Lilac: First Love

She'd settled, he realized. He didn't know when she had, but suddenly it was plainly obvious to him.

It was a gradual surprise, a bit like the summer he turned fifteen years old, how he'd grown nearly three inches in a matter of nine weeks. He hadn't realized that either, not until he arrived back home on a break from Eton and, when reaching for a book in the library, realized he could finger the spines on a higher shelf.

It felt exactly like that now. His expression he wore even rather felt like the one he'd worn those ten years ago, too: slightly knitted brow, tentative smile, the sort of humble, and perhaps unfounded, pride in the discovery.

He watched her from her big, soft bed, and felt the details of this moment now come through the fog the way they always did at epiphanies. She had a crackling fire in her hearth. A photograph they'd had made on their wedding day — Robert and Cora standing side-by-side — stood in a silver frame on her chest of drawers. There were a few Christmas cards on her mantel, illustrations of a jolly Santa Claus and careful notes of Merry Christmas easily giving away their origin. A navy blue book rested on the little side table beside her chaise longue, the bookmark deeper than it had been this time last night. Yes. It had slowly become her room, and he realized that now as he watched the way she rubbed her lotion over the backs of her hands and pulled the excess across her fingers.

She was speaking to him about something, something Rosamund had mentioned a few hours ago after dinner — something about Mama — but Robert couldn't concentrate on that.

He could only watch her and hear, instead, what his sister had said to him earlier: "But why would I tease? There are worse things than being in love with your own wife."

He'd shot a hot glare at Rosamund, who had been trudging next to him in the woods, but found to his surprise that her expression was entirely sincere.

That was this morning.

And now the length of the day had worn away to what had become their settled routine. Watson undressed him. Robert slipped through the dividing door. Cora rubbed hand cream into her soft hands as he looked on.

Then they'd try to conceive. That was next.

Or at least, that's what it had been for months now, nearly a year of marriage. Now he … he wasn't sure if … was it that, anymore? Or at least, was it only that?

"— though she does seem to be oversimplifying the matter, don't you think?"

He watched her unbutton her heavy pink dressing gown now and lay it on the end of her bed, and he smiled at the shadows of her shape the fire hinted at beneath her nightgown.

"We both know it isn't as if your mother is exactly thrilled to be giving up the role, even if it is just handing out a school award or two."

He chuckled in his throat as Cora climbed up into her bed beside him. "No," he agreed.

"She obviously thinks I'm going to make a mess of it."

She lifted her covers, her sheets, and he felt her mattress shake with her as she shimmied her legs into a comfortable position beside him.

"Or she'll ensure I do in some way so I don't seemingly usurp her," she brought her bright eyes to his. "She's an expert in this kind of sabotage — confusing and flustering me before I've even begun."

This time he laughed aloud at her. Had she always been this amusing? This clever?

"You'll do well," he smiled at her. "You always seem to."

She smirked. "You don't mean it, but I appreciate it all the same." And then leaning to him, shifting her weight upon her left arm, he felt her kiss his cheek. "Now, then," she laid her head back into her pillow and again the mattress shook as she lifted her nightgown to expose her legs and hips. "Come and make your son and heir so we can go to bed. But quickly, please. We both have an early start tomorrow."

Robert shook his head and looked down at her. "Is that supposed to entice me?"

She smirked again. "I have other ideas for that."

He felt a burst of a laugh escape him. She was sometimes this way; for all of her sweetness, there was that wonderful playful edge she had. She could smile demurely and cast her lashes down bashfully in one moment and in the next roll her eyes and make a rather witty remark to tease him. He liked to imagine she was that way as a very young girl in Ohio, that somehow the quality had been picked up on the bottom of her tiny bare feet in a dusty emporium in Cincinnati. It was certainly not from some over-flowered and overcrowded ballroom in New York or London.

He thought of this, of how she made him laugh in a way no one else quite could, as he hovered over her and kissed her. He thought of it as her fingers brushed through his hair and as she pressed her lips more firmly against his mouth.

Her arm snaked down between them, slipped into the waistband of his pajamas, and found him. He hardened in the motion of her long, soft, lotioned fingers, and he watched her face change beneath him as he changed in her hand. Her eyelids fell closed and the pout of her lips parted into a small 'O'. A quiet sigh rose from her throat.

"Robert."

She stroked him gently at first, and when his hips involuntarily thrust towards her, she grasped him tightly.

He opened his eyes to find her again, to see her. He felt warmth rush all over and through him at the sight of her, eyes still fluttering closed, her mouth still parted and reddened. Her hand still wrapped around him.

He smiled, wickedly. "Ah, now this is enticing."

It was her turn to laugh, and his chest tightened sweetly at her smile.

Angling up her chin to him, Cora lifted her brows. "I thought it might be. Now, let's hurry up."

