AN: THIS CONTAINS SPOLILERS FOR SERIES 6, SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW, DON'T READ!

She looked beautiful, oh so beautiful, her hair down around her shoulders, his hands having put it there. He twirls the curls around his fingers, the dark chocolate ringlets he'd first unwound himself on that very first night, two days before their wedding. He's about to loop all the curls together into her traditional braid when she swivels on the chair, her face tilted in his direction.

He'd been gazing at her for far too long, it was time she took some action, she'd seen the look before, he'd been miles away thinking about something. She'd dragged him up from downstairs, only actually touching him once they had passed swiftly from the servants abode. But he'd followed her diligently, chortling as she giggled. He'd even agreed to them not interrupting Baxter and Bates and helping each other get changed. Not that they'd really changed, he stood in his undergarments and under shirt; she her thin chemise.

"What's the matter?" She stands from the stool, wandering to the bed still feeling his gaze hot on her back. He seems to stand redundant at the dresser, twisting her hair brush between his palms.

"Don't you want me to braid your hair?" He didn't really want it braided but she had a habit of complaining when it was not tied, waking up in the morning and immediately ringing the bell 'because I need extra time with Baxter to get all the knots out.' He always laughed and she always hit him with the pillow.

"Why are you laughing?" Her eyebrows are raised, a twinkle in her eyes, he hadn't realised he'd made a sound.

"I was thinking about how annoyed you'll be about all the knots in the morning." She rolls her eyes and turns down his side of the bed, it was true all the tugging Baxter would have to do was painful, but it was all worth it. Robert adored her with her hair down, not that he didn't adore her anyway.

"I'm going to repeat what Carson interrupted downstairs, come to bed." He can't help but smirk, she really was very good at being seductive. He slips into the bed by her side, feeling the warmth of her body meeting his immediately, her toes scratching against his shin. Her lips graze gently at his neck, her fingers already stretching beneath the buttons on his shirt. It was so lovely, to lie back with her like this, and feel totally content.

"I still can't get over Mrs Hughes and Carson." Cora rolls her eyes, her hand immediately stilling on his chest, he always seemed to manage to kill a moment. Men seemed to be in the habit of it tonight, first Carson now Robert.

"Why ever not?"

"Well, I," he knows his mouth opens and closes, his hand reaching into his hair the moment her face lifts from the crook of his neck to find his gaze. "It's just, I mean, don't you think it's going to be a little awkward? Not just for us, but them, I mean, can you honestly see Carson and Mrs Hughes, well...I mean, they're not the youngest people and Carson is so, well, awkward-" He stops because she's laughing, her gentle chuckles reverberating on his neck.

"Everyone has a first time Robert. We had a first time."

"I know, but we, well-"

"They love each other, that's all that matters. I should hope you know that." She knew what his problem was, it was their age, she wasn't about to remind him that the soon to be Carson's weren't actually much older than them. She know it unnerved him, more perhaps because he was jealous that they were starting out on something new, while he was stuck with what he'd always had. "Are you jealous of him?"

"Carson?" His head spins to look at her as she shifts further from his body to increase her view of him.

"Yes, that he's just embarking on marriage and that you're, well-" She gestures at her body as she pauses. Not that she really had to, Robert had already made the jump. Had already followed her thoughts.

"You're all I want Cora. All I need. I'm not jealous of Carson. It's for him to be jealous of me. Of the man who married young and had a lovely family. Who married a woman he really admired so early in his life. I have a lot to be thankful for and most of it, no, at least ninety-five percent of it is curled right next to me." She feels the arm reaching under her, tugging her nearer at the same time she notes the first tear falling to her cheek. He had a knack sometimes of catching her of guard, tonight was one of those nights.

As he tilts his lips gently to hers he's pleased to find a wetness lingering on her cheeks, a dampness that meant more to him than the feel of her lips beneath his own. The fact he could still make her cry, still surprise her. He allows her a chance to breath, her cheeks seemingly streaking with more tears, and lowers his mouth to the dip of her shoulder as he shuffles her chemise to her waist before releasing it over her head. Her fingers dance in his hair for a while, then still, he glances up to find her deeply engrossed in watching him kiss her skin.

