He does wonder if she's going to say anything, but she doesn't. It's hardly as though he expects anything cruel, anything harsher than a jape, but he does have a tendency to bristle under jokes, and that's not something he wants to happen right now. He does not want to spoil this, at least not for any longer than his occasional moments of irritation have. This may not be an intimate moment, one that needs to be held sacred, but he does want to enjoy his meal on solid footing.
Besides, he imagines that if he grows upset around her child, if he dares risk upsetting Hiroshi himself, he imagines he will see a side of Keiko that none of them want him to see.
So he keeps himself level as he places his plate on the table, returning to the uncomfortable seat that he makes no comment on. He can see, has seen, that the house is nearly empty, save for the three of them, which he does suppose that he is grateful for. There is hardly any scandal in what it is they're doing, at least none that does not boil down to the Viscount Bridgerton helping a new widow, but even that does come with a scent of something. He does not mind the help, but he has appreciate being left to work on their own. Still, he has known some houses in which it would not be welcome for the residents to eat downstairs, even if the help is not present. That does tend to be the houses of colder people, though. Houses in which the servants seek solitude from their employers. He has always thought that distasteful, though he knows there is a fair number of the Bridgerton staff that shy from him. The ones that were not present when he ran through the halls as a child.
"I see," he says, and he nods in what he does think of as acceptance. He does not necessarily consider the kitchen the woman's place, but it is certainly no place for himself. Not since he grew up. Still, here he is, and there is no one to scold him, anyway. There is a feeling to the silence that he has not experienced many times before. A silence that does not need not need to be begged for. It is pleasant.
He does suppose that there is some point in the fact that she could have been one of these women, but he never could have been anything but what he is. Oh, he supposes there is always the risk of ruin, but it would take a great deal to ruin the Bridgerton house.
"I meant no slight." It would take a true disaster for Anthony to be willingly seen as gentle, but he does allow himself a small smile, hands resting on his thighs as he looks over the kitchen. "Only where you have been welcome here, I was not. They tolerated us, my brothers and I, of course, but to your point, I do not imagine we made their jobs easier." His smile widens just so, some soft part of him being allowed to be revealed in the thoughts of simpler times. "I suppose I am still expecting to be swatted with a towel." A small pause, and his hands raise, showing that they are empty. "Though I do assure you, I have outgrown swiping sweets."
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