“In a minute,” he said, scooping her fully into his arms, swinging his legs out of bed, and standing up. “There, now you can go down.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, her breasts still unconfined, her hair long and loose, and he took time to simply drink her in. A hint of worry shivered into his mind; he pushed it away. Everything was going to be fine. She trusted him—it was already so much more than they’d had before. He loved her, and he thought she loved him. What more could they need?

“We got up.” She shoved her hair out of her eyes and put her hands at her waist. “Why did we get up?”

“Ah.” He smiled at her. “Because this is too perfect to waste. We must celebrate! We must dance and revel! We must howl at the moon!”

She lifted her eyebrows, biting her bottom lip as though she could stop it from curving. “Because we’re pagans? Or possibly wolves?”

“Because we like each other,” he said, drawing her close to him and looking in her eyes. “And that’s worth all the celebrations in the world.”

She looked back at him, and if he was being optimistic, which he almost always was, he would have said her expression softened. “All right,” she said. “What are we going to do?”

“What are we going to do,” he repeated. “What are we going to—Ah-hah! We are going out to dinner.”

He looked around for her blouse, finding it crumpled on the floor by the fireplace, and retrieved it. “There’s a place not far from here,” he said, opening the garment and placing Alva’s arms into it. “I went there while I was staying here researching Liefdehuis. It’s run by this Italian grandmother—”

She batted his hands away from the blouse and turned around to arrange herself. “I’ve never had Italian food,” she said.

“You never visited Italy while you were on the Continent?” he asked, searching for his shirt.

“Alain despised the Italians,” she said. “‘A bunch of layabouts who want something for nothing,’ according to him. We were mostly in Paris, although we relocated to London during the Siege and the Commune.”

Sam was getting used to the sudden rage that arose every time she let drop some detail of her married life. “I am nearly certain you’ll like it,” he said. “And if you don’t, we’ll simply go from restaurant to restaurant until we find something you do.”

She smiled at him while she buttoned her jacket. “How extravagant,” she said. “But you’ll find I’m in a terribly easy-to-please mood.”

Because she was charming, and because she was beautiful, and because he loved her, he kissed her—a happy kiss, with both parties smiling. As he pulled away he touched her nose gently with his finger and grabbed her hand.