His Febs was always brash, witty, and confident to the point of arrogance; this, obviously, was not the Feb he knew, but a much more broken and desperate one. It hit him all at once, but he realized how hard those two or three letters must have hit her. To go from addressing her as Febs to Mrs. Umbridge (teasingly, but still), and then to the cold Miss Lynch must have been a punch in the gut. It was very difficult to grasp tone when put in writing—they'd figured that out days ago—but even grasping a tone of ardor was seemingly just as difficult from the looks of it.

It was all too much for him, really. He wasn't the sort of man who regularly expressed his emotions. Emotions made him weak, and weakness was a non-option in his career path. The only emotions he'd been taught to show were anger and seriousness, and yet neither one were the best way to react to February's anguish.

"You should have been more careful," he offered as his only respose, his tone wavering. "If anyone were to find about this—this arrangement—I would lose you or my job. Don't make me choose."

Because if it came down to that, he couldn't choose her—he couldn't choose a woman he'd known for hardly a month. If anyone were to find out about this, she would be ruined and him dubbed an irresponsible rake. His heart dropped at the notion of a crying February Lynch, either locked in her room for eternity or thrown to the streets in ruin. He couldn't do that, not to her. Not to the woman he—

He opened his arms after a moment, a welcome for her to come into them.

"Come here, lover."

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