Chapter 16

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Eight weeks later

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She looks her mother-in-law straight into the eyes.

"We have to move in here and you know that. Robert and I do not have a choice."

Her mother-in-law nods. That woman knows that she has to leave, that all of this now belongs to Robert. But it seems to be very hard for her to actually do so. The Dower House has been finished for a week now. The renovations cost a fortune but Robert quite rightly said that it was important that his mother feel at home in her new house.

"I ran this house and the estate for thirty years," Violet says and looks as if she wanted to challenge her. But she is not going to take the bait. Not today.

"And you did it very well. But running Downton is my job now," she says.

"Yes," Violet says. "But can you do it?"

"I ran Eryholme," she says and Violet laughs at her.

"A house with less than 20 servants."

She shrugs her shoulders. She had known this was coming ever since the day Robert told his mother that she would have to leave Downton very soon. Her husband's mother does not think her capable of running Downton. But she will be able to do it and what she does not yet know how to do Mrs. Hughes will explain to her.

"I know that this is hard for you, but you will have to move out. This is our house now." She feels a little proud of herself for having put her foot down. That is until she looks at her mother-in-law again which is when she wants to eat her words.

.

She cannot help it anymore. She can't stop the tear from dropping, regardless of how embarrassed she feels. She is being thrown out of her home. By her own daughter-in-law. She never would have expected Cora to be so cold-hearted. She never liked her but she had always thought that Cora must have a heart made of gold. She accepted Mary without question. No other woman would have done that, would have turned into the little girl's mother so quickly, if at all.

"You are a horrible person," she spats at Cora and instead of starting to yell or leave the room Cora sits down next to her.

"I am not a horrible person but this is a horrible situation," her daughter-in-law says. "I know that Lord Grantham's death must have thrown you of course and it is terrible to lose your home."

"You know nothing," she replies but Cora shakes her head.

"I know what it is to lose the man you love." Cora is now looking straight at her again and she knows that the girl has spoken the truth.

"What?" she asks. "Did you take a lover and he died?" She regrets those words the moment she has spoken them. She knows Cora would never take a lover. She'd be too scared of the consequences, too scared of losing everything again.

"You know very well I didn't. But I thought I would never see Robert again. That thought devastated me. I might not have realized it at once but that is what was worst about the bankruptcy. That I knew I would never see him again."

"You mean you knew you'd never become the Countess of Grantham."

Cora shakes her head again.

"No. I would have married him for a lot less than this estate and a title. I'd have married him if he had been a middle-class lawyer with a small house in Manchester. Heaven knows, I'd have married him if he had been a chimney sweep. I could have supported us both with the money I earned."

She cannot help the smile forming on her lips now.

"I don't think you have ever been to Manchester. You might have taken Robert as a middle class lawyer in Ripon but not in Manchester. Manchester is terrible."

Cora has to laugh now.

"Well, I could have talked him into moving somewhere else."

"You did that anyway."

Cora looks a little taken aback but then shakes her head.

"No. It was Robert's idea to move out of this house. But I admit that I agreed to it readily."

She nods. She had now idea that her son had initiated the move.

"He must love you very much to have done that," she says and Cora's cheeks have turned to red.

"I think he does. Just as much as I love him."

"That is better than nothing," she says although she still thinks that it is not enough. She still thinks that Robert should have married someone else. He could have taken Cora as his mistress if he really could not live without her. But making her the Countess of Grantham is something he should not have done.

"Stay," Cora says and takes her by surprise completely. "Stay. Not indefinitely, but a few more weeks. Until you have become more accustomed to the new situation. Don't move out just yet."

She would very much like to do just that but Robert has to move into the Abbey. The Earl of Grantham cannot live at Eryholme anylonger.

"Robert has to move here and you have to move with him. If you stay behind at Eryholme with the girls it will create a scandal."

Cora shakes her head. "I know that and we will move here in the next few days. But you don't have to leave the day we move in. It will be good for the girls to spend a little more time with you and it might be good for you too. To see them once a day and listen to their stories. They are quite intelligent, all three of them."

She wonders if Cora is right. If course she won't spent more than an hour a day with the girls but it might be a nice change to always being by herself. She also wonders what it must have cost Cora to allow her to stay.

"Thank you," she says and she realizes that for the first time in eleven years she has said something nice and heartfelt to the woman who seems to make her son happy.

"You are welcome," Cora replies, gently touches her hand and leaves the room.

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"You didn't have to do that," he says the moment Cora has left the library. He listened to the whole conversation.

"Didn't I Robert?" she asks. "Isn't it my duty as the Countess of Grantham to care about the people around me?"

He smiles and takes both her hands in his.

"I will throw my mother out of this house if she is rude to you or to one of the girls. And she cannot stay forever."

Cora looks at him and smiles.

"Oh no. But I don't think she'll want to. She wants to do things properly and that means moving to the Dower House. But she just needs a little more time and we should give that time to her."

A wave of love for his wife overcomes him then and he kisses her on the lips.

"You are a saint my darling and I love you."

This is the end of this particular story.

I am planning to write another story, set much later, sometime during seasons five and six. It will not be incredibly long (nowhere near "The Mistress He Loves") but it will consist of much longer chapters than this story. My plan is to plan and write the story completely before publishing it. Once I've finished the story I will stick to a publishing schedule of once a week. I think that is best both for me and also for the readers of my stories. You'll know when there will be an update and I know that I will actually be able to post the whole story, which goes well with my policy of never leaving a story unfinished.

Thank you all for your support and the many reviews!

On a more personal note: I'd like to thank Olivia for her lovely reviews on "The Mistress He Loves". I'd love to write a personal note to you, so if you have an account on fanfiction, just let me know.

Anyway, let me know what you make of the last chapter of this story.

Have a great day,

Kat