"Will there be anything else, milady?"

Brown, the lady's maid, paused at the door, her hand lingering on the knob, but Cora smiled at her and shook her head.

"No, that's all, Brown," she said firmly, careful to soften her r's and a's. She felt so crass here, from the flatness of her speech to the wonder that she often had to conceal at her surroundings. It had been three months already since she had married the future Earl of Grantham, and while she finally understood the housemaids' accents and her way around the enormous Abbey, she still felt horribly out of place. With every letter from her mother, the feeling only worsened.

But clinging to her lady's maid would never do; Cora knew that well enough. She had been raised, if not for this position, then for one of equal prestige in the States. It had been her own fault that she had insisted on entertaining the Earl of Grantham's offer to wed his son and trade her fortune for a chance at a Countess's coronet. And it was her own fault that she now found herself in the drafty Abbey, four thousand miles across the ocean from her friends and family.

The candles flickered on either side of the bed, but Cora made no move to blow them out. She knew to expect Robert tonight; he had been overly solicitous at dinner, the way that he always was when he was thinking to pay a visit to her bed. When the men had joined them in the drawing room, he had made it a point to speak quietly to her in the tender way that put an approving look on his mother's face. Cora could not tell if she herself was sickened by the attention or not. On the one hand, to have one's husband behave adoringly was a blessing. On the other, she'd just as soon have the business done with. There was no use lingering when there was no love lost.

But oh, how she wished there was love to lose. In the long process of balls and calls and negotiations, she had dreamt of how it would be to marry Robert, to see his handsome face every morning and learn to love him. And while she saw the potential to love him, the stirrings in her heart were kept to just that: stirrings. Cora had not decided yet if it would be easier to allow herself to fall in love, or to play her role as written. Love would make her duty easier, certainly, but there would be so much pain involved, as well.

Robert did not love her. That much was clear. He did not hate her, of course. She was reasonably beautiful. She had gone through a queue of suitors in Cincinnati and New York, finding all of them wanting, but finding evidence that her own charms were plentiful. She was attractive, she had the skills to run a household, she was refined and educated, she was pleasant. She had a fortune to top it all off. But all of those qualities did not engender a spark in her husband, a quiet, thoughtful young man who was more fond of solitary walks with his dogs and sitting with his books than of learning the nuances of his American bride.

Cora had thought of writing to her cousin – her older, happily married cousin – to ask advice on pleasuring a husband. But she did not want stories of her failure to traverse the ocean. Here, in the capital of arranged marriages and duty over love, her predicament was a common one. But in the States, where her amount of money should have ensured her at least the choice of a reasonably happy union, her failure – and such a high one! To fail to please a Viscount! – was nothing short of a laughable tragedy.

The knock on her door was so soft that, had she not been lying in wait, she would have missed it. She did not bid him enter, but enter he did, shutting the door that connected his dressing room to her room firmly behind him.

"How are you this evening?" he asked politely, standing awkwardly next to the bed.

Cora wished he wouldn't do that – wait for permission. It was all so strained, the dance of their copulation. It was his bed, his house for God's sake! His parents were nearby, only a corridor away, and she wished for a moment, as she did every night, that he had taken the offer of Crawley House when it was extended. But no, they were to stay here, having marital relations weekly with his mother lying in speculation mere yards away.

"I am quite well," Cora assured her husband. If she could only get over this horrible accent obstacle and neutralize it a bit! Every word out of her mouth made her self conscious; perhaps that was part of the reason she seemed to hold no allure.

"Excellent. Then, if I may-"

Cora gestured to the bed, unable to form the words, and Robert turned around to untie his dressing gown. Cora's first instinct was to look away, but she could not, and she caught a quick glimpse of a ripple of muscles through her husband's nightshirt.

And her husband caught her looking.

"I beg your pardon," murmured Cora hastily, unconsciously drawing the blanket more firmly toward her chest.

"No need, of course," replied Robert quickly, "all perfectly proper."

"Thank you," said Cora, stopping uncertainly. Thank you milord? Thank you Robert? Husband?

Before she could decide, Robert blew out the candles on his side of the bed, signaling the beginning of their jig. Cora blew hers out before he could see the confusion on her face.

"I was wondering if we might try something new."

Robert's voice was so close in the darkness that Cora jumped.

"New?"

"Things get so tangled as they are, I was thinking I might try-"

And his hand was on her shoulder, turning her toward him and reaching for the laces of her nightdress. The window afforded little light, and Cora sat still as stone as her husband unlaced her nightdress and slowly pulled it over her head. He had the right to, of course. Of course he did. There was no reason to feel so…so violated.

He did not stop there. It was off with his nightshirt as well, and then, without so much as a kiss, he was on top of her, his breath hot against her neck as he situated himself for business.

Her mother had told her to "think of England," when it was time for the necessary bits, but all Cora could think of was the way Robert's skin felt against hers, the rough and smooth of it, and the unexpected intimacy of being with him this way – without barriers.

He finished moments later with a grunt and a sag, momentarily resting his forehead against Cora's shoulder. For a horrifying, marvelous second, she thought he might settle in beside her for the night. But within minutes he was restored to life again, and he pressed a kiss to her cheek and retrieved his nightshirt from the foot of her bed.

"I … wish you a good night," he said as he paused at the door. Then he was gone, disappeared back to his man's domain, leaving Cora naked and baffled between the sheets of their marital bed.

Skin to skin. God forbid, but that changed everything.