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idoloveouradventures · 2 years

Note

🎮 and ✊️ for the drabble ask, please!

Ok, so the prompts were "games" and "protecting." It took me a bit to settle on something to suit them both, but I think I got there in the end! Thanks so much for the request!! 😊

The drawing room at Duneagle with its pale blue walls and masses of gilded frames glittered on the late November evening. Unseasonably cool winds nipped at the windows hidden behind the heavy brocade curtains, and dark clouds blocked out any moonlight. But the room still glowed—the candles and oil lamps flickering conspiratorially as if making merry along with the guests crowded around the pale marble fireplace.

Robert, having returned from the corner of the room with another whiskey, took in the scene before him. Rosamund and Marmaduke were acting out some incomprehensible riddle in the midst of a rather competitive game of charades. Uncharacteristically, it had been Susan’s idea to play. She did seem more subdued as of late. Welcoming little James in late July had seemed to take a weight off his cousin and her husband. And the baby was a pleasant enough little chap. Robert had said so himself to Cora when she’d insisted on dragging him over to coo at the lad when he was presented in the library just after tea.

He took another sip of his whiskey and grinned as Rosamund pantomimed some sort of invisible club hitting her husband over the head. Even his parents laughed and clapped and cheered when his Aunt Roberta shouted out the correct answer. Don Quixote. But it wasn’t his parents or his sister or his aunt that his gaze sought out in the small crowd. No, no. He was looking for Cora. She’d excused herself just as he’d stood to freshen his drink and had waved off his concern with a promise to return in just a moment. And return she did—for there she was, seated in a small wooden chair against the wall, furthest from the fire, watching the game unfold with a look of vague amusement. Or perhaps concern.

Cora had avoided playing all night. Of course, her turn would soon inevitably come. It was a ritual, he supposed. For a family so concerned with appearance and restraint, Robert had always found it odd, the enthusiasm and vigor with which they played the silly game. But none of that mattered just then. She looked so beautiful in the candlelit room that ever other minute detail seemed to fade into the periphery.

He’d not seen her all day. They’d come up for the grouse, later in the season than usual, and he’d been out on the grounds all day with the other men. He had endured the japes and innuendos as the men congratulated Shrimpie on the birth of his son and teased Robert in equal measure. But he did not care. No—looking at her, he did not care a jot what any of them said. He’d promised her, after all. Promised not to say a word to anyone. But since they’d been at Duneagle nearly nine months earlier, at the start of their honeymoon, everything had changed. He loved her desperately, and so, yes, everything now was altered.

Robert would have been content to sip his whiskey and watch Cora from afar all night. But after a pause, he grew more aware of the laughter and chatter only a few paces away. Though his back was turned to them, Robert listened intently now as he heard Agatha’s husband George release another guffaw and clap his friend, some local he’d invited shooting, on the back. He’d hardly spoken to the men all day. But now, as he tuned out the sound of his father shouting out clues and his mother’s sharp voice chiming in, he heard the men laugh again and—

“…no, no…the American’s next…here, give it here…write it down like this…”

He turned and watched them scribbling something onto a scrap of paper, laughing all the while, before returning it to the top of the small gold plate that held the riddles for the next participant to draw.

Surely, they weren’t serious. Surely not. But then—

Robert watched in some disbelief as his parent’s concluded and won their round and the two snickering men waved a hand at his wife—at his wife!

“Surely…” George paused, and Robert knew the inebriated man had likely forgotten Cora’s name.

But he did recover.

“Surely Cora wants to take a turn?”

And he watched, momentarily fixed in place, as his wife, wide-eyed, drew her lips together and scanned the room before settling her gaze on him. She smiled, nodding her assent only at him, and stood carefully from her chair.

“I suppose it is my turn,” she agreed.

But when she took a step in their direction, to the proffered plate topped with their doctored riddle, he moved into her path before she could manage to cross the room.

“No, it’s my turn,” he heard himself say.

“You’ve already had your turn,” Rosamund complained from afar.

She was sat on the settee nearest the fire, her hand resting on her husband’s knee. The lateness of the hour, and the alcohol in all their bellies, had perhaps made everyone looser, less aware of propriety. But, oh, when he turned from his sister back to those smirking men, Robert felt his own stomach burn with hot, prickling anger.

He snatched up the hastily folded paper on the top of the pile before they could protest and unfurled the little thing to see what precisely they thought might be amusing for his wife to act out. They had enough sense to look decently ashamed as he balled up the paper and pressed it into his pocket.

He could not look back at her, could not let her see the rage plain across his face. She had spent weeks planning for this visit. She had asked him question after question after question about the appropriate clothes and activities and schedules. Each morning when he would return to her after breakfast, she would have some new scenario or concern. He answered everything, as best he could, as she struggled to keep down her toast and tea. All she’d wanted was for the trip to be a triumph. For his family to approve of her. To not put a foot out of step. I want your Highland idyll to be a success, she’d teased, her voice soft and warm against his ear in their bed the night before they’d left Downton. But these men, these idiot men with their dull, unkind wives, wanted to make a fool of her. And the knowledge of that made him furious.

“—Robert, you’re holding up the game!”

His sister’s voice interrupted his violent imaginings and drew the attention of the room.

“Darling, is everything alright?”

Cora’s voice, much gentler than Rosamund’s, sounded out behind him.

“I—that is.”

“Son?”

Even his father, who had been laughing about something with Marmaduke, questioned his odd countenance.

