Helen's breath caught silently in her chest at his touch to her cheek and her eyes flicked down to his lips for the briefest of seconds. She wanted... but that would be too forward, too much for their present situation... and her heart. And if someone saw them? Oh the scandal. It was bad enough that she'd been betrothed and had broken it off. Now she was a unmarried woman in her late forties and the gossip that sometimes followed her haunted her. She could imagine the stories floating around about the two of them already and those were likely bad enough.

Even so, she couldn't help her feelings...

Sighing softly, she let her gaze drop back to her free hand, which was still resting in her lap. Her other hand slid down to his lower arm, but she didn't move it past that, still wanting some measure of contact. His hand on her cheek wasn't shrugged off at all. In fact, she very nearly seemed to lean into it.

"I daresay they have for both of us," she murmured, her voice just barely above a whisper. "But at least we have each other. Our... friendship." Whatever it was.