The physical signs all pointed to their being reconciled already, so her words caught him a little off-guard. She'd walked towards him and allowed him to take her hands, and she'd kissed him when he'd asked her to. Had she not forgiven him already? Apparently not. Emrys considered her question as he dipped his head and kissed her neck, turning the issue over in his mind. He knew more than she did about this whole interlude, of course, so he had to try and put himself in her shoes before he could think how best to make amends to her. What did she think had happened? She thought he'd gone to see another lover, probably, when she'd surprised him in his home. The assumption itself wasn't wrong, but her potential offense at it would be misplaced. She was worried about a competitor for his attentions, perhaps, and Arthur Pettigrew was hardly that, so he was inclined to glaze over that entire incident and pretend she had nothing to worry about on that front — because, really, she didn't. Then on Wednesday, he'd foregone seeing her because he'd been embarrassed about the turn events had taken. She wouldn't have known that, but he didn't know what she would have thought about his absence. Might she have assumed it had something to do with this other lover she'd imagined?

And then to return to the original question: could he just command her forgiveness? It was tempting to try and dismiss everything that had happened in the last week, but if she was particularly upset about it he knew that wouldn't actually work, no matter what he said or did. The doubts would cling to her and strangle them out, sooner or later. It had happened before during his longer affairs, and he wanted to avoid it happening here if he could. But he wasn't sure he wanted to go the other direction and apologize, when she didn't know the full story and she hadn't actually asked for an apology.

"Well," he mused playfully, still kissing her neck. "Would that work?"

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