Oh, that was. New. The way the man touched her hair, the soft pets was odd to her. Sure, she'd had boys touch her hair before, she'd had a boyfriend. She'd loved him to, as much as you can love someone that symbolized freedom and was the only way to forget the world around her. Roger had been a sweet muggle boy with fumbling hands and a good heart and Arebella had needed her then. But she'd never felt safe for him, and therefore had not felt safer herself as they snuck around under her father's nose. She hadn't known how much she wanted safety again, the village had lulled her into thinking she had it no matter what.
Part of Arabella hated needing a man to give her safety again. Caradoc and Fabian had offered it to her, but she'd never felt safe due to her own abilities until after the war. Sure, she knew how to throw a punch and Caradoc had taught her how to fire a gun well enough to actually kill a man with intention behind the trigger. But she didn't have a fun there, and you couldn't shoot into the fog and expect something to come from it in any positive way. She would consider this later, how to gain her own power back, but right then she found herself tilting her head into his hand and just enjoying the feeling without questioning the motivation behind it.
"I saw the fog through my window. I thought it might be cold," she admitted. Her clothing was professional, but dowdy. The skirt was high waisted and modest, and she didn't wear anything tight or slimming. She rarely did, Arabella appreciated comfort over anything else, but a part of that was that she hasn't really wanted to look pretty for someone in a long while. She had lost the will to believe that anyone would be interested, and had polluted her romantic view sixth romance novels that were read in a day and had titles like The Warlock's Wish and Scarlet Spells.
She took the water when offered and drank deeply, her throat seeming to become unstuck from itself.