The proper thing would be to have a ring. For Gleb to ask her father for permission, for them both to sit with a patriarch and discuss what it means to be man and wife. But back in Russia, the wedding is more of a formality. If two souls had chosen to unite, then they were already one, bound up together even before the songs and the crowns. Her parents had always told her that she could marry for love, that much she remembers. That warm, fond way that they had looked at each other. It isn't dissimilar to the way that she finds herself looking at Gleb, often when he's not looking at her.

The comparison to her parents is one that Anya will keep to herself. They don't often speak of the tsar, but they were more than figureheads to her. They were her family and he knows that. But that's different from having it rubbed in his face.

She gives a little nod of acknowledgment. It certainly is typically a conversation, but she had decided that he was hers and she had said as much. She wasn't going to give him up and having him properly in her flat made so much more sense. "You are correct, but I felt that we could skip the conversation as we already know how it will end," she points out as she moves to step closer to him, tangling her fingers in his scarf. "I know it isn't proper, but I would be your wife in an instant if you asked me. I just want my home to be yours too as well as be practical about it."