We fell together ravenously, rolling around on the marble floor, laughing about what a horrible idea it is to have sex on a marble floor, and then adjourning to defile the living room furniture (though we only made it as far as the carpet). At one point we knocked a small wooden dog off a table and onto Nick’s back. He paused long enough to retrieve it, and then tenderly sat it down on top of my chest.

“Listen, Spot,” he said. “Sometimes, when two people love each other very much…”

We burst out laughing, which turned into kissing, which meant poor Spot got the heave. It was the most in tune we’d been in weeks; such a small, perfect moment, one that I knew even then to hold close to my heart for the times when everything around us would get darker.

Once we were actually at the gallery, face-to-sultry-face with the portrait, I wondered if it had yielded the same result for Eleanor—a happy surprise, and a memory she later could carry through the coldness of grief.

“Crikey,” Nick said, as he studied it. “That’s…suggestive.”

“It seems so unlike her,” I said. “Do you think she’d care that people will see her like this?”

“I suppose if she objected, she wouldn’t have told him he had free rein with it,” Nick said. “She’s got a keen eye. She must have known it was that good.”

It was. Eleanor’s face was young and vulnerable and seductive, and this was the first time I’d seen her captured as a real woman and not a supercilious figurehead. It was hard to reconcile it with either the imperious woman I knew or the shy, almost fretful girl of her sister’s photographs, with the weight of a nation beginning to press on her shoulders. I also couldn’t imagine how that girl had grown into the kind of passionate adult who’d give something this intimate. The part of Eleanor that had set this mood must have wanted it on the record that she’d existed this way at all.

“You forget that people lived entire lifetimes before you existed,” Nick mused. “It must have been hard for her when he died. They hadn’t been married very long.”

“Long enough for three whole babies,” Freddie said, bounding into the hallway.

“Thanks for finally joining us,” Nick said.

“I’m not late. I’m ninety seconds early,” he huffed. “In any case, blame Father. We were having lunch, just to catch up, and it went long.” Freddie straightened proudly. “He’s sending me to Portsmouth later this month for a thing with the Navy.”

Nick looked confused. “I thought I was going.”

“Father felt it only fair, since I’m the one still in the Navy.”

“Certainly,” Nick said. “I’m extremely busy anyway. Did Father mention that he’s giving me the patronage of the Imperial War Museums?”