His hand still in his pocket, Robert felt the tiny wad of paper and wished he could hurl it into the fire. Followed quickly by George and his imbecile friend. But he knew as he looked down at his shoes and traced the pattern of the intricate carpet beneath them that to expose what they’d done would be to humiliate his wife. And so, he swallowed, sucked in a sharp breath of air, and wrenched a half-smile onto his face.

“I’m not feeling my best,” he answered slowly, nodding down at his half-full whiskey. “I may go up.”

“Spoilsport,” he heard his sister say. Agatha, Louisa, and Susan laughed too.

“Can we get you anything?” Susan asked.

Robert shook his head. Finally, he turned to Cora who was looking at him with such concern that it made his throat catch.

“No, I think I’d just like to go to bed.”

“Alright. But Cora must stay and play,” his aunt called out.

He smiled at his Aunt Roberta, who was kinder than his mother by leaps and bounds, for he knew she meant it genuinely. She had made conversation with his wife all weekend. He’d caught her smiling at him a few times, across the table at dinner, and in other quiet moments, and he wondered if Cora had told her.

Aunt Roberta had been kind to Cora, but they’d all teased her. It was their nature: his mother and Susan and even Rosamund teasing her for being cold on a walk through the frost-covered glen in the morning; smiling and teasing over the way she clapped with delight at baby James’s gurgles; and teasing her, too, for the way she needed to rest in the afternoons. American blood, they’d laughed. And Cora had laughed politely along with them.

But by some miracle, Cora spoke up then and promised to return downstairs to the game only after seeing him safely to bed. She’d pretended not to hear them all snicker and see them smirk as she followed behind him out of the drawing room, down the long hallway, and up the stairs to their bedrooms.

Neither spoke again until they stood at the door to her room. It was, amusingly enough, the same room they’d honeymooned in last winter—the imposing red walls and solid wood furniture more than enough to call to memory their fumbled first attempts at making a marriage work.

“Do you want me to call for Carson? I have a pitcher of water in my room. But I suppose I should go back down in a moment.”

It was generous of her, he thought, to still show such concern when he’d only pretended to have overindulged in drink. But of course, she was generous. Most of all when it came to him.

“No. Could we go inside?” He nodded toward her door.

“Robert.” Cora blushed. “Is that why you…”

“No! No, of course not. Well–not that I wouldn’t. If you wanted to. But—”

He paused, reached around her, and turned the small knob so that they could both enter the dimly lit bedroom. Cora’s lace-trimmed nightclothes were already laid out on the bed, and a fire cracked and popped to welcome them in. He closed the door behind them before continuing.

“I didn’t want to play any longer,” he explained. His voice was soft, and it made Cora frown.

“Do you really feel unwell?” She pressed a soft palm against his cheek and then to his forehead.

“No, I’m perfectly well.” Still, his voice was quiet.

Cora exhaled, her hand still searching for signs of illness. “You’re not warm.”

“Just a bit tired. The shoot took it out of me.”

“Well.” Cora hesitated. “I know I should go back down.”

Robert shook his head, the gesture casting off her hand. His gaze returned to the floor.

“Please stay.”

“Your family won’t like it,” Cora answered lightly. “They’ll tease me tomorrow.”

“Oh, let them,” Robert grumbled, nudging a toe against the wooden floor. “The whole miserable lot of them.”

He watched her posture straighten then.

“Has something happened?” There was an undercurrent of alarm in her voice. “Has someone upset you? Have I—”

“No, of course not,” he interrupted, pressing his lips to her forehead in an uncharacteristically chaste gesture of affection.

“Are you certain?”

“Quite certain. It’s just—I pulled my shoulder out there today,” he found himself saying, “and it’s been nagging me ever since. And I couldn’t bear to have Rosamund lord another win over me.”

Cora looked up at him, her brow still heavy with concern. “If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

He pulled away from her and moved to shrug off his dinner jacket. He dropped it onto the stool at the foot of the bed and started working on his cufflinks. He rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows and pocketed the metal fixtures.

“I’ll go call for Carson now. I know you need your rest, but will you wait up for me? I’ll be back in just a moment.”

Cora grinned, the blush from earlier returning in high color across her cheeks.

“I wish you’d stop fussing,” she murmured.

Closing the space between them in two quick steps, he reached for her hands and squeezed them in what he hoped was a gesture of affection. In some ways, it all seemed so new between them still, so unsteady. Yet at other times he felt he’d known her and loved her for all of his life.

“You’re carrying our child,” he said quietly. “Please, let me fuss a bit.”

Before she could protest, he took her face in his hands and kissed her soundly.

“Heavens.” Cora blinked up at him in some surprise.

And looking at her, her eyes bright, he could feel nothing other than joy: pure, unfettered joy.

He could not find it in him to care any longer what his distant relations thought of him and of his wife and marriage. For years, he’d listened to them all drone on about their wives, their estates, and about the many awful burdens in their lives. But marriage was nothing like they’d described and nothing like he’d imagined it would be. To love her—to be loved by her—they would never understand. So, with a slight shake of his head, he tossed it all from his conscious thought.

Leaning down, he kissed his wife once more. He pressed his lips against her cheek, against her ear. “Do wait up for me,” he implored, and he felt his stomach twist and flip when she hummed his name in reply.

No, they would never understand, he thought as he strode down the bachelor’s corridor to dress for bed. But perhaps that was alright. For he understood. And, as he had begun to realize, that was more than enough.

#cobert #I live for this man loving his wife

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