"If you hadn't just been so romantic I would accuse you of trying to get me back in my box." She giggles a little as his brow furrows like a school boy sent to the headmaster for a scolding he doesn't understand. He rearranges himself beside her, at which she takes the opportunity to get him to a similar state of undress as herself; teasing her fingers over his chest, she removes his shirt. She knew he was waiting for an answer to his confused look. "Over the hospital and this being a tiresome Spring and Summer for you if I don't give up."

"I just don't want to be stuck between choosing my wife or my mother." He had only just gained Cora back, truly, since the Bricker incident and he wasn't prepared to lose her again not with everything that was going on with Downton, the changes that were obviously lurking just around the corner.

"Who says you have to choose? I would have thought the choice, if indeed there is one, was fairly self explanatory." Her wry grin makes him tug her closer, if that was possible, his lips grazing her temple. It was true, there wasn't really a choice, Cora was his wife, companion, best friend, and well, she was currently lying beside him with nothing on, she trusted him like no other person in his life had ever trusted him. But more importantly then that she trusted him with the most important things, her whole life, her body. On the other hand, his mother was such a battle axe, not that Cora would say that should sway his vote at all.

"It's just mother will make me feel so bad about the whole thing and-"

"I have the ability to banish you to the dressing room." She has no doubt he has rolled his eyes, but she wasn't about to look up and see. He was childish, he always was when it came to these kind of things, he still couldn't quite break away from his mother and it very much unnerved her. She dearly hoped her siding with Isobel and trying to bring the hospital forward would be successful, she had a lifetime of Violet trumping things over her. But if she didn't manage that she secretly hoped her involvement would make Robert realise it was time to make it clear where his loyalties lay. "How about we don't fuss about this anymore, and return our thoughts to the wonderful evening we've had so far."

Cora was right of course, there was no point in dwelling over the hospital saga, Cora was going to get involved but hopefully, now that he had raised his concerns about it, she might try her best making sure they didn't forget each other, that they didn't let his mother, of all people, get between them.

"Um, and talking of people getting between us, Carson very much interrupted me earlier." She glances up at him somewhat astonished. He shifts her weight so he can lie on his side, keeping her eyes level with his own. "I was going to announce my desire to go to bed at the exact moment you chose, but then, well... I contemplated feeding you that food as well, but I don't doubt some pair of eyes we couldn't see would have been watching us." He looks away from her, weary of her reaction only to hear her burst into a laugh, falling down onto the pillow beside him.

"I could murder Carson! I was embarrassed enough that he probably heard exactly what I'd said, but to think he stopped you from being romantic, which is a rare occurrence at best, I could give him a piece of my mind!" He leans over her, seemingly bemused by her laughter and she eyes him, her hand tracing up his chest from his stomach to the ridge between his collarbones. She rubs at his skin twisting the tiffs of hair on his body between her fingers, listening to the change of his breathing as she does so.

"Cora?" She doesn't take the warning, she doesn't want to and he doesn't really want her to stop her little game.

"Yes?" She runs her tongue gently over her lower lip, shifting her knee to sit between his legs, his body now straddling her. Her hands drift to the place on the back of his neck, the place he so enjoyed her massaging. She wriggles her body beneath him again, he chuckles against her skin.

"You don't need to try Cora, you know that don't you? I want you without you having to try. I love you." He doesn't say the words often, hardly ever in fact, but he didn't need to because Cora knew, they both knew.

She can't quite believe it, he really was becoming quite a changed man. Not only, since Tom had left had he embraced the idea of change, and Mary being at the helm but now he seemed to be splattering their time together with touches, kisses, promises and vows she was lucky she heard once a year.

"Me too darling. Me too." Her lips are right there, so he seals her words, her promise with his own. Finally allowing them to begin what she had started with three simple words and that Carson has interrupted; it was indeed time to go to bed, with Cora. His adorable Cora.