“She,” Alex said. He looked about. Charlotte’s carefully chosen wet nurse had gone off to the kitchens long ago, and was at that moment drowning her sorrows in a tankard of ale. Mall, who had stood by Charlotte’s bed for hours, was weeping, head down on the kitchen table.

Alex looked down at his daughter’s small mouth and walked back to the bed. Charlotte was propped up against the headboard, still ashen white, but without the faraway, lost look she had before. She seemed to be asleep. The doctor had pulled a sheet up around her after the delivery. Alex pulled it down to Charlotte’s waist and carefully settled his little daughter against her breast.

Charlotte opened her eyes, startled, as a tiny flailing fist hit her.

“Ohhhh,” she breathed. The baby opened its black eyes and stared at her. Then she turned her head restlessly and opened her little mouth again. Instinctively Charlotte brought her up to her breast and the baby closed her small lips around her nipple.

Charlotte’s eyes met Alex’s and her free hand clasped his. Alex cupped his large hand around his daughter’s tiny head.

“She’s beautiful,” Alex said. “Look! She’s sucking.”

Suddenly the midwife, the wet nurse, and Mall erupted back into the room.

“I’ll take the little babe,” the wet nurse said importantly. She had been living at the manor for two days, waiting for the baby to come.

“No!” Charlotte said, as the wet nurse reached down to take the baby. “Alex!”

Alex felt a swell of pride. Charlotte had looked to him to save her baby; she obviously didn’t still think of him as a kidnapper. He grinned at the wet nurse.

“The countess has decided to nurse the child herself,” he explained cheerfully.

“My lady!” The wet nurse was aghast. Ladies never, never nursed their children. She bent down next to the bed. “My lady, your breasts … they will never be the same.”

Charlotte looked at her uncomprehendingly. She felt as if she were half-asleep, and sounds only reached her through a thick cotton blanket. She looked away from the woman and down at the baby’s tiny bald head. It was so fragile. Charlotte caressed the baby’s head tentatively, running her fingers delicately over her rosy shell-like ears. When the woman kept saying something to her, she looked up at Alex in silent appeal. Alex took the wet nurse by the arm and led her out of the room, passing her over to the housekeeper with a muttered remark about compensation. Slowly the room emptied.

To his surprise, Alex realized that he knew Charlotte’s housekeeper. The woman in front of him, who was obviously the housekeeper given her ring of keys, was the young girl Charlotte had been painting in London. Although she didn’t seem so young now. At her direction he went back to the bed and bent down.