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Renoir all but purrs with happiness, his limbs like lead as he curls around Aline from behind in the early hours of the morning. Ordinarily, the married couple would have to be up and out of the manor at dawn, but today all of their meetings with the Painter's Council have been canceled.
He nuzzles into the back of his wife's neck, chuckling as she squirms away from where his nose tickles her baby hairs. Aline huffs at his behaviour - exhausted - and quickly falls asleep again.
With her warmth against him, and the smell of her gerbera perfume, cocooned beneath their silk sheets and cotton duvet, Renoir joins her in dozing blissfully. Then, right as he slips into a delicious dream about their first ever night together, the firm hand of an outraged teenager bangs against their door.
'Maman? Papa?' Clea asks loudly. Their eldest is always grouchy in the mornings. 'Are you awake yet?'
In his arms, Aline's eyebrows pinch together with a grumble, and she hides her face in her pillow and pulls the duvet up over her head - and, since they only have the one, in doing so she also pulls the duvet up over his head and dampens the sound of furious knocking.
His wife makes a strange noise that almost sounds like speech, but is much too garbled to be understandable. Renoir ghosts a kiss over her cheek and winds an arm around her waist in sympathy, pulling Aline closer to him.
Their oldest daughter gets the message eventually and leaves them be, though not without first trying the door handle. Renoir tenses unhappily when he hears it rattle, sighing at the lack of proper rest, but then - as luck would have it - it turns out that he actually locked their door the night before.
He'd been planning a gentle seduction for his wife of fourteen years, but Aline had bemusedly turned over in bed after raising a gorgeous eyebrow at his smirking lips. He never had the chance to tell her how beautiful she is. He quickly makes up for said insult.
'You're beautiful.' Renoir tenderly kisses her clothed shoulder and despairs at the barrier of her nightgown.
While they may be much too exhausted from their busy schedules and three children this morning to enjoy each other fully, after all these years there is still nothing better than the feeling of her bare skin against his.
Speaking of their children - their next interruption comes from the middle child, Verso, Renoir's miniature and the couple's only son.
'Maman?' He asks worriedly through the keyhole, unable to see a thing with the curtains still drawn. 'Are you alright? Clea said you're sick.'
'Now why would she say that?' Aline mumbles to her husband, face still smushed in her pillow, refusing to be drawn out of her nest even by her favourite son.
'Perhaps it is because we've never had a lazy morning since having children.' Renoir whispers against her throat. He very much likes this position; his weak leg can protest all it likes, but from now on the Painter is determined to sleep with his wife close beside him. 'Do you remember our last one?'
'Oh yes,' Aline smiles into her pillow sleepily. 'That's how we had Clea.'
'Hmm. And your father challenged me to a duel.'
'Only because he thought you'd offended me. He was much more amiable after marching you down the aisle with his shotgun.'
Soon they are left in peace again after Verso abandons his endeavour. Over the next few hours however, fast approaching noon, in breaks between their lessons their children make various, spirited attempts to make contact with them.
They shove hastily written letters under the crack beneath their door. Renoir cannot see the words properly in the dark or from this distance - he will never admit to his need for glasses - but knowing his children as he does, he can imagine what each has said to them.
Verso will not doubt be worrying after his mother's health, with so much concern that he conspicuously forgets that his father even exists. This is Renoir's own doing. He knows that he needs to be home more. And as for their eldest - Clea will be brusque and to the point with her questions.
Why are you still in bed? Why are you being lazy? Does this mean I can sleep in tomorrow?
When all else fails, and their parents continue to rest peacefully, the Dessendre children play their trump card. They pick up baby Alicia from her crib and match her upstairs to babble through the keyhole.
'Baba! Gah ga ba ba! Mama?'
Renoir smiles widely and sits up at once, his chest brimming with pride and warmth, but Aline quickly pulls him back down again by the shirt.
'Don't get up,' She warns with her eyes still closed. 'Or they'll be playing that trick until she's a toddler.'
'They'll be playing that trick until she's a teenager.' Renoir corrects knowingly, and feels his smile fall when he thinks about how at least Clea will undoubtedly have moved out of the Manor by then. He doesn't want to lose them... 'I'll just poke my head out for a moment. Alicia wants to know if we're alright.'
Aline mutters against the pillowcase. 'She can't talk yet, Renoir, how do you know what she's thinking?'
'She and I have a special connection.'
'You spend too much time with her.'
'The doctor said she has anxious attachment disorder.'
'Go to sleep, silly man.' Aline scoots backwards until her back is flush with his front. 'Let the nannies take care of her. When was the last time we got to spend a morning like this?'
She's right - and Renoir can make up for this blatant abandonment of his youngest by spending the rest of the day with her, he tells himself. This of course ignores the fact that Alicia is due her lunchtime nap soon, and that after she will only be awake for an hour before her second nap at dinner.
With their parent's refusal to emerge being absolute, the children eventually wander away and give up on them. He distinctly hears Clea's voice down the corridor when she refers to the both her mother and father as being heartless.
Then at some point in the day - Renoir does not know exactly when, for it is difficult to tell the time when he is dreaming - there comes a loud crash from something falling and shattering in the dining room downstairs.
Leaping out of bed, he and Aline throw open their door and sprint to the ground floor with record breaking speed.
Shards of pottery litter the dining room floor, the remains of a gaudy vase that Renoir's mother bought the newlyweds as a house warming gift. Beside it stand the three culprits - Verso attempting to look innocent, and a triumphant Clea holding a squirming Alicia.
'It was the baby.' Verso lies unconvincingly. His pale blues eyes - the match of his father's and siblings' - scan his dear Maman for signs of illness or injury.
'I knew you weren't sick.' Clea declares accusingly.
Renoir sighs, his heart racing, and looks to Aline. The Dessendre matriarch snaps out of her shock and takes control of the situation quickly, lambasting her children for behaving so recklessly and being so tired that perhaps she is a little harsher than she should have been. She makes them sit on the table to protect their feet from the broken pottery.
Grumbling, her husband tip toes around the crime scene to pluck little Alicia from her sister's arms. His youngest makes grabby hands at his face, and, when he makes the mistake of bringing her close enough, sinks her fingers into his beard and tugs on it.
He winces. 'I am sorry, my dear.'
Next time, Renoir will leave the door unlocked so that his children can sleep with them. Clea and Verso will only accept a lazy morning so long as the entire family can partake in it.
Maybe then he will finally get some sleep.