No Prince Charming

Chapter 8

Robert continued on with the story. "Papa said that she shouldn't believe Uncle Patrick."

"And you believe him?! Because that is not a promise he can or will keep!"

"Tell that to his shrew of a wife."

"You would strip your son of his inheritance?"

"I have to. I can't stay. After London and now this - I couldn't stand to be with you a moment longer."

"If you leave me, you would leave with exactly what you brought to this marriage – nothing. Even if you did keep the children – an event which I would never allow to happen - what would you do? Two children to feed and house, but no money and no skills."

"That's where you are wrong, my Lord. I may not have had any marketable skills before I married you but I have since learned a skill."

"I could tell by his expression that Papa had no idea to what she was referring." Robert's voice was stiff. Cora could hear the frown in it. "At the time neither did I."

"What skill?"

"If it came to it, I could peddle myself on the streets of Yorkshire. What would one of your tenant farmers pay to live like an Earl for an evening?"

Cora gasped. Her thoughts couldn't help but go to Ethyl and the absolute lividness of Robert's response to her.

"Papa was so angry, he was again rendered speechless – momentarily at least."

"You wouldn't!"

"You'll finally have what you wanted."

"What I wanted?"

"For the children to know that they have a whore for a mother. Isn't that what you wanted when you brought our son to the London house?"

"What I wanted was for you to stop this madness! To come to your senses and put an end to it of your own volition this time!"

"Why did you have to involve the children? Why did you bring Robert to London? And this with Rosamund? Why must you always involve the children?!"

"What else am I to do to get your attention? Take away the parties? Your horse? You're not vexed by those things."

"Mama just shook her head at him."

"I can't put up with you any longer."

"You can't put up with me? I've already taken you back once. How many more times do you expect me to do it?"

"I don't."

"This wasn't the first time! This wasn't even the first time since St. Petersburg!"

"I don't expect you to take me back. I am not returning to Downton with you."

"I'm not the one in the wrong here. You do realize that?"

"Why must you always be watching me? You needn't have known. I was discreet. But you never take your eyes off of me!"

"Is that supposed to make it better? Is it suppose to be acceptable for my wife to be a harlot so long as the world doesn't know?"

"Why shouldn't the world know? Why shouldn't our children know? After all, it's the truth. It's what I am - a whore. You bought and paid for me."

"Stop it!"

"I just happen to be a better dressed, very expensive wh-"

Papa was yelling and pleading with her at the same time.

"- Stop saying that word!"

"I don't imagine it would really be all that different. You paid a lump sum up front – my dower. They will pay by the night."

"Never!"

"You're right. I doubt it would come to that. I don't think the children and I will end up on the streets starving. I am quite certain I would be able to find a patron."

"I won't give you up! I won't let another man have you! They may get their stolen little bits and pieces, but I won't let them take all of you!"

"He stormed into the school and retrieved Rosamund. He came out carrying her under one arm like a sack of potatoes, her suitcase in the other. He dropped the case, but he still had Rosamund under his arm when he tried to grab Mama with his other hand and bring her back to the carriage. She wouldn't go. He finally ended up putting Rosamund in the carriage and going back for Mama. Cora, my father never raised a hand to my mother, but when she still wouldn't go, he tried to pick her up - to carry her. She struck him."

"No! Bring her back inside!"

"Get in the carriage. We're going home!"

"No! Leave Rosamund here at the school!"

"No! We are all going home!"

"No! We are not! You have to leave her here because I am not going back with you! I cannot bear to live with you anymore. I won't."

"You don't mean it."

"Oh but I do! I do mean it!"

"You have to come back! Rosamund isn't staying here. You won't abandon your children."

Then Mama dropped her bombshell – or what she thought would be a bombshell.

"I already have! In Russia. I didn't miss the royal wedding because I slipped on the ice getting into my carriage."

"You did! I saw the bruises."

"I missed it because it was the most advantageous time to depart. As a member of the prince's royal household you would be so busy with the ceremony you wouldn't notice my absence."

"You changed your mind. You came back."

"No! I did not. I came back but not of my own volition! The bruises were from my lover's wife pulling me out of the carriage I was leaving in and throwing me into hers to bring me back to you!"

Cora's mouth fell open, but not wanting to break the momentum of her husband's storytelling, she said nothing.

"Snarling, Papa stopped pretending."

"Who do you think warned the Princess? Do you really think your maid – the maid whose salary I pay – would have gone to the Princess Irina if I hadn't instructed her to?"

"Mama was devastated. She cried out."

"Why must you thwart my every chance of happiness?"

"Because without you I have no chance of happiness! You are all that I want! You are all that I have ever wanted! Why can't I have you?! What do those other men give you that I haven't? Tell me!"

"A Hobson's choice!"

"There was a bench behind them in the empty courtyard. Mama sat on it. Papa sat next to her.

"Neither said anything for a time. They both looked so tired. So defeated.

"Finally Mama spoke. She said it again."

"I am not going back to Downton with you."

"Desperate, Papa clung to her last few words as his only hope."

"Would you go back to Downton without me?"

"Mama had led him right to where she wanted him."

"Look in the trunks."

Papa shook his head. He wouldn't look so Mama told him what was in it.

"The trunks are yours. This morning I had Charlie pack your things. A winter and a summer wardrobe. You go or I go."

"Go where?"

"Away."

"Away to where?"

"I don't know nor do I care! Either you go away traveling on business and I go back to Downton with the children or you go back to Downton and I do not."

Rather than be properly horrified and scandalized, Robert almost sounded proud of his mother.

"Where would you go?"

"Papa sounded frightened as he questioned her. Mama was just ... full up. She had had enough of him."

"Again, I don't know nor do I care. Anywhere where you are not!"

"But if I go you will stay? If I go, you give me your word that you won't leave Downton?"

"What good is my word? What good has it ever been?"

"Give me your word!"

"Papa pleaded with her. He feared – no, he knew that if she left he would never see her again. Mama just sounded exhausted as she gave in and agreed to go back to Downton."

"I won't leave as long as you stay away."

"For how long?"

"I don't know. Until I can stand to look at you again."

"We left Papa there in France at Rosamund's school with his summer and his winter wardrobes and we went back to the train station. Back to Downton."

Cora couldn't believe it. Only her mother-in-law could twist things so that her infidelity could result in her husband being banished from his ancestral home.

tbc

A/N Reviews are greatly appreciated.