Marie Rose had spent her first nights in that old cradle, a tiny angel with her doting and nervous parents close at hand. Her own mother had slept in it, then had tucked Abigail in it seventeen years later. And had used the cradle that was part of her own family's traditions. At least she'd managed to keep Marie Rose with her for six weeks. Certainly that a three-month-old baby belonged in the nursery, under the care of a nursemaid, and not in a cradle tucked into the corner of her parents' bedroom.Ĭandlelight flickered and flew against the walls as Abigail climbed the narrowing stairs. Madame Josephine, Abigail thought as she moved quickly and quietly past the other bedroom doors, had definite ideas on everything. Josephine Manet had definite rules about behavior, domestic arrangements, traditions. That was a battle she'd fought with Lucian's mother, and lost.

The nursery was on the third floor of the family wing. She hummed to herself as she lit a candle, shielding it with her hand as she moved to the bedroom door, out into the corridor of the great house where she had once been servant and was now, well, if not daughter of the house at least the wife of its son. Her heart would leap, oh, it always leaped, when he sprang down from his horse and lifted her off her feet into his arms.Īnd at the New Year's ball, they would dance. No matter what anyone thought or said, she would run out to meet him. She would start watching for him in the morning, waiting to see him come galloping down the allŽe of oaks. But as she slipped into her night wrapper, she remembered he would be back the next day. She missed him-another ache in the belly. Though she would have smiled, have stroked a hand over his silky blond hair as she told him to stay, to sleep, he would have wandered up to the nursery before she'd finished Marie Rose's midnight feeding. If Lucian had been home, he would have woken as well. She drew in the scent of the hothouse lilies-her favorite-spearing out of a crystal vase that had been a wedding present.īefore Lucian, she'd been content to tuck wildflowers into bottles.

She crossed to the recamier, lifted the white robe draped over its back. It gave her such pleasure-that overfull sensation in her breasts, the tenderness of them. Her milk came down before she was fully awake. She felt the first pangs of hunger, a yearning in the belly, almost as if the child were still inside her. Abigail heard it in dreams, the soft, unsettled whimper, the stirring of tiny limbs under soft blankets.

Nora roberts book midnight bayou