He was vaguely aware of her movements because he could hear the shuffle of her clothing, but his senses still weren't nearly as fine-tuned as they ought to have been. He didn't realize how close she was until she'd suddenly touched his hand, and it was all he could do to grasp the quill and not drop it in surprise. He was being rather ridiculous about this, he thought. She was acting in a professional capacity, doing something he'd asked her to do. There wasn't anything intimate or improper about this, actually, but her touch still made his heart skip a beat all the same. It must have had something to do with the fact that he couldn't see her, he thought. She was still a stranger, to an extent — and this feeling of being touched unexpectedly in the dark was vaguely reminiscent of the sort of trouble he'd used to get into, before he'd found Billie.

"Thank you, Miss," he said after he'd signed his signature at the bottom of the page, hopefully in more or less a straight line. "That's — I hope it will make her feel a little better about it," he said, with a frown. "I wish I had some... well, you know, some good news for her, but I suppose this'll have to do."