Irene opens her mouth to respond and doesn't, watching Benevenuta with parted lips and feeling distinctly exposed.

You too, then.

She almost wants to tell her to stop it, stop it because it isn't fair and no one gets to her, thank you very much, and most particularly no one shows up on her doorstep after three years and then manages to get to her in defiance of everything.

But it's apparently not true.

Then again, that's never stopped either of them.

"Oh, both of us," she says, faux-airy. It's very much like Mélisande's apologetic afterthoughts, but in reverse; if Mélisande apologises for being too intense, too strange, then Irene covers up for being momentarily far too human with a dismissive wryness, a wolfish grin, a reckless sort of expression which implies she lives a life far beyond human imagination and you, yes, you, just as you are, are invited. You lucky, lucky thing.

It's not as convincing as her acts usually are, so she relents slightly, licking her lips, reckless, ruthless smile turning rueful but still strangely defiant- I'm not sorry, I just wish I didn't have so many things to be so adamantly not sorry about.

"How did it go?" she breathes, and Benevenuta might feel her pulse hammering. "'You're beautiful and I want to kiss you.' You romantic."

She could make those last two words wry, joking, we're so above romance or at least I am, but she doesn't. Instead, her voice is tinged with wonder.