikingly beautiful.

"Cora. You're —"

She made a small noise in response and he had to look away again.

He hadn't realized his eyes were still closed until he heard her softly ask him, in what was more breath than voice, "Shall I stop?"

He shook his head. No. No, he didn't want her to. His fingers, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, went to the flesh of her hips and gripped her there.

"You're certain?" Her voice was high.

And he nodded.

When she began to move a little faster, finding a certain rhythm like a pulse, he had to draw up his chin and take a deep breath. He couldn't let himself go that quickly … and he shouldn't let it spill into her this way? It wouldn't work, then, would it? Wouldn't it all just … spill out again?

He took another deep breath, opened his mouth and eyes to say so, and then lost sense at the next sensation. He grasped at her hips more tightly. He heard her whimper and then a deep moan. Her fingers dug into his shoulders and her head dropped nearer to his, her curls and ribbon tickling at his forehead, his name riding her sharp intake of breath as she moved determinedly.

That was his undoing.

There would be tomorrow for an heir if it didn't work this way. There would be … oh, who cared. His body found its wave crest and he felt every one of his muscles grow rigid, and more rigid, the warm flood of sensations where he and Cora were one something altogether indescribable. And then, every one of those muscles felt as if it fell slack as he went over that crest, and his body floated away, just as his wife slumped breathlessly to lie on his chest, her knees still straddling him, tucked up against his ribs.

He drew his arm around her waist, and then her shoulders, and he held her there. Closely.

He could feel the hammering of her heart against his own. He could hear the rush of her breath in and out through her sweet lips. He could smell the musk of their sweat and their bed and the room around them, and oddly, it made him smile.

"Darling," he whispered, unsure why exactly. It felt as if he should say her name, but it caught in his throat. His fingers found the long straight line of her spine and he ran his fingertips over it and back again, tenderly probing each small hill of her vertebrae.

She hadn't moved. Not really. Her breathing and heart rate were beginning to slow, though. Her arms were now tucked in against him, too. Her gathered curls were soft in his face, and he felt himself begin to strangely panic. She felt so still.

"Cora?" he heard himself ask.

Her curls moved from his cheek.

"Are you all right? You aren't hurt?"

"No. Not hurt." She pushed herself upright on him and looked down into his face. Her eyes were bright. Her cheeks were rosy. She grinned softly. "Not at all."

The way she looked just then – her crooked grin, her knitted brow and small incredulous laugh – made him wonder.

And then made him realize.

He opened his mouth to ask her — ask her how, exactly, he wasn't sure — but she laughed softly again and he lost the nerve. She took herself away from him and allowed herself to rather ungracefully fall beside him on the mattress.

He swallowed and looked at her. Dark curls that had come loose from her maid's careful ribbon were in her face. He watched her, her eyes closed, as a hand pushed them from her face and her chin lifted to pull in more air. She smiled, pushed out a breath, and said his name.

"Robert."

He watched her teeth pull at her bottom lip. And she laughed again.

She was beautiful.

"I've never felt … you've felt that each time?" her quiet voice trailed off. Her hand fell above her head, to the pillow. "Oh. That was such fun."

They both laughed now, Robert's heart beating quickly again, his chest warm. He felt irrationally triumphant; she'd … they both had! Together?

He laughed more. "I think I understand what you're saying has happened." He peered over at her again, beckoning her to peer up at him. She did, and she was smiling. "Have you really never?"

Cora shook her head and he watched as she rolled on her side toward him, curling slightly, but lifting her chin up to meet his gaze. "No," she was whispering. "There have been a few times I felt … near to it. When you've pressed there to … ready me."

She broke her gaze and looked between them, laughing, blushing, obviously embarrassed.

"You didn't say."

She shook her head and brought her eyes back to him. The candlelight was growing dimmer, and the flickering of it made her look like she did one night out in Florence, gas street lamps sputtering all around them in a deep ravine-like street, throwing dancing shadows against the smooth apple of her milky cheek. He liked it.

"No," her voice was even quieter now. "I wasn't sure what I was …" her mouth moved silently, as if she were searching for the words to use. "I was frightened."

Robert, intrigued, now rolled toward her. "Frightened of what?"

"I don't know! I thought I may be close to a sort of spasm or seizure, perhaps. And then one night I watched you more closely and realized it was likely … not a spasm."

His face burned hotly at that, and he looked at the mattress and swallowed. "No. It's pleasure." And though his face was on fire from the awkwardness, his hand reached between them and found her smaller one. He grasped it tightly. In his periphery, he saw her nod.

"You aren't upset?"

He looked at her. "Upset?"

She, too, brought her eyes to his. "I mean, you don't think it's bad? If I've felt it. You aren't upset that I've done it? That I asked for you to lie back so I could?"

"No!" Robert meant it. "No, I don't think you're bad, Cora. If anything, I'm happy you've —" he cut himself off, and they both laughed. "I'm a little in disbelief. I didn't think that women could. Even if James has assured me otherwise."

It was her turn to be hotly embarrassed, and he watched her bury her face into the mattress, her voice muffled when she cried, "Oh, God!"

His entire body shook with his laughter. "I'm also terribly glad you drank all that wine tonight."

She scoffed, loudly, and rolled her eyes. "You think I'm a tart!"

"No!" He chuckled at her, and brought their hands up so he could kiss hers. "No, I don't. I'm sincere. I am glad."

She was so pretty that way, he thought. She was pretty with her blushing cheeks and her smirking mouth she tried to press back into a calm expression but could not. She was pretty with her hair wild and mussed, her naked shoulder catching the golden glow of the dying candle flame. And her eyes were pretty, too, looking up at him that way.

His voice went on, his mind not even certain of what it was saying until after it was said: "I want you to be happy, Cora. I am glad to make you happy."

She wasn't smiling anymore; her eyes searched his.

After another small moment, he felt her release their hands and then move into the space beneath his chin, against his bare chest. He felt his heart marvel at how well she fit just there, nestled against him. And he closed his eyes.

She was soft and warm. Her hair smelled faintly of her jasmine perfume. Her breath breezed gently against his collarbone.

"I love you."

Oh.

And nothing.

His eyes opened. His chest went cold. Her little words burned against his skin. He couldn't seem to breathe.

Of course he knew she did. He could feel she did. Oh, but she'd never said it before. She'd never said so aloud, and now the words hung in the damp air around them.

It was silent.

And still.

And he supposed she must have felt the invisible distance growing between them for, slowly, she looked up at him again, those same eyes only moments ago he thought had been so pretty. Now they were harder and, oh, they looked as if he could snuff out any light he found in them just as easily as he could snuff out the candle dying behind her.

"We should sleep," he heard himself say. He ignored the way those pretty eyes were now watery and blinking. "It's nearly dawn."

She nodded, stiffly. He heard her swallow. He watched her force a very tight grin.

"Yes." Her voice was low.

In another moment they'd rolled away from one another, him to his back, again trying to ignore the way she gathered her nightgown without saying anything more. Again, trying his best to ignore the way she took the small candle and went into the washroom and closed the door, leaving him in the dark.