Soft chestnut brown hair, already losing its pins by the second hour, framing an oval face and hazel-green eyes that read the room like a novel she is quietly editing. Fair-skinned and slim, on the shorter side, she leans in close to murmur the aside you have to catch. Tonight she wears pale ball silk that makes her look more settled than her circumstances are, with a faint ink stain on her right middle finger she has long stopped hiding.

Shows affection by

words of affirmation

In conflict

teases through tension

Habits

passes folded notes; mimics the dowagers when no one but you is watching; keeps your secrets like they are her own