While her body wanted to sigh and reach into his touch, pull him even closer, take him to the apartments to pretend for just a few hours that they were both safe here, Belle'd mind kept focused on his words, and more importantly, what his body was saying. She'd always noticed more than she would have liked of his mannerisms, things that confused and hurt the more she got to know him. And hearing the manic edge to his laughter cut her to her core, especially as she realized the reason.
"She...she told you that my father...the clerics...?" her voice grew tight, barely holding back a sob as she imagined it. She'd thought Regina hateful and horrible before, claiming she was saving her from him, but this...
"...all that time...I was simply thinking you--had moved on, that was why you never...but you thought I'd died?" she bit her lip hard, drawing her hand up to his face, careful and soft. "Oh. Oh, gods, Rumple I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Even though it wasn't her fault, and she knew that--except for the fact that if she had just turned down another road, the one that led to her village, instead....then Regina would have had no fodder for her little story, really, and he would have just believed she'd moved on, as she had tried to convince herself she was doing here in Madison in those early days.