Her affront does come, though because it comes in answer to words he did not purposefully wield to prick her, he is bewildered when she leaves him. She has allowed him only a curt and cursory touch, and like a hound still lapping after scraps, he follows without, for the moment, any capacity for dignified affront of his own.

No delicate flower is she, as was proven before all and sundry on the day they were wed, and for all her ladylike propriety, he knows she is not vapid, as so many other ladies seem content to be. Never will she cower beneath the eaves, at either the sight of an approaching storm or a galloping adversary, and he laughs at the verdict made. They are hardly made of the same flesh, no matter the like-minded wars they have presumably fought, and he makes use of his longer gait and greater bulk to intercede her progress to the waiting seat by the window.

"Perhaps I would stand in greater admiration of a woman who does not pride herself on being so obstinate and thorny a weed." There is a smirk at the corner of his lips, and when he reaches for her now, it is not for her shining hair, but for the neat fabric at the back of her thigh.

"Need I remind you how readily you melt when wetted?"