They chuckled together, lowly, as he freed himself of his pants. They worked together to unbutton his shirt, Cora breathing deeply through her nose and then exhaling in one long breath through parted lips when he was finally undressed. She felt across his chest, and he swallowed down the desire to push her against the mattress and plunge into her. He didn't want to do that, not even as he throbbed for her. He found that more than that, he wanted every tiny moment, every gentle touch, to linger on with her in spite of their early rise. In spite of her words to hurry. He didn't want to.

His fingers, though, moved forward of their own accord to her, to that slick place between her thighs, and his head swam. "Darling."

She lifted her hips and pushed against his hand, a high tremble of a gasp escaping her, and he circled there once, twice, wanting so much for her to toss her head the way she sometimes did, grab at his arm or the sheets beneath her. He circled again, his fingers growing wetter against her, before he heard her small, "Alright. I —." He then felt her stronger grasp of both of his shoulders, urging him to lie flat. He did, his digits tingling with the desire to keep touching her there, his eyes feeling much heavier and warmer than before.

"I don't mind," he whispered to her, but there was no response.

Her breathing was no longer deep, but shallow and shaky. He watched as she moved fluidly over him, straddling his hips, and leaned down to him to kiss the corner of his lips.

"I'm ready, darling."

"Oh, darling. Oh, my darling," he repeated mindlessly and then, with her soft, dark hair falling all around them like a canopy, he pressed his open mouth against her throat. The scent of her filled his every thought, the sleepy press of white jasmine still lingering, yes, but also the scent that was entirely her own — a warm and now a familiar scent — at the place he felt her pulse rush against his lip.

Cora sat upright upon him, looked at his erection pressing at her abdomen, and she lifted herself to take him inside of her, both of them quivering suppressed moans and touching lightly at each other, immersing themselves in the feel of their joining.

She moved on him then, her hips slowly rolling against his own, and Robert watched her in what felt like awe.

She was lovely. Really.

Beautiful and glorious, but really altogether lovely, like something he'd seen imagined in a work of art — Every line was perfect; every curve drew his eye to a point: her sweep of dark lashes at her closed eyes, her red swollen lips slightly apart, her simple white nightdress pooled around where she moved them together, him within her.

He grabbed at the dress and she paused and lifted her arms, inviting him to remove it. His heart quickened, and he did. He allowed his palms to travel the length of her from hip to fingertip, sitting up himself as he did so, sitting up with his chest against her breasts, as he freed her from the cotton slip.

The gown dropped to the bed beside them, and her hair fell again, fluffs of combed through curls settling in her face, between them.

And though his body physically ached with need to finish inside of her, though his hips and stomach twisted into warmth-divine for her, he realized what he needed most now was to look at her. His heart felt heavier and heavier with the need.

Gently, he took a fingertip, and he moved her raven tresses from her eyes.

And the world fell away from them.

He swallowed. The emotion that had flooded his heart now rose inside his throat, his head. She looked at him, her brows furrowed only slightly, as Robert brushed, even more gently, the backs of two fingers along her cheek.

She had stopped moving. Her breathing was faint now. Her eyes — oh her eyes — widened softly, like a doe hearing the rustle of a leaf. They were both covered in gooseflesh, though the room no longer felt cold.

They were still, only looking at one another, and instead of saying what he knew was undoubtedly true — he loved her, he loved her — escaped just barely: "Cora."

Oh. He narrowed his gaze at her response, the brightness of her eyes swimming, tears gathering at her lashes. She shook her head, and he felt an uneasy flustering trapped within his ribs.

He'd never seen her cry. Not openly.

"What —" she hoarsely whispered. She blinked furiously. "What're you doing?"

But he could not think. Not with her looking at him that way. Not with the way his heart ached with this love for her. He loved her. Oh, God, he loved her.

And so he drew himself even nearer, a hand at the back of her neck, the other at the small of her back as she remained there on him, and he kissed her.

Softly.

Slowly.

Watching her.

Letting it linger, the way he had wanted to.

But she shook her head at his. He felt her nose brush his own. "We have to be down so early. You'll be sorry that we —" he saw as she managed a strained, very tight smile. She was trying her best to tease him again, even if her voice tremored, "that we'd stayed up so long to .. do our duty."

But he did not smile. His heart had grown and devoured everything inside of him until all he could think of was that Rosamund was right. There were far worse things than loving his wife.

And, oh, he'd loved her for much longer than he knew.

"This isn't duty," the words scared him, how real, and how honest. It was the most sacred thing he'd ever said in his life. "Cora. We love each other."

Oh, she was crying now. And smiling. But also frowning, her lip trembling, her breath trembling, too.

She pushed against him and kissed him, hard. He felt her nod against his head, and then felt her hips roll against him again.

"It's not duty," she echoed at his lips, and he opened his eyes to meet hers as they moved perfectly together towards something he'd never felt before.