He repeated the words in his mind as though they were prayers.
But the room seemed to hold another memory beneath them: Frances’ loving voice through the nursery door, calling the baby a sensible girl.
Andrew opened his eyes. The papers on his writing table blurred for half a second before he forced them into order.
Urgent business, he had told Nurse Ellis.Very well.
He would make it urgent.
That same evening, Frances discovered that feeding an infant required a steadier hand than she possessed.
The milk had arrived warm beneath its folded cloth, and Nurse Ellis had shown her, once again, how to hold the little cup, how to tilt it only a little, and how to pause when the baby turned her head away with all the offended dignity of a dowager refusing inferior tea.
“She will take more if Your Grace gives her a moment,” Nurse Ellis said softly.
Frances nodded as if she understood. She did not. Or rather, she understood the instruction but not the instinct behind it. There seemed to be a whole language to infants made of sighs, grimaces, rooting mouths, clenched fists, and sudden outraged cries.
Nurse Ellis read it fluently. Frances was still sounding out the alphabet.
At that moment, the baby squirmed in her arms.
“Oh, no,” Frances whispered. “We had an agreement.”
The baby’s face puckered.
Nurse Ellis, who was folding linen near the hearth, glanced over. “A little higher, Your Grace. Yes, that way.”
Frances adjusted the child against her. The movement was too stiff. The baby protested at once, drawing up one tiny knee beneath the blanket and making a sound of deep personal betrayal.
“Yes, I know,” Frances murmured, heat rising in her cheeks. “I am clumsy. You need not announce it to the entire household.”
The baby rooted again.
Frances offered the milk with extreme care, holding her breath as though one wrong movement might undo them both. A drop escaped and ran down the baby’s chin. Frances gasped and reached for the cloth, nearly dislodging the cup in the process.
Nurse Ellis was beside her in an instant, though not in alarm. “There now. No harm done.”
Frances tried again. This time the baby drank. It was only a little at first, and done suspiciously, as if testing whetherFrances deserved trust. Then, more. Her tiny mouth worked with surprising determination, her lashes fluttering low over her cheeks. Frances’s arm began to ache beneath the baby’s weight, though the child could hardly weigh anything at all. It seemed absurd that something so small could make one feel so physically inadequate.
“There,” Nurse Ellis said. “Very good.”
Frances did not look away from the baby. “You are speaking to her, I hope.”
“To both of you, Your Grace.”
By the time the baby had taken enough milk, Frances’s wrist was stiff, her shoulders tense, and the front of her gown bore one small damp spot she suspected would betray her incompetence to anyone sufficiently observant. The baby, however, looked drowsy and warm, and her earlier indignation was now softened into heavy blinks and loose fingers.
“She will need settling now,” Nurse Ellis said.
Nurse Ellis had demonstrated it before: the careful lifting, the gentle pat, the little walk, the soft murmur, the manner of holding the baby close without jostling her. Frances had watched with the grave attention she usually reserved for difficult passages in essays, but unlike books, babies refused to remain still upon the page.
“I can take her,” Nurse Ellis offered.
Frances almost accepted. The offer would have been sensible. Nurse Ellis would know precisely what to do. The child would sleep sooner. Everyone would be spared the awkward spectacle of a duchess negotiating with an infant and losing.
But the baby’s cheek rested warm against Frances’s sleeve, and one small hand had opened against the bodice of her gown.
“No,” Frances said, surprising herself. “I should like to try.”
