His jaw tightened as he listened to her. This was why he needed to spend these incidents alone - he was sorely ill-equipped to deal with the sorts of things that tended to come out when he lashed out without thinking. His wife was unhappy, neglected, desperate. And what could he think of to fix it? Nothing.
Of course, she would be just as unhappy tomorrow, he thought darkly. And by then, the pain - he very much hoped - would have gone away, and after stealing a couple hours of sleep, he could wake to that. Wonderful. If he could only keep himself from making things even worse, though, perhaps he'd be able to set it right -
But these were accusations he could hardly even tolerate from himself, never mind someone else. "That's enough. I did not leave you," he snapped, unable to help himself. He shoved one of the armchairs roughly aside, and stormed back over to one of the walls lined with bookshelves, pouring over the titles on the spines without really seeing them. "I know perfectly well what he wanted with Draco, without your reminders. And I am doing what I can, to see that we don't suffer any further punishment. I'm very sorry if it means you spend the odd night alone. I don't know what, exactly, it was that you tried so hard at last time," he said, perhaps just a touch too dry. "But seeing as I'm leaving you with so much spare time, perhaps you could have another crack at it."