"Perhaps it is more a promise then a torment. You were here as you said for months before I arrived, perhaps it is just a matter of time." She was trying to comfort him, and she felt it was right, her place to do so. Perhaps she was over stepping the bounds of their present relationship or indeed of society altogether, but it soothed him. For that she was happy, and the kiss he rewarded her with, it made her pull back to look at him. Odd expression of amused contemplation on her features.
"And in this year you had benefit of that I have not, you learned to be affectionate, attentive and sentimental? I have never seen so short a time change a person so greatly." She turned from gentle to gently ribbing him, a tug pulled him to face her but softly so. One hand cupping his cheek and letting her thumb smooth down the roughened scraggle of his beard.
"It leads me to wonder what another year might bring."