Kitty began to sniff around its roots with interest.
On their way in, they had passed a celebration in the grand ballroom （une réception de mariage, the same manager had informed them from over his shoulder）， and even though the ballroom was not near their suite, the music still reached them, muted and elegant, and the lanterns cast slow moving shadows with the jasmine breeze.
In their canopied bed, she lay awake and thought, How splendid the hours are now. I never, ever want this to end.
Jack murmured, his arm beneath her neck, “Let’s name her Paris.”
Madeleine smiled. “If I remember my Iliad correctly, Paris is a boy’s name.”
“Paris,” he said, “because that’s where we first were sure of her, in the City of Light.”
“All right. And if it’s a boy?”
“It won’t be,” he said, confident. “We’re having a daughter.”
She turned to press her cheek against his chest. “Far be it from me to contradict my husband, but just in case you’re wrong, I think we need to consider a boy’s name, too. We’ll keep it in reserve.”
“For our next child,” he said softly, up to the canopy.
“Yes,” she agreed, just as soft. “For the next one.”
But the sound of a waltz crept through the bedroom, and while it whispered by, neither of them spoke again, until finally Madeleine admitted, “I’m going to miss it so much. I’ll miss the place where we were just al’amirkiu, and ma’am. Do you know, I don’t think I’ve seen a single camera since we arrived, except for the tourists at the ruins.”
“We’ll come back,” he promised. “Next winter, if you like. Or we could go somewhere new entirely, another place they don’t know us at all. How about Japan?”
She considered it. “Margaret raves about Nagasaki. I believe she mentioned wanting to retire there.”
“There you have it. It’s settled. A few seasons spent at home, a season or so abroad. You and me and little Paris. Or Arthur. Or Joseph. Or Hubert.”
“Not Hubert!”
He laughed. “Not Hubert. We’ll mull it over. There’s time.”
“John Jacob,” she said.
“How many of us do there need to be? Let’s give him a name of his own. Something new.”
“John Jacob the Fifth would be new.”
“I’m afraid not. That one’s already taken. A distant cousin in England.”
“The Sixth, then,” she said, stubborn.
His arm tightened around her, his body warm and close. “Hubert, Grover, Shoeblack. Snarksblood, Muleview, Faradiddle, Muddington—heigh-ho! ‘Muddington Astor’！ That has a solid ring to it, don’t you think? No? Well then, how about Pinky, Pokey, Jokey, Mopey—”
She was laughing too hard to say anything so she pushed up to her elbow instead, leaning over him, stopping his nonsense with a kiss.
CHAPTER 21
The press discovered us again in Rome. Jack had telegraphed both Vincent and Dobbyn the details of our itinerary, and I must suppose that is how the newsmen found us. （I had dashed off a letter to your Aunt Katherine with the same, but she would have never spoken to the press about it.） In any case, one way or another, the information got out, and the next thing we knew, it was published in the papers. We spent Easter hiding in our hotel, which was actually enchanting, watching the sunrise pinken the baroque warren of Piazza Navona from our private roof terrace, cappuccinos in hand. But, eventually, we had no choice but to emerge from our nest to move on to Cherbourg, our departure point in France.
I took comfort in the thought that at least while on the steamship, we would blend in with the rest of the first-class crowd. It seemed exceedingly unlikely there would be a journalist waiting to waylay us on board.
Cherbourg was, naturally, overcast. I couldn’t help but think it appropriate, given my mood and the immediate future I was sure awaited me. The journey from Paris on the Train Transatlantique had taken no less than six hours. Six hours of smudgy black cinders and chugging motion and nauseatingly uneven scenery flashing by, so weirdly paced I could not gaze out at it for more than a few minutes at a time. Even the train’s compartments were small, I thought. Too small to make room for my uncertain stomach, the headache gathering in a knot behind my eyes. By the time we arrived at the quayside terminus, I was in a state well beyond misery.
And then, worse and worse, the ship wasn’t even there yet. Our liner had been delayed, we were told, back in Southampton—her first port of call—where she had nearly crashed into another ship ripped loose from her moorings just by the unearthly power of Titanic’s displacement and wake.