She could taste her progress as she pressed her kisses into his hand. It would be delightful to have him weigh her words for their merit alone; if she could reason with him as men did together, but she knew her place in the world well. She could maneuver him easily enough if she led him with her touch and well-pitched sighs. No amount of cleverness could save a man when the promise of pleasure was introduced. It was almost disappointing how quickly even the stoic Mr. Selwyn could waiver under so simple a gesture. In a more equanimous moment, she would concede that she wasn't much better equipped when it came to the dynamic between them. Angelica had been cautious to keep her distance for a reason, the threat of slapping him second only to the real danger of abandoning her grievance if he were to get his hands on her. She had her strengths and her weapons, but she couldn't deny him when he played the lover. She'd never felt the need to try.

She made the mistake of certainty too early, his frank tone forcing her to pause her self-congratulations. To be fair, she didn't say he wanted to marry, but the distinction was pointless as he pushed on. She was beginning to grasp that maybe - just possibly - he deserved credit for thinking farther ahead than she'd imagined when he destroyed her entire framework for his "courtship" in a few words. Pulling free of her hand was merely salt in new wounds. Pleasant.

A master strategist would have let him finish, but as Angelica hoped for joy beyond the borders of maps and dry negotiations, she didn't bother holding her tongue. "You two prefer to snuff the candles, then? How inspired." It was a petty, unworthy salvo, but polite conversation had been beaten bloody before either of them began their dance this evening. Snide commentary stopped at the mention of 'another lover.' That alone wasn't a shock, but she was already struggling under the weight of his Others. Wisely, she kept her questions to herself as he continued. Knowing how, and with whom, he chose to spend his time away from her was both the issue and (in this moment) something she did not want to know. Funny how that came about.

His further retreat was more than she could hide in the moment it took for him to reconsider her. He spoke with a detachment she envied, a clinical statement of fact that was horribly out of touch with the anxiety sparking through her blood as pressed on. She braced for the next name, convinced he could declare his love for the long-dead Founders and she would take it with a smile when he rewrote the rules. Yet again.

Angelica held her breath...and then continued to hold it as she waited for him to make sense. The need for air dictated her next breath, but her inspiration did not, in fact, bring inspiration. She allowed his last words to filter in, poured the words through the multiple lexicons in her head, and still she was at a loss. She waited, expecting this to be a twist of cruel humor she had yet to see, but he had just stopped talking. "I - I beg your pardon?"

Angelica knew what he spoke of, in theory. She favored men, in spite of their faults; some men also favored men, the human embodiment of two negatives multiplying to make a positive. Humans, numbers, both made perfect sense in the proper context, but his words did not fit the facts. "So, to reiterate," Professor Vorona made an appearance for a moment in this debacle, "You conclude that you will not," Angelica held up a finger to stall any interruption. "My apologies, believe you cannot listen to me because you are courting Miss Cosgrove, whom you imply you do not wish to marry, but you also contend that she is not the lover you chose over me. Then the pièce de résistance: your mystery lover is a man." With an impudent shrug, she turned back to him, her hands again on her hips. "Have I missed any key points in your fable, my dear?" The idea that he could be telling the truth completely escaped her.

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