He's glad for the trust. He's glad for the intimacy of thoughts and emotions between them.

He's just not entirely equipped to actually respond to the root of this particular frustration.

It makes him hesitate a moment before he shifts to move to perch on the edge of the bed to handle his boots. "Our people adore you for far more than that."

His attention hadn't yet turned from the people who lived in the villages he had known as the whole world, after all.

"And our court--" That he has to sigh about. "--is nervous. Are they growing so inelegant, Rachel?"