One of the cleverest parts of the design that she and Alexandrie had dreamed up together, heads bent over their sewing, is that there is nothing in Thranduil's request that requires she divest herself of all of it. The looping, pearl-dusted roses at her hips look like pure decoration but the way she touches one with her thumb, contemplative, suggests something else as she rises up on her knees and slides her hand from his hip to the middle of his abdomen, skirting where she imagines he would like her attention.

“It's a very nice robe,” she allows, sliding backwards off the bed to her feet so she can pick it up, holding it against herself. Casual, like it's nothing to her that he's lying naked less than feet away. Half-turning, so she can see herself in the mirror and study the way the fabric falls when she drapes it over her shoulders.

She stands at the end of the bed, pulling the looped roses at her hips loose and letting the fabric of her smalls drop to the floor, stepping ever so delicately out of them, smoothing her hand flat against her own stomach as she considers her reflection, then her husband. Removing the remaining pins in her hair one by one—slowly, taking care to set them down on the vanity behind her—she unwinds two long ribbons from within her braids and she says, “Hold onto the headboard for me. Make yourself comfortable.”